Author: kimhaynesjohnson

For five days each month and every day in April, I write with ethicalela.com in addition to writing with Slice of Life every Tuesday and every day in March. In fact, two years ago I kept on blogging every morning, and the last day of February 2023, I celebrated two full years of daily blogging. I’m also looking for more groups and would LOVE to have a calendar of writing groups so that I am better able to carve the time for more writing. If you have a calendar you’ve created, I’d love for someone to share it.

Today, we are writing Pile of Good Things poems after the mentor text shared by Stefani Boutelier, written by Amy Kay. You can read Stef’s prompt here. She’s an Associate Professor of Education at Aquinas College in Michigan, and she’s certified in all the tech tools of the trade, it seems. I first met Stef when I interviewed her for the Oklahoma State University Oral History Project as many of us shared poetry we’d written during the days of Covid. That project, led by Dr. Sarah Donovan, is available in OSU’s library, and the videos are deeply moving. From that project, our book Bridging the Distance was published, featuring the poems we shared in those interviews.

I didn’t meet Stef in person until November 2022, when we convened in Anaheim for the NCTE Convention and were part of a presentation group together. Everyone pitched in – Glenda wrote our proposal and rallied us to success in getting there, Margaret set up a dinner, Stef organized a time of writing with our group, and everyone worked on some part of making the time together magical, including teaming up to create prompts for the times we host during the coming year – Barb and Glenda did that! I still remember us trying to get the famous green couch moved out of the exhibit hall into a public place so that we could gather around it. While we weren’t able to use the green couch, we sat on the benches and the floor sharing sacred time together. Melanie Meehan from Slice of Life joined many of us. I remember Bryan Ripley Crandall strolling by and joining us for this time that I still consider one of the highlights of the trip – it was warm, intimate, and deeply moving. There were plenty of tears that morning as we were both sad to leave our friends and ready to get back home to our families with long flights or drives in between.

I’m celebrating all the writers in my life today, and the friendships that writing communities create. Whether I’ve met you or not, you may know me better than most of the friends who are part of my daily life. Thank you!

Today at the Open Write, Stef leads us through the process of creating a Pile of Good Things poem and uploading it to Canva to create a colorful graphic form of the poems, ready for sharing. Come write with us at www.ethicalela.com. Here is mine, written from Campsite 108 at F. D. Roosevelt State Park in Georgia:

Today I’m participating in both the Slice of Life Story Challenge and the March Open Write through http://www.ethicalela.com. Our host at the Open Write today is Dr. Stefani Boutelier, whose prompt guides us in using AI to write a poem. One of the things I fear most is the outsourcing of human creativity and intelligence, but Stefani’s fresh and open approach encourages us to learn alongside it and use it in our lives. You can read her full prompt here. I opened Chat GPT and gave the directions: write a poem about nymphs and goblins on a saltmarsh with green glass beads stolen from the moon. I was thinking about my favorite poem I shared yesterday – Overheard on a Saltmarsh by Harold Monro.

Here is the untitled poem “I” wrote today:

On a saltmarsh, where the mist does rise,
Nymphs dance and play under cloudy skies,
With green glass beads stolen from the moon,
They adorn themselves in a radiant boon.

Their laughter echoes through the night,
As they flit and flutter in their flight,
Their wings like gossamer, delicate and light,
Beneath the moon’s gentle, silver light.

But lurking there are goblins sly,
With glowing eyes and teeth awry,
They cackle and jeer at the nymphs’ delight,
And their mischief causes them much fright.

The nymphs know well to avoid their grasp,
For goblins are cunning and quick to clasp,
But sometimes, in their game of chase,
The goblins catch one in their embrace.

Then it’s up to the others to free their friend,
And the chase begins anew, without end,
Until the goblins tire and flee,
Leaving the nymphs to dance and be free.

So on that saltmarsh, where the moon does shine,
Nymphs and goblins play a game divine,
With green glass beads, a treasure stolen,
A tale that shall forever be spoken.

-written by my AI nymph and goblin friends posing as me, Kim Johnson

Yesterday was grooming day for our three boys.

You know those kids you see coming to class and think, “well…..here we go…..they couldn’t be absent just this once?”

Two of these dogs are those kids.

