%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  Just play: don't look at your hands! |
What a dumb title for a person who never got a single star  on her piano lessons!Daily practice is the thing though: the practice of noticing as well as of writing.  However, I'd much rather play duets than solos, so hop right in! You can do the melody or the base part, I don't care.  Just play along--we'll make up the tune as we go. I'll try to write regularly and deliberately. Sometimes I will do it poorly, tritely, stiltedly, obscurely. I will try to persevere regardless. It seems to be where my heart wants to go, and that means to me that God wants me there too. See you tomorrow. ![Merit Badge in Journaling
[Click For More Info]
For wonderfully creative and imaginative writing](https://images.Writing.Com/imgs/writing.com/writers/badges/type-Journaling-2180.gif) |
| yesterday's sky: flat wash of ultramarine blue and burnt sienna Actually there was a cast of alizarin crimson to it too. Hunkered cat stands by. Among the driveway sparrows, black rooster pecks corn. The furnace man is here today, hooray, hooray, hooray, hooray! Guess I'll go make that book now so that you won't always have to read these hi-cuties. |
| painting confounds me: no matter what eye tells brain, pine trees should be green freezing fog makes a good excuse to stay at home and paint write, don't you think? Bill's gone to a friend's, working on making a door the cat can get through in a sliding window. So I've swept the floor and tried to paint. Our subject from last week's class is a pair of geese flying. I can't get the angle right to show the tail feathers. So I put it aside and fiddled with a pine tree, knowing I hadn't mixed up dark enough un-green paint but doing it anyway. It looks more like a banana tree. I don't really know why I want to paint so much. I mean, I want to want to. I want to be able to. But darn, it is not much fun. I get so tense about ruining the exensive paper, and worse yet, just making something I despise. I'll have to take notice of any part of it I actually enjoy and try to do that more. That's my RX for now. It's too early in the day for anything stronger. I just got a review on the beautiful sig Alfred made me. She liked it. "In my humble opinion..." she said. Dolly always says that too. Have you ever heard anybody admit they have an arrogant opinion? I can't remember how to post it, so until I figure it out again, here's the ID #1122646.   |
| Cold brought extra guests to soup, but flu season cut back on kitchen help consequently I stayed after staff meeting to help make grilled cheese sandwiches and serve soup. That's always fun to do. People used to say, when i told them I worked for hospice, "That must be so rewarding!" I seldom felt that way. On the other hand, everybody looks pleased to have a free lunch and we have a good time making it happen. That feels much more rewarding. Our prompt yesterday at poetry was "If you asked me." As often happens with prompts, I didn't get too much written that was satisfying. Today I've thought of all kinds of opinions I have if only someone asked me. I bet you can too! Not tonight though. |
| Polly was very stressed last week, it turns out, because she'd had a bad report from her doctor: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, two new medicines and a request for a cardio (which she refuses to do.) She seemed so defeated by the idea of controlling her diet, saying that oh dear she probably had some cottage cheese around. I know she doesn't like to cook all that well, or to plan, prefers to indulge in snacks she thinks are good for her because of her diabetes. I doubt if cookies, crackers and candy are good for her. Anyway, I wanted to help her. I suggested shopping with her for a stock of Lean Cuisines or Healthy Choice meals, and, knowing she does not have a microwave, offered to get one for her with the help of a recent very generous donation to my discretionary fund. She rejected me in a supersweet voice, saying she had a microwave somewhere in the basement (no doubt broken) and that her toaster oven would work if she decided to buy a few meals. I warned her to read the package, that sometimes they aren't designed for toaster ovens. I think she was insulted. I know she gets offended easily, but still.... She's told me she can't afford her medicines, and I'd help with those too. Pride. Too bad. This week she was all smiles and positive words for a fellow poet but wouldn't meet my eye. Okay. I didn't care. She seemed better by the end of the workshop, even saying something positive about my poem along with the fact that she did not like it. Outlook Gloomy The New Year comes decked in the guise of smiling baby waiting in all innocence, its diaper clean, unlike the world that sadly needs a change. I wait in fear. Strawberry Alarm Clock, Curious Yellow and Clockwork Orange are in the bar together and have had too much to drink. All our land’s divided. No one says we see in only black and white for fear it would be racist. No. We see in bankers, union activists, religious zealots, cheats and takers, gun owners and CEOs, all afraid of something. Take your pick. Line up against the ones you choose to blame, the ones you fear the most. Retired but unretreaded I retreat from slippery spaces armed with neither rhyme nor measured meter, wishing to surround myself with auras of obscurity enough to make a point without offense, but maybe this is not the medium or day for that. Now, for all that, I'm really not feeling so pessimistic, except when Chicken Little is running around the house. |
