Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label summer. Show all posts

8.15.2016

Ten Blog Posts to Start the School Year: How Do You Refuel?

Summer, summer, summertime!
Tomorrow is the first day of school and today teachers are officially back to the grind. Last night, I didn't feel ready. A summer that started with daily swimming lessons and constant sunscreen application, bore trips with carsick kids to Oregon and Washington DC, and closed with days of writing bookended by life with two kids is over. This summer didn't provide the rest and reflection I'm used to having to reboot for the new school year. But tomorrow the kids are coming, so I need to ready my mind and my heart in a hurry.

In the early days of this summer break, I got a message from an acquaintance. She is a mother and a teacher too, and she wanted to know more about my teaching philosophy. Do I use a certain program or strategies? Is there a workshop that has been my model? In essence, she wants to know how I do what I do.

All summer I've been thinking about how to answer her questions. I think about my teaching all of the time, but I hadn’t written my thoughts about teaching down since my credentialing program almost twenty years ago. So, I'm thinking about her questions and others that have come up this summer, and I'm going to try to write something about my work for the next ten days to remind myself why I do what I do. 

But, I'm also crowd-sourcing this question: How do you do it? How do you find motivation in the day-to-day grind? And teachers, I'm looking for your wisdom in particular. It wasn't until I started teaching that I realized the necessity of summer vacation, so how are you refueled by summer? I'll post my response and hopefully some responses from readers tomorrow.
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8.06.2014

Summer Stock

Kiara contemplates summer and fall. 
Summer begins that first week of June with a farewell.

The school year comes to an abrupt end when a phone call from my sister indicates things are not going well. I need to get home. I leave my classroom a mess. There is no last day of school, no yearbook signings, no hugs from students. There is no gleeful send-off into summer.

There are ten days in Portland. Every day is trips to the hospital, hours in a critical care unit watching machines that track each heartbeat, each breath.

There are breakfasts with Dad, lunches with my brothers and sister. There are lonely trips for coffee or ice cream with the hipsters of Portland.

There is a positive pregnancy test that feels like some sort of trick life is playing on my forty-year-old body.

Things with Mom get worse, or they just don't get better. We must think about what Mom would want. Then we must advocate for her. There are decisions to make, and every conversation is a challenge. There is prayer and song, tears and silence.

We finally let go, and our family of six is brought to five.

On Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, we hold Mom's Memorial. There is family and friends, tears and laughter. There are long moments when grief and loss overwhelm. There are
stretches of nothing.

I come home to LA and Mom is there. She is with me when I wake up Kiara in the morning. She is with me every time I sit down to the page. She is with me at the beach and in the car. She is here.

There is rain in LA this summer, but mostly beautiful days of sunshine.

The pregnancy that once felt like a trick has been confirmed and the doctor calls it a miracle. David and I watch this new life squirm on a grainy, black-and-white screen with awe.

I head back to work even though summer still shines strong and will for another couple of months. I will continue to soak in the sun, and breath in the beach air. I will cling to the memory of easy summer days.

I will hold onto summer until fall makes me forget.

7.23.2013

52 Poems: Weeks 27, 28, and 29

Ah, I was doing so well, but vacation does strange things so I didn't post or read any poems for the past few weeks. Here are a few haiku I've penned along with some photos from vacation to get us caught up.


Lincoln
A sweltering day
wading in a cool green pool
cousins sweet laughter










 Portland

Family and friends
on perfect, long summer days
finish with ice cream









 Bend

No longer the town
where I grew up but the
river, the mountains 

5.26.2013

52 Poems: Week 21 Walt Whitman

I'm exhausted. It's been a long year. I started this school year sending my daughter to day care, leaving a dog at home, and walking on two intact Achilles tendons. The daughter, thankfully, is thriving in day care, but the dog has moved on and one of those tendons is still being rebuilt. So, I need a little push, a little Carpe Diem wisdom from Walt Whitman, to propel me into summer... 

 

O Me! O Life!
By Walt Whitman


O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20247#sthash.UvQEnion.dpuf

O Me! O Life!

  by Walt Whitman
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;   
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;   
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?)   
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;   
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;          
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;   
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?   
   
                                                        Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;   
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20247#sthash.UvQEnion.dpuf

O Me! O Life!

  by Walt Whitman
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;   
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;   
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?)   
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;   
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;          
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;   
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?   
   
                                                        Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;   
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20247#sthash.yMfYYsOd.dpuf

O Me! O Life!

  by Walt Whitman
O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;   
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish;   
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who  more faithless?)   
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d;   
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;          
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;   
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?   
   
                                                        Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;   
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20247#sthash.yMfYYsOd.dpuf