Special Time - One Night

The Tuesday Slice of Life is hosted by the Two Writing Teachers blog.  Go there to visit the other"slicers"! I'm looking forward to more great posts from Stacey, Tara, Dana, Betsy, Anna, and Elisabeth!

  Hurrah!  The Cybil's finalists will be announced on January 1st!  Watch for them!

            I believe I’ll do my reflecting from 2013 in small chunks, a bit at a time.  It’s been a long year with reflecting built in, so it’s not a good time for me to re-look again.  But-for this end-of-2013 post, I want to thank so many thoughtful commenters, friends, writers.  It was a wonder of a year in that part of my life.  I was able to attend the All-Write Conference in Indiana in June and meet so many with whom I had only an online connection, very special indeed to meet such a terrific group, and have 

lo-o-ng conversations.  Thanks Bonnie, Ramona, Robin, Katherine, Amy, Betsy, Elsie and to Ruth, Deb G. and Mary Helen for being such terrific welcomers!

            I also attended NCTE just a few weeks ago and found more people to meet and spend time with, like Stacey, Catherine and Gigi, and was also able to re-connect with some, like Bonnie and Ruth, although too brief.  Plus, I met others from the Monday Reading meme and from Poetry Friday.  Exciting to actually meet those I think I know, but only online.  It was especially wonderful to room with Tara, an immediate friend and teacher whom I admire so much.  We’ve said it before.  Wouldn’t it be fun for us all to teach together!

            Time for a big shout-out to Betsy for her wonderful poetic creation, the monthly “Chalk-A-Bration”.  I haven’t missed many, and it’s always fun to see what others ‘chalk-up’ for us.  Here’s mine for this end of 2013!

If you can’t read very well, here’s the text!

Betsy- cheers for end-of-year-fun

where you’re asking everyone

to gather all their creativity

and chalk rainbows of poetry!

              I had a wonderful Christmas week, with my son and family here all week, daughter and family dropping in or having everyone at their home some of the time.  The final night before my son, daughter-in-law and grandson left, we four went to our botanic gardens for their annual Blossoms of Light—awesome.  It was a milder than usual evening and incredible to see the numerous ways they lit the trees and shrubs, or created with lights in other ways.  We strolled through the dark, only lit by colorful sparkles, sometimes spotlights splashing our clothes and faces.   Most everyone was quiet, sometimes there was music, other times just the happy sounds of people laughing, ohing and ahing, or saying, ‘take a picture here!’. 

           We had to walk a few blocks because there were so many people, but another surprise happened afterwards on our way to the car.  I love this picture and hope you can see (imagine) what I see.  It is an old tree to the side of the sidewalk, and there as I looked, I saw the bear.  Can you see its head on the left, body poking out a little on the right?  I think a story could be crafted from this ‘found bear’.  Does she come out at night when everything is quiet?  Did the crowds keep her trapped during this holiday time? My imagination is running away!

I shared this quote Saturday, and want to share again, a favorite of mine.  From Rainer Maria Rilke: 

                 “And now, we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.”

Happy New Year Everyone!