Bluebird Singing

 

 

Her father called her Bluebird

when she was a little girl,

it being a symbol

of happiness and good cheer.

These were easy to see.

 

But the bluebird is known

for other things too,

that also fit the woman

she gracefully grew to be.

 

As a garden bird,

none are more helpful;

gardeners will do anything

to keep them near.

And the bluebird,

the female,

does the work

of building the nests

and incubating the eggs,

and looking out

for her brood.

 

And while some bluebirds

leave us

when they’re still young,

their song,

their beautiful song,

can be heard

even yet

in their chicks,

and in the broods

of their chicks,

that live on.

 

There are three bluebirds

on a windowsill

in our house.

 

I can hear them singing.

 

 

 

My mother-in-law, Barbara Malone, would have turned 80 this past Sunday, on the first day of spring.

 

Before the Dawn

I’m always the first one awake in my family.  I usually have about an hour to myself before my wife gets up for work.  I read and I write, I walk the dog, and I enjoy what is the slowest part of my day.

This morning, though, Nell got up before I did.  I walked downstairs at 5 a.m. and saw her at the kitchen counter on her laptop typing away.  She was putting the final touches on some professional development materials for the digital literacy training she was leading today at her elementary school.  A teacher’s work is never done.

Our dog was awake too, and she needed to go out. With my morning mug of coffee in hand, Ginger and I set out for a walk around Colonial Acres, the one hundred plus homes of my neighborhood.  It was still dark and the air was crisp.  I don’t know what I did before I had a dog, but I rarely left the house before daylight.

I love where I live.  In some ways, it’s like being trapped in a time warp with the 21^st century out there somewhere nearby, just beyond my neighbors’ yards.  There are no street lights in the Acres, just the glow of porch lights and lampposts.  At 5:15 in the morning, it’s rare to see any cars on our streets.  There is only one way in and out.  I’ve walked Ginger for more than half an hour at times and haven’t seen a moving car.  The homes were built in the early sixties, as was I.  There is a distinct feeling I get sometimes of walking back in time as I stroll down our streets.

I felt that way this morning as I walked Ginger in the dark.  As I sipped my coffee and slowly woke up, I traveled back in time.  I thought of two of my “boy” roles from long ago: paperboy and altar boy.  Both gave me reasons to be up before dawn in the little town of my youth.  My older brother John and I delivered the Democrat and Chronicle, a morning newspaper, every day of the week for about three years when we were in junior high and high school.  This meant waking up around 6 a.m. and walking or riding our bikes while we delivered newspapers to about one third of our town.

On a good day, delivering papers is boring and repetitive, but we made the best of it.  On one street, for three customers in a row, I went straight to Straight’s, left to Lefty’s and then right to Wright’s.  I’d hold my temples and pretend scream, “Stella!” like Brando when I put the Sunday paper on Stella Maddox’s front porch.  I learned that my teachers had real lives when I delivered the news to their homes.

I was an altar boy for ten years.  Two or three times a year, I had to serve a week’s worth of 7 a.m. masses with my brother.  These masses ended in half the time as the Sunday masses did, and they took place in a darkened church every weekday morning.  It was difficult to stay awake sometimes, even during the shortened mass.  I remember racing to finish my paper route and then scrambling to get to mass on time when my early morning duties crossed paths.  I saw faith and devotion in the hearts of true believers, a faith so strong it brought them together beyond Sundays.

While I had nothing more to do this morning than walk the dog, I thought of those busy mornings of my youth.  These days, a middle aged man in a car delivers papers to my neighbors and there are often no servers at mass, but that’s what was on my mind as the sun began to ease me into my day.  It was during those days long ago that I learned to wake up early and take advantage of the day before most of the rest of my world did.

During those early hours, my mind would wander and I’d dream of the person I might grow to be some day.  I’d drop a paper on a porch and wonder about the lives lived on the other side of the door.  I remember my neighbors leaving their garage doors unlocked for me and I remember taking shortcuts through their yards and I remember delivering the news of the world in the silent darkness before the dawn.  I remember.

That early morning time provided an opportunity for me, on a daily basis, to dream of an unknown future and to make plans to branch out and see the wider world beyond my paper route and my church.  It provided a time for me to notice and name things that made up my world and to invent things that weren’t in it yet.  Although I didn’t write down a word, those early morning hours of my youth helped me to become a writer.

This morning, as I walked a familiar path past neighbors’ homes, I could smell a hint of incense in the air and feel the newsprint on my hands.  A writer’s work is never done.

Following My Son

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He pedals on ahead,

turning a corner

as I crawl slowly behind

in the car.

