Bear: 1, Sandy: 0

43º and sun with hazy clouds

I'm giving this week to the Bear, may she enjoy the feast before her. (My bear is an angry, hungry, mama bear.) What can I say...between the grading, the sinus infection that led to a doctor's visit and horrible antibiotics, and this morning a cat that knocked over my 3/4-full cup of coffee just when I had finally woken up enough to even consider drafting a poem, ruining a library book, a journal, and a sheaf of poems in progress...I'm out. I'm done. So, many apologies to the poetry world, but this week belongs to the she-bear in all her glory.

Sadly, I still must grade more papers today, but I'll try to keep the bear out of that business, in the students' best interest.

In the midst of a trying week, I was reminded, however, that my bear is nothing compared to some that other people face. There are plenty of writers out there who don't have the luxury of three mornings a week to give to poetry due to jobs and families and other obligations, and yet they draft on...my hat is off to them. Then, there is a student of mine, and I won't reveal particulars in honor of privacy, who is experiencing a tragedy of a violent nature that will prevent the student from completing the semester, when all the student is trying to do is graduate in order to find some hope of overcoming a bad hand already dealt.

Suddenly, I'm thinking of that old camp song & children's book: "Going on a Bear Hunt." Gotta go trough it, climb over it, swim across it, etc.

That'll be next week. As for this week: it's ate-up.