Thinking about Audience and Purpose

Sooooo...I haven't really been writing here lately.

I'm not sure why, but I haven't been doing a lot of "personal" writing at all (poetry, musings, rants).  I have continued to write about how education policy impacts practice on "Stories from School Arizona"  And for the most part, that's it.

Life has been so full of ups, downs, movings, growings, mowings and schemings that there has been little time (or motivation) on my part to try to process all of that here.

Lately I have been considering starting a blog of  activity ideas that I have been trying for my ELD classroom, sort of an exploratory thing crossed with linking/promoting products I have posted on Teachers Pay Teachers.

I have also been wanting to do a more fun project that has potential:  A blog called "Mesaco on University" featuring all the Mexican restaurants on University here in Mesa.  So many!  It would be SO much fun to write food reviews with my family.  We could even do a bit of vlogging.

Anyway, it's all a bit less idealistic.  But that's where I am right now.

Driving... Yes Driving... to Puerto Vallarta

Why on earth did we decide to drive almost 2400 miles to and from Puerto Vallarta this summer?  The answer isn't especially flattering.

The short version: Our kids had the passport cards, and my husband, mother and I all had full passports.  Because my mom started asking questions the night before we were scheduled to fly out, we figured out that the passport cards were not good for air travel, but only for land or sea travel.  This was the night before our flight was scheduled to leave.

Once we had the final answer from the Department of State and US Airways, within a few minutes my husband and mother proposed that we drive.  We had already paid for the condo and a couple of excursions. And thus the nature of our vacation shifted from a relaxing three hour flight to ten days in a tropical paradise into a thirteen day odyssey.

Yup. 2407 miles round trip. In the good old van.  You can see there is still a sock on the driver's side windshield wiper.  The other wiper had fallen off during a late spring thunderstorm in Mesa, and we had to stop in Mazatlan at Grease Monkey and get a replacement blade.  Just in case.  Turned out we didn't neet it.  I did get a new mystery dent on the drivers side sliding door.  Other than that, she held together.  And so did I, despite a raised level of anxiety caused by reading travel warnings about drug cartel crossfire, driving over terrible roads with no shoulders, and racing the clock to get where we were going by dark (following the advice of every single relative and blog we consulted as we hastily prepared for our journey).

Here is a map of our route, including stopping points there and back.  Stay tuned for further installments!

I gotta go to bed.

I gotta go to bed.  I gotta go to bed.

Sleep is best for stress, weight loss, mood.  Why is it so hard to stop adding to my lists?

I'd love to get back to writing.  I just bought a new Moleskine notebook.  We will see...

But for now, to bed.

Portal

An impossibly clear day 

Out of PDX

The black green growth

Cresting and falling below

Covers and softens 

A small lie floating

In the remnants of memory

Spinning in urgent currents

Of vast truths

The logged forest

Quilt patches 

Prickly as a shaved vulva

Stark and uncovered

Build the home where 

We live

Through a small portal

Darkly the land 

Swells by in

The bright sunshine.

The ancient craters,

Their peaks 

Flags of white

Let us pass.

All I Heard

All I Heard

What wild creature I must have seemed,

raised by searching souls

who eventually came home.

I wonder what Grandma wanted to say sometimes

to me, or later, my own slightly feral small creatures.

I don’t remember much sage advice.

All I heard was love.

I wonder, did she ever want to scold us

for not rinsing the fine beach sand from our feet?

I wonder, did she ever recommend that I comb my hair?

I would bet money that, inwardly,

she wanted to correct my posture.

But instead of corrective commentary,

all I remember her offering was love.

There must have been moments…

But either my grandmother was a perfection

of blackberry, canned peach, pinned-up hairdo,

boiled custard composure

(which is possible)

or I must be deaf and blind,

because all I ever heard from her

all I ever saw in her face,

all I ever sensed in her kisses,

was love.




Written and delivered in memory of my grandmother, Barbara Frances Dye Hinton, who passed away at the age of 90 on Monday, September 22, 2014. She was my last grandparent, and I was her oldest grandchild and only granddaughter. Although we lived far apart my entire life, her love and acceptance was a constant. I feel privileged to be part of a family where this kind of unconditional love and support is a given, and is lived out by each family member in our own way. No matter what troubles come, what insults are given or what lapses in contact happen, our family knows we love each other, and always will. Our grandparents and parents taught us that through their lives. I will miss you, Grandma.