I went to pick them up and got pulled into the dreaded parent-teacher conference with the principal of the facility; one of my incorrigible boys can no longer stay in the same run with the others because he picked a fight that ended up in a kennel brawl. Another one lost all of his facial Schnauzer features – his signature brows and beard – because he had run through the brambles at home and the hair was too tangled to be saved. One came home looking like the Lorax and another like a junkyard dog. The lone angel, of course, looks like a fine specimen of his breed and minds his own business. He’s the best dog we’ve got, I tell my husband, as he covers the ears of the other two.

I can’t take ’em nowhere.

Can't Take 'Em Nowhere 

see these boys right here?
two kennel troublemakers~
can’t take ‘em nowhere!

'cept one's an angel~
"the baby" can do no wrong
minds his own business

they went for groomings-
what a complete disaster!
can’t take ‘em nowhere!

see this one right here?
he ran through the beggar lice,
lost his schnauzer face

had to shave him down
now he looks ridiculous
he don’t care one lick

see this one right here?
he started a kennel brawl
can’t take 'em nowhere

flashed a sharp-fanged tooth
issued aggressive death threats
- - - solitary cell- - - 

see this one right here?
he don’t never cause trouble
this perfect sweet soul

can’t take ‘em nowhere
‘cept home to the Funny Farm
with the rest of us

see these boys right here?
two kennel troublemakers~
can’t take ‘em nowhere!

Yet despite all their shenanigans, they’re our much-loved bad boys.

I set out in February planning my daily Slice of Life ideas for March thinking that some odd and offbeat product reviews would be fun – kind of like the kind you read on Amazon, but more comparative in nature and far more honest and down-home authentic. None of this questionable stuff from a “certified buyer” who has been labeled as such in an attempt to disguise the “paid reviewers.” As I was cleaning out the guest bathroom upstairs, I noticed that one of our family guests had left behind a bag of epsom salts, and that’s where the idea was seasoned.

That’s it, I thought. I’ll review bath salts.

I already had a half-full starter bag of Dr. Teal’s Calm Your Mind Soaking Solution, full of Ashwagandha and essential oils to comfort and destress my mind and help me relax my body, easing any aches and pains I might have. All I had to do was buy a few other varieties and begin taking baths….and taking notes. One of my goals this year is slowing my pace and relaxing – savoring moments – and so this seemed to be a logical action step toward that end.

Trouble is, I don’t like baths. I’ve never liked them. I run and hide faster than my dog when I hear bath water running, unless I have a muscle ache and need to soak- like the time I visited San Antonio last February and walked all day straight into soreness. I’d stopped at the mercantile on the way back to my VRBO and picked up a bag of straight epsom salts with no pampering aromatherapy additives.

Nevertheless, I placed the order for some additional bath salt varieties and began my quest to discover my favorite bath salt through sensory experiences. I decided to limit my product line to Dr. Teal’s for fair comparison.

Dr. Teal’s Calm Your Mind is a combination of pure epsom salt, Ahwagandha Indian Cherry, and orange and ylang ylang essential oils. I followed the directions – I ran a bath and poured two cups of salts under the running water. Soaking for 20 minutes was out of the question, though. I struggle to sit still for that long – which is part of what I’m working on as part of my self-improvement goal (I still have a little bit of the H in my Attention Deficit Disorder). I might have made it ten minutes at the most – I was bored out of my mind and got out while the water still had steam rising.

My next bath salt experiment was the Black Elderberry with Vitamin D and lemon and sage essential oils along with a superfruit complex. Again, I added two cups of salts and lasted ten minutes in the tub. I’m still working on pausing and enjoying a slower pace, but I honestly don’t know what to do in that tub that could possibly stretch out for 20 minutes.

Between these two varieties, my clear winner was Calm Your Mind. It relaxed me as much as anything possibly can, and it left both me and the bathroom smelling wonderful! It wasn’t too floral-y, but had more of the orange berry fruit scent and was refreshing and mind-clearing. I think the meditation logo on the cover of the bag influenced my favoring that variety. Black Elderberry smelled scrumptious, too, but I couldn’t overcome the desire to pop two pieces of bread into the toaster, slather them with butter and elderberry jelly, and dive straight into a late evening snack once I breathed in the delicious fragrance of elderberry.

I’ll add a few more salt varieties to the mix for more fragrant splashes of cleaned-up living this week. I’m interested in hearing about the varieties of bath additives that you enjoy as I work toward enjoying the health benefits of baths more often!