Gratiku Day Twenty

 

Today I'm thankful for this cheerful and active little bird, bouncing around my yard. I already wrote about this species some here, and explained that here in Haiti this island endemic is called the Katje, or four-eyes, because of the white specks on its head that look like an extra set of eyes. 

Photo Source: Birdfinding.info

 

I enjoyed watching several of these this morning. It was cloudy and 90 degrees, and I was stressed and using birding to distract myself from ... everything. It worked, and all the birds were beautiful, especially these lovely creatures that can be seen nowhere else in the world, only here on Hispaniola, home to 22 million people. I get to be one of those people. And I get to see Phaenicophilus palmarum.

 

Bright olive feathered
Bird seeks lizards, fruit, or bugs,
Extra eyes flashing

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Poetry Friday: Gratiku Day Nineteen

 

Today I am thankful for my children, for the chance to be a mother, and for all those years they spent in my home. What a privilege it was to host these wonderful people through their childhood, and now the sending out is a privilege too, I know, though I don't always experience it that way, as I miss them every day. It's the best case scenario, in which healthy, smart, self-sufficient adults navigate the world, but I'm not used to my world yet without either of them physically in it on a daily basis. 

This week one of them has a birthday, and we looked at his baby album together over video chat, the way we always did on his birthday when he lived at home. The other one sent a long email, and I read the love in her words. 

I don't like my children being so far from me, but I'm thankful for them, and for all the ways we have to communicate. 

Voices from afar
Grownups who were my children
Back and forth flies love

This week's roundup is here, hosted by Carol Varsalona, and one of my early Gratiku from this month is in her Bedecked in Autumn Gallery. Next week, I am scheduled to host the roundup. So far our internet has worked OK, so I'm still planning to do it. Lots of people are writing odes to autumn, and it will be the day after Thanksgiving. I always write odes with my eighth graders at Thanksgiving time (here's mine from last year). Please send in your poetry next Friday, odes or not, thankful or not! I am looking forward to a feast! 

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Eighteen

 

Today I am thankful for the sun. So far, nobody has been able to block Haiti from receiving that. It makes me happy, and it also brings power. More and more people I know have invested in a solar panel or several, and it sure is good to have those during times like these, when we are deprived of fuel. 

You can read this article for further explanations of how six million gallons of gas have been delivered this past week, but still people (including us) are having great difficulties in obtaining any. The national stocks of fuel are in gang territory, and this week the gangs have declared a "truce," permitting fuel to leave the terminal. Today is the last day of this "truce," and our tank is still empty. Not only ours, either; so many businesses, schools, and even hospitals are closed because they can't run their generators (we stopped relying on city power a long time ago) and their employees can't get to work. People are dying because of this crisis.

 

But the sun is shining!

Tropical sunshine
Sends light to all the corners
Powers joy’s engines

 

Try this album, Solèy Midi (Midday Sun) for beautiful music by a Haitian-American alumna of the school where I teach.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Seventeen

 

Today I got my monthly Vitamin B12 shot (you can read more about that here), a bit delayed by all the chaos lately. I am so thankful that it's available, that there was a friend who could inject me with it, and that it will carry me through another month. 

 

Burst of vitamins
Gift of energy and strength
Helps me keep going

 

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.    

Slice of Life Tuesday: Gratiku Day Sixteen

 

Today parents had the option of sending their kids in person or having them Zoom in from home. There were just a few in my classroom, but they were really there, not having to be asked to turn on their cameras, not disappearing into the ether. They were there, messy and loud and full of opinions. Wonderful!

Real laughing faces
On kids yelling in this room:
No mute button here

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Fifteen

 

Someone I love has been in the ICU, and is finally communicating with me again. I'm thankful!

Many days’ silence
Ends with these three precious words:
Simply, “How are you?”

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Fourteen

 

I spent yesterday going through piles of things that I have saved through the years, precious things like notes from my kids (apparently every time either one of them wrote "I love you" on a piece of paper, I saved it), the books they wrote when they were in preschool (they drew the pictures and dictated the stories), letters of appreciation from students, that kind of irreplaceable artifacts. When you're trying to get rid of paper debris, the task seems impossible, but each of these papers represents something I want to remember, and that, the memory, is something to be thankful for.

