a bright crescent moon
cradles the dark winter sky
cupped as mama’s hands

In March, 2014, I began the Two Writing Teachers Slice of Life Challenge for the first time. Over the last few years, I have marveled at the impact this writing community has had on my life. I am so grateful to those who have helped me grow through the writing they have shared and through reading and responding to my writing. HAPPY NEW YEAR to each of you!

It was through this community that I began the practice of choosing One Little Word (OLW) for each year beginning in 2015. That year my word was remember. These are some of the things I wanted to work on remembering that year:

Remember to write.
Remember to practice and practice some more.
Remember to forgive.
Remember to laugh and give hugs.
Remember my parents, brother, and sisters.
Remember to exercise.
Remember to eat healthy food and drink water.
Remember my children.
Remember my grandchildren.
Remember to read every day. (That’s the easiest one.)
Remember to pay the bills, answer email, take out the trash, get rid of clutter, and all the other things that fill the to-do list that keep me from remembering the things I really want to remember.
Remember to look for beauty.
Remember the kindness of friends.
Remember to be a kind friend.
Remember to listen.
Remember childhood.
Remember those in need, which is pretty much all of us.

In 2016, my OLW was nourish. I was struggling that year to balance work and family. It seemed that I was feeling depleted. Nourish was a concept that helped me achieve more balance. I’m still working on that. I started to try to read and write more poetry that year and found so many beautiful poems to feed my soul.

The next year, I chose walk. I loved thinking about all the ways walk is meaningful. Here are a few desires I had in January, 2017 with my OLW:

I want to walk physically for a healthier body and clearer mind on familiar and unfamiliar paths. I want to walk peacefully with my family and friends. I want to walk softly, with awareness of the feelings of others. I want to walk resolutely toward new learning and growth in my walk as teacher and learner. I want to walk gratefully for all that is good.

Then, for 2018, listen was my word. Perhaps this word, more than the others, had the greatest impact to bring about change in my relationships, my work, and my heart. I tried very hard this past year to listen hard before I jumped into conversations, or tried to fix problems, or reacted to situations. I practiced listening for what was said and what was not said. I still need to practice this.

Considering a OLW for 2019, this year I want to continue remembering, nourishing, walking, and listening. To these, I will add lift. There may be some who see this as a word of privilege, a word that positions one to have power in order to lift. I understand that, but I also see lift as a word of hope. I want to be the kind of person who lifts another’s burden, lifts a child’s feelings of worth, or lifts my voice against injustice. I will lift my eyes to try to see more clearly.

In 2018, I had a few months of pretty intense illness. I was so grateful for those who gave me a lift. Some lifted me physically; others lifted me emotionally. Some lifted my belongings so I didn’t have to. Some lifted my workload until I had more strength. Some lifted a hand to comfort me. These are the lifts we offer each other as human beings.

May 2019 be a year where we seek to lift one another. I will try to do my part.

I’m beginning again as everyone who writes must.
My desire to write is like a hardy pansy that survives through winter.
The cold presses in
As leaves and blossoms hunker down and hold on.

My will to write falters,
but tonight
I wrestle and push back against
the trembling quiet.

This is the last night of “summer,” as in I go back to work tomorrow. I’m calling this “The Summer of Delights and Disasters.” I’m going to list them to possibly write more at another time.

Delight #1 – a week in Maine with friends.

Disaster #1 – my sister fell and has a compression fracture at T-12. Ouch.

Delight #2 – a week on the Outer Banks, NC with some of my children and grandchildren.

Disaster #2 – my other sister had surgery to repair the tears bone spurs inflicted on her Achilles tendon. Ouch.

Delight #3 – a week at the TCRWP Writing Institute with my friend, Sally, and the great thinkers and teachers I encountered there. (Including Stacey Shubitz!)

Disaster #3 – getting sick in NYC and not knowing where to go.

Delight #4 – HAMILTON!

Through these delights and disasters at least one truth rings clear. Most people are good. Most people want to help.

Another truth: Aging is no joke. My sibling relationships have become more important than when we shared a room in a little house. We often switch roles as oldest and youngest, with youngest taking care of oldest. Our birth order no longer matters as we face the challenges of living what is sometimes called, The Third Third.

Another truth: Friends matter.

And finally: The best stories are often about forgiveness. That was one of the many things that struck me after seeing “Hamilton” which will surely become iconic of our time.

Family. Friends. Forgiveness. Not a bad outcome for a summer such as this.

I arrived a few minutes early for my appointment at the doctor. I had filled out my forms and was waiting for my name to be called. As I waited, I observed three young children, may I say, very well-behaved children. They each had a backpack with their own activities: coloring books, sticker books, and books to read. They were entertaining themselves without a single whine or bicker.

I turned my head and saw an attractive woman. She was wearing yoga pants and a tank top. Her arms were tan with well-defined muscles. She had a kind face. I gathered she was the mother of these sweet kids. What transpired next has lingered with me all day.

“Mama, are you crying?” asked one daughter.

“Mama, are you crying?” asked the other daughter.

“No honey, I’m just thinking.”

She finished checking out and setting up her next appointment.

“Mama, are you sick?” asked the little boy with so much concern.

“No, I just had a little problem and needed to talk to the doctor about it.”

“Are you sure you’re not sick?” he asked again.

“I’m sure.”

Since last I wrote two children have moved, two grandchildren have been born, reading tests have been given, data  has been analyzed, a classroom packed up for the summer, a literacy symposium attended, and a trip to Maine magically enjoyed. I wish I could say that I had kept writing through it all, but I didn’t. I’m okay with that because I know that I was present for the living of it which will someday inform some piece of writing.

