Today’s challenge at Mindlovesmisery Menagerie is to come up with a haiku about chocolate. I did one of those and one about a current event in my life 🙂 Visit their site to play along, or learn what a haiku is, exactly.
Tootsie Roll wrappers
One cent a piece, floor of bedroom
Paper masterpiece!
Stripping a railing
Chemical goop for a week
Wet shoes, no dry feet
Image Courtesy of Alicia Zinn
Today’s memories and such are brought to you by the wonderful people at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads via the song video, “Watch the Corners” by Dinosaur Jr. I have no plan more than to write a few words and remember 🙂
As a substitute teacher, I am used to following the teacher’s instructions, babysitting, hitting the call button for back up from admin. Here’s a Truth: I enjoy teaching the “harder to teach” kids. The ones with anger, problems at home and school, segregated into a separate classroom at times.
I grasp for words to explain why I love teaching them, except to say that I remember being an outsider, ignored, pain that filled me up and ran me like gasoline from one week to the next. Not “getting the memo” about friends, sports, doing homework. My eyes would always betray me, tears plastering my face at their own whim.
Looking closer to home, I have three girls: two are 16 and the baby is 10. Not doing homework, staying overnight at “friends” houses without meeting their parents. Escaping out the window to go driving downtown to look for “fun.” Plans for freedom in all types of flavors: cotton candy love, “You don’t know how I feel” rocky road, metropolitan dreams.
My head is playing volleyball between sentimentality and stressful decisions. Almost thirty years ago and yet I remember being them. I’ve caught myself thinking that I wouldn’t wish teenager-hood on my worst enemy. Then smiling when my students or daughters do something that remind me of the good times full of wonder and curiosity.
I pause, unsure how to finish this post. Really not caring if my daughters read it (the freedom of being older!). I think, no matter where you are in your life, there is struggle and memory. Try to look for those perfect lightening bug moments. They are there.
Photo Courtesy of James Douglas over at Unsplash Images
Recently, I stopped doing daily writing because blocks have hit me, especially Perfection and Judgement. So here I am, playing over at “First Line Friday” over at Mindlovemisery today.
First line is: “Below the city’s cobblestones it shifted, restless and hungry.” How would you finish this sentence?
Below the city’s cobblestones it shifted, restless and hungry. The two monsters, Perfection and Judgement, had been banished to the deep underground passageways since Trynold the I had ruled the Perplex. In the absence of the monsters, the land had grown emerald grass, diamond like flowers so perfect that they were hard to look at for more than a second.
Trynold the XX, the current ruler of Perplex, was outside before the sun lit up his little piece of universe as usual. He had just started his fifth round of hopscotch when he felt the cobblestones rattle and move beneath his comfortable frame. A dispatch was made to the courageous hero that had served under the original Trynold.
“Methinks two of the most dangerous monsters known on this side of the world are trying to ravage the land and it’s people,” the king whispered to the hero, Max. A deadening sound, like a mix between an unpleasant squish/squash and a crack that sounded much like skulls, erupted behind them ending the planning part of the meeting.
Perfection rose high into the air, resembling a slimy banana slug and teeth all over his body as tiny and deadly as a pirahna. Max stood strong as Perfection stood over him, so tall that the sun was blocked and all the land was dull and monochrome.
“You will never become the best and strongest hero in the world. Oh, and forget about wooing that beautiful girl down the lane. She is more interested in the bespeckled lawyer’s son.”
Max had created a special pair of earplugs in the intervening years since the last battle. When the Creature’s mouth stopped moving, Max removed the plugs. You see, he was a great reader and had many people who supported him through everything. The king, who didn’t have a pair, broke out in purple tears and ran away, vowing never to speak up again for Truth.
“Where is your Mate? I remember banishing two, not one of you liars.”
“She slipped out in a swirl of smoke and several of your “friends” are on their way. Where is your weapon against Judgement?” Max watched as an angry, judgmental group of people make their way up the hill. Within the group, came his beautiful wife. Max felt his heart drop and mind scatter to remember how the two were banished all those years ago.
Out of the dark smoke appeared Judgement and with his wife’s voice she spoke to Max: “You aren’t enough of a hero for me. On the way here, all I could think of was how much weight you have gained and the memoir that you have been working on sitting in dust on your desk. If I were you, I would burn the memoir and go live in the desert.”
Instead of allowing his mind to run, he quickly responded to Judgement and Perfection in front of all the people that had held him up when times were tough and celebrated when all was well.
“Friends, do not be troubled by the words of these Monsters who are as ancient as the caves so deep and mysterious. The power lies in you, no one else. You are worth a million monsters, rubies and diamonds in the sea.” He turned to his wife, who was weeping underneath a plumb tree. “You, my darling, are so precious to me. I thank the Gods that I have you in my life.”
The magic words to banish the monsters to the nether regions of darkness appeared in his mind. Through telepathy, he passed these words onto the crowd and even into the mind of the lonely king. Everyone, even the birds and frogs shouted to both monsters: “You have no power over me. You have no power over me!”
Wouldn’t you know those monsters shrunk to the size of jellybeans and were quickly caught inside a mason jar that was thrown to Palindorm, King of the Sea. From there, both monsters were banished to the Other Words of Shadow and Loneliness forevermore.
Story Inspired by Mindlovemisery Menagerie and “First Line Fridays”
Image thanks to Annie Spratt on Unsplash
We both have ten toes, two eyes
a mouth
My mind gathers slips of paper
from the past and future.
Courage is located near my toes
Voice isn’t stored in my lungs, but
My eyes.
You and I know pain
Battle scars are galleries
What is your Name?
Today I learned about a renown Tibetan poet, Milarepa (1052 – 1135 CE) through my friends at Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie. Milarepa was known for his wisdom and songs. The challenge was to read part of a song written by the Tibetan poet, then write a haiku in response. Here is part of his poem:
Faith is the firm foundation of my house,
Diligence forms the high walls,
Meditation makes the huge bricks,
And Wisdom is the great corner-stone.
With these four things I build my castle,
And it will last as long as the Truth eternal!
Your worldly houses are delusions,
Mere prisons for the demons,
And so I would abandon and desert them© Milarepa
Here is my response to the challenge:
I erase each verse
Pleading for inspiration
Wisdom whispers, “Om”
Snaking a toilet
Unclogging the “snot” makes everything flush much faster
Cheap plastic poncho
Soggy pages will eventually dry into memories never forgotten
Psychotic black and white cat
Turning to “cardboard” won’t keep the medicine away
Poem is dedicated to my husband and inspired by a prompt over at Imaginary Garden with Real Toads.
It’s rainy today and perhaps that is why my bones ache. No work because it is near the end of the quarter at the high school. I think it’s a perfect day for robins, gardens, sleeping and poetry. Today I am linking up with Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, one of my favorite sites to find poems by the blogging community.
When you see me sitting quietly,
Like a sack left on the shelf,
Don’t think I need your chattering.
I’m listening to myself.
Hold! Stop! Don’t pity me!
Hold! Stop your sympathy!
Understanding if you got it,
Otherwise I’ll do without it!
When my bones are stiff and aching,
And my feet won’t climb the stair,
I will only ask one favor:
Don’t bring me no rocking chair.
When you see me walking, stumbling,
Don’t study and get it wrong.
‘Cause tired don’t mean lazy
And every goodbye ain’t gone.
I’m the same person I was back then,
A little less hair, a little less chin,
A lot less lungs and much less wind.
But ain’t I lucky I can still breathe in.
