Slice of Life (Day 31): Celebrating Losing

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

Yesterday was Quidditch Tournament Day at our school, and my sixth grade classroom team — the valiant Blue Barbarians — just barely lost the 2017 championship. Just barely, by just a few points. That fact that it was so close, particularly given the athletic talent of the team that won, was cause of some celebration at the end of the long day of playing in our Quidditch Tournament. The last game — which featured our team versus the team that eventually won before an audience of a few hundred students, staff and family members — was right down to the wire. Every player was giving it their all with teamwork and hustle and positive energy.

What more could you ask for?

At night, we teachers came together as Pink Fury, and we played our sixth graders in our own Students vs. Teachers Quidditch match, and boy, I am tired and sore today. We didn’t win, either. In fact, the students beat us pretty thoroughly, but it was a great time, and fun to interact with them outside of the academic classroom.

The problem is that each year, we, the teaching staff, get a bit older — and slower, and more likely to tire out quickly — while our sixth graders each year stay the same age, like Peter Pan on the athletic gym floor. And with nearly 65 students signed up, they kept coming at us with fresh legs and arms. Eighty minutes of running, jumping, defending, throwing. You don’t realize how long 80 minutes is until you are in constant motion for nearly all of it.

It’s a long time.

Still, they won, fair and square, and we teachers then had our own little celebration at a nearby “establishment.”

Pink Fury Quidditch Team

Peace (in the air),
Kevin

PS — Our Quidditch game is now in its 18th year, and is played in our gym. We call it “literation in motion” and connect writing, reading, art, music and dance to our Quidditch season.

Slice of Life (Day 30): Making Quidditch Animations

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

We do all sorts of celebrating for our school’s Quidditch season, which comes to a close TODAY with a day-long tournament for our sixth graders and then a students vs. teachers match this evening. I am tired just thinking about it. But it will be a lot of fun. Noisy fun. Exhausting fun. You get the idea.

Among the many classroom activities surrounding Quidditch, which includes various writing pieces such as diagramming plays and using expository writing to explain the plays, I show my students the basics of stopmotion animation using a site called ParaPara Animation (click the yellow wrench in the bottom right corner to get started). It’s simple to use, and a little quirky and a bit buggy, but the students love it. We had them making animations to celebrate Quidditch, and their teams.

Here are a few:













Peace (catch it),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 29): Let’s Hear it for the Kids

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

I am the teacher-advisor to our sixth grade Student Council, which is hosting a Spirit Week all this week at our school. Yesterday was Animal Appreciation Day, and the Student Council organized a “supply drive” for the regional animal shelter. By day’s end, the table in the back of my room was filled with supplies.

Shelter Drive

This picture is BEFORE three push-truck-loads of paper towels and other items arrived from the preschool through second grade wing of our school. The entire table is now overflowing. We have cat food, office supplies, paper towels and other items that the Dakin Humane Society has asked for help with. Some families also sent in checks and cash donations.

The sixth graders on the Student Council were so excited yesterday, as they went around collecting donations, and they have another project on tap today — a “mystery project” to have the entire school thank the non-teaching staff in our building for all they do. This includes bus drivers, custodians, nurses, cafeteria crew, and office staff. They wanted to show appreciation for folks who often are outside of the focus of thanks.

I love that.

Looking at the ever-growing pile of supplies for the animal shelter, I suddenly realized: I have at least one trip ahead of me to deliver the donations. And, I promised anyone who would listen (colleagues, wife, kids) that I WOULD not be coming home with a new dog or cat.

Promise.

Peace (please),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 28): Who Was Here

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

We had a bunch of friends and neighbors over last night to celebrate what seems to be an overflowing group of March birthdays (including one of my sons, whose birthday is today). We had food, drink and lots of conversations.

Here’s who was here:

  • One college professor of political science
  • One chiropractor
  • One financial bookkeeper for a retail toy store
  • One school administrator
  • One teacher (me!)
  • Three students (two high school/one middle school)
  • One independent filmmaker and film editor

It was a pleasant gathering for a Monday night.

Peace (in talk and more),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 27): Lifting Lines and Making Poems

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

I’ve been know to lift lines, to steal words from other people’s blog posts and write poems as comments, and leave the poem as a gift from a reader. I admit it. I am thief.

That’s what I was doing yesterday morning – lifting lines. I do it as an act of close reading, of paying attention, of remix. I do it to honor the writers, whom I hope won’t be offended when I wrangle a thought and remove it from context, in order to spin something new from their writing.  I do it, for myself, to write.