I was in Maine with some old friends and new friends for a week of conversation, walking, reading, puzzlemaking, and even whale watching. I’m not sure what part I enjoyed the most, but I think it was the opportunity to be with smart, creative, thinking women who care about their communities, each other, and living purposefully in the world.

The common friend to all of us is Jen. She invited us to come together to celebrate her 50th birthday. We came from many different places, circumstances, and decades (I was the oldest). It was so fun to know Jen better through the friends she invited. We talked about books, religion, family, diversity, whales, music, food–there was always an interesting conversation going on. The TV never went on all week. No need. Such a restorative week.

Sue, the artist in the group, gathered small things on the beach. This said it all.

Everywhere I look, flowers remind me of where I have been. Azaleas are for my mother; tulips are for my dad. The lilacs belong to my sister. Our giant bush grew outside her bedroom window and lent its heady, sweet fragrance to her sleep. For me, there are the daffodils in every variety, size, and shade of yellow. Wisteria never grew in my yard, but in my memory, it means mystery and heaviness.

Camellias and peonies are for my first piano teacher, Mrs. Manwaring, who loved Chopin but not Mendelssohn. Her flowers were her pride and joy. She loved them as much as her husband loved horses and cattle ranching. They kept a house in town for the weekends and traveled out to the farm during the week until it was way past the time they shouldn’t have been driving.

Soon the hydrangeas will bloom. Then I will have different memories of flowers. For in summer, blue hydrangeas are for my mother. The hydrangea my father planted more than 50 years ago still blooms in the side yard.

And oh, the softness of honeysuckle summer nights.

One thing I love about my husband is his vocabulary. He knows many more words than I do, which is interesting, considering he is not particularly a reader. He grew up in a home where words were important, and his mother was a published poet. She was also his Creative Writing teacher in 11th grade. His vocabulary shines when we watch Jeopardy and when we play Scrabble. I learned early in my marriage to accept defeat in certain things. I may have won Scrabble twice in 45 years.

He also likes to make up words. Sometimes it can be annoying if a certain word is repeated too often, but occasionally his word-creations can be amusing. This morning was a time when his playfulness with words struck me funny. I got a serious case of the giggles.

I was hurrying to get ready for work to attend a meeting to discuss a student I work with. I suspect this might be a student with dyslexia. As I gathered my clothes, I was telling my husband about the meeting ahead. As if often the case, I was running late. I pulled on my pants (elastic waist) and looked down. Something wasn’t right. They looked weird and felt weird. I had put them on backwards! You can imagine my frustration in the moment.

“So, does this mean you have ‘Dyspantsia’?” he asked.

A moment to process. Then the giggles started. I was laughing so hard that I had to struggle to get my bra on without twisting it. My first attempt failed.

“Oh no! ‘Dysbrasia,’ too?”

Note: I googled “dyspantsia.” Apparently, it has been coined before as a condition where one is attacked by a swarm of ants that get in one’s pants. I guess it now has a second meaning: the condition causing one to put pants on backwards.

One of the great joys of spring in Virginia is the brief show of bluebells. Every year I wait eagerly for the few days when the bluebells peak along the river. This year I wondered if the day would ever come. It’s been so cold and gray.

Last Friday, we had an early dismissal. I was like a kid anticipating a birthday. I couldn’t concentrate on my work, so I packed up. I actually left early. It was 80 degrees, sunny, clear blue sky, and the bluebells were calling me. I couldn’t resist.

The reward was immeasurable. My eyes could hardly take it in. If the sight of such beauty were food, I would be stuffed for weeks. All I would ever need would be a little bit of blue.

Today I attended a regional meeting for literacy coaches and reading specialists. As I looked around the room, I saw very few women and no men even close to my age. Most in attendance were probably the ages of my own children. It felt a little like middle school. Who should I sit with? Will they want old me at their table? I began to wonder if I should begin to think about retiring. After all, I am a grandmother to 11 and soon 12. Does that signal a different season for me? If I didn’t work, would my relationships with them change, deepen, or visits happen more frequently? I’m not sure.

I’m SO torn. I love teaching. I love learning. I love figuring out how kids learn. I love working with teachers on how we can be more effective teachers of reading and writing. I still love reading professional literature and have spent a fortune on picture books and professional books. How do you know when it is time to set your passion aside? Can it ever really be set aside? So how do you kindle your literacy passion outside the boundaries of school?

Therein is the problem. Literacy learning and teaching IS what energizes me and keeps my brain active. I’m in a school where I have positive relationships with most staff members. We are progressing in workshop teaching. We are progressing in interventions that reach individual students by need. We have had phenomenal success with our first graders this year and may even be able to significantly close a gap with our 3rd grade Spanish-speaking students. After intensive work on building background knowledge, using strategies for unlocking new vocabulary , enlarging decoding skills, and retelling and comprehension discussions, we feel pretty confident that many of the 12 students in the intervention will be able to pass their state Standards of Learning tests in May. That would be AMAZING.

Maybe this writing is helping me see that perhaps it is not time YET. I feel there is much work I want to do and can do still in teaching. But then there are all those other pursuits such as writing, taking a sewing class, learning to kayak, naturalist courses, community service, family history and genealogy, piano lessons, college work in music. Sometimes I feel cursed by the many interests that pull at my brain and heart.

Time to table this decision for the night. I’d be happy to hear from you and how you may have made the decision to retire.