Finding JOY

Two years, yesterday marked two years with my Inner Journeys book group. You remember September, 2021? When I look at the cover of that writing notebook, the one from 7/21-12/13/21, I see this:

“PANDEMIC…still” says it all!

“Year 1 Reading for Book Club,” the decision momentous enough to make the cover! The inauguration wasn’t ideal though. I was introduced on Zoom, and as excited as I was to join, even books sometimes struggle to establish bonds between virtual strangers. It didn’t help that I was also new to the community at large—an unknown in so many ways.

After a few months online, I wondered if this was for me. I love to read; I love to talk—in general, yes, but about books? Absolutely. Occasionally, a little talking square would say something that tugged at my heart, tickled my mind, and my resolve to hang in there through this remote period would strengthen. Over time, personalities emerged, sharing blossomed, and those books tilled common ground until that start-of-summer meeting when we convened in a sun-dappled yard, socially distanced, yet face-to-face…

Now I can’t imagine the fourth Monday of every month without them, even as the “them” has ebbed and flowed; through loss suffered together, the words, the lives lived, have bound us. Our group meets in the early morning, our conversation spurred by coffee —no wine-fueled digressions for us.

Yesterday, as we were wrapping up, the quiet question, “How are you doing, really?” gave us pause. One of us grieves, her mother, her best friend, a former beloved book club member.

A breakdown in Safeway, searching for her mom’s signature spice. The reality that sorrow has its own schedule. Her smile and bright eyes. Her declaration: “We’re just not dealing with the house yet; we’re keeping the doors closed on that.” Murmurs of understanding follow, reassurance. “You take all the time you need. Don’t rush.” Talk of impeccable taste and, “Mom loved to dress up,” the anguish in, “How can I just throw that all away?”

And then one of the Inner Journeys founders at 83 years young says, “You know, when my Uncle Ed died—he was always my favorite—I needed to keep something of him with me. I still have his bottle of Joy dish soap by my sink. That was the soap he used. So I refill it whenever I need to with other soap, but that bottle stays there beside me, right at hand, a part of him.” She breathes, “You know, I don’t think you can even buy Joy anymore.”

Chills, those words, that moment, and my certainty that while we may not be able to purchase Joy, we can discover it in community with others, invaluable.

(Thanks to the members of the Inner Journeys book group, for those moments we cannot buy.)

Out of the Mist

Ideas coalesce like mist coming together on a shelf of leaf, once diffuse now wholly a drop, undeniable—this morning’s post.

I receive an email inviting me to meet online with colleagues from the other coast to discuss opening routines for a podcast episode they are planning with their cohort of teen creators. How have my classes with middle schoolers begun? How has each class period dawned throughout the day?

We began with writing, what Corbett Harrison called “Sacred Writing Time.” It was a hybrid opener: projected slides as Promethean boards became ubiquitous; Linda Rief Quick-Writes; Nancie Atwell’s Lessons that Change Writers; Tom Romano’s try-it-in-another genre. Any entry in would do, but the opening invitation was the expectation of notebook time.

I’m harboring that thought when I open yesterday’s “Teach This Poem” email. If you are in the classroom and unaware of this weekly offering from poets.org, then take a look. The featured poem is “The Wild Swans” by Chinese poet Li Qingzhao. Beneath the poem, as always, are suggestions for use with students. Today the middle school recommendation links to “Translating a Peony” by Ilya Kaminsky, “In honor of National Translation Month.”

I go there—a route I often avoid—and discover:

Website screenshot

There I find the original Chinese with five translations “claiming to be authentic.” Ilya Kaminsky declares, “…when we put all these versions together we also see how many different poems can be written with the same number of words; this shows us what a rich variety of possibilities the English language offers to its poets.” This might not be my conclusion, but what an invitation for writers…all these words, all this possibility; discovery everywhere.

That’s what I think I’d say about my opening routines: open the door to possibility. Come on in. There is mist everywhere, but you can be a rainmaker.