| Now that we've made it through the first week of low carb dieting, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm tired of eggs already, but will just have to be more inventive I guess. Losing some massive amounts of weight seems only fair--a gift to my knees that have carried me around for so long so well. A bribe to continue doing so, yeah that too. Only three of us showed up at the poetry group Monday. Here's how it went: Polly: Well, anyone have any good prompts to use to get us started? Durwood: We can use the list, can't we? (The list we've been adding to from time to time.) Me: How about something about the new year? Polly: That's too depressing. Durwood: How can anything good happen in a year numbered with a 13? Polly reads list. Polly: Does anything strike anyone? Durwood: I don't care. Anything you like. Polly: How about you, Wren? Me: I like Things I need to find. Polly: That's so depressing. I've lost too much, too much. But all right, I'll give it a try. It did not turn out to be a very good topic for any of us, evidently, but I think I'll try it again on my own. Since I'm in the closet and drawer cleaning mode, I'm finding a lot of things I don't need. Maybe I'll find some I do. What's this haiku daily? Where do I look? |
| I should have posted this last week when I wrote it. It wasn't entirely true, even then, because I don't find the time/space/privacy to write very often now that Bill is home all the time. But for that week between holidays when we could barely remember what day it was, I didn't have my usual obligations to plan my day's errands, housework and free time around. Holiday Between-Time Calendar pages wiped clean until the posting of a new year, I am bundled in loose-knit days luxuriating in unscheduled time, as warm and content as a cat in the sun. Never mind the gray solemnity outdoors, the blaring football games echoing forth within. No clock chastises me. No group requires me. No phone summons me. My closet cleaning Muse makes a rare appearance and I follow willingly, then read and maybe nap. I am, for a few days, my own person, not the one I must be or could be if I tried, doing what I want when I want. Perhaps this will get old. I’ll never know. TOMORROW the world starts up again. Happy New Year 2013 Everyone! |
| Here's a fast poem I came up with this morning. Good for a laugh. New York Love Self-consciously fourteen longing for sophistication I sat, pressed against the window to see the cities spreading out beneath me on this cloudless night, their white and sometimes red lights mapping out the land. Repeatedly I asked my father what town we were over now, was it New York yet? Each time he’d make a guess, maybe Cleveland, maybe Pittsburgh, but when we came to New York City I would know it. And I did, because there was no end to lights. Romantically I told myself that Love would be that way. Many stops might look like love, but when I reached it I would know for sure. Six years later, seeking happiness, I think I stopped in Boston by mistake. |
| Here's my short story for class tomorrow. Not my best. Don't know where it came from really. I guess it's from the awkward dialogues I sometimes have with my own daughter at times when I wish she'd call and then call her myself. Awkward Pauses Ann Wren Howard November 29, 2012 “So I brought up two loads of laundry to fold, you know, and I’d used the end of a bottle of fabric softener on one load and a new kind on the second load. It’s supposed to be lavender magnolia, or some such thing. So I’m sniffing them, you know, and sure enough, there is a difference, only I can’t tell which is which. One might smell like lavender, or who knows, but I’m thinking the other one smells a little like menthol of all things. Then I find the remains of a cough drop still wrapped up in the second batch. No wonder it smells like menthol. Don’t you think that’s funny? Maybe I should tell Downy about it and make a lot of money: a laundry softener that helps you breathe at night. “You aren’t laughing. Have you been listening?” “That’s why I like texting better, Mom. I don’t have to listen,“ Marcy said. She doodled in the margin of her chemistry book as she waited for an answer. That had probably been too harsh, but darn, she was busy! There was a long, long pause. Jan didn’t know what to say. Part of her wanted to just hang up. Why bother ? She gave herself a little mental shake. That’s the kind of thing kids do when they’re mad, she thought. Hang up, or slam the door, or just walk off, or say something mean. The other person is supposed to feel bad then and apologize, but it never works out that way. She took a deep breath and responded in a quiet voice, “Okay, Marcy, I get it that I’m bothering you by calling. What do you want me to do about it?” This was Marcy’s time for a long pause. “I dunno,” she said finally. “Just don’t talk so much, will you? I don’t really care what your laundry smells like.” “No, I don’t suppose you do. I just thought it was funny. It was something to say. You could do the talking yourself, you know.” Jan could feel her anger growing in response. “I guess I would if I had something to say. Ever think of that? I don’t have anything to tell you. You want me to chat with you like you’re my best friend and tell you all about my roommate and school and if I’m dating anyone. That’s just not gonna happen, Mom.” Jan could hear the exasperation in Marcy’s voice. She sounded near tears. The conversation felt familiar, as if they’d had other versions of this talk before when Marcy was still at home. Marcy used to complain that Jan was always hovering, that she was smothering her. Now she was a thousand miles away at college and that still wasn’t far enough, evidently. She was still acting like a