Birthday Wishes....

Margaret Berg: birthday/celebrate

Yesterday I gave my annual birthday quiz to my students.  It's a fun little quiz that gives the kids a few extra credit points and is a quick formative test to see how closely they read the questions.  I mean, when the kids have problems answering "What is my sister Heather's name?" they obviously are not reading the question very carefully.

I even give a "guessing list" for the 15 questions.  And I still have students confused as to which animal is my favorite (mountain lion) and who my favorite singer is (Frank Sinatra) because they don't want to read through the list at the bottom of the page of the offline version or the drop down box in the online version.  

Why is it that we want to rush through everything?  That's what those who were frustrated were doing, after all.  The students who didn't know my sister's name (even though it was right there in the question) or the name of my favorite animal/singer/whatever other topic I asked about (even though the answers were right there on the page) were rushing through the quiz instead of taking their time.  Perhaps that is one of the reasons we celebrate birthdays: to slow down the year that seems to be just flying by.

It is always fun, though, too, to get all the birthday greetings from the students.  I heard "Happy Birthday a day early!" many times yesterday.  It brings back memories of bringing in cupcakes or treats with my sister to elementary school on our birthday.  I didn't bring treats to all my students, but I like to think that the extra credit points more than made up for the lack of frosted cupcakes (and were more nutritiously sound, too).

Yes, you read that right: our birthday.  I'm a twin.  My sister is a blessing in my life, and I wish her a happy birthday today.  I wrote a poem about her in another blog post (So I had to write a poem about twins...), but I wanted to share another poem I wrote about her on this, our birthday.

The Sister I Love                                                                  

Her laughter and tears                                                                           

Complete me as if they’re                                                                         

Happy Birthday Heather!  Love you!

Left over parts of myself

That I lent to her and never

Got back after we left, prematurely,

The shared room inside our mother.

I see her smile on my face and hear

Her voice in my throat—and

Me in her likewise. She shares

A bit of my soul, too, as we

Can know each other’s

Thoughts with just a glance. She is

A lifetime of shared amusements

And trials and worries and joys

All wrapped up in a package

Only two minutes older and yet

Infinitely wiser than I. My mirror,

My other self, if I were married and

Had a son and lived by crunching

Numbers instead of building cathedrals.

So I had to write a poem about twins...

Bellwork for today's Creative Writing was about twins... and, being a twin, felt the need to write a poem about it.  I don't have to answer the prompts I give my students, but even more than usual, this time I couldn't help myself.  I decided to go the "spatial" route instead of trying to make a rhyme about twinness.  Is that a word... if not, it should be.  So, here is my poem which I dedicate to my older (by two minutes) sister Heather.

     She will not know
 what loneliness is. She
Came
From
 The same exact place

    Just two minutes later

          And

           Thus

         S h e

 Must share. But what

     Else can she do?

Does she really want to

Forever be looking at a

Mirror

Image

When

She’s

W it h

T h e

O n e

Who  shares  her  face,

Her voice, and her DNA?

       Sisters.  Identical,

   Yet uniquely individual.

D o

They

Wear the same clothes?

     Get the same haircut?

           O r

Does

        Each

 Live the life she wants?

     Go her own way?

“To  thine own self  be true,”

Wrote the Bard, but he also

 Wrote

  A  lot

  About

  Twins,

  Maybe

 ‘Cause

 He had

 A pair

 Of ‘em

So maybe  she  can be true

To her ownself while at the

Same

Time

Being true to the

Strange fact that

Another

H A S

Been

Charged with the same duty:

Love your sister as yourself.

Therefore the second,

Not to merely copy the first,

Lives her own life so

That she can uphold

The real    honor of being

Part of a matched set of

Girls          who

Share more

Than  just the

Same    birthday;

They                share a life

Split--  not diminished.