Yesterday’s line-lifted poems have now become today’s Slice. I hope you follow the links back to the original posts. Thank you to all the Slice of Life bloggers who didn’t know they were giving me paths to poems. Your thoughts became inadvertent inspiration for me as I rambled around the Slice of Life sharing.

(Note: see below for a podcast reading of the poems. The audio is part of an exploration of voice with another adventure altogether known as Networked Narratives.)

Slices aren’t always eaten,
they are nibbled,
chewed, discussed,
enjoyed, often with a side
of surprise, joy, and possibly
sadness and surely, compassion.
We train our microscope towards
a single small moment
in hopes it transforms into
a telescope of the larger human experience.
Go on, then.
Nibble away.

from http://www.teacherdance.org/2017/03/solc17-2631-slicing.html

You act out the poem,
as if you were dancing
inside the lines, as if
the iambic pentameter
was a rhythmic beat
for your feet, as if
the seats in the hall were all full
with an audience, instead
of just me, as I read, to you,
with your eyes closed,
watching the ghosts
of the past come alive
on the stage, too.

from http://tworeflectiveteachers.blogspot.com/2017/03/slice-26-0f-31-sol17-finally-ten.html

I hear the smile on your face,
a million soft melodies
of love, and as I tune myself
into harmony, we sit here, quiet,
the silence merely a resting point
between
the notes.

from — https://wheresthejoy.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/sisters/

She dug in her heels,
carved indentations in the dirt,
hands clenched on the rodeo rope
and no room for give,
while on the other side of the arena,
me, the bull, refused to be slack,
my horns pointed upward in exasperation
as she danced around me,
the crowd, holding its applause,
wondering how the standoff might end.

from — https://raisealithuman.wordpress.com/2017/03/25/let-me-count-the-reasons/

The real work lies in the weeks,
months and
years ahead;
It won’t be enough to stand
and watch,
to complain
and shout.
Armchair pundits can’t call the shots
on Monday morning.
Change happens between neighbors:
handshakes and discussions
on porches, shopping lines and
at mailboxes.
Change, happens, but slowly.

from — https://barbarasut.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/back-in-the-political-arena-today/

This slack-jawed teen,
stretched out with his headphones
and eyes closed,
ponders the world from above,
strapped into his seat, secure and safe,
never knowing that, for now,
the earth is forever in motion,
and not just spinning for him,
for gravity will yet pull him closer to us,
eventually, perhaps not without a fight,
even as his soundtrack plays to the audience
of one.

from — https://vanessaw2007.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/sounds-in-the-airplane/

Then came the retainer.
So I empty my pockets
and hand you my coins,
the last remains of a life’s fortune,
as you pull me in close,
and whisper a fortune’s worth
of words.

from https://schoolinspirations.wordpress.com/2017/03/26/metal-mouth-milestones-solc-26-of-31/

Here we are, living the writerly life,
building homes out of poems;
shacks, out of words;
fires, out of feelings.

Each day, every day,
we sharpen our thoughts,
pencil into the machine, the soft hum of gears
set in motion as we wander our imagination.

We live the writerly life,
for without these stories,
the walls would be barren,
and life, more lonely.

from http://couragedoesnotroar.blogspot.com/2017/03/day-26-first-rate-teachers-sol17.html?m=1

Finally, since we have been talking about Voice and Audio in the Networked Narratives course, I decided to record myself, reading the poems.  Nothing fancy here. Just me, reading.

Peace (in poems),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 26): A Neighborhood Gathers Together

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

This is one of those deja vu posts — every year in March, our neighborhood gathers for a Winter Blues pizza party/ Yankee Raffle event as a way to reconnect as Spring arrives.

Last night, more then 150 people came out for the event, and it was nice to see everyone again. We even helped an elderly neighbor, who has trouble walking, to the event, as a way to connect even the housebound to the community during the waning days of Winter. She was very grateful. I’ve written about the event most Marches for Slices of Life over the past ten years.

Poster: Mill River Flood

One of the items in the raffle immediately caught my eye.

It was a large, oversized, framed map of our part of the city, in the aftermath of the Mill River Flood. The year is 1874. The flood began when an upper reservoir broke, and a wave of water barreled down the Mill River, killing people and destroying mills and other buildings.

The Mill River flood is part of our neighborhood’s story (a few years ago, we established a plaque by the river, dedicated to those who died in the flood). Believe it or not, we still find shards of pottery and old glass in the river from the remains of the flood.  The map was intriguing because it was published in Harper’s Weekly magazine, apparently, and it shows the old railroad lines and mills.

