For The Record

dressup

 

For the record, she is fierce, even if she is in fluffy skirts and fleecy socks and every color of barrette holding on to dear life in her hair.

For the record, she is loving, even if she screams at her baby brother, narrows her eyes to daggers when she doesn’t get her way, and pushes every one of her mother’s buttons till something gives and tantrums fly.

For the record, she is smart, even if she cannot quite “do numbers” the way some of her classmates can and even if her words tend to come out upside down and sideways and in the wrong order and all too often not quite on the topic.

For the record, she has lots to say, even if she shrugs an “I don’t know” or grunts a precocious “whatever” because explaining feels too hard and some words hide and narrative does not form the way she senses that it ought to.

For the record, she is funny, even if she may not laugh at some jokes other people say, because she doesn’t get the puns and is still out to lunch on idioms and doesn’t quite see humor in confusing riddles.

For the record, she is thoughtful, even if she often acts before she seems to think (because she cannot always get the thought in time to matter), and reacts as if she doesn’t care (when she if fact cares more than many).

For the record, she is brave, and utterly indomitable. She works harder than most realize and deals with more frustration than is reasonable. And yet, she does still try. She may do so in frowns and pouts and at times even in ways that appear less than fully loveable. But she has no bone in her that isn’t kind. Just all too many that are over-tender.

For the record, she is a handful and a heart-full. She is bubbling with spirit and wriggling with life. She’d keep you on your toes, but oh boy would you earn a good dance for it! For a little body, she packs some serious soul punch.  She is fabulous personified. A guaranteed-to-wake-you-up-in-the-morning child.

 

 

For The Daily Post

Imagine

This brand new, amazing rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” is salve on humanity’s self-inflicted wounds of separation. It is a celebration of tone, tune, and the powers of creative resonance and connection that make humanity so incredibly precious and so vulnerably strong.

We can all make choices: To connect or turn away, to embrace or spurn, to accept what makes us into a tapestry of humanity … or to force false borders and invent pseudo-hierarchies of power or worth.

We can weave patterns of light or dig trenches of fear. We can live harmony or feed chaos.

This much I know: Humanity’s beauty is in its humaneness. In all forms of Kind.

 

For The Daily Post

English: Tough Enough?

Bel Air Library Baltimore

 

English …

The impossible nuance of words that do not follow through

And rules that leave one without clue

Enough to grow a frown on many brow

As they doggedly attempt to plough

A minefield of delivery so rough

It leaves them justifiably gruff …

 

This video never fails to make me … laugh!

 

Butterflies

butterflies-photographer unknown

 

She had butterflies in her tummy. Her heart was in her throat. Jitters like little worry critters jumbled through her thoughts. She felt apprehensive, anxious, wary, shaky. Her feet felt twitchy, her hands clammy. She was timorous and nervy.

Not quite frightened. Not quite sorry. Hyper with a smidge of happy and a sprinkling of uneasy.

She was both hungry and queasy. She kept fretting. She felt trembly.

Recital day in all its glory.

 

 

For The Daily Post

Think Deeply

 

Think deeply about life.

Hold people closely, gently, in your heart.

Think deeply of the things that nourish:

Care and hope, compassion, truth, light.

Think deeply about what you know

And what you still would like to find out knowledge of.

Think deeply of the seeds you plant

In your soul’s soil

In others’.

Think deeply of the past and all its lessons

Of the way it can shape future histories

Or repeat woe.

Think deeply of the power of both joy and sorrow

Of the choices that can lead to more of both

And which one matters more.

Think deeply of the path you walk

The roads you pave for children and their children’s children

For this Earth.

 

Think deeply of all this

And think beyond it

Yet above and through and in between all of this

Thinking

Breathe in light

Breathe out hope

Offer comfort

Cultivate love.

by Buddha doodles

By Buddha Doodles

 

For The Daily Post

 

A Beauty In Numbers

Each multitude

Is made of individuals.

Each crucial

Together forming

Something

More than

Any sum.

starling-flocks-murmuration-04

 

Abundance of blues. Photo by Yuri Okhlopkov

Abundance of blues (Photo by Yuri Okhlopkov)

 

 

school of fish

School of Fish (Photo Credit Unknown)

 

Flamingos. Alex Shar

Flamingos (Photo: Alex Shar)

Twister Photo by Norbert Probst

Sheep in line--Photo credit unknown

Sheep in Line (Photo Credit Unknown)

 

Even …

Decked Out Ducks. Photo-Boston Magazine

Decked-out Ducks (Photo: Boston Magazine)

For The Daily Post

In The Vivid Light I See

photo-by-kristin-manson-on-flickr

Photo: Kristin Manson

And in the vivid light

I see

People divided

Anger, glee.

As in the storms of

Right or wrong

The spaces in between

Are shorn.

Confusion swirls

Known facts to eddies.

Certitude dyes

Friends into enemies.

I see the children’s eyes

Bewildered

As lessons taught to them

Turn riddles:

“Be kind” but watch the adults bully.

“Be calm” but let grown-ups live cruelly.

“Be patient” yet role models tantrum.

“Don’t fight” as those who said

Not to

Attack, throw barbs, play foul

Speak awful.

Their little foreheads crease

With frowns

Which do they follow:

Said, or done?

And

In their vivid light

Do see

The path glows clear

A road to be.

Past time to wash away

The livid rage

Recall the lessons

Of their age:

Hold space to listen

Pace to learn

Revisit patience

Drop hate

Stop spurn.

 

 

For The Daily Post

How Will I Know?

girlchem

“How will I know?” the girl hung spectacled green eyes on me. Teeth aglitter with pastel-colored braces bit her lower lip. “What if I wait till it’s too late?”

It was decision time for Summer Camp and she was fretting.

Should she go to the same camp she’d gone to twice already, the camp her cousin goes to, and where several of her classmates will be? She loved it there. It was familiar. It was only three hours away from home. There was a lake and zip-lines and horseback riding. She was going to choose her best friend from last summer as a bunk-mate. It felt like another home.

Or … should she go to the other camp … the one she’d heard of last year but by then already had no openings? The science camp sounded like everything she’d ever want … but now the choice – and possible consequences – became real. That camp was half-way across the continent. It was on a campus, not in a forest. There’d be no one there she knows.

“My friends say I’m crazy because who wants school when there’s finally no school,” she sighed. Her finger twirled the edge of an auburn lock. Twist, hold, release; twist, hold, release. I thought of how the movement mirrored her dilemma … To hold on or to let go, to keep close or to let loose.

A difficult concept at any age, let alone at eleven.

“Hmm …” I noted. It wasn’t my input this child needed, just my ear.

“It’s not like school!” she stressed, a bit defensively. “It’s interesting! Also, they have summer camp activities. A pool, and trips, even arts and crafts. … Well, the crafts are more like, robotics and such, but that’s still crafting stuff, isn’t it?”

I nodded.

She took a deeper breath. “And I like science … They have a whole week about space. We’ll even get to visit a real observatory!” Her eyes shone as if they were already reflecting several constellations, and she sat straighter. Then she sagged. “But I don’t know anyone.”

“Not yet,” I noted. “I gather this won’t last.”

The auburn curl twirled, corked, released. “Yeah … There were a lot of kids I didn’t know in the other camp, especially the first time. But …” the big green eyes widened as the core of doubt unmasked. “What if everyone there is, you know, dorks and nerds and such?”

My eyebrows rose, amused. “And if they are? …”

She frowned but then a pastel-braces grin appeared. “Well … then I’ll fit right in…”

womenscientist1

 

For The Daily Post