Tag Archives: grandparenting

Health, Writing

The Wand Chooses the Wizard

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I have always wondered why Hermione was placed in Gryffindor. She is clearly a Ravenclaw. Then I started thinking about the fact that I am Ravenclaw despite wishing to be Hufflepuff. The sorting hat must have known she needed Harry and Ron more than other smarty-pants people surrounding her. There are the people we are, the people we want to be, and the people we can become given the right influences and circumstances.

I let this blogsite get cancelled a while back because I did not have available funds to pay for it. Thankfully, when I was able to return, my information and domain name were still available. I was not so lucky with my other publishing website. I have to start over from scratch on that one.

But I feel okay about it all. A fresh start might give me a fresh perspective and kick me into gear with my self-publishing journey once again. It is NanoWrimo time and I have a great novel idea. I have moved to a a multi-generational home and quit teaching. I am focusing on my health and now have more time and energy to devote to my passions.

Would I have expected to be here if anyone had asked me a decade ago? Absolutely not. I could not have planned to be sorted into the family or house I am currently enjoying. Nor could I have foreseen the two ladies with whom I would be sitting here watching Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I found them through a chain of events I did not orchestrate.

Perhaps things come to us when and if the time is right if we are open to their arrival. We have to put in the footwork and be willing to accept the call, but maybe forces beyond our control are working on our behalf. I know it sounds a little woo-woo, especially when things are not going smoothly in life. And I may not feel this way when the next storm hits. However, it feels nice to think my wand has chosen me, that great things are in store, and just the right friends and family are by my side to battle the darkness.

Health, Writing

Celebrations!

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Photo by Zoran Nikolic from FreeImages

I am happy to announce that great progress has been made in the last year. I have earned my Master’s Degree in English and Creative Writing, my grandchildren have been reunited with their parents, I finally had hip surgery, and I made it through the year teaching despite COVID. It has been a wild ride, but things are looking up. I see the glimmers of feeling better and stronger on the horizon. I am certainly more confident about my passion for writing and my commitment to making a career for myself in the literary field. 

Here’s to constant improvement, even if it looks like barely any progress is being made. It is okay to tiptoe out of comfort zones, take teeny tiny baby steps toward goals, and spend tons of time researching options before picking the next right thing. This journey is not a race.

Health, Writing

Home for Health

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(Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axiosa)

My grandchildren and I have settled into a nice routine over the last few weeks.  We get up early to eat and play, do homeschool and play some more.  The weather has been either rainy or cool for the most part, so outside time can occur whenever they like.  They play on the porch when it rains.  The only weather we cannot tolerate is hot.  Living in Texas ensures that the outdoors are inaccessible at least 3 months out of the year.

I have begun my master’s degree in Creative Writing and am enjoying the topics of discussion thus far.  We are studying the way new words get added to our vocabulary.  Some I think are of note are Rona for Coronavirus, skurt for go, and beat for applying makeup.  I find the evolution of language fascinating.  I am always interested in how words come about and why certain ones stick. I’m sure these are familiar to some, but I had never heard them until this year.

Teaching my actual students from home has gone great so far.  I have only been asked to send little amounts of work on paper up until now.  Beginning next week, I will teach some Zoom lessons…at least we are going to experiment with it!  We shall see how it goes.

Another exciting leap I took was joining an online meditation/writing group.  I love it!  After meditating and relaxing, my writing flows so much better and I am getting back to my craft.  I recommend writing and sharing with others once in a while.  It is very motivating!

Health, Writing

Waking up from discouragement…

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My last post was in October.  I reported that I had not written since authority figures in my life slammed me with judgment, censorship, and criticism…not only of my writing, but my discernment as a human being and professional.

Now my job is in jeopardy–not connected to my writing, politics above my station.  I am working from home due to the coronavirus and quarantine and all that bizarreness that is occurring in this world right now.

I have also taken in grandchildren temporarily while adult children fix their worlds.  I’ve had a winter of sickness and slow recovery.  I’ve battled a time of sadness.  And I’ve applied to begin working on my master’s degree.  Big things are happening.

And all I want to do is write…and read…and write some more.  Enough pouting, sulking, brooding, etc.  It is time to get back to finding my joy.  I cannot be derailed by others whose opinions I don’t even value anyway.  It has certainly not been a conscious decision to take a sabbatical from writing, but that is what has occurred.  And it has not been good for me.

Here and now, I resolve to get back to writing.  I declare this time of non-writing ended.   Rebekah the writer is back.

Essays, Writing

1st Day of Pre-K

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My granddaughter Charlotte started school today.  I got up extra early to do her hair and help in any way I could to get the family out the door on time.  I believe all went according to plan so Charlotte and her entourage began their trek on time.  Three adults and her baby brother accompanied her on this momentous morning.  I’m so glad everyone made a big deal about the beginning of this educational journey that she has begun.

As a teacher and a lifelong learner, the first day of school for any kid is cause for celebration.  What is more exciting than diving into a world of unlimited intellectual expansion?  Becoming a part of a cohort of learners with whom you will share the experience?  Entrusting your development to a human being who will forever be remembered as larger than life?

