sunset from the porch
August
The sprinkler twirls.
The summer wanes.
The pavement wears
Popsicle stains.
The playground grass
Is worn to dust.
The weary swings
Creak, creak with rust.
The trees are bored
With being green.
Some people leave
The local scene
And go to seaside
Bungalows
And take off nearly
All their clothes.
by John Updike
It’s time for a postcard from August, just before I head back indoors. Out of the redwood forests, away from the shore. No more time to dig holes in the garden, or pull grass, or fill the green bin with giant clusters of old aeoniums. Stacks of thorny bougainvillea. I must carry my books and journals inside the house and off the porch. Curtail my weekday morning walks. Close the windows to the warming day. Leave the cat posse behind to stir up all manner of unsupervised mischief.
Yes. The time is nigh. I must climb into my chariot and head downtown. Over the bridges, across the LA river, and all the cars of the other working stiffs heading to the salt mines. Away we go!
Let’s do this.
For there is a classroom to be organized, unpacked, and sorted. A sea of new faces and stories to greet. Important meetings to attend. And so on and so forth.
I shall leave behind the cat posse and birds and step through a new door. School marm Moss is headed back to school.
Thankfully, I will hurry home each afternoon after tending to class business. Since 1996 I’ve been playing this tune. I can do it with my eyes closed, but what’s the fun of that? I’ll keep them wide open. Monitoring the radio transmissions. One never knows where one will pick up the scratchy signals coming across the wires. Sometimes above us in the vast dome of night sky. And other times right in front of us. In broad daylight!
Do not grow weary working souls. Retirement draws closer. I shall make the most of the time I have left.
I took the old photos I kept (from the great summer clean out) and pasted some of them into my journal.
I like to keep my parents close. Despite the fact that they’ve been gone for 23 (pop) and 11 years (ma) they are paradoxically closer than ever. I carry them with me.
Tonight Liseli is coming for dinner and our 2-woman poetry sangha. Like me, she’s a teacher (1st grade). I had her daughter in my class a couple of years ago.
Kelli and I had fun this summer. In the photos below we are at her house giving the old sketchbooks a workout. How nice it is to have friends that live close by with whom one can spend time.
Time machine photo from the summer of 1976. Cousins plus Dottie, Mama Moss, and yours truly at the tender age of 13.
Moss Cottage patio circa January 2003.
Right after purchase and waiting for escrow to close.
My tiny shipwreck. How I love it.
I found some information about a former tenant from 1940! Vincent & his wife Margaret. He was a private detective according to the census records. They paid $25 a month rent.
I’ve been posting stories on Instagram daily since I learned how to do it. I feel like I was just kvetching about the highly irritating nature of Instagram and now it’s possible I’m contributing to it. Such is the changing nature of everything under the sun. Dark and stormy one day with robins carrying tender messages on ribbon banners in their beaks the next. What can we make of all this? Nothing. Let’s put it completely out of our minds.
If you wish to donate a journal or notebook or sticker or some other useful item to my 5th grade classroom this year, you can find my newly updated Amazon wishlist HERE. If you don’t have 2 dimes to rub together, no sweat! It’s all good. Happy thoughts and well wishes for the new school year are free to give and a joy to receive.
Happy Sunday, friends. I hope you receive this postcard and that it comes to you on a gentle breeze by carrier pigeon or American Robin whichever is your preference. If you wish to regale me with stories of your life in the slow (or fast) lane, I’m all ears.
Good morning Mary. Do so enjoy catching up on all your posts and your adventures. So lucky to live by the ocean.
Yes summer comes and goes so quickly seems like you managed a lot in those months . Travels, art sessions etc you have inspired me to try drawing too. Simple doodles.
Moss cottage looks adorable , reminds me abit of where I grew up. Meanwhile I am like you thinking to move. Downsizing from a 2bdrm with balcony to a 1bdrm with large terrace. Then I can go crazy with more plants .
Fingers crossed.
Hope your return to school will be smooth process and much fun.
Ciao
Vicki
Hi Mary Ann,
I do really think that the summers for kids and teachers get shorter every year!! I sent a little sumthin on your Amazon list… should arrive shortly!
