{"id":113342,"date":"2022-06-25T17:24:48","date_gmt":"2022-06-25T21:24:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/?p=113342"},"modified":"2022-06-25T17:26:52","modified_gmt":"2022-06-25T21:26:52","slug":"alphabet-soup-hour-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/alphabet-soup-hour-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Alphabet Soup: Hour #9"},"content":{"rendered":"<pre><strong>A<\/strong> is for the aisle I wandered in Dollar General with a\u00a0\r\n<strong>b<\/strong>asket in my hands: Alphabet Soup stood there, waiting for me.\r\n<strong>C<\/strong>losing my hands around the can, I took another three, then the remaining four. \r\n<strong>D<\/strong>ifferent friends came to mind with \r\n<strong>E<\/strong>ach passing moment: long walks home with \r\n<strong>f<\/strong>riends who would join me for lunch. \r\n<strong>G<\/strong>ooey grilled cheese sandwiches and alphabet soup\r\n<strong>h<\/strong>ad us giggling and spelling out words\r\n<strong>i<\/strong>n those years of learning for fun, not for a \r\n<strong>j<\/strong>ob or promotion or certificate but rather for the joy of \r\n-- nope, nope, nope, No <strong>K<\/strong> in this bowl\r\n<strong>l<\/strong>earning and making friends and exploring \r\n<strong>m<\/strong>y world through books, bus rides, shops, \r\n<strong>n<\/strong>eighbors, and long afternoons of dreams.\r\n<strong>O<\/strong>f course, I knew I was growing too old as the gold years flew by. \r\n<strong>P<\/strong>erhaps I could hold on, however, for just a moment as \r\n<strong>q<\/strong>uiet magic (the best kind) stopped time. It happened, \r\n<strong>r<\/strong>eally it did, that afternoon I went walking and \r\n<strong>s<\/strong>tepped inside the store with everything just for me.\r\n<strong>T<\/strong>ouching the jumpropes, plastic flowers, and pinwheels helped me \r\n<strong>u<\/strong>nderstand the great wisdom of slowly slurping each \r\n<strong>w<\/strong>onderful spoonful of soup after forming words in a game, an\r\n<strong>X <\/strong>bringing extra points, of course. \r\n<strong>Y<\/strong>ears vanish when I eat this lovely soup. \r\n<strong>Z<\/strong>illions of childhood memories come all at once with each bowl. \r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A is for the aisle I wandered in Dollar General with a\u00a0 basket in my hands: Alphabet Soup stood there, waiting for me. Closing my hands around the can, I took another three, then the remaining four. Different friends came to mind with Each passing&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-half-marathon-poem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1019"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":113711,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113342\/revisions\/113711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}