The Kohlmans

(This will be a fairly short reflection, as I'm readying myself for three hours of class tonight and a full day tomorrow. Ugh. I hope that soon I'll be able to make the time to reflect a little more on where I go from here.) It's the end. I "sliced" 31/31 days this month - plus some additional posts here and there, 35 total. In the beginning, I honestly didn't know if I'd make it all the way. It was a challenge many days. The challenge provoked a sense of confidence in my writing that I didn't know was possible - thanks to comments from family and friends and "strangers" who read and supported me for the past 31 days. I still don't quite see myself as a writer, necessarily. Some days I do, others I don't. But this is a start. And some small part of me is beginning to betray my doubts and think that maybe, just maybe, I can do it.

Today marks post #26 for the month - I've had a few extras on particularly thoughtful days. But I have to admit that the slice of life challenge is my only reason for posting today. Not much is happening here today: the dog adoption was yesterday, the plumber comes tomorrow (frozen pipe in the basement - ugh), the dog comes home Thursday... My spring break has been idyllic so far. I sleep in, do what I want when I want to (for the most part). The wind is keeping me from yard work and window washing, but I don't mind. This afternoon, as boring as it will seem, I am going to work on my paper. I might get around to cleaning off the bookshelves (have I mentioned lately that I love purging?!), and I will be wishing that it were time to plant some veggies in my garden. Tomorrow, the plumber will come so we can water the grass seed - just in time to make the yard muddy for the dog (more about her another day). Friday will slip into Saturday and then it will be time to return to m...

Not quite a year ago (on the 21st), I posted this: School resumes tomorrow. The past week has been a refuge, a place in time for me to forget the uncertainties and the stress, from all facets of my life, that surround and overwhelm me right now. I originally wrote this on 4/4/08, when I struggled to find the "perfect ending" to my first real job search (edited it today). I thought I had. Time will tell. (p.s. just so you know. putting what i write - that which reveals a "private" part of me - out there in the great big world makes me feel really vulnerable. i feel like i should be a much better writer than this. that's why i don't do this poetry post thing very often.) Simple tasks fall by the wayside as I wait to hear any news (good or bad). I pause in moments of gathering doom and tears (of frustration, anger, hurt, confusion) slip silently down my face. I hold my breath in moments of unbearable hope and dream (of the perfect endings). ...

Sometimes, like yesterday, the words come easily. I think through what I want to say and somehow it appears in my text box. Not magic, I know, but things definitely flow better on certain days. Other times, it's so hard to know what to write. This challenge is definitely a struggle on week nights - after a full day of teaching and a couple hours of track practice, my brain is close to shutting down. This is all before starting on homework for my grad class, of course (but that's an entirely different story of frustration right now). And yet, I sit to write. I could pull out a second long lost poem (which I'm definitely inspired to do after all the amazing affirmation in the comments on my last post) or make another list. But today I want to tell you about the little things. I have a student who, to state things simply, has not enjoyed anything we've done all year - in any class, not just mine. We are starting a mythology unit. They have to research a Greek god ...

Every once in a while, I try to take a purposeful break from blogging, for a day or a week or an indeterminate amount of time. Sometimes it's to focus on other things. Sometimes it's simply to get work done. But mostly, it's because I get caught. I catch myself checking my blog "stats" to see how many people are reading. I catch myself wishing I had more followers... after all, "they" have 20, and I only have 11. I catch myself coveting more comments from readers. So when I catch myself, I try to make myself take a break. (I don't always listen.) Because I don't blog for the attention (although I have to admit it's been a nice side effect). I don't blog so that others read me. I blog... well... okay. I never thought much about why I blog. I suppose it started as one of those "if they can, I can." I did it just to do it. But it's more than that now. (I just realized this yesterday.) I blog to be a writer. I have alwa...

"Chase" or "Yet not" Warm autumn sun  pierces my windshield as I drive. Soybeans dry in the field, a neat row of round bales marking their boundary. Milo shoots skyward ramrod straight and step ladder tall though some strange stalks rise above all the rest. Crooked hedgewood fence posts, splintering, strung together with barbed wire, fly by my windows. Cars like mine tear down the dirt roads, dust clouds billowing behind. All things familiar. Yet not. Beautiful church building rises up from the flat land; the house across the dry dirt road is absent, prairie grown in its place. There is the ditch where the wildflowers spilled over one another freely, tangled together in a rainbow of blooms; now shaved smooth by a lawn mower. The walnuts still fall from the tree at the bend in the road but the house just beyond stands stoically empty (and no dogs chase my car). Warm autumn sun pierces my windshield  as I drive by all things familia...

just because I don't want to forget today:     i walk. ipod plays. friend honks. mayor waves. family carves pumpkins in their garage.   wind whistles. warm light shines through windows. worries melt, stress washes away. sky spits.   and golden leaves free-fall to the sidewalk, to the grass, to the ground, to the streets, as almost-glowing tokens on a day when the sun refuses to shine.