After releasing Divine Nature sonnet 2.I last week, (which is about basking in the sun on the front porch in the winter-time), I practiced a bit of what I preached. More importantly though, I imposed my doctrine on a couple of my kiddos - one who was recovering from a stomach bug, and the other one who is skinny and is often worried about her bones [not seemingly] growing much, who later also got the stomach virus. Beyond that, since I’ve been working, you know, as the sonnet suggests, I haven’t gotten out in the sun much. Now, mind you [Sara], this is mostly true. I do get quite a bit of sunshine coming through my classroom window in the afternoons, and so I have gotten some sun but I haven't just sat and basked. Usually, I've been finishing up some work, or packing up in order to rush out to an afterschool meeting, to pick up my kids from their school, to home. And so, I don't really count that as basking in the sun. Perhaps I'll take a moment to do just that, though, in the afternoon next week, after the students have left.
Have you had an opportunity to bask in the sun this past week?
I have basked more in a different kind of sun this week - three suns, really. (I will call them suns, anyway.)
Three Suns
Firstly, is the sun of reading Bryan Stevenson's book Just Mercy, (the YA/young adult version, of course, because I don't have the attention span of an adult on most days, well, with over a hundred teenage students and then four teenagers at home, my attention is split in over a hundred different ways on a weekly basis). Anyhow, the book: I've had this book for over four years now, and haven't read it yet, and I just said to myself, “It's time.” And perhaps I'll talk about it as I finish up leading my students through MLK's Letter From Burmingham Jail next week. Or, perhaps I'll just take the time to enjoy it for myself. But, it's definitely had me dreaming again about making a trip to Montgomery, Alabama, sooner than later, and visiting The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the soon-opening Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. These memorial and monument projects were conceived by Stevenson in an effort to help America heal from the atrocities of Black slavery and injustice.
Another sun that I've been basking in and enjoying this week is the sun of Helena Sorensen's course "How to Write a Book in Your Spare Time (When You Have No Spare Time or Energy)". So far, I've watched the first lesson video and completed the supplemental therapeutic questions to ponder and process, and I must confess, when one (as in me, this one) takes the questions seriously, it's amazing how much stuff comes to the surface of my consciousness. It's been a great opportunity to sit and acknowledge the stuff that's going on on the inside of me and in my past, that has affected my current state of writing. I've seized the opportunity to also take these things to the heavenly father in prayer, and trust him to fill me and heal me in the places where I've been neglected or hurt.
The third sun that I've been basking in this week is the sun of trying to stay off my phone. My cousin Laura and I had a "conversation" on Facebook about phone/screen addiction, and then later I found this Substack article by J.E. Petersen which offers a strategy he calls the notebook rule, in which one writes down, in a notebook, the things one is going to do on the phone, before using the smartphone. I texted the article to Laura and we had more conversation around the topic, and I tried the strategy a couple times. I believe, along with my conversation with Laura, that it has helped and made me more conscious and purposeful about my smartphone/screen use. Little by little, I'm starting to feel alive again… like back in the days of landlines, when I knew my neighbors better, and other people in my town.
Sonnet 2.II - BTS
It almost snowed this past week, here, in our part of Georgia. We almost had a "snow day" on Tuesday. Aside from the fact that it would have been great to have another day off work/school, I would have just liked for Father Winter to dump a substantial amount of snow around here so that my kids can experience the joy of playing in snow. And not like the kind of play that comes with a typical Georgia snow, but like really playing in snow, with layers of clothes on, sledding down hills, building snow forts and snow people, and serious snowball fights.
Oh, how I do miss living in Indiana for this reason.
Since it doesn’t snow much here, though, and since we don’t celebrate Christmas and so don’t hang up Christmas decorations, the past couple of years I’ve been hanging snowflake decorations. I haven’t this year, but in previous years I’ve had my kids help me make paper snowflakes that we’ve taped onto the kitchen and living room windows. I may still do that, but this year, I’ve only hung my snowflake wreath on the door, and I bought a string of blue and white snowflake lights that I’ve hung beneath the front porch eave, close to the door.
I’ve begun to think of my snowflake decorations in two ways this year: one, as a way to conjure snowy and wintery weather from Father Winter; and two - less fantastical and not nearly as fun - as a way to remind myself that it is winter still and I don’t need to rush into Spring-like behavior. I can just relax and stay warm and incubate more, and let develop inside of me whatever needs to develop before breaking forth into resurrection in order to give out more of whatever life I need to give out. Anyhow, thus, the theme for my next sonnet, that is, Sonnet 2.II, will be snow, and the lack of it and the wish for it. And I don’t know what direction the sonnet is going in yet, but below are some developing thoughts from my notebook.
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