May 3 – Penteli Mountain

by Marilea Rabasa

My son and I loved to fly kites when he was growing up in Virginia. The right kind of wind could propel his paper bird high and far, with us right on its tail giving it enough slack to keep it soaring in the air currents.

He’s a grown man now, but I remember a day twenty-five years ago when we were living in Athens, Greece. We were driving home from his friend Chris’ house. Chris lived on Penteli Mountain, one of my favorite haunts outside of Athens. From the crest of this hill on a clear day in winter you could see the whole bowl of Athens, with the smog hovering overhead, and even beyond. This was where the Brits came to celebrate Boxer Day every December 26. They hiked up more for the whiskey than the view, but that’s another story.

As we turned the corner, we saw the tail of a kite peeking out from under a pile of rubbish. We knew it was a kite tail because it had flags zigzagging down the string. Also, everyone came to fly kites on Penteli Mountain in December when the weather changed. This kite had lost its wind and lay abandoned in the field, its owners having no more use for it.

And so, our curiosity taking over, we stopped the car, got out, and went to investigate. Right away our curiosity turned into compassion and we wanted to breathe new life into this broken and tattered old kite. I never thought that something inanimate could come to life. But at this time in my life there was a dying in me that I knew I had to defeat or it would defeat me. My son was part of this tragedy, and somehow we knew that the road to healing could start with repairing this kite and watching it fly again. A dust-covered old TV pinning it down to the ground was holding the kite hostage. Its colorful tail saved it from certain death.

So we took the kite home and repaired it with glue and tape. We waited for a good day with just enough wind to try and fly it. The day finally came, a clear sunny day with a nice breeze. Together we took the kite back to the mountain and flew it. We watched it continue to rise and float in the air until all the string was used up. We ran with it as it leaped in the wind. It was flying like it was brand new – a miracle!

We didn’t let that kite go. We brought it down and carefully put it in the car. We knew we would probably never fly it again, but we couldn’t let go of something that had taught us such an eloquent lesson: I was sure from that day on that there are second chances for those who have the heart to reach for them.

Marilea is a retired teacher. Toward the end of her career, she earned her Master of Arts in Teaching. “This was a critical step on my life journey because it concentrated on reflective practice. Now I have time to reflect back on my life and put my stories down on paper. I look forward to sharing them with you.”

March 9 – The “Ring” of Death

by Patricia Roop Hollinger

The blinking red light on the answering machine was demanding to be listened to. “Aunt Pat, this is Matt. Call me as soon as possible.”

I knew there was yet another crisis in the life of my younger sister Elaine. In spite of being an American Airlines flight attendant, and LPN, and a Chiropractor she has battled with the demons of mental illness most of her life. In recent years the illness had won; thus leaving her without employment and living in subsidized housing.

As family members, we had each made our attempts to intervene when we feared she could possibly end her life. A semblance of health often restored for brief intervals.

I called Matt. “Aunt Pat, Mom was found dead in her shower today. I feel so guilty. I had taken a break from calling her daily recently.”

“And why might you have taken a break?” I asked. He knew the answer.

We all had taken breaks, for she heard TV’s that were not on, refrigerators running in the background, and breathing that hurt her ears.

My 99 year old mother was still sending her money. Believing and hoping that a cure could be found.

I knew this phone call was inevitable. I felt relief, sadness, and grief that a life so filled with promise and potential had ended so bereft and alone.

Flying to California was not an option.

My memorial was that of spending time with my 99 year old mother and older sister as we shared photos, stories, letters and the feelings of anger and love that her behaviours engendered in all of us.

I wrote her obituary for the local newspaper in Maryland; this is where she was Miss Francis Scott Key at her local high school.

Her children and former husband came together to clean out her apartment. Recalling numerous times when she “bolted” from their lives to unknown destinations and for unknown reasons, when her sense of humour had them rolling with laughter, when she slopped the hogs on the pig farm where they lived in Missouri, and when she climbed ladders to paint the farmhouse.

Last week her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean where her mind, body and soul are free at last.

