flowers for the win

I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth“(Hamlet). I still blame COVID and its insidious roll into every aspect of life, but lately I’m not sure if that’s the root cause for my lack of mirth. There are days when I see one headline and I’m flattened by only six words. Those 50 Senators, that Russian despot, guns powered by young men, poverty and hunger and oppression mixed with ignorance and hopelessness while most of just want to escape to Margaritaville. This level of desperation is hard to hold on to and yet, it permeates many avenues running in and out of my view.

For this fleeting moment, I am reminded that there is another route. It is not too difficult to find, if you put down the newspaper and shut off the pundits. If you look up to the blue overheard and take that wide and wondrous expanse in. I invite you to stroll through my yard, to leave behind the world’s obscene pile of troubles for just a few minutes, and take a long look at perfection. Perhaps take this as an invitation to breath too.

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“My words fly up, my thoughts remain below: Words without thoughts never to heaven go” (Hamlet).

odyssey_mapNovels and plays populate my mind, rolling by in a continuous cycle, thanks to my being a literature teacher… All these words marinate, year after year as I teach the same texts, yet are born anew while I share them with my students. Through the years I have come to appreciate how these well-told tales sustain me and feed my passions and lead me to question life’s tribulations. As my students face these texts for the first time it only deepens my experience of them.

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