We didn’t win the poster in the raffle, darn it, but my wife and I found out who can get us a copy.

Peace (history, present, future tense),
Kevin

PS — when my youngest son was 8, he made this video about our Leeds community. It was a project that he wanted to do, and we loved seeing his view of the neighborhood from his eyes.

#NetNarr: So This is What It Sounds Like


Union Lane flickr photo by Mark_Bellingham shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

Last week’s (or was it two week’s ago?) theme in the Networked Narratives was “writing with sound,” and participants were asked to record “found sounds” and then upload them for sharing, ideally at the Young Writers Project site. I had uploaded sounds of my guitar and guitar pick, my dog’s tail wagging and pouring coffee. The second task was to try to use other’s sound to create something new.

Here’s mine:

I used shared sounds from four different NetNarr folks: Geoff (voice, as he was tapping trees for sap), Rissa (walking), Masooch (tea and waffles) and Stryii (train station). Thank you, all.  The piano part I added myself, just to give a little something melodic under it all.

I mixed it all in Soundtrap, an online music recording platform.

It is a cohesive story? It is not. Not really. But I love how Geoff’s voice clip starts it, and then the walking among people leads to something cooking in the kitchen, and then the walking away from it all. So it works more as a collection of sounds than a solid story.

Peace (sounds like),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 25): Coyotes in the Distance

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

Duke heard it before I did. He stopped, frozen in motion. One paw was literally off the ground, and his head turned, sharp. The bristles on his back went up.

So I stopped, too, even though our early morning walk is often something I just want to get done with during the winter months. But he would not budge.

And then I heard it, too.

The high-pitched yelps of a single coyote off in the distance, followed by the cacophonous chorus of other coyotes joining in. Then, silence, before the single coyote began calling out again.

Duke was freaked out.

We’ve heard the coyotes before, in our early morning walks, and I knew they were outside the suburban neighborhood where we live. Likely, they were down by the river, where the woods brush up against people. The coyotes have been back for years now, as the regular signs on telephone poles asking if we’ve seen missing cats can testify. When people and nature butt heads, it is often the domesticated pets that pay the price.


Coyote Track flickr photo by mhawkins shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

“Come on. It’s OK. Let’s keep moving,” I whispered to Duke, and gently pulled on his leash. He turned, on my command and coaxing, rather reluctantly, and then kept on walking, a bit closer to by my side than usual. His head kept swiveling now and then, listening and wondering, and worrying.

But the morning had turned silent.

Peace (in nature),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 24): Doodling on the Brain

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

Maybe it is due to following Doodleaday this month, but I found myself noodling around during a meeting yesterday. Some people can listen more intently as they draw, but I don’t think that is always the case for me. I am better off taking written notes. Oh well.

Doodling

Peace (on the paper),
Kevin

Slice of Life (Day 23): Still Searching for Singer(wo)man

(This is for the Slice of Life challenge, hosted by Two Writing Teachers. We write all through March, every day, about the small moments in the larger perspective … or is that the larger perspective in the smaller moments? You write, too.)

A few weeks ago (wait .. that was Day Two), I sliced out how my yet-unnamed rock and roll band is searching for a new singer, and how we found someone we hoped might fit. Well, three weeks later — after three cancelled practices due to family conflicts, and then sickness among musicians, and then Blizzard Aftermath — we finally got to play some music again last night. It was good to pull out the saxophone and just jam for a few hours.

The singer, whom we invited for a second try-out, called in sick, but we decided that he probably was not the right fit for our band, due to style. He’s a full-out rocker — think Bad Company and Aerosmith — while we are more nuanced groove — think Otis Redding and Motown, with some ZZ Top thrown in. He was hinting in emails to us his own reservations about the fit.

So, we move back to Square One in our search for a singer. As I said when I first wrote about this, it’s not easy to find the right fit for a band, to find a person you can get along with and make great music with over the long haul.

We play covers and originals, and handing over a song you wrote to be sung by someone else you barely know is a fragile thing, one built on trust and collaboration. Things have to click if it is going to work. I’m not sure we completely clicked with the last singer. I think he wanted a band to back him up, not to be part of a band itself, if that makes sense.

We’re frustrated by how long it has taken us but determined to make it right, and get out there, gigging again. Until then, we’ll keep looking and keep on making music.

Peace (in power chords),
Kevin