End of Season

Day Five: Solitary

A natural introvert, I find solitude both refreshing and inspirational. It’s one of the reasons I come to work early: to enjoy some time in my classroom before my students arrive. I took this photograph when I arrived this morning:

 

Empty Valleyball Court

The cold winds of winter blow across the empty field
  where we once practiced: where we refused to yield
    to oncoming storms, driven inside only when
      the dying light overcame our fortitude. 

The grass has grown longer & the lines worn away;  
  the court now sits empty awaiting the day
    when the sun will shine & the team will return, 
      but for now, the ball sits alone:

                     in solitude.

Photo101

Cup Runneth Over

Day Four: Bliss

With each photography prompt I find myself pondering what things mean to people rather than their dictionary definitions.

The last few days had me considering home, street, and water.

Today’s assignment was far easier:

Bliss Definition

I’m well aware of the irony in using a dictionary definition considering what I just said.

Bliss. Definitely not a simple word.

Some say that ignorance is bliss, or that bliss is a state of mind.

Google claims I can find bliss in cupcakes.

Now, I’ve had some good cupcakes, but not that good.

So what brings me perfect happiness or great joy?

Being with my wife.

But since both she and I are quite particular about sharing personal information – especially images – you’ll just have to settle for the second-most blissful thing in my life.

Or rather, a collection of things:

Bliss
Coffee and Books = Instant Gratification
Moxie = Future Gratification

Photo101

Won’t Run in the Wash

Day Three: Water (Horizontal) 
Water, water, every where, 
 And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, every where, 
 Nor any drop to drink.

Or so said Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Here , we’ve had a bit more water than we want . . . and they’re predicting more.

Today, though, is a different story.

Today is nearly perfect.

Riverside Horizontal

 

 

Riverside Vertical

Looking back, I’m not really sure where the title of this post came from.

I’m too lazy to think of another; we’re going with it.

Photo101

Street View

Day Two: Street

Let’s play some word association:

Street Sign 1

If you’re like me, you immediately thought of a song:

Where The Streets Have No Name

Our House

Sunset Boulevard

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Maybe street conjures images of your childhood: learning to ride a bike, playing ball, mowing grass, raking leaves, shoveling snow.

Street brings to mind my first real job: working at our local animal shelter; it’s the job that helped me love running.

Down our 2/10 mile unpaved driveway.

Well, it was unpaved. Paved previously yet at that point cracked into near oblivion, it has since been repaved. But when I ran that stretch it was one huge undulating mass of broken asphalt and dirt.

Onto the paved road for 3/4 of a mile or so – avoiding the trucks and tractors and cars that seemed to veer closer to the edge of the road as they neared me. As bad as it was in summer, it was worse in the winter.

Turn onto the tar-and-chip road for another half-mile, passing the old Woolworth Mansion, run-down hay barns, and the old state bridge with its metal marker still visible in the abutment.

That was then.

Ten years later and six hundred miles away, I have a slightly – but not much – different view:

Street View

Photo101

Feels Like Home

Day One: Home

Home: such a simple word belying vast emotional complexity.

What is home?

Home is where you are
                  belong
                  can be yourself
                  drop your anchor
                  expect to find it
                  feel safe and loved
                  hang your hat
                  lay your head
              you're happy
Home is where the heart is

What is home to me? I think of home and I think of

hot pancakes on cold winter mornings
books hoarded in every nook and cranny
cat in my lap
coffee in my cup
music on the radio

But it’s not. At least, not necessarily.

Like Sheldon on Big Bang Theory, I have My Spot:

My Spot 1

My Spot is Home.

With cat and coffee and books and music and yes, with pancakes.

Pancakes

Just don’t leave them unattended around the cat.

Pictured are my house-famous crunchy peanut butter, strawberry rhubarb jam, Nutella, maple syrup, and butter pancakes. Yeah, they’re that good!

Photo101

Hearty Snowplow Hips

I’m certain you’ve noticed something strange:

I’ve posted nearly every weekday for the past two weeks.

This is no accident, as I signed up for WordPress’ course Writing 201: Poetry.

Blogging U PoetryI’d planned to take it slow, knowing that school – lesson plans and grading and papers and grading and projects and grading and attendance and grading – would get in the way.

