Category: Creativity

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November Open Write – Day 3

Fran Haley of North Carolina and I are hosting this week’s writing prompts at http://www.ethicalela.com for the November Open Write. You can read today’s prompt below or here on the website. We’d love to have you join us as we write and share!

Give Me This – an Ada Limon-inspired Poem

Our Host

Kim Johnson, Ed.D., lives on a farm in Williamson, Georgia, where she serves as District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools. She enjoys writing, reading, traveling, camping, sipping coffee from souvenir mugs, and spending time with her husband and three rescue schnoodles with literary names – Boo Radley (TKAM), Fitz (F. Scott Fitzgerald), and Ollie (Mary Oliver).  You can follow her blog, Common Threads: Patchwork Prose and Verse, at www.kimhaynesjohnson.com. 

Inspiration 

As part of Sarah Donovan’s Healing Kind book club, Fran Haley and I will be facilitating a discussion of The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon in April to celebrate National Poetry Month.  Preparing for these conversations led us to choose several of Limon’s poems this week as inspirations for topic, form, or title.  In Give Me This, Limon watches a groundhog steal her tomatoes and envies the freedom of this creature in the delights of rebellion.  

Process

Use Limon’s poem as a theme or topic, form, or title (or combination of these) to inspire your own Give Me This poem.  

Kim’s Poem

I’m using a moment I would love to re-live, a moment I did not want to pull away from, as my inspiration for today’s poem, and I’m choosing the Nonet form, in which each numbered line from 1-9, or from 9-1 has that many syllables on each.  I’m writing a nonet and a reverse nonet to form a concrete (shape) poem resembling a prairie dog’s hideout.  

Give Me Prairie Dogs

I didn’t want to leave our hotel~

prairie dogs were entertaining

me to no end, their antics

suspicious, unaware

of my watching them

skittering…. then

standing still….

seeking

ground

How 

could a

famous row

of graffiti’ed

buried Cadillacs

come close to competing

with Amarillo sunrise

prairie dogs in sheer merriment

of their Tru Hotel fenced-in playground?

Your turn.

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November’s Open Write – Day 1 of 5

Fran Haley and I are this week’s hosts of the November Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. Each month, this writing group gathers to write for five days. We rotate as hosts and participants, and we provide encouraging feedback to other writers. Come read and write some poetry with us! You can find the direct link here. You’ll meet fellow writers who become the kinds of friends who know you better than those you see in person.

Instructions on Being a Dragonfly – an Ada Limon-inspired Poem

Our Host

Kim Johnson, Ed.D., lives on a farm in Williamson, Georgia, where she serves as District Literacy Specialist for Pike County Schools. She enjoys writing, reading, traveling, camping, sipping coffee from souvenir mugs, and spending time with her husband and three rescue schnoodles with literary names – Boo Radley (TKAM), Fitz (F. Scott Fitzgerald), and Ollie (Mary Oliver).  You can follow her blog, Common Threads: Patchwork Prose and Verse, at www.kimhaynesjohnson.com. 

Inspiration 

As part of Sarah Donovan’s Healing Kind book club, Fran Haley and I will be facilitating a discussion of The Hurting Kind by Ada Limon in April to celebrate National Poetry Month.  Preparing for these conversations led us to choose several of Limon’s poems this week as inspirations of topic, form, or title.  In Instructions on Not Giving Up, Limon illustrates the glory of spring through an unfurling leaf as a tree takes on new greening after a harsh winter. 

Process

Use Limon’s poem as a theme or topic, form, or title (or combination of these) to inspire your own Instructions poem.  

Kim’s Poem

I’m reflecting on a moment I spent beside a lake watching dragonflies dart around chasing each other as my inspiration for today’s poem, borrowing a couple of starter lines from our U.S. Poet Laureate to drive my thinking about form.  The greening of Limon’s tree leaves and new growth reminded me of the color changing moltings that dragonflies undergo throughout their lives as they continuously evolve.  

Instructions on Becoming – By a Dragonfly

More than our enchantment of

children who would tie a

string around our tails

and fly us around like tethered balloons

It’s our upside-down flight 

More than our beauty for

those who study us and wear our image

on metal amulets as symbols of hope

It’s our mid-air shifts

More than our presence-promising prophecy

of dinner-rich fishing holes

It’s our multiple color-changing moltings

     that keep our gossamer wings shimmering

       our sunlit bodies glimmering

         as we keep on becoming 

dragonflies

Your turn.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

Over the past ten years, we’ve rescued three Schnoodles and given them all literary names. Boo Radley (To Kill a Mockingbird) was found behind the door of an empty duplex, abandoned by his former family when they moved out. Ollie (named for my favorite poet, Mary Oliver) was a young stray found on the streets of north Georgia. Fitz (short for F. Scott Fitzgerald) came to us following a badly broken leg (the x-ray looked like a candy cane snapped off at 12:00 of the hook) that the vets barely managed to save. He also had extensive road rash, leading us to believe that he may have been thrown from a moving car. He’s had a large cyst removed from his neck and had most of his rotting teeth extracted since he came to us, including his canines because of CUPS Disease. He also has cataracts, but he can still miraculously spot a lizard from a mile away. Fitz is the happiest little dog I’ve known in all my years.

Fitz is my soul dog – he sleeps right next to me, he has to be in my lap, and he invades my space right down to the air I breathe (he’s usually checking to see what I’ve most recently eaten when he gets in my face, being the little foodie he is). He likes to do what I do, so if I get up from writing to refill my coffee, he assumes the writer position in my chair in front of my computer. He heard it was NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), so here he is – working on his first novel. He’s going for those 50,000 words this month.

And oh, how I wish I knew his story.