Headlights cut the night,

showing him the way.

Hawaiian music drifts

from the radio,

something about rainbows

and a wonderful world.

 

It’s tricky,

keeping the right distance,

and as we near our house

I realize this perfect

little arrangement must end.

 

But

what if he blew past

our driveway,

and pedaled into his future,

with me guiding him along

from behind?

 

Could a father

follow his son

like this

forever?

 

I can see him,

embarrassed again,

navigating the maze

of middle school,

trying hard to ignore

the sound

of my side view mirrors

scraping against lockers

behind him.

 

And I can see him

holding an unopened beer

at a party

with me parallel-parked

near the fridge.

My hazards are flashing,

signaling the dangers to come,

even as they match the beat

of the music I don’t understand.

 

And I can see him

walking into an interview

as I idle next to the elevators,

listening to the receptionist cough

as carbon monoxide fumes

fill the lobby

and distract the other candidates

from their last minute preparations.

 

And I can see him

drying off his son at a baptismal font,

the congregation politely applauding

as a car horn honks wildly

from the reserved parking area

just behind the pews.

 

But I see him

slow down instead

and coast purposefully

into our driveway.

Home.

 

I signal the right turn,

humming along

with that ukulele,

watching

end

credits

roll

up

across

the

windshield

as our trip nears its end.

 

I’m following my son.

For now, anyway.

 

As I put the car in park

and turn the key,

darkness fills in,

but everything’s clear –

 

he’ll use his own light

to find his way,

to search somewhere

over those rainbows,

and to come to know

this wonderful world

on his own.

 

 

This poem was inspired from a night I followed my eight year-old son Danny home on his bike from a friend’s house in 2005.

I had written in my writer’s notebook that night a seed for developing later: a cool life moment: Danny in the headlights of our Dodge Caravan, riding his bike home in front of me. Slowly following him so he’d be safe. Cool music on the radio. It’s got that ukulele and humming in it and it’s from a TV ad. It was like a scene out of a movie.

 A year and a half later, I started the first draft of a poem at a Capital District Writing Project writing retreat. I’ve been revising it every so often for ten years.

“A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” – Paul Valery

This final draft was revised and edited again for the Slice of Life challenge, March 2016. Today is Dan’s 20th birthday, 3/23/16, and I have officially abandoned this poem.

Happy birthday, Dan! Keep searching somewhere over those rainbows…your light is already shining bright.          Love, Dad

No More Writing About Not Writing

I started the Slice of Life Challenge on March 2^nd, rather than on March 1^st. I’m a day late and a blog short. So, I’ll be blogging daily though April Fool’s Day to complete my March challenge, but even so, it’s one of the smartest things I’ve ever done.

I have learned so much about writing and blogging, and about the powerful motivation and support that a writing community can provide to writers. I plan on taking what I’ve learned this month and applying it to my classroom instruction. Hopefully, my students will have an opportunity to set up their own writing blogs and begin supporting each other very soon.

This daily writing thing really has me staying up late and waking up early almost every day.   It’s like being in graduate school and teaching full time again. It’s tough to put life on hold and get away for an hour to write. The Slice of Life Challenge really puts the pressure on at times, I’m finding.

One night a week ago, my wife and I were out to dinner quite late with some friends we hadn’t seen in years. While I loved our time together and our conversation, the copy desk editor in the back of my head was also yelling, “OK…OK…let’s wrap this up, people…you’ve got a blog to post by midnight.”

We’re two-thirds of the way through a month of daily Slice of Life blog posts.  Like signing up for a daily cardio boot camp class, the SOL Challenge is one of those things where after four or five days, the excitement and the newness wear off and the “What the heck have I gotten myself into?” thoughts start to flood in. Then the real work begins. But it is such good work.

Tonight, after thinking about the events of my day, and finding nothing much to write about, I was about to start playing around with a draft of a “Ten Things I’d Rather Be Doing Than Writing at 10PM” poem. But when I couldn’t really come up with anything much more than “sleeping” to put on the list, then I knew I was still going to be OK. I’ll make it through this challenge for the month of March. I intend to keep posting slices of life every Tuesday beyond that, too.

I’ve been searching for ideas to write about in my old writer’s notebooks at times over the past three weeks. I do find some excellent seeds for developing in there, but I also keep finding entries that say things like this one does from 9/24/2014:

I avoid writing all the time. I always think I need HUGE blocks of time to write something. There’s got to be a better way. I am sick and tired of not doing any creative writing.  The last time I finished a writing piece must be 4 years ago. I have ideas for essays, poems, and other pieces, especially about stuff from my childhood. But I never prioritize writing in my schedule.