Patricia is a retired, after 23 years, Chaplain/Pastoral Counsellor/Licensed Clinical Professional Counsellor from Brook Lane Health Services. She married her high school heartthrob in 2010 after the death of both of their spouses. She loves books, playing piano, singing, cats, and nature. Patricia is “still a farm girl at heart.”

February 13 – First Blood

by Caroline Ziel

“I ring the bell
So we can tell
The story of her passage”.

The incantation began.

Leelee was a thirteen year old young lady who had just started her “first blood”. Night was unfolding around us and our circle of women stood in the shadows of a cold Saturday evening. We had come to honor this passage. We were eleven women. Some of us had already passed into being crones. Others were still of childbearing age. She stood in our midst and we asked her: “Are you ready? Are you really ready?”

We wanted her to know in the cells of her being that monthly bleeding wasn’t just about cramps and tampons and the need for protected sex. It was about being fertile for all of life–it was about possiblities. One by one we reminded her who she was:

“Leelee, you are creative. Leelee, you are spunky. Leelee, you are helpful and kind and caring. You paint and dance with abandon.”

We wanted her to be firmly rooted in the splendid reality of who she is so that she can blossom into all that she can be.

l rang the bell again and asked her if she was ready to move into maidenhood. She said “yes” and her grandmother walked her out to prepare her for the passage.

Later, one by one, we asked her to remember: “Your body is an altar. Remember that it is sacred. How you live your life is an act of worship. Your words have power. Bring light into a world that sometimes seems dark. Be the light in your own world.”

We then made an arc for her to pass through. Our arms stretched across her and we joined hands, remembering pieces of our own journey into maidenhood, into womanhood, into cronehood.

Later that evening we pondered the importance of having community, of being community. It’s so easy to get lost in the demands of the day and to become isolated with life’s expectations. What Leelee helped us learn that night was not only that we need to honor our passages, but that we needed to continue to extend to each other the hand of remembering. We need to hold each other in the light and remember to be the light in our own lives. We need to remind ourselves that our own lives are sacred and to find a way to renew that awareness day by day.

Caroline has been a delighted member of SCN for three years, and a member of Writing Circle 6 for all of that time. She is a gardener, grandmother, and goddess centered woman who is grateful to have the support of this circle.

February 12 – Weaving Our Way Through Asperger’s Syndrome

by Margaret Stephenson

I try not to cry as I sit close to my son while he shivers and cries on the floor – he won’t let me hold him. In the room across the hall, my daughters continue with the archery class that he has been asked to leave. My heart hurts watching him feel so deeply about something he is incapable of at this point.

Braden wanted to try archery and I thought it would be a good way to add some balance to his computer time. Everyone is required to do an introductory class before enrolling – the coach said the class would be easy, as long as the kids can listen and focus. So, I figured, Braden is super at listening and focusing. No problem.

“Pick your bow, grab your arrows, pin up your target, put on your safety glove, find a finger grip, stand behind the blue line on two whistles, shoot your arrows on one whistle, pick up your arrows on three whistles,” says the coach. “If you cross the red line before you have heard three whistles, I will yell and pull you back by your shirt because this is a dangerous sport.”

We all listen. I watch Braden out of the corner of my eye. I see the signs. Covering his eyes with his hair, looking down, shifting around, complaining about the fit of his glove, not being able to put on his finger grip. I repeat the directions to him, slowly and calmly. He listens to me, but the coach says, “No mom – you can’t help him. He has to do it by himself. He needs to pay attention, stop being silly.”

He’s never silly, I think to myself.

“How old is he – isn’t he eight? An eight year old can do this,” the coach says.

“Watch what I’m doing and copy me,” I whisper to him. I know how much he wants this.

He says, “I can’t do it. The glove hurts. Where do I go. I don’t know what to do.”

I’m getting worried, his voice is getting higher – do I just quit now or do I let him keep trying? Will I be giving up on him if I suggest we just sit and watch the girls? I know he will freak out if I say we need to quit now. Sometimes there’s very little time between happily focused and overwhelm.

His body melts onto the archery room floor and the teacher barks that he is no longer welcome in the class.

He has Asperger’s Syndrome and I’m learning more each day about how to help him. He’s smart and capable of so many things that I’m often caught off guard by the things he has trouble with. By getting away from the computer, I was hoping for more balance in his life, but I realize we’re not out of balance because he loves to play computer games – we’re out of balance because other things are so hard for him.