Archaeologist
Digging through layers of love:
Years that I have lived.

Here's one of the paper treasures that I took pictures of and then discarded. It was a whole section of the Lexington Herald-Leader from November 24th, 2004, in an envelope. It contained a letter I wrote to the editor. Now the newspaper and the envelope are no more, but I still have this memory:

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Thirteen

 

We moved into this house in November 2001. Twenty years of memories, the good and the bad, the childhood of our two kids. I'm thankful.

 

Walls withstood earthquake
Roof protected from the rain
House held grief and joy

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Poetry Friday: Gratiku Day Twelve

Last Friday's Gratiku was about how morning comes, with its rituals, in spite of all the challenges that we've been fretting about through the night. The poem ended with "tea," which is what our daughter used to chirp as a tiny child whenever she heard the kettle whistle. Alan J. Wright, in his comment, wrote this about the roles tea played in his household growing up: "Peace maker, activity breaker, time marker, visitor offering." Yes! All that and more!

I don't drink alcohol, but if I did, I suspect I would be tempted to overindulge in these stressful days in Haiti. (Plus there are stressful things happening with family far away, too.) Fortunately, I have an acceptable alternative: tea. I suppose I could overdo on the caffeine, and I definitely put too much sugar in my tea, but in general, it's not going to hurt me if I keep sucking down mug after mug of this comforting brew. You know how on British World War II dramas, whenever a street is bombed in the Blitz, someone is making tea for all the survivors? That's the kind of function tea sometimes serves for me. It's a chance to sit down and to focus on something other than the immediate concerns of the day. Ideally you drink it slowly, since it's piping hot. I have been accused of having an asbestos mouth (not to be confused with "hot lips") because I can drink it pretty fast even straight from the pot.  But even I have to slow down a little to drink my cuppa.

 

 

And then of course there's all the tea paraphernalia. The pots and the infusers and all the different kinds of tea (that link has a poem I wrote about sun tea, so refers to drinking it cold, but at least it talks about all the different kinds and where they come from). The cinnamon and ginger and pepper and cardamom when I want to make chai. The carefully sealed container of sugar (an often fruitless attempt to keep out the tropical ants). The can of powdered milk (Haiti doesn't have a dairy industry and we don't have a cow). And the mugs! Recently, taking stock, we counted an embarrassing number of mugs that we own. I asked my kids to guess how many, promising them that whoever got the closest without going over would win -- a mug! Seriously, we are the Bezos of mugs. We have given a bunch away this week, trying to hoard fewer of the earth's precious mug resources and atone for our excess by aiding the mugless.

I am so thankful for tea, whether I make it myself or whether it's made for me by my husband (or either of my children, when they still lived here - they both know how to make it just the way I like it). Endless cups of tea are easing my way through my days, keeping me alert and calm and ready for the next thing. 

River of hot tea
carries me downstream to peace.
Another cup, please.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

 

Matt has today's roundup here. 

Gratiku Day Eleven

 

 

Today and every day I am thankful for the friends and family who keep checking in, who pray for us, who send me articles (even if they are scary ones), who read my blog, who sometimes even send cash. So many great friends who keep me going, make me laugh, help me keep things in perspective. Who read the things I write to them about what is going on here and just respond calmly, like what I said actually made some kind of sense.

Friends around the world
Send love, calm, laughter, courage,
Strength for one more day.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Ten

 

This morning we had a school assembly, and we had strict instructions to keep our camera on. I get it; they don't want students to sign into the Zoom and then just wander off and get a snack, perhaps never to return. But today I really didn't want my camera on. I was having a rough morning, and I'd been crying right before the Zoom began. Never mind why. You couldn't tell why from looking at my face, but there were tell-tale signs of the tears. I have one of those pale faces that shows every emotion. And in this case, the emotion had made my face bright red. (Once when I had a cold, one of my students was heard to say, "So it's true! White people's noses do turn red when they blow them a lot!" How happy I was to contribute to this child's education in this way.) 

