Collections

Matrioshka Dolls, or Russian nesting dolls, have long been one of my favorite things to collect. The ones with political figures on them are way to kitchy for me, but I love the traditional ones and some others.

I have several sets of them: a traditional black, red and orange one, a little bit like the image on the left. I also have a winter scene doll and inside are small Christmas tree ornaments, instead of smaller dolls. I have a kind of cool Biblical one that has Mary with the infant Jesus as the biggest doll, then three gray-haired saint-like men in chausibles (the three persons of the Trinity? Joseph and some other saints? don't know). Then the last littlest object is a tiny little candle.

My favorite nesting dolls are the ones that tell stories. Here's one of Goldilocks and the three bears. I like the story-telling dolls because, I guess, of the teacher/storyteller in me. I want to use the dolls to tell a story. My favorite set (that I own) tells the story of the turnip. I love this story because it shows how important a role everyone in the family plays--from the littlest to the biggest.

A farmer grows a huge turnip. When it's finally ready to harvest, he goes to his field and tries to pull it up. It won't budge. So he asks his wife to help. It still won't budge. He asks his children to help. No good. He gets the dog to help, the cat to help, and still the turnip won't budge. It's only when he enlists the help of the mouse that he is able to pull up the turnip. Pop! Turnip soup!

The turnip story dolls show, as you might guess, the different people/animals who help to pull the turnip out, starting with the farmer, then the wife, then the kids, then the dog, the cat, and finally ends with the mouse (or a rat).

In one of my unpublished-but-I-have-high-hopes-for stories (a tall tale about a western cowdog named Lightning Lulu), I use an echo of the turnip story. Lulu can't pull the flooded chuck wagon out of the river by herself. She needs the help of the cow, the cat, and all of the other animals. Finally, working together, they rescue the wagon.

Folk arts, like matrioshka dolls, the Russian Easter eggs, quilts, Japanese fans, and even origami appeal to me because of the stories they share. Crazy quilts show a lifetime of little scraps of clothing that a family lived in. The memories enfolded in a sheet of paper or a painted egg or a piece of cloth tell the stories of our lives and help us understand ourselves and others.

An Awesome Children's Program

Dolly Parton is doing awesome work as "the book lady" with her Imagination Library, a program that donates free books to preschoolers on a monthly basis. I was so honored to have Gobble Gobble Crash chosen as one of their volumes. Here's a little article about her and the program.

Birds

Today I cleaned out the bird feeders. Yuck. They get pretty nasty after awhile. But it was a beautiful day for it. It feels so good to be out in the sunshine after being cooped up all winter. During the ice storm (in December) and the cold, snowy winter, it's refreshing to be able to keep the windows open, to breathe in the spring green air.

Everything is bursting into bloom right now. Tonight, my dog and son and I went for a walk, searching for goose nests. We found two, but one was abandoned (a pair of geese was close by, but it seemed odd that they'd let us get so close without causing more of a ruckus. Maybe it was the dog that scared them.Still, I'd think they'd at least honk at us). The other nest only had two eggs in it, and they didn't look healthy. They had blackish spots on them. One was cracked open, but no baby was nearby. Hopefully the groundskeepers haven't done anything to keep them from hatching. I love the geese.

I was never all that interested in birds until the last few years. When I was a teenager, I had a couple of not-so-great experiences with birds that sort of messed me up for awhile. I was taking care of the neighbor's parakeet, who I think was named Gordo. While I was changing the newspaper at the bottom of the cage, he got out. What happened next was awful. He was flying all around their living room (with a cathedral ceiling, so I couldn't get hold of him), and he kept crashing himself into the chimney and their big living room and dining room windows. It was awful. Finally, somehow (I don't remember how), I got him back in his cage. The poor thing must have been a wreck.

I also remember getting occasional birds in our chimney when I was growing up. Seems like once I had to help take care of getting him out. (By the way, a good tip is to throw a blanket over the bird, and then gently take him outdoors.)

But now I like birds. Some are cute and twittery (sparrows), others silently majestic (herons), still others colorful (cardinals and finches). Until I started watching and identifying the birds that came to our feeders, I never realized how many types of birds there were. I always thought most of those little birds as sparrows, but I've identified lots of others: nuthatch, titmouse, finch as well as two or three types of woodpeckers and many others.

So I've put out my thistle seed feeder (thanks to Shirley who got me started on that) and my regular feeder, and I'm soaking my other hummingbird feeder to clean it out.

I noticed on Amazon today that Kevin Henkes has a new book called, "Birds." Looks interesting.

Some Final Thoughts on Poetry Month

Today is the last day of April (seems hard to believe) and thus the end of poetry month. But I do hope to post some poems off and on as the weeks continue. And I hope you all will make poetry a part of your lives. One easy way to do that is to listen to a daily broadcast of the Writers' Almanac.

Posting poems (nearly) every day has been an interesting exercise for me. I'm often hesitant to show any of my work before many, many revisions, critiques by trusted friends, many more revisions, etc. So to publish my work, even on such an informal venue as a blog, feels risky to me. But I also benefited from doing so. Several of you helped me revise poems, which I always find helpful. Plus, I got encouragement along the way to keep at it. That always helps.

Being a writer is an odd life. On the one hand, I have to develop this super-tough skin to weather all sorts of rejections and attempt to stay positive so that I can continue working and writing new things. On the other hand, I have to stay vulnerable and sensitive to the emotions of others so that I can portray an authenticity in my writing as well as stay open to critique and edits. So it sometimes feels a bit strange. I'm usually reluctant to share any work until I feel it is "ready" because experience has taught me to wait. I wait because I can easily become discouraged about a project. Keeping that optimism is very important for maintaining motivation, that drive which keeps progress moving on a project that may never have a single reader, except for me. I dream one day of having a published collection of poetry, but poetry is a hard sell since very few people actually spend time reading it.

Anyway, enough rambling. For today, the last day of poetry month, I'll share one of my favorite poems:

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
by William Wordsworth

I WANDERED lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Well...

I should think of some big blow-out poetry fest to end the month, but sadly, I haven't even posted for a few days. Busy! So, since I have nothing else I can come up with quickly, let's have a throw-back to winter. Here goes:

Sled Ride

On a second-hand sled,
we speed over snowcapped mountains
soaring into snowfall.

We shout
the dips and turns,
this way and that
on our winter roller coaster.

Touching down in one
powdery poof,
a snow pile explodes
around us.

We climb off,
wet, laughing,
grinning with cold teeth.

Eagle Cam

My writer friend Marcia told me about this website. It's a live-streaming camera of an eagle's nest in British Columbia. Super, super cool!

Today's poem: Seed Packet

Seed Packet

Tiny seeds
cosied together
in a bundle
of life.