Margaret is a mom to three wonderful kids in Austin, TX. They have been unschooling for six years and find it still so interesting and exciting that she has decided to to put her passion for alternative education together with her love of writing in a blog that she hopes “people will learn from and enjoy.”

January 21 – A Daughter, Sand Angels, and the Sun

by Tania Pryputniewicz

I woke curmudgeonly grumpy from a tangle of blankets, one son’s knees grazing my spine, husband and Husky hugging the far wall. At my feet, my middle son. Parallel to the bed on the floor, my twelve year old daughter, hair smothered by pillows as I turned off the alarm. Transplanted from northern to southern California, I should have been overjoyed after three years of two-city living without my husband to be reunited under one roof.

But I’d acquired a hyper-vigilance due to raising our children alone–a “too-little-to-go-around” self whose reaction to any sentence starting with, “Mom” opened with, “What?…can’t you see I’m….” x, y, z. My daughter, with infinite patience last year, drew note after note decorated with rainbow letters, “Can I come down for tea with you tonight?” Fatigued, as hard as I tried, I felt locked in internal sorrow, afraid I’d never rise above our circumstances to be larger of heart.

I feel my shortcomings as a mom most intensely in relation to my daughter. Because we are both firstborns? Female? Because her brothers’ needs seem easier? I only know I’m more conflicted with her. And she has no qualms about letting me know how I’ve failed her. Which took me to some dark places last year (given the struggle to raise the children, work, hold down the fort, and stave off the ever present poet’s dream of writing a poem worthy of eternity).

But even as we wrangled, I understood the only way was “through”–not over, not around, not under, but through. The sun would rise; I’d try again. Some nights we had tea; others I deferred to stacks of student papers, dishes, or her brothers, especially during the month the littlest broke his elbow and needed surgery.

We’ve only been in the new city for two weeks, but my shoulders have dropped several inches now that two adults absorb the field of the kids’ needs. The one place that soothes all of us remains the ocean, mercifully close by here as it was up north, so instinctively, we keep the ritual.

Within moments, I’m photographing patterns–the retreating waves make sand angels below each beached pebble everywhere I look. My girl comes abreast of me and delights in the find. My husband salvages a purple bucket and one tiny green plastic soldier; the boys catapult down the sand dunes. The Husky runs leashless in wide arcs, nipping at the waves.

Dusk finds my daughter and I walking together. She’s willowy, lovely, inching towards adolescence. Hard to believe soon she’ll yearn less and less for my attention. I ask her to stop long enough for a double self-portrait. Finally, we get it right, shoulder to shoulder, positioning the setting sun so it crowns half of her face. We found that when you tilt just far enough apart, the light of the sun breaks into a gold-red fan of spokes across both faces like a blessing.

Tania lives in southern California with her husband, three children, husky, and two disoriented housecats still recovering from the move. A poet by night (MFA, Iowa Writers’ Workshop) and a writing teacher by day, she is heading into her second year of teaching Transformative Blogging for SCN (next class starts February 4th) and is writing a book for women bloggers.

January 15 – Kitchen Window Thoughts

by Laurinda Wheeler

This morning I caught myself, as I often do, staring out the kitchen window as I puttered my way around; washing dishes, putting things away and tidying the counters. My mind began to drift as I realized that what I was seeing is not my own, in many ways, nor is it what I wish to see.

I wish for the simpler times; simpler in ways that seem to justify the hard, back breaking, painful side that also fully encompassed that life. Worries and concerns that were, perhaps, life threatening, changing, but real. Work, a lot of it, that fostered true appreciation for what was had, held, cherished, consumed.

I think about how different, how special, beautiful and healthy this world could be if only things were just a little simpler, not to be confused with easier.

Later, as I walked down the street, a quick trip to the corner store, my mind was still challenging the world, weaving words together, thoughts I wanted to get out, when I began to take in the sounds of cars that were passing by; the whiiiirs of motors, the constant whispers, shelu, shelu, shelu, as tires tread through the muck of melting snow, the sudden blast of muffled music as a car speeds past.