 

We always tell kids nobody is looking at them when they are feeling self-conscious, and I know nobody was looking at me, but still I felt like a beacon on that Zoom screen, my red nose an advertisement for my sadness. 

 

So what am I thankful for today, and why am I telling this story? Well, I'm thankful for emotions. Even when I'm having difficult ones, ones I don't want to feel, I am thankful that I can experience them. Because I feel emotions deeply, that means the happy ones are very happy. And I know the sad ones won't last forever. In fact, the day ended with much better news. 

Whatever I feel,
You can see it on my face.
Camera zooms in.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Slice of Life Tuesday: Gratiku Day Nine

 

On Sunday, my son told me that in the church service he attended, someone made reference to a poem by Wendell Berry called "What We Need is Here." Here it is. I love the very specific images, and the reminder at the end to appreciate what's here: "And we pray, not / for new earth or heaven, but to be / quiet in heart, and in eye, / clear. What we need is here."

 

Manna is enough for one day. You're not supposed to hoard it; you're supposed to trust that there will be more tomorrow. It's so easy to live in yesterday, or tomorrow. So hard to be here, now, today, trusting for enough.

 

What we need is here:
Air, sunlight, enough to eat,
Enough for today.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Eight

 

Monday, and I'm hard at work teaching online. Distance Learning, we call it, and some days it can be pretty frustrating. The distance is the issue. A lack of fuel, and a presence of danger, is keeping us apart, and we're doing our best to connect anyway.

But we're still sharing books, and they're still writing.

Today in our sixth grade Zoom, we read the part in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where Peter rescues his sister from being eaten by the wolf. I pointed out to my students that I liked the way Lewis describes the fight, how it's kind of a confusing mess, and when it's done, Peter isn't entirely sure what happened. I told them that I've never killed a wolf, but that I've been in lots of situations where I have to muddle through and do what needs to be done in a moment of chaos and stress, and then suddenly it's over. 

No, I'm not killing wolves, but these are stressful, difficult days, and we're making it work the best we can. I'm thankful for useful, important work to do, and wonderful students to teach.

Post work, grade work, Zoom,
Write, read, Zoom, Zoom, share our words,
Learning still happens.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Seven

 

Yesterday a service station near our house started selling gas for the first time in many days. My husband went by in the morning and said there were probably four hundred vehicles there, cars and motorcycles. Later in the day when he passed he estimated an extra hundred.

The traffic picked up outside my gate as the day went on. We all need fuel. We need it for vehicles, but also for generators to keep homes and businesses functioning. City power is mostly a memory these days. Many business owners are making tough decisions about closing, or will be soon. Starting tomorrow the banks will be open only three days a week. This opportunity to buy is likely to be short and not widespread enough to do much good. But maybe we're wrong. We try to be optimistic. Maybe the fuel crisis, and all the other attendant crises, will be over soon.

The time went back an hour at 2 AM today. Sixty extra minutes to sit on my porch, appreciating that not everything runs on gas. 

Gift of extra time.
Birds in my yard seeking fuel:
Nectar, bugs, lizards.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Six

 

Heart, a tough muscle,
breaks and is mended again,
just keeps on pumping.

 

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Poetry Friday: Gratiku Day Five

 

There's more trouble as this week ends. Trouble here in Haiti and trouble far away. But still, morning came as usual. 

Crisis on crisis:
Even so, the sun comes up,
Kettle whistles, tea.

Mary Lee has this week's roundup.

 

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Spiritual Journey Thursday: Gratiku Day Four

The fourth day of my Gratiku project is also Spiritual Journey Thursday, a monthly gathering of bloggers around a theme chosen by our host for that month. Denise, who's hosting today, is also doing a Gratiku project, and she's asked us to write about gratitude today.

There is so much to be grateful for. As 1 Corinthians 4:7 puts it, "What do you have that you did not receive?" It's all, all a gift. So far this month, I've written about several gifts: the internet, a Black-and-white Warbler, and imperfection. Gratitude is a good way to live, because it shifts our focus from our struggles to the grace we have been shown.

