Space Dust and Human Ashes (Part Two)

 http://www.fortbragg.com/explore/glass-beach/. 

The coast of northern California is my all-time happiest place. I used to live in Fort Bragg and take visitors to see Glass Beach, a glittering, multicolored remnant of the town dump--multicolored glass bits and ceramic beads stretching along the shore still being polished by the waves. 

I've also visited the ruins of the Roman port Caesarea Maritima in Israel.

Miss Ogyny Attends the Olympics

Wedding rings? 

Back when I taught journalism at College of the Redwoods, I told my students that once they found the story their goals were to get it right and make it interesting. Recent reporting on women competing at the Olympics has been interesting, but not quite right.  Women make up 45-percent of the competitors, and more than half of the U.S. athletes at the games this year are female. But as Washington Post reporter Petula Dvorak points out, that doesn't mean they'll be treated equally. In case you missed it,

Some Days, You Wear the Egg Salad

Last Friday, I splattered egg salad on my foot while rushing to make a lunch to take to a last-minute subbing job. Here's the good thing: I was wearing crocs. For fashion-challenged readers, that translates to rubber shoes. The not-so-good thing . . . I called Carl over to have him lick it up. He's very accommodating that way. (If you haven't concluded that Carl is a dog, your life is a lot more interesting than mine.) And I didn't have to slow down in my race to eighth-grade science. But still. Is it really better to have dog slobber on your foot instead of foodstuff?

It wasn't until I got to school that I discovered that while my shoes were egg-salad free, not true for the horse poop that I'd traipsed through in the barn in my goin-ta-town rubber shoes instead of my shit-kickin', steel-toed rubber boots.

Marble Stairs

Hey, you builder of marble stairs,

Look at your hands when you think of love;

Behind your eyes hide the secret of stones

And the baffling fits and turns of your woman's love,

The fickle patterns that it weaves

Into the fabric of your life.

When you bend over tiles of mosaic witchery

That should outlast the tread of passing time,

You see how well your hands have done,

But will they ever be smooth again

As in those days when all you built

Were dream towers in the sun?

Ah, to hold her hands again...

Sweet passage towards the rosy end...

Soon, soon, my love, the stones

Around you cry, echoing your own:

I shall be happy then.

Poor, poor builder of marble stairs.

Bienvenido Nuqui Santos

San Francisco, 1990s

#poetry #bensantos #bienvenidosantos #marblestairs #marlismanleybroadhead

Can I Get You Anything Before I Go, Perhaps a Purloined Pumpkin?

There's really no other way to look at it: I'm a thief.

I didn't pay for it; it wasn't mine; and still I took it.

A big orange pumpkin sat all alone on the very bottom of a cart in the parking lot cart return at Target. Really big. One you could carve the cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show into.

How Things Came to a Head in the Music Room

I sub for the Louisburg, Kansas, school district--whatever hole they need filled, I try to expand into for a day. Today, I covered for Broadmoor Elementary's vocal music teacher. She gave me the option of showing a video on drumming and rhythm around the world nine times or rehearsing nine batches of kids for an all-school Veteran's Day performance at the high school. 

I reached for the high note, and 16 classes took their turns warbling their way through six patriotic tunes, some traditional, one really sad, and some great fun--e.g., Neil Diamond's "America." We totally nailed the ending of five exclamations of "TODAY!!!"

White Moths and Challenged Children

A student discovered this white moth on the red brick

building and shared it with classmates filing into the

room after recess, 24 index fingers carefully stroking

the strange, fluffy head.

Some of us are  more special than others.  

I've been subbing in the Louisburg, Kansas, schools, at nearly every grade level--that's how hard up they are for subs. I mean, a former English teacher cluelessly waving her arms in front of 60 band students is probably not how you'd choose to invest your education dollars. But needs must.

I've always known teaching is a great way to learn, but recently I experienced an actual epiphany. Delivered by 24 fifth graders.