And then, I was standing in the middle of an intersection, having been narrowly missed by a car that had mindlessly sped through the red light, as it came to a stop only two feet beside me.

The thoughts swirling around my mind cemented as truth.

The way that we are living should be different…

…it should be nothing like this!

Laurinda is a Stay at Home, Homeschooling Mom who is always trying to find time to write. She is also a contributor in SCN President, Pat LaPointe’s recent book, The Woman I’ve Become.

January 14 – A CALL FOR HELP

by Patricia Roop Hollinger

“God, I am not in the mood for a formal prayer, but I need HELP!” This was my plea as I lay in my bed while my left shoulder throbbed with pain.

This was the same throbbing pain I experienced in my right hip as a result of Lyme’s disease. Within the span of three months a perfectly formed and functional hip dissolved into “mush.” Using a walker had become my method for mobility. After yet another MRI the technician exclaimed, “I don’t know how you are even walking with a walker.” The pain was controlled with Vicodin. Hip replacement surgery was scheduled ASAP.

I wasn’t even able to consider having a shoulder replacement.

With 7 hungry cats weaving in and out of my legs as bacon was frying for breakfast there was a “knock, knock, knock” on the kitchen door. “Who would be knocking on our door at this hour?” I exclaimed.

With reluctance I opened the door. “Hi!” said the familiar voice of Tony. “I just wondered if you needed any help.” I threw my arms around him and exclaimed, “So, you received the prayer request!”

Tony was my “lawnmower, fix whatever” person. This was the first time he arrived without first receiving a phone call from me. The cats and the bacon had to wait.

“My shoulder is killing me, my husband is ill and the lawn needs mowing” I exclaimed frantically. “But….you must know that there are deer tick back here in the woods. Cover up, spray yourselves with DEET.”

“Butch has already had Lymes,” Tony said matter of factly. “Lost his sight in one eye. Would have the other if I hadn’t found a Lyme’s literate M.D. in Hanover, PA.”

“What’s his name, phone number, address?” I cried, as I ran for a paper and pencil.

As soon as I had the necessary information I called the M.D., made an appointment and was treated successfully with 6 months of antibiotics accompanied by supplements and probiotics. My pain subsided and I have had no ensuing symptoms of the dreaded Lyme’s Disease.

Most of my prayers have not been answered so dramatically, but no one can tell me divine intervention was not at work that day.

Patricia has been a Chaplain/Pastoral Counselor/Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor for 23 years at same hospital where once was a consumer. “Seeker of the “truth” which has set me free. Third marriage to high school heartthrob 2010 the best yet. Musician, voracious reader and hopeful writer. Cats a must.”

January 12 – One Rainy Day in the Life of a California School Teacher

by Lisa Rizzo

Standing in the doorway, I watch the rain pour down. The gutter has come loose again, and a waterfall gushes right outside my classroom door. If it weren’t for the eave overhead, I would be drenched now, completely at the mercy of the water forming puddles on the uneven concrete. I stand outside in the rain because 60 years ago when this school was built in Northern California, someone had the bright idea of long banks of classrooms joined by covered walkways exposed to the elements.

The door to my classroom has recently begun to stick a little when opening, and I know that this means the screws at the bottom of the door are coming loose. I am an expert because this has happened two times in the past. Soon the door will either refuse to open or close–whichever action comes at the moment when the screws give way. Then I will be forced to call the district maintenance guys again, and they will put wood putty in the holes and re-screw the door. This will solve the problem for a couple more years before the whole process will have to be repeated. Just like the gutter that streams waterfalls outside my door.

Last year the maintenance guys spent days welding the gutter seams together as if their puny efforts could hold against the pressure of water pushing against the steel. The welds held last winter when we got only 37% of our normal rainfall, but this year the rains have already fallen long and hard. Nature is winning.

Standing in the doorway, I can see that the enormous puddle in the middle of the courtyard is growing. In the 22 years I have taught at this school, after each storm the water pools. Long ago the drains filled with roots from the bottlebrush tree that grows there. Every year when the water rises, unwary students slosh through it–sometimes above their ankles–until they learn to find a detour around it. I tell them we call this Lake Rizzo.

