Alphabet Soup Compiled by Martha Allen
Poems by Lagunitas Community School 4th and 5th graders
A Mystery by Abran Maldonado
Stormy Nights by Iris Janak
A mystery is something that no one can solve a murky lake that you can't see into a mist that I can't see like a soul flying to the clouds.
Wind, wind outside my door, wind outside my window,
Living in Gratitude by Mira Stinemates
wind pushing so hard as if to say let me in on this cold stormy night. As the sky darkens rain pours harder, the wind still knocking on my door. As I crawl into bed and curl up in my covers a loud bang, so piercing and sharp,
The pretty eagle soars through the sky, It skims the edge of the deep blue water, Catching a fish of multiple colors. The gift of living in this stunning world and yet, we still decide to destroy it. The stars glow in the dark. Pink, violet, white, gorgeous flowers, The beautiful night sky.
Art by Maya Michelson
white light fills my room blinding my sleepy eyes.
Art is anything, You can make anything into art like a splash of ink or uncooked beans. Poetry is the art of words. Cooking is art with food, same with reading and writing. So you can make art with anything.
Norms by Lily Throp
The way your dog is so loyal. What else do you need to hear?! You want me to name all the things life can give you?! Friends, Family, Living just in general. Be thankful for food, be thankful for a roof, Be thankful for a loving family, be thankful for friends, and of all of them, be thankful that you are here and living.
Unsend the letter Undo the mistakes Unwrite the song Unsee the truth Unfind yourself Because someone Doesn’t like it
Your Backyard by Marcelo Balazs-Guendelman
Outside My Happy Place by Sage White
When you are bored and you have nothing to do, you can pop your head through your back door. If you just use your imagination, You can do so many things. If you feel like running, You can play tag with your brother and sister. If you want to play a sport, You can play baseball with a friend. If you have a creek, you can play in it in the hotter months of the year. And in the winter, you can see the salmon paddling up stream, watching them jumping the waterfalls. There's so much you can do in your backyard.
Lying in my bed with my heated blanket, reading. Sometimes I put down my book and think. Think about what it’s like outside my happy place, my comfort zone. The wars, the fighting, the violence. Everyone thinks about it, not just me, but we never do anything. Still starving kids in Africa, Asia, India and more.
Life and Death by Leo Koenig
Life and death are so weird but yet so simple but where do you go when you die like where is it just black or do you go somewhere or what so long and also so so complicated But my question is when Or where or what happens when you die
Reflections by Suzanne Sadowsky
Fatphobia is another form of socially acceptable ostracism. Being old makes you invisible or worse, incompetent. Now over time, these past 50 years that I have lived in the Valley, I do believe I belong here. It’s only in the past few years that I learned that homes in the San Geronimo Valley were restricted to White people only. When I first moved here from Southern California in 1975, I thought I was the only Jewish person in the Valley. One of my new neighbors asked me if we were Catholics. The Valley is my home, and this is my homeland. Not New York, not Tel Aviv. Maybe I’m not so much of an outsider anymore. I recently had a conversation with a family member who said religion is passé. I think I know what she meant and to some extent I think I might agree. Jewish people have lived all over the globe for millennia, throughout our long history, we have always been immigrants. Despite our long journeys, moving around from place to place, from continental to continent, the Jews have a shared common identity and have held together as a people no matter where we find ourselves. Whether or not we practice Judaism as a religious observance, whether or not we are secular, apostates, agnostics, or atheists, Jews still self-identify and are also identified by others as Jews. We are of different races, white and BIPOC. We speak different languages depending upon where we live. Yet, we find one another – we find threads and connections with other Jews no matter where we are and where we’ve come from. At least that’s been my experience. More than other American immigrants, Jews uniquely have had the experience of international global engagement. We have been on the move for thousands of years, sometimes by choice but most often because of expulsion. And as immi- grants we come with knowledge and experience of different languages, customs and food. Many Jews are Zionists with strong ties to the Biblical homeland, the state of Israel. Others not so much. We are a diverse group with a common history. Most of the Jews I am in contact with share a strong sense of social jus- tice. We have been made aware of the fact that we have been viewed as a threat to the status quo. “The Jews will not replace us!” was shouted by the mobs in Charlottesville. We ask too many questions. We question authority. It’s in our nature, part of our culture and linguistic style. And we, along with every other tribe, religious, national or linguistic group, we also other Others. We suffer from ethnocentrism. We grapple with the notion of Jewish exceptionalism. We seem to be always in the spotlight. In order to assimilate and become accepted into the American way of life, many Jews who came from Europe during the 20th century changed their names so
Othering in the New Year
Now that I am older and live alone, there is more time to reflect. I am aging in place, contemplating what it is to be old, and as with many of us older people, I think more about my life’s purpose and meaning. I am an Old Lady. It is now time for me to understand more about my life’s journey, and also the time for me to tell my stories to others, especially my daughter and grandchildren, who thankfully want to listen. Memories arise. What I was doing and feeling, growing up in my late teens and twenties, coming of age in the 40s, 50s, 60s. What was life like for me in those mid-century years the 50s and 60s in the Village? (Back then; when someone talked about his “old lady,” he didn’t mean his mother or his grandmother. He meant his girlfriend. It was a term of endearment.) Family stories, our cultural and personal sense of history doesn’t show up in his- tory books. Much of the political and social textbook history we learned in school was incomplete, and often biased. Many things were glossed over. What’s miss- ing are the stories that only we can tell, the narratives of our personal lives that are not in the history books, but have shaped our lives and the world we live in. How I wish I had had the opportunity to hear my mother’s stories before she developed Alzheimer’s, stories from the time she was a little Jewish girl arriving at Ellis Island in 1911 from Poland with her mother when she was 5 years old. But when I was ready to hear her stories, she was in New York and I had moved to California, and by then she was losing her ability to speak and remember. At a recent meeting of a local nonprofit organization someone used the term “Valley insiders.” I asked what he meant. “Well, you know…, ”, he said, and he mentioned a few well-known people in the community, people who had influ- ence, and financial resources, or connections to financial resources, He named a few people whose names we would recognize, and then after a pause he also named me as one of the “insiders.” I was taken aback because I don’t think of myself as an Insider. I mostly feel like an Outsider. If I am an Insider, I must be an imposter. I am considered one of the so-called “insiders” to some people, I know I am thought of as an “outsider” to many others, including myself. Why? Because I am an independent, activist, outspoken Jewish woman from Brooklyn in a white, Christian, male-dominated society. And I’m also Fat, and now Old.
continued on page 22
Page 14 SGV Community Center Stone Soup
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