[L, diary, ephēmeris] 1) BLOG

"My Saturdays with the kids are totally exhausting, and equally exhilarating..." thus began a letter written three years ago and rediscovered today in a forgotten file.  "The days are always a roller-coaster of inspiration and disillusionment.  On the whole, rewarding enough to continue slogging my way though doubts but the doubts are there, too, too often."

Well, some things never change.  Still suffering through the slogging, then singing with the soaring.  Today's find is a song, the joyful music of unearthing missing stanzas of an unfinished composition...of poetry.  Poetry, the internal music of words whose instrument is a pen, scored in metaphor. Difficult for young minds to initially grasp, yet first efforts bring radiant light to older eyes laboring to open theirs. 

In August of 2018 A short blog post was made, about the Saturday Art students introduction to the book, LOVE THAT DOG, by Sharon Creech. Promises for more details, later, but...  Well, now is later...so finally, with the aid of today's discovery, here is the letter relating the spectrum of activities around the poetry project:

".....Yesterday, shoving down the disappointment I had the previous Saturday when introducing a truly great kid's book for poetry (LOVE THAT DOG), I plunged right back into it with them about the subject...and was given a glimmer of reward.    

     While asking them to just write a list of short sentences about what they love or hate, I'd encouraged Chay Chay (who does not know how to spell in either English or Bisaya) to draw pictures, instead.  Then realized he hadn't a clue how to illustrate MUSIC, his love is music and drawing, so pulled out a sheet of piano music for viewing musical symbols...Clair de Lune, it was. Then had the brilliant idea of letting them HEAR it on YouTube while underscoring notes with my finger as they were played.  The kids were impressed for varying lengths of time, one was gratifyingly focused until the end, rapt on the dance my finger was sketching of what we were hearing. The others wanted to hear another piano video, randomly choosing one played by a blind musician who CRIED while playing, his music moved him so much.  BIG eyes from the kids for that one, and I've no doubt they will never forget their introduction to classical music!

      At the end of the day, their ability to begin writing poetry became evident. Even if they did not yet realize it.  That is the beauty of that book's influence...LOVE THAT DOG.  Poetry is accessible.

     But there was another bonus yesterday...I'd downloaded a page with a wheel of words, segmented outward from the basic 'blah' words of  Happy, Sad, Fun, etc, into words of greater descriptive subtleties.  Resty Joy was impressed, said it was like a dictionary, which I then was able to define to her what a dictionary does as opposed to a Thesaurus. My aging Thesaurus was brought out and the two of us meandered delightfully through the synonyms. 'Walk' was one of them, so each new synonym--Stroll, Amble, Saunter, Strut--had to be acted out so they could see/understand the differences...the NUANCES.

     A whole world beyond their one-dimensional word-world of Walk visibly widened in that exercise.

The bonus?  One of the other girls, Jacen, writing at a table but listening to our discussion, inserted Strut into her first poem:

ONE THING I LIKE 

BY: JACEN 

One thing I like to dance and 

One thing I hate to walk and 

One thing I like to swimming and the last I like 

One thing I like to singing. 

EXAMPLE:
Boom te boom I like to boom
to dance and walk to strut
and I want to swimming the pool.

Marlene:

…the Classic boat people. What class—what an absolute treasure!! Woof! I'm so in love with them…loved the Japanese barrel boat, because it is quintessentially simple. When I wade through my pond in Michigan, pulling out seaweed and invasive plants and fixing aerator hoses, I long for a boat just like that. The variety of boats and the pride of the owners is so life affirming!

REPLY:

Today is the last day of the Boat show and, Yes, I have found great comfort in it, also. 

I want to be around people like these people who have such fine visions of belonging to a community that values the intrinsic beauty of lives lived around boats.  They SEE how caring for watercraft generates reverence to an ever-widening circle inclusive of ecology and community well-being. 

Yesterday's live video of their Friday Night Happy Hour inspired me to think about staying here, focusing on teaching small boat building skills, encouraging livelihood skills as well as awareness of maintaining a healthy marine environment.

Human skills, not machines, make and maintain boats.  It's an amazing realization, for me, why they are so significant to a sense of well-being.