Slice of Life: A Walk in the Park

After driving by Tanger Center Bicentennial Park many times, I finally stopped yesterday. My visit to Chico's had taken longer than expected, so I missed my afternoon exercise class. However, the park beckoned and I answered. Even though it was two in the afternoon and prime time for sun exposure, most of the park was shaded. I had a wonderful stroll through this garden oasis as you'll see from the pictures I'm sharing. Although I've lived here for almost three years, it was my first visit. I look forward to future walks in these gorgeous gardens.

  

 

Cathedral of green

refreshes heavy hearts

comforts weary souls 

- Ramona Behnke 

Slice of Life: The Three Rees

We used to meet in person, but then I moved clear across the country (WA to NC), so now we meet via a three way FaceTime call. We meet for a variety of reasons: birthdays, after one of us returns from a trip, to talk about good books, but mostly just to chat, see each other's faces and stay up-to-date with each other's lives.

Who exactly are the Three Rees? Three gals of a certain vintage who used to work together. When the third one retired, we formed the "Three Retirees" so we would stay connected. We used to take walks together, attend events together, and lunch together. Now we chat on the phone together. We gathered in Seattle last summer. We had to cancel a planned gathering in North Carolina this spring. We hope to gather in Utah sometime soon. I go there several times a year to visit the grands (and my son and daughter-in-law). 

We generally share a FaceTime call every couple of weeks or so, but currently we're meeting weekly to discuss each new episode of "Call the Midwives." We all have PBS Passport, so why do we ration out the episodes to one a week? When you've waited a year for another season of a favorite show, it's fun to slow down and savor each episode. 

This tradition of discussing a show hearkens back to lunchtime at Islander Middle School. Our entire table of sixth grade teachers loved discussing each week's new episode of Downton Abbey. Sometimes we would wait until Tuesday if someone had missed it on Sunday night, but by Tuesday it was time to discuss and dissect.  

The Three Rees at the Botanical Garden from seven springs ago: 

 "Old friends are the ones you keep forever in your heart. Every moment together is a cherished memory."

Something came up and we had to reschedule our planned gathering for today to discuss the latest episode of "Call the Midwives". Fingers crossed that we can still remember it when we FaceTime on Friday!

Poetry Friday (on Sunday): I dipped my toe in VerseLove last week

As we finished our month of writing slices every day, many of my slicer friends gave encouragement for writing poems each day in April through the Verse Love prompts at Ethical ELA. Sarah Donovan, founding collaborator of Ethical ELA and Verselove, offered the first invitation for Poetry Month: "our lives are landscapes."

I responded to her invitation with this poem: 

 

Inside me is a classroom,
where sixth graders fill my dreams
with crazy, chaotic shenanigans.
The daily frenzy continues.

Inside me is an island,
I walk with friends through
spring blossoms, summer blackberries,
fall splendor, and winter’s quiet comfort.

Inside me is a lake,
a wooden bridge, honking geese,
diamond sparkles, gentle breezes,
my solo walks are never lonely.

 

We'll see what the rest of the month brings. I'm hoping to write at least weekly for VerseLove and post it on my blog for Poetry Friday. 

 Matt Forrest Esenwine is our post for Poetry Friday at Radio, Rhythm, and Rhyme. 

Spiritual Journey Thursday: Service

Ruth Hersey is hosting on this Maundy Thursday and asked us to write about service. Check out Ruth's post where you can find links to the reflections of other spiritual travelers. Feel free to join us with your own thoughts. We are an open and welcoming group who post on the first Thursday of the month.

 

In honor of National Poetry Month, I'm sharing a favorite poem, "Everyday Grace" by Stella Nesanovich from the Poetry Foundation website. Please stop now, click on the link, and read her poem.

I chose to write an acrostic using the poet's words, "holy ground." You'll recognize ideas from the poem in my Holy Ground acrostic as I wrote about our theme of service. My gratitude to the poet, Stella Nesanovich, for inspiration for today's poem.

