He kicks and pushes with his legs, but the soles of his feet are as soft as any other part of him: I touch them and marvel to think he will one day be man-grown with calloused soles. Before we brought him home they pricked his heel, collecting spots of blood to screen for various…
learnings: September 2015
Today I join Emily P. Freeman to share a few things we learned in September. People are astonishingly generous, so that all I can feel is small and glad and grateful. (Related fact: it's fun being the bride at a wedding shower.) @socalitybarbie is a fun feed to browse. (And it reminded me of the more…
Five Minute Friday (on Monday): same
The days turn unexpectedly cooler, and we greet the coolness with joy -- the same joy with which we've been greeting fall for as long as I can remember, but certainly in these past ten Mississippi falls. The seasons change and change, but they're always the same changes, though each one has its own distinctness.…
Five Minute Friday (on Saturday): Still
What meteorologists are apparently calling the "arctic blast" -- lows in the 20s in central Mississippi in mid-November -- lends a singular stillness to a morning in which actually nothing is still. Leaves and grasses tremble as the sunshine dances its declaration of the glory of God and the dogs and I run circles in the…
Noticing, Day 31 (and Five Minute Friday): Leave
Leave. It comes with connotations of goodbyes, yet it need not. This verb can also mean "to put forth leaves." On the sidewalks I notice that Bartlett Pear leaves begin to pile in thick crimson piles, and on the crepe myrtle branches leaves are at once less frequent and more colorful. Gerard Manley Hopkins describes…
Noticing, Day 22: working backwards
Today I noticed how the sweetgums and poison ivies are taking their habitual lead in donning autumn attire, flaming out from among their more reticent deciduous neighbors. Is this a case, I wonder, of God giving more honor to those that lack honor? Whether it is or no, each fall I'm stunned by this glory of what…
Noticing, Day 14: glad
Today I noticed that crisp weather inclines everyone to smile more, interact more in class, and be friendlier outside class. I noticed that I like teaching more when the weather is crisp. They were painting doors and door frames on my balcony today -- fresh, clean, white paint. Our administrator reminded me to leap over the threshold…
September
I'm learning which ones are left-handed today, which ones are relaxed enough to smile at me mid-test, which ones bend to put mere inches between their noses and the page as if to somehow build a direct connection between the questions and the information in their minds, bypassing the necessary word-formation and handwriting. As appropriate…
Five Minute Friday (on Saturday): Ready
Summer melted away overnight and in Mississippi we're having a day which more properly belongs in New England. Did it escape from its proper pile in the grand dealing of days, slip south to surprise us? If I'm ever ready for anything at all, I am ready for fall, each year eager to see its…
poison ivy and eden
Summer approaches. I have incontrovertible evidence in the fact that poison ivy is emerging from its winter sabbatical. All along the sides of the path modestly drooping three-leaved clusters rise on tender red stems. Was the serpent in the Garden thus demure at first, hiding his shy face behind the thick-leaved fruit boughs, peering out…
Between Blue Rocks 