Monday will be my 42nd first day of school.  I look forward to this next batch of youngsters that I will have the opportunity to learn from.  Every year feels full of potential, full of hope, and most certainly full of anticipation.  I know some of my students may not have the same joyous energy of expectation for the first day of school as me.  That’s ok.  Exuberance is contagious.  I’ll share mine.

I’m so glad my daughter and other family members circled around my granddaughter and walked as a village to her school.  She has a long, fabulous, winding educational road ahead of her.  As one of her great-grandfather’s said, “Today Pre-K, before you know it, college!”

 

Poetry, Writing

Whose Orchid?

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An orchid appeared

on my counter last week.

It’s stick-straight stems

point proudly skyward

upholding regal blooms

of white with

painted purple lips.

Waxy long leaves

splay around the base

as though palms upturned

in adoration.

Imagine my pleasure

upon discovering that

the beautiful blossoms

in question were left

for me by my daughter.

Symbolic of elegance

and fertility,

love and respect.

Printed directions

attached to a stick

explain care and feeding,

so my granddaughter

places three ice cubes

reverently just above the roots

and waits to see

what happens next.

Poetry, Writing

Creative Project

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My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs.  I sent her this poem and she found the perfect photograph to go with it.

Lifted gently from my bed,

I dangle in your arms

safe and peaceful

riding dreams of breezy nonchalance

inside acorns of emotion.

Tiny kernels of light

speck frozen in vision’s grasp

just on the edge of horizon

the edge of reality

the edge of self.

A merging of wellness

and pain, fate and chance…

simplified seconds that

encapsulate infinity

between beats of my heart.

Each outward breath fills the universe

with life, spaces out the stars,

until the drawing in again

collapses solar systems,

visits death on the unsuspecting.

And as I lay me down you keep

my soul, my LORD,

my love in sleep.

-Rebekah J. Marshall

bitties

Photograph by Erica Smith. http://thebitties.squarespace.com/new-blog/

 

Poetry, Writing

Creative Project

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rose dying

Photograph by Erica Smith.  http://thebitties.squarespace.com/

My best friend convinced me to participate in a project combining my poems with her photographs.  She sent me this rose and I had to write a paragraph about it.

Aging gracefully is overrated –

probably perported

by the stoic who know no other way.

Can’t a compromise be reached

between classy and ridiculous?

Let me wear sandals in winter

and white in the fall if I

have the notion.

I’ll refrain from telling you your business

if you forgive my lapses of social etiquette.

Let me grow round and happy,

be silly in love like a school girl,

and I’ll still sip tea on Sunday afternoons

as expected.

I happen to enjoy tea

anytime

anywhere

for any reason.

But you can think it is because

I am being proper

if that makes you happy.

And we can both be content

in the end because we

lived lives full of what

we deemed valuable.

All of our loveliness will shrivel,

but the fragrance of our souls

will linger in the smiles of our

children and grandchildren

and the stories they tell of us.

I want my story memories

to be adventures

full of laughter,

not faded photographs

posed with ankles crossed,

pearls placed just so.

-Rebekah J. Marshall

 

Essays, Writing

Mother of the Year

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IMG_2268

So…disregard my last post.  Apparently, my daughter appreciates and loves me with all her heart.  She even claims to be following in my footsteps in her attempts to be a good parent to her own daughter.

She gave me a beautiful little collection of gifts for Mother’s Day and wrote sweet lines in a Wonder Woman card.  She even went to the effort to have my granddaughter “write”/scribble in a card.  I was moved to tears.

In her forgetfulness, she dropped it off at my house, but accidentally left it in a spare room instead of putting it somewhere I would find easily.  She finally asked if I liked my presents via text and I was quite confused.  Was she joking?  Did her text count as a present?  I’m not even really a present person – or at least I didn’t think I was.  I like words, sweet words in a card, letters, songs and stories, or good conversation over tea.  That is what makes me feel loved and cared for.  That, and acts of service (if we’re talking the love languages.)

Once the confusion was cleared up, I had the best belated Mother’s Day ever.  She quoted the poem “Walk a little slower, Mom, for my feet are small.  I’m following in your footsteps and I don’t want to fall…”  The card featured Wonder Woman and said “Superheroes don’t always have a secret identity…sometimes they just go by Mom.”

She gave me some cute little jewelry items and a plaque that says, “The Best Moms get Promoted to Grandma.”  My favorite is a journal.  Inside she taped ticket stubs of movies we went to over the years as she was growing up.  It was very thoughtful and took some planning.  It was movies like Race to Witch Mountain, various Twilight movies, Harry Potter movies, The Help, Salt, Pitch Perfect, etc.  Then, sprinkled throughout the journal are fortunes from fortune cookies she saved over the years and quotes from wrappers of Dove candies and various other types of saying.  On one page she drew a lovely little turtle mama holding her turtle baby on her back.  I’ve always called her my baby turtle.

I’m still glad I broke down that dilapidated old rocking chair.  It was an eye sore and a hazard.  It is time for rose colored lenses, as one of her quotes says in the journal.  I am ready to start making my life beautiful, and some of that beauty might just come from re-framing my perspectives.