Seeds for Planting

I wore these seed earrings to the community garden today. I had planned to turn the soil once more before planting anything, but the cover drop remained buried and my gardening friends insisted that I should begin planting.

I set some rows of tiny beet seedlings that Martha had started under a grow light, then planted a couple of rows of romaine lettuce and carrots from her array of extra seeds.

To protect the beets from exposure, our master-gardener Linda provided a hoop frame and some fabric she calls remay which we clothes-pinned to the hoop.

My daughter Kathe made me these earrings long ago. I love the tiny blue-green beads she chose; their color seems to give life to the colorless kernals.

April? Could have fooled me!

I arose before dawn and a pair of tree earrings were already dangling from my ears when my husband John said, "Did you see the snow?" And it wasn't an April Fools trick. There was snow!

The snow cancelled any thought that Arbor Day posters would be my motivation today. I donned these icy crystals that I made one snow day, and headed down the drive.

The thermometer read 32 degrees Fahrenheit. Our home on top of the first foothill of the Blue Ridge is always 2 degrees colder than the foot of the hill. By the time I reached school, 15 miles away, it was spring.

April Fools!

Suddenly, my ice crystals were transformed into spring flowers. Everywhere I looked, blossoms were opening. The moist ground smelled of Spring.

A long, cold, soggy March

My mother used to joke that she controlled the weather. "If I carry an umbrella, it won't rain."

Today I wore my umbrella earrings, made by the amazing Fimo clay artist in north western Pennsylvania. Thanks to me and these umbrellas, there was a steady drizzle for most of the day, but no serious downpour. Not even during carpool this afternoon, a time when the skies often open and drench us all. After all, I control the weather.

Late this afternoon, when I went to take a quick photo in the misty outdoors, I realized that I'd be risking getting my camera damp while taking a lousy photograph. It's a drab, gray, soggy world out there. So I came back in and wandered about looking for a spot to shoot a photo.

I hung my earrings over my kitchen sink, from the elephant tile that I bought at an Amsterdam street market some 15 years ago on my first trip to Europe. Like an elephant, I love water. I find washing dishes therapeutic; I dream of summer when I will once again paddle my kayak upstream against the current; I joyfully raise my face toward the showerhead to greet each new day.

I love water. Just not cascading at dismissal time. Today I wore my umbrella earrings to keep my feet dry.

On to April! April showers bring... And me with no more umbrella earrings...

My Year of the Insect

Today pairs of 3rd graders shared the insect poems that they had studied and practiced reading aloud yesterday. Once again, the room buzzed with the boistrous excitement created by the images in Paul Fleischman's Joyful Noise. I wore one of my pairs of dragonfly earrings for the occasion.

For me, this has been the year of the dragonfly. Last summer, I researched dragonflies, sketched dragonflies, wrote poems and personal narratives and descriptions about dragonflies. On the first day of school, I asked my students to each choose an animal that they would like to be. "If I could be any animal," I told them, "I would become a dragonfly."

I have always wanted to be able to breathe underwater. When they are young, dragonflies live and breathe under water. I have always wanted to be able to fly and hover at will. When they metamorphose, dragonflies sprout wings and fly. In the summer, when I kayak on the Clarion River, dragonflies and damselflies are my companions.

Anyone who lives in my part of northern Virginia knows that there is a certain irony to celebrating insects this year. The brown marmorated stink bug (Halyomorpha halys), a species native to Asia, has invaded our homes by the thousands. We waste countless hours vacuuming and sweeping and drowning stinkbugs in a vain effort to rid ourselves of this pernicious pest.

Stinkbugs have volunteered for quite a few of my earring photos this year, but I've deleted those pictures.

Tonight, I just set the stage and waited patiently. Sure enough, attracted by light and heat, the stinkbugs plopped onto the page.

Today in class we celebrated grasshoppers, crickets, water striders, damselflies, book lice, and many of their kin. Tonight, I pluck stinkbugs from my chair and drop them into a cup of soapy water. I wonder whether any of my students will choose to write their own poems for two voices about stinkbugs...

A Joyful Noise

Today in 3rd grade we read poetry from Paul Fleischman's amazing book of poems for two voices, Joyful Noise. These poems are a stretch for 8 and 9 years olds, replete with rich vocabulary and complex themes describing the lives of insects from mayflies to book lice, moths to grasshoppers. Reading them requires cooperation as close as that of ice dancers, since some lines are read in unison, some separately. The most difficult passages are like spoken rounds, lines swirling around each other like insects in motion.

To prepare to read the poems aloud to their classmates, the children highlight lines, circle tricky words, practice and laugh and practice some more. The classroom fills with a joyful noise as a boy reads the part of the honeybee queen, his partner that of the worker bee; the mayfly pair discovers their insect flies for just one day to court and mate and lay their eggs; the water striders brag about their ability to walk on water.

In honor of this amazing poetry, I wore a pair of insect earrings, these enameled copper butterflies that I photographed on our butterfly bush. The bush and I are both anticipating that spring is surely just around the corner. Tomorrow's forecast calls for snow. Only copper butterflies frequent the bush these days.

Call of the Dolphin

Whenever I think back on my own high school and college years, I am amazed that I survived to become an adult. I hitchhiked alone all over Washington, D.C.; climbed sheer rock faces without a rope or a helmet; and rode in cars driven by friends who were not only drunk but still drinking-- to name just three ways my life could have been cut short. So many second chances came my way.

In the past ten years, as the mother of three adolescents, I have heard too many stories of teenagers who made a single mistake that changed their lives and those of their families forever. Some died, some survived but with life-altering injuries--because of car accidents, falls, alcohol, drugs, or fights. For some, there are no second chances.

My heart aches tonight for two young men and their families: Robert, who ingested methyl alcohol and has lost his sight; and Forrest, about whom I posted on January 23rd after learning of his snowboarding head injury, who has begun to experience tremors, excruciating headaches, and seizures.

So today I wore dolphin earrings, just as I did on January 23rd. Forrest has spent many hours at his mother's dolphin projects and surely knew this dolphin that I met at the Bermuda site while studying the unique ecology of Bermuda's ecosystems.

To me, dolphins embody the wise, playful, gentle traits that charcterize healthy adults. How I hope that Robert and Forrest have a chance to grow into healthy adulthood.

The Earring Lady's Gators

Today I wore my Louisiana alligator earrings. I bought them in New Orleans last March at a shop called The Earring Lady. I wandered into the shop with my daughter Phoebe and her friend Hannah as we toured the French Quarter. This was Hannah's first road trip: Louisiana to Virginia. Her family flies a lot. We tend to drive.

Phoebe and I had driven to Lafayette to see my older daughter, Kathe, and her husband Jim in their Louisiana home. We ate St. Patrick's Day dinner at The Blue Dog Cafe, a great local restaurant resplendant with the artwork of George Rodrigue.

We kayaked in Lake Martin on an early spring day when the gators were sunning themselves, so still that they appeared to be logs until we paddled close enough to see them clearly. Then we paddled slowly away, hoping that their reptilian blood had not yet warmed enough for them to paddle faster than we could... Our hopes were granted.

When Phoebe, Hannah, and I explored New Orleans, I purchased my alligator earrings as a talisman of safe and happy travels. Today, we drove Kathe back to her home in Blacksburg, VA from the cabin we shared for this last 2011 Spring Break weekend at Claytor Lake.

As I put these earrings on this morning, I noticed the symbols on their backs. A long and winding road!

That's the journey of the Earring Lady, I guess.