I've been trying hard to clean out varied things from home, including books I can donate to the bookstore because I'm sure I'll never read them. They are enticing, but too many others are calling me, too.
This past week I've gone through all my teacher journals, yes, 25 of them! At the school where I taught, every student (and teachers), from the youngest to the oldest, kept field journals, incorporating field observations in words and sketches, along with book notes and writing drafts, etc., etc. I enjoyed the journey, but I cannot keep them all, though I kept a few, took a few pictures of pages, loved reading about the many, many trips my middle-school students and I took, the writing and reading we did, the wonderful fun we had. I removed the spirals when needed and took a box to be shredded. Yep, they're gone.
Here are a couple of pictures of how some pages looked. I had taped in lots of poems and kept a few, but I can find others I love, too. Those gone were chosen for certain reasons and now today, others call to me. I suspect you understand.
And then, again, more political fury arrived Monday night. Since 2016, things have felt uncertain, feel as if we cannot help enough. The list grows as you know, and this week, this Supreme Court leak. So amongst all the poems, I found this. One can interpret it any way one wishes but it seems to fit our oh-so-mixed-up world to me. (I searched the web for this poem and poet, but could not find it. And I have no idea from where it came.) But it's one I saved!
Blue Hum Ramble
Walking the grumby and humfallen sidewalks
along with my namby-panky neighborhood, I stummed
and fammled in my dringy, hamstruck brain
hows I didn't have a drim of an idea where
it was I was maundering and skilfing to.
Chris Bowman
