I can make it mine

Since my last "new home" post I've been busy decorating and still tying to make this new home mine. My heart starts to tingle a bit when I think of coming home now. I've decorated the long wall in my family room. I've also bought some new paint as the other paint I had was too bright and immature. I haven't painted yet but I'm looking forward to some time to do it in the coming weeks. I'll be off work for the summer in three weeks...three weeks!!!!!! Oh, my gosh. I'm going to miss my students tremendously. Especially the tenth graders I've had since last year. I teared up the other day when one of them mentioned that they won't get to see me every day anymore. :-(

What will I do with my time off??? Well, I'm going to spend lots of time with my little angel, Elise. Because she tends to have a rough start when she goes back after a long break, we will be working on school related stuff to keep her sharp for next year.  I also plan to start the query process for my book, Polly, The Praying Mantis: A Bug, Bat, & Human Eco-Adventure. I'm also going to have a yard sale, and really, really, organize this house and all it's little parts. I want to create a garden and grow things in my own dirt.

Because you asked for it...

This is a concrete poem. I wrote it while my dad was in the hospital back in 1999. I was at my Aunt Truth's house sitting cross legged on the leather couch with a view of her kitchen with it's many chickens tucked into  nooks and crannies. I was, once again, struck by the beauty of my past. Not everything was "bad" then. That's the irony of the past, it's both good and bad in the most awkward of times. I remember seeing this mountain on trips to Anchorage with Mom and Joe. Depending on the time of year we would either be counting moose or rabbits on our way there. At school, I heard a legend about this mountain and it never left me. What a beautiful thing to see on your way to town.

Poetry and Lies People Tell

Some things, I have to admit, are just too complicated, too immensely horrible to even wrap my mind around. All these years, I had to simplify this--make it cut and dry--so that I could move on with my life but right at this moment I want something--I want answers. I wish I knew the truth. I just needed to say that.


Here are some poems I wrote back when I was an undergrad. These are about my life.

TITTLE-TATTLE

Long lake limbs,
slim middle paraded,
wind strummed,
composed—grow effects.
Not all attached—
they stay
anyway. Drawn,
not for lack
of wingspan—
A comfort pillow
of crests,
jumping pads,
houses on
wheels anchored.
Toes crinkled
and wobbly, sustain
the deck for
white bread
floating kindly.

This house is not a home

Me, Mom, and Joe in front of the green bean trailer 

I've wanted a house, a real house, one that's mine and fully attached to the ground since I could actually formulate a thought about it. When I was little, in Anchorage, we lived in a real house for a few years. It was yellow and had a basement, which I don't remember, and a nice family room/living room area that I still remember to this day, although we moved when I was about three years old.

After that we lived in a green bean trailer that my parents bought from some friends and it was plopped onto the five acres they bought in Wasilla, Alaska. Later, it was hauled miles away to Houston, Alaska, and backed into a shallow spot on the end of the road at the Far North Recovery Homestead on Heath Road. It had green shag carpet, dusty brown couches, and faux wood paneled walls, but it was a well-loved home. I actually burst into tears when I think about it. Partially because of all the memories of the people who walked that narrow hallway and sat around the heavily waxed kitchen table--some who I'll never be able to see again in this life--but also because leaving there was not done in the right way~~thanks, Dad :-(