Raising Maine

When I taught high school, one of my more creative students noted in the middle of a lesson on the British Romantics that we were studying the "son of a Bysshe" (Percy Shelley Bysshe)... and, you know, that was pretty much what I was thinking about when my kids began yelling to me last night.

"Mom! MOM!! It's snowing!! Look!"

Son of a Bysshe!! I took a gander at our skylight last night, and, sure enough, big, wet, globby snow flakes were sliding down the window.

Whoa, Nelly. Winter can just hold its horses, for crying out loud, because I haven't had enough time to breathe in the joy of autumn yet.

O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being/ Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead/ Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing

I honestly am not in search of sympathy. I live on six acres of autumn splendor. The beauty of the cool, dry summer days has beckoned since late September... so who am I to complain if the wet winter days decide to drop prematurely upon us?

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,/ Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou/ Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed/The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,/Each like a corpse within its grave, until/Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow/ Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill/ (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)/With living hues and odours plain and hill.

"Hectic red..." Yep... the blowing of confetti red leaves is an apt metaphor for the fall that I haven't enjoyed nearly enough.

Of course, the truth of the matter is that I have chosen to jam pack my schedule to the point of overflow -- there's nothing on my plate that I haven't put there myself.

There's the academic work. At present, I'm teaching an online Contemporary Pop Fiction course for SNHU, and two face-to-face courses -- College Reading and Freshman Composition for SMCC. It's fabulously liberating to be back in the classroom. I've taught mostly online for the past six years while my kids were small, and although I've enjoyed the virtual students in my virtual classroom, I'm enjoying the heck out of having real live bodies in my real life classroom. Of course, the classes I teach are also part of the bread-and-butter of our household budget. I love looking at the two cords of wood stacked neatly beside the house and knowing that twelve hours of my classroom time will help to keep my family toasty warm this winter.

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,/ Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,/ Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,/ Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread/ On the blue surface of thine airy surge,/ Like the bright hair uplifted from the head/ Of some fierce Mænad....

There's the writing, too... and the lack thereof. This is where my head has been at least half of the time, even when my fingers haven't been clicking the keys of my laptop. Life gave me a rather annoying bout of writer's block earlier in the month -- note that this is my first blog since October 3rd -- I've been here, on the blog composition screen more times than I can count this month, but until this morning, it's been an exercise in typing words that I then delete. I blame the composition class for that. The more papers I read, the more self-critical I become. Like waves to shore of the island where I live, though, my persistence seems to have won this morning, and I think that I have finally eroded the rocky shores of my creativity.

Again with Mr. Son of a Bysshe... ol' Percy wrote Ode to the West Wind when he was despondent over his lack of creativity. The Romantics believed that all creativity was borne in the spring of youth. The whole idea of fall moving to winter was pretty much a downer for Shelley:

(E)ven from the dim verge/ Of the horizon to the zenith's height,/ The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge/ Of the dying year, to which this closing night/ Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,/ Vaulted with all thy congregated might/ Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere/ Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: O hear!

There are the kids, too, of course. Happily, the homeschooling is progressing well. I have made a commitment to being more "present" with my kids, and I feel good about that, too. The few times when I have been out and breathing this glorious fall have always been with my kids. Courtney (Happy Mom) and her girls cajoled us to Mt. Batte in Camden earlier in the month for a homeschool hike, and that was entirely worth the loss of a work day.

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams/ The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,/ Lull'd by the coil of his crystàlline streams,/ Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,/And saw in sleep old palaces and towers/ Quivering within the wave's intenser day,/ All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers/ So sweet, the sense faints picturing them!/ Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers/ Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below/ The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear/ The sapless foliage of the ocean, know/ Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,/And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

And there is life and the weekly routine that doesn't stop for jobs, homeschooling, writing assignments, or even a sniffly cold ... the laundry, the housekeeping, the piano lessons, two PE days and swim lessons with the elementary school, homeschool geography class, cross country running for the boys, art class at the library, orthodontist appointments, auto body repair and insurance forms from the accident earlier this month, bills to pay, dinner to make... oh, yes, and then there is sleep. I do have to make sure that I make time for a bit of shut-eye, too.

Ah, Percy... I hear ya, buddy.

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;/If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;/ A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share/ The impulse of thy strength, only less free/ Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even/ I were as in my boyhood, and could be/ The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,/ As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed/ Scarce seem'd a vision—I would ne'er have striven / As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need./ O! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!/ I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!/ A heavy weight of hours has chain'd and bow'd/ One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

So this is the chaotic autumn place that I've placed myself in. Like my poet friend, I'm a bit put off by the passage of time and the coming winter. I'm off of my A-game, so to speak.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:/ What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies / Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,/ Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,/ My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

But time stops for no (wo)man, and as I regroup and replenish this morning, I have indeed found the sun. My kids woke me this morning to let me know that, for the time being anyway, the sun is shining and the snow of dead winter has temporarily (but thankfully) moved on. For the moment I have found my muse and my rhythm, and on I press.

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,/ Like wither'd leaves, to quicken a new birth;/ And, by the incantation of this verse,/ Scatter, as from an unextinguish'd hearth/ Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!/ Be through my lips to unawaken'd earth/
The trumpet of a prophecy!

Okay... and here's my favorite line...



O Wind,/ If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?