No Place Like Home

Cascade Head—one tiny part—(flickr US Forest Service)

Sun-splashed September, when kids return to school, parental focus shifts, the ferocious beach wind abates, and the promise of perfect bright blue days delivers. That was our thought yesterday when we planned a hike up Cascade Head. But…

Rain greeted me, the soft, soundless blanketing mist in early morning. Gray is Oregon Coast signature color and one of my favorites, but I texted my trekking partner to make sure we were on. Give the weather ten minutes, and it’ll change is particularly true here on the edge of the Pacific. We can watch it happen.

Our entire journey up the coast to the trailhead, the wipers kept a steady rhythm. We were undaunted, true Oregonians who welcome the cool and damp just as the stately trees and lush greenery tip their faces to catch every drop. I had never done this hike before, but knew that any sun coupled with exposed hillsides and certain exertion would lead to HOT…I am NOT a fan. We were ready to go!

And up we went, through those conifers, the Sitka and Douglas, the ferns and remaining late bloomers. “What’s a weed, anyway, but something we’ve decided we don’t want around while we plant the more exotic?” as dandelion heads provided trail lights. “They used to keep people alive, those little flowers.”

This mist-slicked snail savored the trail, enjoying his perfect day.

When we had made all but the last steep switchback section to the summit, we stopped to snack and relish the cool quiet in a grassy spot. “You know, if we could see the view”—she grinned—”this is as good a place as any. We really don’t need to go all the way.” As we waited, two young hiker-couples passed and stopped to chat. One pair had come from Czechoslovakia by way of Canada, and another from Germany. All marveled at what they had seen of the Oregon Coast, and these heartfelt words from one: “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

We waited, telling stories as the best walking partners do, while the brave sun persisted, pushing its way through the layers of gray. The blue expanse of ocean appeared through the trees, rocks, foam, the river estuary with its silvery veins tracing the valley, God’s Thumb in the distance, ebbed and flowed in front of us as the sun triumphed, the mist retreating.

So lucky to be here. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Can you find the dew-jeweled spider web (a la Tana Hoban)? Wonder with every gaze.

Twenty-Two Years

Could Have

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you.

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny.

You were in luck—there was a forest.
You were in luck—there were no trees.
You were in luck—a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
a jamb, a turn, a quarter inch, an instant.
You were in luck—just then a straw went floating by.

As a result, because, although, despite,
What would have happened if a hand, a foot,
within an inch, a hairsbreadth from
an unfortunate coincidence.

So you’re here? Still dizzy from another dodge, close shave,
reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn’t be more shocked or speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

—by Wislawa Szymborska

I think about the events of September 11, 2001 both predictably, as I will most certainly next Monday on the 22nd anniversary of the day, and unexpectedly as I did today when I read this poem by Wislawa Syzmborska posted on the Poetry Monday website yesterday.

Teaching in a school where, from the nearby shore, students could view smoke rising from the ruins in New York City on that day, everything that happened was personal, proximate, and profound. Each successive 9/11 brought both the possibility of a fresh start as another school year began and the need to find a way to remember, to remember, to heal, to share.

With my eighth grade students, old enough in the five years immediately following that day, to harbor vivid and disparate associations, the commitment was a balancing act. I turned to poetry as we did on many days, an invitation for “Sacred Writing Time, ” ten minutes dedicated to our notebooks. “Could Have,” a poem I first shared on 9/11, was one that evoked some of the most powerful responses and conversation.

So much of the time adults seem to have answers, but as teens approach that threshold, they realize that sometimes there are no answers; sometimes we all struggle with the unknowables irrespective of age. This poem invited them to sit with one person’s thoughts about that in language they could visualize, complexity simply rendered.

Some students resisted the interpretations of their peers, the ideas of the poet; some embraced them. Almost all paused and thought, and shared stories of how they had been lucky, or not so much, stories about the role chance plays in our lives. And most, because of the date, reflected on those who had been victims, the unfathomable whys and why nots.

When I read the poem now, I can picture the earnest faces in that room, feel their engagement with the world they are navigating, the one where “your heart pounds inside me.” Still…