And then something miraculous happened: it snowed. Twice. In two weeks. Snow is rare enough in my particular part of North Carolina, and you can just forget having two snow storms literally back-to-back. But it happened.

As a result, in the last two weeks I’ve only taught two full days of school, with three more shortened due to various circumstances. Oh, and President’s Day weekend turned into a mini Winter Break: with school being closed due to the holiday, we dismissed on a Friday and returned the following Thursday. Suffice it to say I had plenty of time to work on my poetry, resulting in the following attempts:

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, I did more than just write. I also went out in the snow, and I almost regret it.

You see, I grew up in Pennsylvania – a place where snow is slightly more common. My birthday falls in December, meaning I quite literally learned to drive in snow. People here . . . did not. Look, it’s not an intelligence thing, it’s an ignorance thing. Why should people used to warm-ish winters and hurricanes know how to deal with snow? Conversely, why should people used to snow know how to handle hurricanes? Do we even need to bring up the damage and loss caused by Hurricane Sandy, which – bad as it was – could have been mitigated had New England taken the same precautions the South does for nearly every tropical storm?

Anyway, I had the bright idea to go to Redbox “before it got too bad.” Two weeks ago I wouldn’t have risked it; my so-called “tires” were nearly racing slicks. Now I’m driving on my first new set of tires ever (thanks to the generosity of a student and his family), so I felt much more confident: I had top-shape equipment and experience and knowledge in driving in snow. What could go wrong?

Other people. Other people could go wrong.

Snow TrafficHere’s some pointers for people who don’t know how to drive in snow.

1. Unless you really have to go somewhere, don’t drive. Your inexperience may be more dangerous than the weather.

2. Please scrape off your entire car, not just the windows. Blowback happens.

3. Turn on your lights.

4. You cannot drive at speed.

5. You cannot stop on a hill.

5a. Parking brakes are a thing – use them.

5b. More gas is not the answer.

6. You cannot take corners at speed.

6a. Don’t try to beat the light.

6b. Hard braking is not the answer.

6c. More gas is not the answer.

6d. When you end up in the ditch, more gas is definitely not the answer.

7. Have I mentioned turning on your lights and driving slower?

My round-trip was less than six miles. In those six miles I counted many cars without their lights on and most driving at speed, which resulted in two cars crossing the center line, two sliding backwards after stopping on a hill, and one spinning out in a double-wide turn lane after trying to beat the light. This particular car then ended up on a curb, tried the “more gas” method to get off the curb, and nearly slammed into my car in the resulting slide. The only thing that saved me was my own light turning green – the skidding car stopped in the space I had just vacated.

breaking-news

Four things prompted my flirtation with death:

1. I didn’t want to pay late fees on the Redbox movie I already had – I think it was Boxtrolls.

2. I had just recently watched the Academy Awards and wanted to see Whiplash.

3. My wife wanted to see Book of Life.

4. We wanted ginger ale.

Just to be clear: none of these are worth dying for.

Nevertheless, both Whiplash and Book of Life were good movies. Since Whiplash was nominated for – and won – several Academy Awards, I wanted to write my own mini-review:

Whiplash

Whiplash PosterSummary: An ambitious young jazz drummer meets an equally ambitious studio/concert band leader; ruthless physical and mental exertions and exhortations result, finally culminating in a mostly-cliché showdown.

Positive Reaction: I can see why Whiplash won Academy Awards for Film Editing and Sound Mixing.

Negative Reaction: This movie is not about jazz in particular or even music in general. I found the story somewhat compelling but for a movie ostensibly about music and jazz it felt . . . soulless. I could go on, but I’ll just direct you to this article from the New Yorker which, in the interest of full disclosure, I found after I’d formed my opinion and wondered if anyone thought the same thing; I hadn’t really heard of Whiplash until the Academy Awards.

Book of Life may be the best animated film I’ve seen; I don’t normally like animated movies, but this one grabbed my attention from the beginning and held on for the whole run time. The fact the film includes several popular songs which I happen to enjoy didn’t hurt its appeal either. It’s well worth the dollar or so Redbox charges to rent a copy.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. You can expect some more posts from me over the next four weeks as I participate in another WordPress course: Photography 101.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain the title: it’s an anagram of the three (main) subjects of this post: poetry snow whiplash

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