2. Rita wrote me a simple email after she read about my phone calls to get things straight with PERS and medical insurance and making appointments. She brought back to life the closing of a Li-Young Lee poem we used to work with a lot back in our team teaching days, whether with students or with faculty at conferences and workshops we used to attend. She brought back sweet memories to me and reminded me of the wisdom of the poem when she wrote:
These are the things that make life possible!
From joy to joy,
From wing to wing,
From blossom to blossom,
To sweet impossible blossom.
Maybe the meaning of this is private between Rita and me. In might be inarticulable. Doesn't matter. The lines sweetened the rest of my day.
3. The Deke's work at Robert Goddard French immersion school in Greenbelt is challenging in ways she has never experienced before in all her years working with children. She's working hard to work with the great differences between the situation at Robert Goddard and in her work in Eugene. The Deke, Molly, and I entered into deep conversation about it last night and figured nothing out. It's over our heads.
If you'd like to read the whole Li-Young Lee poem, here it is:
FROM BLOSSOMS
From blossoms comes
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
at the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
- Li-Young Lee
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