Always Room For One More

Rejoice with your family in the beautiful land of life! ~Albert Einstein

I love family.
And that is a good thing, because we have become a very big family.
I guess that is on my mind because
we have a nephew here who drove 14 hours just to hang out with us
And another nephew who is a Marine a couple of hours away who is coming up for dinner


How cool is that?
And we are watching football games this week with one of our sons and his wife
and our grandkids have been around as well

Being in our family is a very permanent thing.
Neither wind
nor rain
nor divorce decree
or any other freak of nature




can get you out of it.

And if you marry in to our family
or are in the family of someone who marries in to our family
You are all in
for keeps
and so are any kids you have....
Dogs you adopt....
Or stray cats you take in.

And we do all three of those things

Often.
Our family is about hugs
and saying I love you
and driving 14 hours just to hang out
Our family started with some people being brave about 100 years ago
and getting off a boat at Ellis Island
from Italy, Germany, Scotland and Ireland

They believed in family
And we are never going to let them down
and that's poetiquejustis

Educate me, please!

I am at a higher education conference this week.

It is not bad a conference- the intentions are good

It is educators educating educators about educating

We are up to our iPads in statistics and PowerPoints

And the secret language and handshakes of higher education

As I look around at the serious faces and try not to

get swamped in the data

I hear a lot of discussion going on about

how we decide whether or not we are doing a good job or not as educators

I feel like there is a voice missing

what is it...I cannot put my finger on it

Oh! I know!

Students!

There are not students here to tell us what we are doing right or wrong.

I want to talk to that kid that a bunch of PhD’s

just may not easily relate to

The student that dropped out of college

The one who was afraid to start college

The one who is struggling and we are not reaching

I want to talk to the military spouse

with four kids and husband who is deployed who is trying to complete her education

So.....

I suggested asking the students

After the awkward silence

I was told that they were not qualified to let us know

Now what do you say to that?

and that's poetiquejustis

Keeping the World in Stitches

All my scattering moments are taken up with my needle.
~Ellen Birdseye Wheaton, 1851

Yesterday, I read about a woman who has made random acts of kindness her hobby

She leaves $5 Starbucks cards at bus stops

Or chalks kind messages on the sidewalks of schools to make kids smile

Just little things like that

Now, when there are people out there trying to broker world peace,

that may not seem like much

But it is

Oh, yes it is.

I do cross stitch, so this is how I see it.

Each day is a piece of cloth with tiny little holes in it

One by one, you begin to fill up the holes with pieces of colorful kind acts

Where there was a hole in someone’s heart,

Now there is beauty

So look sharp, and thread your day

You are going to make a difference!

And that’s poetiquejustis

Resist!

We are what we believe we are C S Lewis

We were out and about the other night at a Newport Beach shopping center and there were a group of junior high kids roaming around

There must have been a hundred of them

OK…there were probably about ten,

but junior high kids can fill up a space.

They were loud and trying very hard to....be

It took me a minute to realize how they were making me feel

It was …impressed!

I actually liked the little critters!

These pre-adults who were trying so hard to be who they thought they were

You got to give them credit for that.

No one has drummed it in to them yet that we are sadly all about conformity.

Today, everywhere you turn, someone is going to try and tell you

who you are

or who you should be

or who they need you to be

Resist.

You do not have to be loud about it

Just...resist

and I will see YOU tomorrow

And that's poetiquejustis

Houses I Have Met Along the Way to Home

When we walked in to the empty House

it smiled at us

Not a jubilant smile…an easy one

A smile that came from within its walls

The House was built in 1936

It had lots of experience welcoming strangers

The House was very good at it

The wood floors felt solid beneath my feet

And why not?

It has withstood the test of time.

The pacing of a parent with a sick child....

The running feet of toddlers on Christmas Morning....

I looked out on to the front porch and saw through the eyes of the one who had lived there

A paper lying on the step?

"War Declared"

Did a man in uniform walk up those steps with his condolences ?

Sundays around the radio

FDR's Fireside Chats

The Jack Benny Show

George Burns and Gracie Allen

My hands move over the tiles in the kitchen

How many Christmas cookies were rolled out here?

How many pitchers of lemonade were stirred and brought

out to the back porch on a summer afternoon?

A little door in the wall….for the dairyman to leave the milk for the day

And then

I see the hands that wiped the counter one last time…

neatly fold the cloth…and walk out of the House

Carefully locking the door as she had for so many years,

knowing this time she would not come back

I too close and lock the door carefully

And wonder..... will I ever come back?

Perhaps. And if I do, will you come and roll out Christmas Cookies with me?

The House and I would like that.

And that's poetiquejustis

When I Was Four....

Why can't anyone stay in one place anymore?

Carole King

When I was four, I became an only child.

It was no one's fault

At least not mine

Dad was a Commander, and the Navy decided to ship us overseas

and our family as we knew it ceased to exist

Our house in Maryland... rented out

Our furniture - off to storage

Our dog went to a neighbor

My brothers, quite a bit older than I

were already mid- launch on their life trajectory

One to be an actor

The other to college

Growing up....they were moving off in to their own lives

And....well they just kept going

So

At the age of four, I became an only child.

Those were hard days…for all of us, I guess.

Scattered literally around the world

Hard to find a good memory there

Until today

I came across a patch of honeysuckle

Walking down the street and there it was

I had to stop

The honeysuckle…why did that make me feel...restored?

Oh!

We had a huge patch of honeysuckle at that house where we last all lived together as a family!

It was all along the fence in the backyard and I would make bouquets of those tiny yellow flowers

And my brothers taught me how

to sip the nectar!

I remember the honeysuckle….

And the rest fades away

Today, I wish you a honeysuckle memory of your own

And that’s poetiquejustis.