F. Scott Fitzgerald,

our Schnoodle “Fitz” for short, works

on his current book

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A Tree’s Season

All the breathtaking charm of the autumn season stops me in my tracks sometimes and fills my heart with the feel of cozy togetherness and reprioritizes my focus on the simple things. The cool breeze, the warmth of a fire, the flicker of candles flavoring the air, the cinnamon and nutmeg spiciness I add to my morning coffee, the softness of the quilts piled one, then two, then three thick on our bed to bring all the hygge comforts, and even my favorite sherpa-lined slippers for scuffing about the house and for porch sitting.

I began taking pictures of a tree on our farm in September here in rural Georgia so I could see the changes over the time span of a month or so. It’s one of my favorite views from my seat on the front porch, a place of birdwatching and reading, of talking and sipping a cup of hot tea at the end of the day, of phone conversations and FaceTimes with children and grandchildren across the miles, of prayer and meditation, of writing.

I’ve always wondered what they would say “if these trees could talk,” and perhaps in this modern age of AI, even the trees will start communicating with us and each other. If they do, this is the tree that would someday tell my story better than any other tree of my middle-age years.

Please meet my faithful friend in these photographs. She reminds me that cleaning out, renewing, and regenerating in a new and different season is a blessing and a lovely way to grow. And that every season is one to celebrate.

Thanks for reading today! I’m raising a mug of hot apple cider to you and waving my scarf in knitted kinship!

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Our National Day on Writing in Pike County, Georgia

After our National Day on Writing event on October 20 on the Courthouse square, I wrote an article for our local newspaper and submitted it. The editor also wrote an article and merged the two pieces together. It appeared yesterday in the Pike County Journal-Reporter, and already we have growing interest in the newest writing group to form in our community – Writing Wild!

I’m so proud to live in a community where local writing groups and literary events thrive. There is now a new Facebook page to help publicize the events. Please follow and like the page – Writing Wild – and say hello! Better yet, come to the Open Mic Writing Out Loud event on December 5 at 1828 Coffee Company in Zebulon, Georgia!

We can’t wait to see you, online or in person!

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Goal Update for October

At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of November, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of October, here’s my goal reflection:

CategoryGoalsMy Progress
Literature



Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group


Send out Postcards


Blog Daily




I participated in the October book discussion with Sarah’s reading group for Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in the book discussion for Assessment 3.0 this month. Time for reading has been scarce lately, but Audible is a good way to try to keep up the pace when all I can do is multi-task.



I sent no postcards this month.

I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.

I had a Zoom meeting with Ruth Ayers of Choice Literacy about writing for her website. I look forward to spending some time writing about local literacy events.
Creativity

*Decorate for fall





*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I created a surprise ducking of our office. I used tiny ducks left over from my brother in law’s birthday ducking and put them to use in the office, even adding Halloween ducks to the lineup.

I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one. Update: I’m giving up on this goal.
SpiritualityTune in to church



Pray!



Keep OLW priority		We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.

My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.

I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Spend time tracking goals each month

I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement*Reach top of weight rangeThis is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back. I’m keeping this goal. I need to get on track. Tomorrow.
GratitudeDevote blog days to counting blessingsI begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well.
ExperienceEmbrace Slow Travel







Focus on the Outdoors


I’ve taken a trip in October to F D R State Park for a Little Guy Southern States Meet Up. We met people who have the same kind of camper we have, and we even signed up for next year’s meet up in Tennessee at Roan Mountain State Park. My brother and his fiancee came for a visit during Fall Break, and it was wonderful having some time together with them.

I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. We also built our own fire pit foundation for the fire pit my son gave us for Christmas last year.



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Project S’mores Pie

cool night for s’mores pie

after our chili supper

next to the campfire

family dinner

Sunday evening gathering

sharing old stories

new memories made

conversations under a

starry nighttime sky

Graham cracker crust with marshmallow and chocolate
Baked and then browned on top
Rich and sweet but everyone liked it
Dinner and dessert by the fire
We added Campfire Colors for a dazzling show!
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Autumn Walk

I had a meeting in our local coffee shop yesterday and treated myself to a Hex Latte while projecting next year’s budget and goals with a community partner. From inside, the vintage paned windows make the outside world look a little bit like a dripping realistic painting – the kind of windows that have candles and snowdrifts in the winter and don’t have 20/20 sharp focus. It’s like I’m in a world of my own in there.

I confess: I was.

I had a moment, looking across the town square, when a brilliant flash of fall colors caught my eye. “I’m walking this square when I leave here. I’m sharing these pictures with others – this Hallmark Movie charm this time of year is too beautiful to keep all to myself,” I decided, right then and there in the middle of a business meeting.

We finished. I walked along, thinking in Haiku, as I mostly do. Here is part of my walk that I’m sharing with you:

charming small town vibes

fall displays on courthouse square

spiced chills in crisp air

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Taking a Boon Canine for a Walk

Today’s host for our final day of the October Open Write is Anna Roseboro of Michigan, who inspires us to write Take a Word for a Walk poems. You can read her full prompt here, along with the poems of others and the responses to writers.

Anna writes: Take a word for a walk.  Students might choose a word from the class generated vocabulary list or from a list of concepts or abstract terms. Move this word through the poem so that it appears in each “X” position.  There can be six words in each line.  Use color, abstraction, or other poetic devices in your poem. Use this formation:

X – – – – –

– X- – – –

– -X- – –

– – – X – –

– – – – X –

– – – – – X

Master of the House, Doling Out the Charm, Ready with a Handshake and an Open Paw

Boon – blessing, benefit, favorable, friendly, chipper

Everybody’s boon companion – one convivial mister

Les Miserables boon lyrics loop de-loo

We have a boon canine: Boo,

who sleeps under the boon moon

awakening soon, our Boo boy boon