And maybe
that's the same thing
that happened with
Mr. Robert Frost.
Maybe he was just
making pictures with words
about the snowy woods
and the pasture--
and his teacher
typed them up
and they looked like poems
so people thought
they were poems.
                                                         from: Love That Dog 
                                                            by: Sharon Creech      
       Away from home in Spring is not my favorite place to be. I'm a little unmoored. My bluebell buds are ready to burst under my kitchen window. I'd like to hear them ring!
       But here I am in sunny South Florida! Don't be sad for me! So many flowers are blooming here that my senses can hardly take them all in!
 
Traveling South in Spring
 
                  I 
Dogwood-dotted mountainside--
dollops of whipped cream
on piled high
key-lime pie
sigh.
 
                   II
Kudzu-draped pines--
boas and stoles
tossed around
shoulders of
hemlock, spruce and fir.
sigh.
 
                   III
 
Silhouetted palm fronds
knocking against
melon, mango and peach-striped
sunset.
Waving welcome back.
sigh.
​                                                            --stay curious!

        Friday is Earth Day. William Shakespeare’s birthday is on Saturday. I wanted to write about both. When I explained my quandary to my genius daughter, she gave me my blog title. So now I have given myself the opportunity to connect the two.
       Here are the first four lines of that famous speech:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances
And one man in his time plays many parts,                                                                           As You Like It, Act II, Scene vii.
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/you-it-act-ii-scene-vii-all-worlds-stage for the rest.
        So it goes throughout our lives, each phase a mere seven years spent growing, learning, loving, protecting what is ours, seeking justice, achieving wisdom, reverting to a second childhood. I imagine myself not as a player like Shakespeare suggests, but as someone trying to discover and be true to my strongest beliefs.
       Most days, I find myself in those late-middle phases.
       Protecting what is mine has moved away from protecting my children (who are capably protecting themselves and theirs) to a bigger stage. Our earth is hanging in the balance. It will take the effort of many thousands (millions or more?) people working together to find a good outcome. I tend my own garden. With my own compost, literal and figurative. With my own consciousness and deliberateness. With my own example (and words, for anyone who will listen).
       Seeking justice is a little trickier for me. I tend to shy away from protests, political rallies and large crowds in general. But the message that our world is in trouble and we need to do the work to fix it needs to be spread. Lots of brave souls are doing just that. I choose to support them.
       Achieving wisdom is also tricky. I spend time trying to decide if my thoughts are wise or just stubbornly mine. If my actions come from a place of genuine compassion or selfish pride. If my decisions reflect my desire to conserve resources responsibly, and promote good causes or if I'm climbing on someone else's bandwagon without much of my own thought.
       According to Shakespeare, I have lived past my seven phases of seven years each, before even reaching my last. Now I look forward to a looong time spent in that second childhood. After all, isn’t that one of the great purposes for grandchildren: giving us time to get on our hands and knees and play in the dirt again? This time around, with judgement and wisdom.
       Thanks, Bill (okay, William) for reminding me of how wonderful it is to be alive, how much work still needs to be done, and over all, as Polonius in Act I, scene iii of  Hamlet says, “to thine own self be true.”
                              Happy Earth Day!
                     Happy Birthday, Mr. Shakespeare!
​                                                                  --stay curious!

       Ramona thought vaguely of all the exciting things she would like to do—learn to twirl a lariat, play a musical saw, flip around and over bars in a gymnastic competition while crowds cheered.
            “Ramona, clean up your room!” Mrs. Quimby raised her voice.
                                                 from: Ramona Quimby, Age 8
                                                             by: Beverly Cleary
       My older sister and I shared a bedroom when we were growing up. The room was large and we each had our own closet. We each had drawers in the dresser, and we each had our own nightstand. My sister was (she still is) neat. I was not. My philosophy went something like this:

• Why should I hang up my dress, skirt, jacket... when I’ll just have to un-hang it the next time I want to wear it?
• It’s easier to match up a pair of socks when I can see all my choices.
• Whoever has so much extra time that they actually fold their underwear?

        I would rather read than clean up my room. I’d really rather do pretty much anything other than clean up my room. The mess never bothered me like it did my sister. One day I came home from school and I couldn’t get into my room. I was locked out. Complaining to my mom was useless. My sister got her “neat” from Mom.
       My sister and I learned how to negotiate and compromise and problem-solve. We “drew” a masking tape line right down the center of our room. My stuff wasn’t allowed on her side. I can’t remember what happened if something strayed. It probably involved paying her quarters or washing the dishes.
       When we were growing up we had a plan. My older sister and I would live right next door to each other. She’d clean my house and I’d cook all her meals. That didn’t work out so well. But 50 miles isn’t really *that* far.
       Beverly Cleary’s stories about Ramona and her big sister Beezus rang true for me. My sister knew everything. Her friends were cool.  She wore all the right clothes.
       Sometimes it was a pain being the little sister, though!
       Recently, when Mrs. Cleary was asked how she wrote about children so well, she answered that she's always thought like a kid — and she has very clear memories of her own childhood. "I'm just lucky," she told NPR in 2006. "I do have very clear memories of childhood. I find that many people don't, but I'm just very fortunate that I have that kind of memory." http://www.npr.org/2016/04/11/473558659/beverly-cleary-is-turning-100-but-she-has-always-thought-like-a-kid
       Happy 100th Birthday, Beverly Clearly. Thank you for helping me remember what it’s like to be a child.                                                                                                           --stay curious!
       

Penguin left Polar Bear his adventure map. He didn’t need it anymore. Because the best part of having an adventure is coming home!
                                                from: Penguin’s Big Adventure
                                                                  by: Salina Yoon

       My mom and dad liked to take day trips. We could do that in Northeastern Ohio where the Smucker’s factory and Thomas Edison’s homestead were only a couple of hours away. We went to Niagara Falls, the Apple Butter Festival in Burton and one of my favorites, the Natural History Museum. (The actual recipe for making a shrunken head was printed on the little sign under a display of actual shrunken heads. My adult self finds it hard to imagine why that was so fascinating!) But the point is this: we never ventured very far and that was okay.
       Some people and some families travel to exotic places. Some people and some families go to the same place every spring or summer. I know people and families who do this.
       I never acquired that wanderlust. I’m content to stay home. I enjoy watching my forsythia change from topaz flowers to emerald leaves. I like to imagine the worms turning my kitchen scraps into rich soil for tomato plants and lacy parsley and the chives that come back year after year. I’m happy in my backyard garden after a day of weeding and watering, waiting for the sun to go down on another quiet day.
       Lest this sounds a bit ho-hum, a bit of a yawner, a little (ahem) boring, I can tell you that I rarely get bored. I put a (figurative) feather in my cap when I locate the source of a robin's chirp outside my kitchen window. It’s pretty exciting when a hummingbird finds my feeder. I celebrate the bluebells poking out of the winter soil.
       Like Dorothy Gale, I believe “there is no place like home.” I’m glad I don’t need a tornado or a trip to Oz to convince me.                                                                                                                                                                             --stay curious!