#sol23 – Page 4 – Dare to Care

March 5, 2023 TwoWritingTeachers.org

Wise words I return to often are these: “You’re either in your head, or you’re in your life.” And I want to be in my life!

What if our only purpose really is to be present? To shine?

Like light.

The quote above is from a recent blog post of Irene Latham, award-winning poet and author. Do visit and enjoy her post here. I took a portion of her quote and wrote a golden shovel poem. The Golden Shovel poetry form was created by Terrance Hayes. “Golden shovel poetry is a poetic form that takes a word from each line of an existing poem and uses them as the last word of each line in a new poem.” ~MasterClass definition, and you can read more here.

What can I say except this day is precious and

if it must be my last, I will live it contentedly.

Our world will go on without me, and finally

only LOVE will prevail. But if I get another day, on

purpose I will live it–

really live it. Even if it

is just sitting inside, staying warm,

to read and write, I can still

be here, in this place, fully alive, opening this sweet

present.

~Denise Krebs

On another note: Grandparenting is not for sissies. The day after my grandbaby left, I slept in until 8 a.m., and I thought I had missed the Slice of Life meet up. Before I posted my Saturday slice, I started to add a little apology for not showing up when I had signed up. Instead, when I went to the Two Teachers blog and saw the sign up sheet still there, I realized something was amiss. I did a quick calendar check and realized I had another day to remember. And I did. I had a lovely golden moment time connecting with Jennifer K., Jennifer M., Kim Johnson, Erica J., Stacey Shubitz, Glenda Funk, Ramona, Kate Narita, Dr. Carla Michelle Brown, Heidi C., and Margaret. Life is sweet, and it was a treasure opening the gift of meeting new people today. I wish I could have been in a small group with each of them. I’m looking forward to reading their blogs today!

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Challenge: A slice a day for all of March. Thank you, Two Writing Teachers!

On Friday, my daughter’s last day of her visit here, the roofers came early. They were walking around on our plywood roof doing last minute prep work before the new shingles could be added. It included pounding, sweeping, stomping, rolling, vacuuming, and lots of who-knows-what-in-the-heck-else. Then the forklift came and placed pallets of shingles up on the roof.

And then it was time for my sweet little grandson to take his morning nap.

A nap seemed unlikely to happen at home, so we left on a trip to Joshua Tree National Park.

It was a nap trip. (I think it was the first time I’ve ever gone through the park without stopping to get out of the car. Thank you, taxpayers and United States NPS, for the lifetime senior pass I am so blessed to have.) He slept for about 45 minutes, then we stopped for coffee in Twentynine Palms, and finally–home again. After that, it wasn’t long before I had to take them to the airport.

Meanwhile the pounding on the roof was continuing, and I was happy to get to miss it for a couple more hours.