Day Five – Distant Noises

Distant noises tell a story

motors hum to their private summer evening destinations

children squeal, perhaps running away so they won’t be ‘it’

tires crunch as cars and trucks stroll by on the gravel road

leaves peacefully dance as the air waltzes them back and forth

a basketball pounds the pavement, steady as a heartbeat.

The wind, still waltzing amongst the trees, treads lightly across my face.

I close my eyes with a new sense of calm and realize

this moment, like all the moments before it, is a gift of life.

When the sun seems to hide its face and the wind is angry,

when the distant noises tell different stories or are silent,

how easy it is to forget that each moment we’re given here is a gift.

 

My poem isn’t finished, at least I don’t think it is.

I’m almost finished reading Mitch Albom’s have a little faith and I’m glad I chose it as the first one to read from my summer reading list. It was a quick but thought provoking read. When I read the following part today I knew it would be a quote to share in my blog:

 

“I know what I believe. It’s in my soul. But I constantly tell our people: you should be convinced of the authenticity of what you have, but you must be also humble enough to say that we don’t know everything, we must accept that another person may believe something else.” (pg. 161)

 

 

Steps to Lasting Happiness

My students are experimenting with different genres, and I’m doing the same project they are. Today we talked about writing ‘how-to’ and ‘instructional’ pieces. I think I’d like this to become a top ten kind of thing, starting with 10 and working down to the one most important step. That means I’ll have to add four more steps, and reorder them all. I’m open to any and all suggestions!

Steps to Lasting Happiness

 1. Surround yourself with people you care about and people you know care about you.

 2. Find your passion in life and enthusiastically pursue it.

 3. Live with honesty and integrity.

 4. Play equally as hard as you work.

 5. Put yourself and your family first, but give to others as much as you can.

6. Make healthy living a top priority, being proactive rather than reactive to your health.

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life.” — John Lennon