After
earning
master’s degrees from Indiana State University and Western
Michigan
University and teaching for 25 years, Alice Jane-Marie Massa
retired from
teaching writing and public speaking at a Wisconsin technical
college. Alice invites you
to visit her blog: http://alice13wordwalk. wordpress.com,
where she posts her poetry, essays, short stories, recipes, or
memoirs each
Wednesday. Her writings on
Wordwalk
frequently focus on her guide dogs, her Hoosier hometown of
Blanford (25 miles
northwest of Terre Haute), her Italian family heritage, and
holidays. Recently, her
writings have also appeared in Magnets and Ladders, Newsreel (audio
magazine), Dialogue,
and The ACB Braille Forum.
Being
the current president of Behind Our Eyes (an international group
of writers
with disabilities) also fills hours of her retirement. Away from her desk, Alice
most enjoys long
walks with her third Leader Dog (Zoe), container gardening, and
the television
program Jeopardy.
Immigrant from Indiana
I am an immigrant from Indiana.
In 1991, for a very good job,
I was planted here
in this Land of Wisconsin.
Between the shores of Lake Michigan
and the drawbridges over the Milwaukee River,
my plant--a perennial--
has blossomed each of 24 years
with those beautiful blooms
of Nostalgia.
I have been told
that my blossoms
have Hoosier accents
and that the leaves are shaped
like the nineteenth state.
The fragrance of this perennial plant
changes from sweet clover to grapes,
from the smells of an Italian kitchen to the scent of an Indiana autumn.
I am fortunate
because my Nostalgia plant even blooms
in the bleakest of blizzards,
during a freezing fog,
in the midst of dry leaves
taking flight in a high wind.
My Nostalgia plant
has the most brilliant blooms
during the singing of "Back Home Again in Indiana"
at the opening ceremonies of the Indy 500 Race,
during Clinton's Little Italy Festival
over Labor Day Weekend,
during Parke County's Covered Bridge Festival
in mid October,
and most especially
during the holiday season.
"How often do you water this plant
you call Nostalgia?" a stranger asks.
"How much rain is required?"
The only moisture it requires is
the tears for my homeland--
my Indiana.
"How deep do you plant
this Nostalgia?" the stranger persists.
For the best results,
I planted
my sweet Nostalgia
just as deep as
my heart.
~Alice Jane-Marie Massa