Thanks to everyone at Two Writing Teachers and the community of writers involved in this year’s Slice of Life Challenge, I am now prioritizing writing in my schedule. And I’m not writing about not writing in my notebooks anymore.

Five Reasons Why I Still Have This Jacket Hanging In My Closet

 

 

It’s 100% polyester,

and you can never

own enough polyester.

 

And the stitching

looks really retro.

Thought so then,

think so now.

 

And it’s the only

article of clothing

I still possess

from my high school days.

 

And the flying red horse

helps me soar back in time

way back across the miles

to a place where

thirty-six years ago

I worked at a Mobil station

pumping gas

checking oil

washing windshields

filling tires with air

laughing

telling stories

dreaming

scheming

and hanging out

with my best friends

for shift after shift

after shift

and getting paid

(minimum wage) for it.

What else is there to do

when you’re sixteen?

 

Plus, it still fits

so I wear it sometimes.

And that’s embarrassing

when I choose to get the jacket

still hanging in my closet

thirty-six years later

and wear it around the house

when my kids

are hanging out

with their best friends.

 

 

This poem is the result of using a method of generating ideas for a poem taken from a lesson plan entitled, “The Image List” by Michael McGriff. It’s included in the book, Open the Door, which was published in 2013 by The Poetry Foundation. Through three timed exercises, a poet can generate lists of sensory details and other material to use for a poem about an object to which they have a strong personal connection.

 

 

Strangers on a Bus

 

He was loud and he was angry and he was coming my way. He had stumbled wildly onto the bus at the stop after mine, wearing a torn and muddy Army jacket and ragged cut-off shorts. His crazed eyes went from passenger to passenger, looking for signs of fear. As I sat there frozen in my seat, I made myself invisible behind the novel I was pretending to read.

I was in my mid-twenties and on a late night Metro bus, riding home from work in downtown Seattle. I worked at an employment agency during the day, and a couple of times a week, I’d walk over to Ticketmaster to work their phones at night. I’d finish up around nine, walk a few blocks to the nearest bus stop, and take a fifteen-minute bus ride home.

People-watching opportunities abounded on these late night bus runs. The riders were polar opposites from the regular nine-to-five commuter crowd. Blue-collar workers, street people, Mariners fans, college kids – you could ride the bus for free downtown, so all kinds did.

Waiting alone at dark, big-city bus stops, sometimes for half an hour or more, was frightening for this small town boy. I remember more than a few nervous nights, hoping that the street people would just pass me by without giving me a hard time. It was difficult not to stereotype; I often saw only the worst in these people. And this angry drunk who had just stumbled onto my bus represented one of my worst fears come true.

“What are you looking at? All you guys with your stuff and…you don’t know nothing.   Nothing! What’s wrong? What’s wrong with you…huh…?” on and on he muttered and yelled.

With their Walkmans turned up full blast and their newspapers held up high, none of the riders around me dared to make eye contact with him, lest they become his next target.

At each stop, stunned new arrivals were greeted with a barely decipherable, profanity-laced greeting. I wondered if the driver would kick him off or call the police. It wasn’t going to be me, but someone was going to have to speak up and try to shut this guy up. I tried to ignore him, even as I found myself strangely drawn to the drama that was now playing out on our bus. I read the same sentence in my book again and again.

Halfway down Third Avenue, a blind man with a seeing-eye dog stepped on the bus, as if in a scene right out of a movie. Predictably, one of the only open seats left was next to the drunk, and that’s exactly where the blind man sat, two rows from me. Hidden behind our reading materials, we all braced for the worst.

“That your dog?”

“Yup.”

“What kind?”

“Golden Retriever.”

“What’s his name?”

“Papillon.”

“Puppy on? Puppy on…? Puppy on what?” The drunk didn’t have a clue.

The man with the dog had a great attitude despite the drunk’s harsh tone. Patiently, he explained, “No, no, no…Pap-ee-yon. Papillon. It’s the French word for butterfly.”

The drunk was silent for the first time since he’d entered our lives. A thoughtful look came across his face as he considered what he’d just been told.

And then, slowly, the drunk turned toward the blind man and asked, incredulously, “Wait a minute…you mean…? Your dog speaks French…?!?!”

Spontaneous pockets of quiet laughter broke the awful tension that had been riding with us through the darkened city streets. Newspapers dropped. Some passengers actually made eye contact. The drunk didn’t even realize what he’d said. And a minute later, he stumbled off the bus when the ride-free zone came to an end. The show was over.