I’m counting down the time til freedom right along with you but trying hard to keep my head in the game while I’m actually in. Art adventures and travels seem much more important and I’ve begun scheduling some travel every few months in order to stay in the working world a little longer. It seems easier to bear when there is something right around the corner to look forward to. I am taking your advice lately on clearing out as well. I work from home most of the time, but during each trip into the office I make a point of clearing out a drawer or a shelf or something. Funny how all of these things seemed so important at one time and now just about not at all…
More than anything, currently, I am counting down the days to the 100 degree temperatures abating. Houston is miserable right now and has been since mid-June. I don’t believe we have ever had a summer like this and I am very much hopeful that this is NOT the new normal.
Best to you and your new charges in the school year. They are soooo lucky to get YOU as their chief chimp and leader!!!
I am so happy to have found a person like you to follow and read and look at your videos and art. It’s magic.
Why thank you Cheryl Rose, good of you to say so 🙂
Those photos of Moss Cottage ‘way back when’ are amazing. You really put your heart and soul into it! My abode is a 1910-er and I’m truly grateful it hasn’t blown away or burned down as it’s made of a lot of ‘spit and wattle’ as they say in Yorkshire. You are also an inspiration for my reluctant giving away. Reading books, blogs etc is so so much more fun! I’m recognizing how lazy I am in my old age but as long as we have decent summer weather I know I could/can get a move on. btw, school starts Aug 29 for resident granddaughter who is now a Senior tho of course teachers have taken a deep breath and gone back already. New principal and new school superintendent plus new Governor. I see many – hopefully good – changes on the horizon.
hello dear Maureen. Good to hear from you. Enjoy those summer breezes xo
Love, love, love your postcards from the other side of the U.S. (I’m in Georgia). And thanks for the John Updike poem, so pertinent to the second half of summer here.
Once in the mid 1980’s I traveled with an Irish nun to see the Okefenokee Swamp in south Georgia. We rode here and there on a paddle boat with a guide. I’ll never forget it!
I placed an order from your Amazon list yesterday. It’s scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I sure hope someone will be at the school to accept the package! The last time I tried to order things from your list, it got returned, saying that it was undeliverable. I sure hope the same thing doesn’t happen this time. I’ll keep my fingers crossed. LOL.
Thanks Debbie. I’ll get it for sure. I forgot to shut the list down at Christmas and the school was closed so they had to send everything back.
It looks like my Amazon order never made it to you. I placed my order on the 8th, and it shows that it’s been delayed since the 10th. I sure would like you to get the sketchbooks that I ordered.
I’ve had so much fun getting to know you this summer! So so glad we met and I look forward to all of our adventures ahead! 😊
Oh how I love your dispatches.
Only today I learned you are you Dee than me by more than I find acceptable. Agh! The torture of comparison. (I’m done now.)
How lovely to be rolling back I to the school calendar and schedule and joys.
Journals coming up!
Thank you for the journals!!!!!!!!!
I have been following you for years and enjoy vicariously all your trips and wanderings. I love Ellie, my now 5 year old orange, white and beige kitty who keeps me company while I read and watercolor. Thank you for your inspiration.
I have a weakness for orange cats and have had a few. Glad you chimed in Melva 🙂
Good luck with the new academic year! What great adventures await you and your lucky students. My across the street neighbor just retired in May after teaching elementary school for 35 years. (They begged her to teach one more session of summer school and the money convinced her to do it since it was a short term. 😉)
I have a DIL who starts teaching kindergarten this week. She loves her job and has a blast making things for her classroom and using the things she learned in school to become a teacher. Lots of back to school goodies at Walmart and news of school supply give aways going on in our community. We’ll hear the screech of brakes soon as the busses start their rounds very early. Summer fades as fall tiptoes in. A heat advisory tricks us into not realizing the sands of time are still moving.
So good luck and keep sending up a smoke signal so we know you’re up to your usual shenanigans!
One last hurrah for your neighbor. May she enjoy every minute of her newfound freedom! Good luck to your DIL. Takes a special type to teach kinder. I’d be no good at it!
Greetings from Florida–happy to rub two dimes together for your lucky students! Thanks for sharing the early day pics of Moss Cottage, so fun to see how cared for and loved she is today. Say hello to the kitties!
Thank you dear Beth. I have given Otto & Iris your regards, they return them tenfold xo
Yay! I finally got on your Amazon gift list for your classroom. Yippee!
Thanks, Kate…so much
Retired from LAUSD last year. Enjoy those last years with the kiddos and the people who you work with…
How wonderful, Lori. Enjoy your retirement!