Hard Times

I'm watching the winter birds fly to and from my patio door, eating from the birdfeeder and fluttering their wings to make it through another frigid day. I actually see some sparrows and blue birds taking small bits of branches into the bird houses my husband has made to attract birds in the spring to make their egg-laying nests. Why do the birds look like they're building a nest now? This winter, robins are even being sighted sitting in trees that contain any type of berry. Why are they here already or why didn't they leave? I don't think people are the only ones who hope for spring or imagine a better time. Believe it or not, all this reminds me of The Diary of Anne Frank and some of my favorite quotes that always come to mind at different hard times in my life.

Otto Frank says, "For the past 2 years, we have lived in fear. Now we can
live in hope." Mr. Frank alludes to his family who had lived in
the hiding place, the attic, to escape the Nazis and their hatred. They
were discovered, nevertheless, but coming out and being found bring new
hope. In the same light, Anne Frank says, "You know what I do when I think I can't stand
another minute cooped up? I think myself outside. You know the most
wonderful part of thinking yourself outside? You can have it any way you
like. You can have rows of roses and violets all blooming in the same
season, isn't that wonderful!?"

Winter is a hard time for nature

And for some people for different reasons,

But all of us can always hope for better times

And imagine the "flowers" in our lives.

What would we do without
hope?

I'm finally here--creating my own blog!!!!!! Thanks to Ruth Ayres, I've made the plunge after realizing this is what I like to do best--writing about fragments that later hopefully will turn into larger ideas/pieces, stories, poems, a book some day??? Fragments and clay are ever changing. I attended my first writing workshop as a Wawasee Middle School 7th grade language arts teacher eleven years ago at Indian Springs Middle School in Columbia City. I called my writers notebooks "Clay Fragments" from the very beginning. I wrote along with my students in class, adding new bits and pieces every year. I now am in my 11th writers notebook!!! I retired from teaching this last June but continue to write and am taking writing more seriously. The "serious" part of that statement holds me in its clutches, and I haven't been producing much. But with the help of my new writing group and this blog, I will be released to write what I know best--as Ruth Metcalf would say, writing about "Bits of Nothing," which hopefully, will eventually, become something!