I guess it’s true – our expectations of others can affect the way people behave. We had all expected the worst from this guy, and we’d been getting it. But a blind man saw the drunk differently, and the result was a humorous and bizarre scene that this former late night bus rider has never forgotten.

For the rest of the bus ride home that night, though, none of us talked about it. Together we just rode on, silent and separate, noses back in our books. The smile on my face was of comfort to no one but me.

Growing Older with the Game

March Madness is back. The first weekend of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament always takes me back to the early ’80s, when I first became a fan of college basketball. In my opinion, there are no greater four days in a row in all of sports.

When we were in our teens and twenties, my friends and I would gather at each other’s houses to watch hoop games together, or go out to one of the bars in my hometown to watch with a bigger crowd. The upsets are the best, and I remember fondly the friends I was with when we watched North Carolina State win it all in 1983 and Villanova do the same in 1985. I was on the Syracuse University campus with friends the night they lost in the final to Indiana in 1987. Seeing the post-game riot on the streets near campus after that last second loss was frightening and unforgettable.

This year’s tournament started two days ago but because of other commitments, tonight will be my first chance to sit down and watch a few games. I feel like I am getting old, because rather than go out and find a big group of friends to watch the tourney with, I am most content now to be at home watching in the comfort of my own living room.

Before I get settled in for a night of good basketball, I have a few evening routines to go through first. One of my favorites is taking our dog out for the last walk of the night. I get some exercise, and it’s good quality time with Ginger. Some nights it’s a pain, but once I get out there, I enjoy our late night walks.

Getting back inside, locking up, changing into old blue jeans and my old gray hoodie will come next. It’s surprising how much I like changing into to my favorite comfortable clothes. Tidying up the messes and piles in the kitchen, maybe putting some laundry away – that’s next. Then just finding my spot on the floor in front of the couch, and finding a good game to tune into. The routines of middle age…they make it easier to wake up the next morning than it was after that Syracuse loss in 1987.

Shine a Light

We took our students outdoors today for the first time in months. The sun was shining brightly, despite a forecast calling for rain and cold and possibly snow this weekend. The kids were psyched; they would’ve gone outside for class if it meant picking up garbage in the parking lot or pulling weeds from the garden near the school.

 
Our students were creating small models that displayed the angle of the sun as it shines on Albany, NY on the vernal equinox, which is two days away. They had calculated the angle of the sun inside our classrooms using models earlier this morning.  Now they were outdoors, testing whether their hypotheses were correct.  They were all mostly engaged and excited about what they were doing.  Plus the sun was shining.  And it was Friday afternoon.

 
Despite the complicated science work and some frustrations at trying to find true north, the kids were just loving being outdoors. There was no real rush to go indoors once most of the groups were done with their work.

 

It felt wonderful. I’m not sure if they realized how much the teachers were enjoying it too. I’m not their science teacher, and I don’t know the angle of the sun in Albany in the spring, or the summer or the fall. But I do know this: spring will be here in two days and the sun will be shining more and more as the school year nears its end. I plan on taking my students outdoors from time to time in my English and Social Studies classes…that’s going to be my angle.

Eye of the Beholder

 

I’ve been thinking about a couple of things that came up at school today. One of my students is reading Loser by Jerry Spinelli. As I was talking about the book with him, one of the sentences jumped off the page:

As with all discoveries, it is the eye and not the object that changes.

My students have been giving their Expert Reports to the class over the past two weeks. They choose a topic they’re already familiar with (a hobby they have, a sport they play, an artistic talent they’ve developed), and then they develop their expertise on the topic even more through research. Students then become teachers and teach the class about what they love. Almost always, students end up sharing something about themselves that would never come up in the course of a typical school day. I share a quote from Voltaire with the class when I introduce this project:

Appreciation is a wonderful thing. It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.

Both of these ideas continued to marinate in my mind as I went to a production of the musical Grease at my daughter’s high school tonight. It was opening night and the cast, crew, and orchestra really put on an excellent performance. As I understand it, most of them have worked together for several years on various productions. Somehow, I always seem to come away from these shows surprised by the talent I see on display. I shouldn’t be.

Tonight though, something was different. My daughter’s friend Matt played the role of Sonny, one of Danny Zuko’s buddies. He tried out for the play on a whim, never having done anything like it before. His mom told me a few weeks ago that it was difficult for him to break into this tight knit group of performers.

His performance, for me, was eye opening. I saw Matt in a way I never had before. He acted, sang, and danced as if this was his twenty-first show, not his first. In the weeks leading up to the show, I just couldn’t picture him pulling this off. But he did. And his performance was amazing. He brought a smile to my face, and to the faces of many in the crowd.