This year the leaks in the walkway roof are getting worse and it is harder to pass from one hallway to another without getting wet–without a stray drop down the back of my neck or in my eye.

And it is all this that makes this day seem almost unbearable. I might find the pressures of trying to teach in a beleaguered public school system more tolerable if I could walk down the hallway or stand at the door to greet my students and stay dry.

Lisa Rizzo is the author of In the Poem the Ocean (Big Table Publishing). Her work has appeared in such journals as 13th Moon, Earth’s Daughters, Bellowing Ark and Calyx, as well as her blog Poet Teacher Seeks World. She won 1st prize in the 2012 BAPC Poetry Contest. By day she teaches middle school in Northern California.

December 30 – A Man Named “Cecil”

by Sherry Wachter

Today I learned that my plumber’s first name was actually “Cecil.” This was something of a surprise to me–when his white van pulled into our driveway–which it did on a couple of Very Bad Days–the man who fixed the pipes and stopped the water from pouring introduced himself as “Rob.” I suppose I could be pardoned for believing that “Rob” was actually his first name.

Not that it mattered much. Let’s face it: most of us associate plumbers with Very Bad Days–the day the toilet terminally backed up, the garbage disposal fell off the pipe, the valve under the house broke. I don’t think I’m alone in preferring to let days like that bury themselves under the sands of time. In my case, they left me with the satisfaction of knowing that the parts of my house that are supposed to stay dry are, and the deeply comforting knowledge that should a Very Bad Day come again, Plumber Rob would be there with me, mending pipes, replacing valves, and ensuring that I stayed warm, dry, and safely on my own city lot. It was good knowing that–comforting, like knowing that the car will start on cold mornings.

All that came to a screeching halt when one of Plumber Rob’s neighbors took a handgun and started shooting through the businesses windows into a roomful of people. There was a story behind it–the gunman believed that Plumber Rob had turned him in to the local authorities. I don’t know if the story was true–the same article that enlightened me to the real facts of Plumber Rob’s first name also quoted a young woman, one of Plumber Rob’s daughter’s friends, who insisted that he was a real American who wouldn’t “snitch” on anybody, but the real story lies in the very fact that she was there to tell it.

When the bullets started coming through the window, Plumber Rob pushed her down and threw his body over hers. He saved her life by doing exactly what he did for the rest of us in this town, being there when we needed him on the Very Bad Days, sleeves rolled up, scarred hands muddy, saving us from disaster.

He died, and his death reminds us all once again that we are defined not the moments grow not out of who we think we should aspire to be, but who we are. When the bullets began spraying through the window of Rob Carter Plumbing, there was no time for anyone to puzzle out what “should” be done. There was only time to act–instinctively, thoughtlessly. For Rob–Cecil–Carter, that instinct was to do the same quietly heroic thing he has been doing for decades, place himself between us and disaster. And in that action, in his last action, he showed the color of his soul. It was true blue.

Sherry Wachter lives in a small farm town in north central Oregon with her son Patrick, two formerly feral black cats, and the House Leroy. She has published two novels (one of which won the best of the best e-books award in 2009), a memoir, a collection of short stories, and several picture books.

December 29 – Remembering Michael

by Patricia Roop Hollinger

“Pat, Mike is dead” are the words that echoed through the mouthpiece of the phone when I picked it up May 3, 2009.

What is the best way to deliver the news that a mother’s son is dead? There is no best way. Mike’s father delivered the news the best way he was able, as his shock was just as real as was mine.

I prepared his Memorial Service. My role as ordained minister took charge. My husband was dying of cancer. There were just seconds and minutes to reflect and remember.

My gift to myself this holiday season was the gift of TIME and SILENCE to read words that Mike and I had written to each other over the years. To read his poetry written while coping with chronic pain. To truly KNOW and grasp the depth of his pain. He left me quite a legacy by writing down his thoughts and feelings. REMEMBERING Michael is now a part of my DNA and always will be.

Patricia Roop Hollinger: Chaplain/Pastoral Counselor/Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor for 23 years at same hospital where once was a consumer. Seeker of the “truth” which has set me free. Third marriage to high school heartthrob 2010 the best yet. Musician, voracious reader and hopeful writer. Cats a must.