paul revere's ride...the eighteenth of april in seventy-five

Another nod to National Poetry Month and now 249 years later...

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch

Of the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—

One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country-folk to be up and to arm....”

Paul Revere's ride occurred on the night of April 18, 1775, immediately before the first engagements of the American Revolutionary War. It has been commemorated in a range of cultural depictions, most notably Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1861 poem, “Paul Revere’s Ride", which has shaped popular memory of the event, despite its factual inaccuracies.

Longfellow was inspired to write the poem after visiting the Old North Church and climbing its tower on April 5, 1860. "Paul Revere's Ride" was published in the January 1861 issue of “The Atlantic” magazine. Just before its publication, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States and the American Civil War began on April 12, 1861. America’s Revolutionary war ended in 1783. Just 78 years had passed from the war that created the United States to the war that divided the United States. 

wednesdays word, wandering and wondering

 The word of the day is paradox.

Yesterday I wandered down to UD for my Zentangle class and this is one of the patterns we made. It's name is "Paradox." Why paradox, you wonder? Even though you see curves, the pattern is created with all straight lines. And therein lies the paradox. 

rock of ages

During the cold Illinois winters, my grandparents traveled in the Southwest and Mexico. My grandpa was a rock hound so instead of bringing back tchotchkes, he brought back rocks and grandma would take care of the souvenirs for the grandkids. When we went for our summer visits, my mom would bring some rocks home and put them in her gardens as embellishments. We moved every 2-3 years for my dad's job and every time the moving truck showed up for packing my dad would fuss, "Joan, do you think Sears wants to pay to move all these rocks?" She would smile and the rocks made it to our next home. 

A year after Mom moved into assisted living/memory care, it was time to sell her house. As my siblings and I cleaned out the house, my brother said, "We can't leave the rocks here.  They've been in the family a long time." The four of us divided up the rocks and now they adorn our gardens. Rocks of ages for three generations.

Yesterday was a beautiful spring day bordering on hot so of course it was time to have the windows down in the car and the radio playing loud. What song came on? "Rock of Ages" by Def Leppard. Ohhhh, rockin' down the highway...oops, wrong group!

That song took me back to the time we attended a funeral and "Rock of Ages" (the church version) was one of the songs the family chose for the service. The man behind me had a beautiful bass voice and was singing what would have been his part in a choir. It was a soul touching moment to send this rockstar of a lady to her final rest.

"There will always be rocks in the road ahead of us. They will be stumbling blocks or stepping stones; it all depends how you use them." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Just keep rockin' on.

monday's mulling: national poetry month

It's mid-April and I just remembered that it's National Poetry Month. 

Back in my teaching days, April was nearing the end of the school year and the students' minds were looking forward to their carefree summer rather than classroom instruction. To keep our 8th graders focused on curriculum, my co-Language Arts partner and I put together a poetry unit that focused on the next phase of their academic journey - high school. Poetry is a great way to promote creative thinking. It's subjective, unique to that person, and it gives students the opportunity to think outside the box. It's beneficial to reluctant readers and writers as the shorter form of writing may be more accessible to them. Poetry also allows students to see language in a new way. So many of their poems were about the uncertainty of going to high school. They were the "big kids" of middle school and in September they were starting their school year as the newbies in a new school of 2600 students.

The solar eclipse was one week ago today and if I were still teaching, it would be a safe bet that there would be a poetry unit on this celestial event. I came across this poem while reading about the eclipse in other states. Coincidentally, as in the poem, the eclipse in Ohio started about noon, too. 

🌙 

🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙 🌙

Seeing the Eclipse in Maine

BY ROBERT BLY (1997)

It started about noon.  On top of Mount Batte,   

We were all exclaiming.  Someone had a cardboard   

And a pin, and we all cried out when the sun   

Appeared in tiny form on the notebook cover.   

It was hard to believe.  The high school teacher   

We’d met called it a pinhole camera,   

People in the Renaissance loved to do that.   

And when the moon had passed partly through   

We saw on a rock underneath a fir tree,   

Dozens of crescents—made the same way—   

Thousands!  Even our straw hats produced   

A few as we moved them over the bare granite.   

We shared chocolate, and one man from Maine   

Told a joke.  Suns were everywhere—at our feet.

confetti!

Winter is over. The spring party has begun and Mother Nature's confetti lines the curbs and settles into the cracks, providing specks of color along the roads and sidewalks. Confetti! It's an Italian word meaning "small sweet" and it is a small sweet celebration to see the petals float off the trees, adding a bit of color to the grass and pavement, acting as a prelude to the coming blossoms.

the duality of doors

When you first think about it, doors may not carry much weight. They are upright slabs of some material that slow your progress in and out of buildings. But when you stop and think about the symbolism of your doors, what they mean, and what they mean to others, your door suddenly becomes so much more mysterious. 

Duality is the idea of contrast - there are two somethings that are in opposition with the other. Light and dark, left and right, up and down. Doors are a physical manifestation of the symbol of duality: they can be open or closed, an invitation or a barrier, locked and unlocked.

It is abandoning the old and embracing the new; an open door signifies welcome and invites discovery and investigation. The closed door is full of potential, for anything might lie beyond, as yet unknown and unseen. Yet the closed door may also be limiting, preventing us ever gaining access to its hidden contents. 

When one door is closed, don't you know, another is open. ~ Bob Marley

the friday feed: eclipse themed food

Solar glasses, playlists, beautiful weather...all we need now is a little food and drink to celebrate the eclipse.

The Boston Stoker, a local coffee shop advertised a Moon Pie latte and Eclipse iced tea. The latte was made with toasted marshmallow syrup, cupcake syrup, chocolate sauce, and topped with whipped cream and moon pie crumbles. Woah...a little too much  sugar for first thing in the morning and too much caffeine for an evening dessert. I opted for the Eclipse tea, black tea with toasted marshmallow syrup, black berry syrup, topped with whipped cream. I asked for half syrup and the flavor was out of this world!

Dorothy Lane Market is always stellar when it comes to food and celebrations and had a fun eclipse centered food exhibit. The Oberon Eclipse beer gives a nod to another planetary moon. Oberon is the outermost moon for the planet Uranus. A couple of cheeses, New Moon Goat Cheese and Midnight Moon, brighten taste buds with their heavenly taste. And flowers! Eclipse Moon carnations with their otherworldly light and dark shades of purple bring an aura of a powerful connection to the broader universal energy around us.