I think the arts brought out in him something that hadn’t been nurtured before. I was glad I was there to witness it. But could it be that the discovery tonight of Matt’s artistic talents is really more of a change in our collective eyesight instead of a change in Matt? Either way, I appreciate the excellence that he, and everyone else involved in the show, shared with us tonight. And that’s a wonderful thing.

Giving Up the Greenies

 

Hi. I’m Matt, and I’m a balmaholic.

There. I’ve said it. That felt good.

Admitting you have a problem is the first step on the road to recovery, right? No one outside my immediate family knows this, but…I haven’t been without a tube of lip balm at the ready and in my pocket for at least the last five years. Day in, day out. I have spare tubes in my nightstand, in my desk at work, and in the bag I carry to work every day. Crazy, right?

But I’m ready to do something about it. This Sunday is the first day of spring. The dry days of winter are basically over, so I am using the first day of spring, 2016, as my first day without the balm. I’ve got three more days to figure this out.

My lip balm of choice for the past five years has been the forest green tube of Blistex Medicated. SPF15. “Greenies.” Nothing else will do. Don’t come near me with your Burt’s Bees or your Tom’s of Maine peppermint organic. I’m a Blistex green man, through and through. When the blue tubes just didn’t cut it for me anymore, I switched to the good stuff.

In drug stores, I demand Blistex green like Dennis Hopper demands PABST BLUE RIBBON in the film Blue Velvet. I know what I like and I like what I know. BLISTEX! GREEN! MEDICATED!

Like a lot of adult abusers, my troubles began in my youth. I can recall buying the classic black ChapStick tubes as a pre-teen when my lips got chapped during harsh western New York winters. And it didn’t help when Santa put tubes in my stocking every Christmas. Soon though, occasional hits of ChapStick (we called it “Black Tubing”) grew into hitting the harder stuff.

My high school friends and I went through a period of dangerous experimentation with Carmex liquid. I never inhaled. And after a mini-vat of heated Vaseline exploded in my dorm room one day, I knew I was going down the wrong road. I quit the hard stuff for good, and resolved to only use Blistex tubes. But they have slowly become a problem too.

I’m exaggerating for effect in the previous few paragraphs, but here are some of my real life, all-time lip balm lows:

• using my daughter’s Bonnie Bell Mango Tangelo Lip Smackers lip moisturizers when my greenies run out
• running out of balm and still scraping my lips with the hard plastic underside of a tube just to get a microscopic amount of balm – it’s like scraping your armpits with the underside of the deodorant dispenser when it runs out – you know it’s going to hurt, but you do it anyway
• main-lipping gobs of uncut Vaseline right out of the jar when I run out of balm and the CVS down the street is closed for the night

I pretty much hit bottom this past summer when my problem showed itself to my daughter. That’s when I knew it was the beginning of the end for me. We were at a bookstore on a college campus taking a quick tour. I realized, with slight terror, that I wasn’t packing.  Maggie saw me at the check out counter just a few minutes after we walked into the bookstore.

“Dad. You’re only buying lip balm??” she squealed, more than a little confused. She thought I’d be getting a cool sweatshirt or coffee mug or something.

“Yeah…I…” I stammered, sweating profusely. It was awful, my daughter seeing me like this. “But I…I didn’t run out…it’s…the worst part is…it’s just back in the car.”

Maggie couldn’t understand why I didn’t just walk back the 200 yards to the parking lot we’d just come from to go get the greenie I’d forgotten. She’d never understand, even if I tried to explain. I don’t know if I understand it myself, even today.

And one of the worst parts of this for me is that I am a guy and I can’t live without lip balm. Society will look the other way when women are addicted to the stuff, but being a GUY with a lip balm addiction is doubly cruel. I’ll be in the middle of a staff meeting, whipping out the balm every ten minutes and I feel like all eyes are on me.

Women are expected to walk around with lipstick on them or near them, so it’s no big deal if they’re using lipstick or lip balm. Nobody gives a rip. But let a guy reach for his balm one too many times and he starts to get sideways glances and people start snickering. More than once, I’ve heard friends rattle off their lousy Jackie Chiles imitations, “Who told you to put the balm on…?!?”

Enough. I’ve had enough. Enough of summertime clean ups of melted greenies in the glove compartment of my car. Enough of that little line of wear the tube makes in the front right pocket area of my blue jeans. Enough of searching for the nearest CVS on Google maps every time we plan a vacation away.

Enough. I have just resolved to quit. It’s now or never. This Sunday, my hope will spring eternal. And my life will go on…without the balm.