 

Holy Ground 

 

He set the example by washing the feet

Of His disciples. Sometimes you 

Lift a friend through prayer, sometimes

You offer the quiet heart that listens.

  

Gentle expressions of caring concern 

Reveal the hope that stitches

Our precarious world together. Simple actions can 

Unleash goodness in a world so in 

Need of solace. Offer a smile, listen, reach out.

Decide now to extend grace everyday. 

                               - Ramona Behnke 

SOL 31/31: Bookending my Fifteenth Year with Poems

I started working on this fibonacci poem for Day 31 three days ago. It wasn't until this morning that I noticed that I had kicked off this month of writing with a free verse poem, "A Cheer for Day One." And poems became my favorite style of slicing as you can see by this breakdown of the 11 poems (sorted by format) created during this month.

1 free verse poem

1 tricube (for day 3, of course)

3 haiku

1 limerick (for St. Patrick's Day) 

1 cento (thanks Kim for the inspiration)

3 fibonacci (thanks Natalie for reminding me of this form)

1 book spine poem

And with no further ado, I bring you my final poem (a fibonacci*) for this month of slicing.

Our 

month

concludes.

Story threads 

weave a tapestry

connecting our community.  

*fibonacci poem -  6 line, 20 syllable poem. It follows the Fibonacci sequence for syllables in each line. The six lines have a syllable count of 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 respectively.

See you on Tuesdays! 

Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for creating this challenge and providing the space and support for us year after year. And thanks to this magnificent community for sharing stories with me and encouraging my writing life.

 

SOL 30/31: Book Spine Poem

A fellow blogger (sorry, I can't remember who) shared a book spine poem yesterday and I realized that I hadn't used this form for a slice this month. Some years I use it several times.

The books all came from my library book basket. Limiting the number of books you use is key to a quick book spine poem and sometimes the stars seem to align with just the right titles as they did for me this morning. 

Dear writer,

Enchantment

for a girl becoming. 

 

Goldenrod

guests on earth,

the forest of a thousand eyes.

 

Keep moving, 

trust,

gather grateful.  

 

This is my fifteenth year participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge, writing every day during the month of March. Thank you, Two Writing Teachers, for creating this challenge and providing the space and support for us year after year. And thanks to this magnificent community for sharing stories with me and encouraging my writing life. 

SOL 29/31: Open Windows and Rabbit Holes

I come home from church ready to write the post I decided on during a wakeful period last night (it took me awhile to remember what it was), but it did come to me.

I notice an open window for Ms. Chiubooka Writes. I'm plagued this year with disappearing comments. I try again to leave comments on two different blog posts, but I ultimately put up the white flag and resort to the Contact button on her blog. Good grief, I don't know what is happening! It's not like I'm a newbie at this game.

And then I notice another open window. When I woke up last night and couldn't sleep, I did not succumb to the siren call of Instagram on my phone. Instead, I looked at my sadly neglected emails, convinced that this task will definitely put me back to sleep. 

I leave an open window to the Choice Literacy Special Edition: Spring Break. It's about thriving, a word I've often considered for my OLW. There's a letter from editor in chief, Ruth Ayres, an original co-founder with Stacey Shubitz of Two Writing Teachers. Ruth's letter is followed by five completely free articles (for the next week). You'll want to check them out. 

I still need to read the fifth article, but I'm interrupting this rabbit hole to bring you this slice first. 

My favorite article (so far) is Maintaining an Adult Reading Life by Dana Murphy, who also used to write for Two Writing Teachers and sliced with us back in the day.

When I read Gretchen Schroeder's article, I click on her Instagram account, mrs_schroeders_shelves. It turns out that I already follow her! I click on The Correspondent book cover and find a blog post about letter writing on her blog, "Spontaneous Delights" (don't you love that name?).

Then I force myself to write today's slice, saving that last article/rabbit hole for later today.