Today I wanted to write about Haiti. In so many ways (and for good and ill), living here has made me who I am. I am grateful for the chance to live here, not just visit, to live here through so many seasons of my life. I've been through many of the best moments of my life here, and many of the worst.

I struggled a bit with this one. Haiti is a complicated place, and seventeen syllables can't contain it. I wanted to put in the way Haiti is suffering right now, but I eventually decided against it. But that's OK, because I've written so much about this country already, here and elsewhere, and today my focus is just purely on gratitude. 

 

Thank you, Haiti, for making me welcome. Thank you for teaching me so many lessons. Thank you, God, for bringing me here to this beautiful, frustrating, scary, spectacular country. 

A borrowed homeland
Twenty-five years of birthdays
A lifetime of gifts

Check out other people's posts on the theme of gratitude here.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Gratiku Day Three

 

Today I'm grateful that broken things often still function, that there are work-arounds, that shiny perfection isn't the only way to be. In Haiti people say degaje pa peche, meaning, making do isn't a sin. The degaje mentality is an important part of Haitian culture. People don't give up just because they've tried to achieve their goal in the regular way and haven't been successful. They keep trying and trying. A hashtag making the rounds on Haitian social media is the Kreyol/English hybrid #napkeepgoing. We're keeping going. We're not giving up.

Flush with a bucket
Light a candle to read by
Broken heart still pumps

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.

Slice of Life Tuesday: Gratiku Day Two

 

There haven't been as many birds in my yard lately -- at least that's how it seems to me. I thought maybe it was the time of year: nothing particularly in bloom or fruiting right now. But when I look back at last year's checklists from this time, there were more birds in this same season. 

But yesterday morning I got a surprise: a Black-and-white Warbler. It wasn't my first of the year; I know they are here. But they tend to show themselves a lot less frequently than the American Redstarts that are my main migrant warblers. It lifted my heart to look through my binoculars and see this lovely, delicate bird. It always reminds me of cookies and cream ice cream, the white so creamy, the black so broken up into bits, like the stracciatella gelato we used to eat at Fior di Latte in better times. 

 

It's one of my favorites because it's so unmistakable. The other warblers are hard to identify, hard to tell apart. This one doesn't look like anything else, just itself. I didn't do anything to make it appear; it was a pure gift. 

Black-and-white Warbler:
Other things aren’t black and white
But you always are.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November. 

 

Check out other people's slices here. 

Gratiku Day One

 

Wireless connection
In touch, Zooming, Messaging,
We are not alone.

They say we won't have the internet much longer here in Haiti, at least for as long as the fuel crisis lasts. Electricity relies on fuel, ISPs need fuel for their generators, everything that needs to be delivered or repaired or maintained needs fuel. (Here's a good article explaining why we have a fuel crisis in Haiti right now.)

As long as the internet works, it's one of the things I'm most thankful for. I remember the fuel embargo of the early nineties here in Haiti. I remember how cut off from the outside world we felt, and really were. Especially when it expanded into a flight embargo, and planes weren't coming, and mail wasn't coming. We didn't have internet then. We didn't have cellphones. We didn't even have a working landline where we lived. For a while we had one where we worked, but it stopped functioning at some point. I remember that when my husband's sister got married, he had to walk to a hotel that had a line he could use to call and congratulate her.

Many things are worse this time around, so much worse that those far-off embargo times feel like the good old days. But one thing that's better is that we are not disconnected. We are in touch. In touch with families and friends. In touch with readers. The sense of being forgotten, while definitely real, is not as intense as it was then. I'm thankful.

Birdtober? Gratiku? What's up with me and these made-up words and daily posting? Well, I've learned that a tiny little burst of creativity each day helps keep me going, stops me from being entirely fixated on the mess. That's why I post daily photos on Facebook. And that's why I'm doing these writing projects. This one is a daily haiku about something I'm thankful for. (A gratitude haiku - get it?) As long as the internet keeps working, I'm going to try to post one every day in November.