Like Water from a Spring

By Janice Lynn Ross

Janice Lynn Ross walked into her upstairs storage room one day, opened a long-ignored box, and hit pay dirt. She discovered poems—some written on scratch paper—and stories, letters, and journals, ranging from childhood to teen years to young adulthood. She selected some of these writings, then added more recent ones, too—about 100 pieces in all. Janice also provides rich, entertaining commentary and background.

It's a sweet, nostalgic read, written from the heart, and a fascinating and sensitive look at one individual's personal journey and development over a span of 50+ years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janice Lynn Ross
• Release date: Dec 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393357292

Book preview

Like Water

from a Spring

Poems,

Stories,

Reflections,

and Pencil Scratches

from a Long-Forgotten Box

Janice Lynn Ross

Copyright © 2019 by Janice Lynn Ross

All rights reserved

ISBN 978-1-3933-5729-2

In memory of Holly

(1955 – 1989)

She danced in the moonlight.

And grinned.

And to our red-haired friend,

Jim

My thoughts and feelings

Rise up from within

Like water from a spring

The water bubbles on out

Fast becoming words

And I start to write

Janice Lynn Ross

Yellowstone County, Montana

March 2015

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CONTENTS

The Peek in the Box

The Squirrel

How We Got the Planets

How the Ring Got Around Saturn

About the Beatles

Eighth Grade Pee-Chee: Crows to the Wind

Crows

Lights on Houses at Christmas

The Christmas Tree

Ornaments

Christmas Morning

Wonderland

But Fluff Was So Hungry

She Can’t Be Bought

The Witch’s Brew, A Halloween Poem

My Mother

Mountain Cabin Vacation, Age 13

Troublemaker on the Loose

Being Myself

Background to Beach Vacation, Age 13

Beach Vacation, Age 13

A Summary of ’68

A Day in February

A Day in Adolescence

Our World

Problems

Running

Haikus and Tankas

The Hot Sun

The Doe and Fawn

Little Birdies

Wind

The Mountains

Summertime, Age 15

Something Special About Me

Surprise!

Janice’s Creed

Background to Janice’s Creed

Orange Groves and Newport Harbor: An Interview with My Father

Do You Really Remember?

Criminal

Poem Unfinished and Unsent

On a Balcony

War and Letting Go

While June Strummed Her Guitar

Background to The Magical Horses

The Magical Merry-Go-Round Horses

You’ve Told Me a Lot of Things

Summer Child Care Center

The Battle

Tell Me It Isn’t True

Uncle Sky

The J-Line

Blessing Counting

The Aspiring Secretary

Rooftop View

Carry On

Primeval Sunday

North of San Francisco

The Bud

Divorced and Unemployed

This Mood

I Don’t Want to Be on the Island Anymore

My Worst Educational Experience

Three Days in the Desert with 492 Chicken Hawks

Our Classroom Rules

One Sublime Day on Santa Cruz Island

Ocean Waves

To Monterey

In Haarlem, the Netherlands

The Precious Princess by Phoebe

Phoebe and the Dress of Roses

Annabelle Meets The Witch by Phoebe

Saguaro National Park at Sunset

Yellow

The Fork in the Trail

Cathedral Rock of Sedona

The Angry Sea Dream

A Sacred Spot

Groupies

Dog Days of Summer

Autumn Colors

On a Two-Lane Country Road

Winter Sun

Summer Sun

Oh, Holly!

Riding

Afterword

Acknowledgements

About the Author

The Peek in the Box

LUCKY FOR ME I’M A packrat when it comes to sentimental things. These writings sat for years—ignored and unexamined—in a big cardboard box as I moved them from home to home, from California to Arizona to Montana.

But last February I dared to take a peek. Wow, a box full of notebooks, folders, journals, schoolwork, letters, and scrapbooks, dating back to elementary school! What in the world! I had no idea this stuff was in here. Some of the poems were scrawled on scraps of paper—I actually saved scraps of paper? Oh, my goodness.

So much time had passed between the creation of these writings and the peek-in-the-box. Indeed, so much time had passed that it felt as if I were reading someone else’s writings.

Well, here they are, my early writings, along with other things that have welled up from the spring.

Yellowstone County, Montana

December 2015

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The Squirrel

Once there was a squirrel who

didn’t like nuts.  All he liked

was carrots.  He saw the other

squirrels eating nuts so he ate

some nuts and liked them.

Dictated by Janice

Kindergarten

Commonwealth Elementary School

Fullerton, California

School Year 1960–1961

Age 5, Fullerton, Calif.

Kindergarten Wisdom

I DISCOVERED MY THREE-sentence squirrel story in a childhood scrapbook, flawlessly typed on tissue paper. Dictated by Janice is at the bottom. I have absolutely no memory of this story. I’m guessing my kindergarten teacher, the lovely and lovable Miss Isbel, asked me to tell her a story.

At first I was disappointed. Three sentences? That was all I could come up with? Well, being as shy as I was, I probably didn’t say much. And there is a beginning, middle, and end, sort of. Then it hit me there just might be a kernel of wisdom in this story.

Perhaps our squirrel admires the other squirrels and eats nuts to emulate their behavior. Maybe that’s what the story is about. It is, after all, what kids do.

A mother was asked: How do you convince kids to eat foods they reject? Her suggestion: pair your child with an older cool kid who likes the target food. She once saw her son happily chowing down a certain dish he had heretofore snubbed. Then she noticed her nephew, a boy a few years older than her son, chowing down that same food. Ah-ha! she thought. My son believes anything his older cousin does is worthy of imitating. He likes this food now! Hurray!

I want to believe kindergartners possess insight and wisdom. They imitate the behavior of those they admire—copy is their word—and are fully aware they are doing this.

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How We Got the Planets

ONCE THERE WAS A GOD and a goddess who had a daughter named Sonia. Pretty soon they had another daughter [and] they named her Larnia.

The mother goddess and the father god decided to send their two daughters up into the sky because they were so beautiful. So the mother goddess and the father god sent their two beautiful daughters up into the sky.

Soon Sonia and Larnia started to quarrel over who was the prettiest. They got so mad at each other they burst into pieces. Sonia broke into 5 pieces and Larnia broke into 4 pieces. Now you know that 5 + 4 = 9 and you know that there are 9 planets in our Solar System. So now you know how we got the planets.

Age 8, Grade 3

Raymond Elementary School

Fullerton, California

1964

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Background to How We Got the Planets

WRITE A MYTH IS WHAT Mrs. Kofford asked us 3rd graders to do. She told us that myths are stories people of long ago created when they couldn’t explain something (although I might take issue with that today), and she read aloud some Greek and Roman myths. All of this came back to me as I lifted from The Box a light blue construction paper folder with an artsy blue-and-green-tissue-paper cover. Inside was my How We Got the Planets myth, written in a nine year-old’s careful script.

The folder also contained various worksheets on the planets and was probably displayed on my desk at Raymond School’s springtime Open House. My parents attended every one of my Open Houses as well as those of my three younger siblings. Doing that made us kids feel important. It also communicated to us that education is important.

Years later, as a 3rd grade teacher, I included the solar system in my curriculum. I gave my students lots of independent study time and group time with books, posters, and worksheets as they created their own reports. Wouldn’t it be good if this sparked within some of them a lifelong interest and curiosity in astronomy?

Here is another myth I found in that light blue folder