defiant teenager. Wait. She still is a teenager, Jan thought. “Well, yes, I guess I would like us to be friends. I would like to hear about your life. I guess I made a mistake thinking you’d like to hear about mine too. And I’m not trying to guilt you, I promise.” And she wasn’t. “Yeah, right.” “No, I’m not. Listen. I want to hear from you every week, to know you’re okay, and you can ‘Oh Mom!’ all you want but that’s a requirement. You can send me a postcard if you don’t want to talk. It’s more trouble than texting, but it works the same way. Or you could call. Or I’ll keep calling you. Take your choice.” “I’ll think about it,” Marcy said. “Um, bye, Mom.” “Bye, dear.” Jan was fuming. Damn. I’d like to threaten that I’ll cut off her money, or that I’ll drive up there and make her come home. If she can’t even spend five minutes talking to me, why should I be doing so much for her? College tuition, room and board, books and transportation—they all added up big. Sure, they’d been saving for it, both Jan and Marcy, but even Jan’s savings were a drop in the bucket. Marcy’s part probably covers makeup and lattes, Jan thought. This is what I wanted for her, though. It would hurt us both to take it away for, for what? For not wanting to talk to me on the phone? That would be crazy. She’d given Marcy the choice. That was an adult thing to do, she reminded herself. Jan tried to quit thinking about it, but she couldn’t let go of the sadness. It wasn’t as if she needed the weekly conversations to prove to herself that Marcy loved her and was grateful for her sacrifices. Or was it? She struggled to frame the thought. I want to make sure she’s okay. No. She’s okay as she can be at eighteen. I want to be there for her if she needs me. Which she doesn’t. But I want her to know I will be. She knows. Well, then, I just want to tell her I love her. Why? Because I need to say it, to stay connected somehow, even if that’s all, even if it has to be on her terms. Maybe I need to work on some friendships for myself, she mused, and she reached for the phone book. Jan waited for three days to hear what those terms were. In the mailbox, among the holiday catalogues, junk mail and bills, there was a postcard with a picture of the campus in springtime. The message read: “You can call me every other week. I’ll try to talk. Please ask Gramma for a new phone for Christmas, one that accepts text messages. I love you. Marcy.” Jan smiled. Maybe some day they’d be friends. For now, she was still the mom, letting go a little at a time. |
| Okay, Angus made me do it. He said he decided to get published, and a month or two later it happened. So I went to Duotrope for the first time in a long time. Found a place I want to submit to, and right off it has a space for cover letter. I don't know what to put there. A description of the poem I'm sending? That sounds dumb. If it were a book, or even a short story maybe, but a poem? A bio? They didn't ask for that. Well they didn't ask for anything particular. I guess I'm supposed to know what cover letter implies. Help, you writers out there! |
| Sometimes a good idea comes to me and it seems so concrete, so tangible, that I'm sure I don't need to write it down. I can just reach out and.... Oops, I guess not. It isn't still in the car, or the bathroom, or the kitchen where I thought it. I need to get a tape recorder for my car, and otherwise write things down. This time I did write it down, at the stoplight, and not just my illegible scribble or cryptic note. Of course, because I wrote it down, I remember it anyway. (Good thing, because I lost the whole blog I wrote afterwards. I don't remember all of it though.) My good idea, maybe good,...ahem, my idea was about a story I read to my class a couple weeks ago. Some of you have read it before. I may post it again anyway at the bottom of this page, because I'm sure I've edited it a bit from the original. It, and several other things I've written, have a child-like quality to them. (That sounds ever so much nicer than child-ish.) I'd like to send it out to be published, but have never found a medium that seems as if it would be a fit. Can't find any senior citizens magazines or Christian magazines with fiction in them. So it occurs to me I should put them together in a book, along with poems like the one about the cane and other things that pertain to getting old. Maybe it would sell in the greeting card section and be a perfect gift for your semi-senile neighbor or your cracked up aunt, or even your soon to turn 40 friend as a gag. Maybe I'd call it elderhumor or Tea Cozies or some not quite chicken-soupy sounding name. Anyway, here's the story: Kitchen Conversation Rain had fallen steadily all Saturday, and, so far, the weekend had been boringly predictable. Bill watched football. Anna had done some quilting and worked on a project for her Bible class-- pleasant enough ways to pass the time, but nothing exciting. “‘Relax, enjoy yourself,’ they tell me. ‘You’re retired. You’ve earned it,’" Anna muttered. “What, dear?” Bill asked, not turning his head. The Seahawks were winning for a change. “The grass must be a lot greener on the other side, I say. All this relaxing is tiring me out!” “Um-hm.” “Well, I guess it’s time for me to put a little supper together,” Anna sighed, heading toward the kitchen. She pulled her apron from the oven handle and opened the refrigerator door for a look inside. "Now, what was I looking for?" “Uh, were you talking to me?” the milk carton asked timidly. “No, silly, she was talking to me!” said the apron in a loud, clear voice. “I guess I was just talking to myself, as usual,” Ann replied. “Oh,” said the apron and fell silent. Ann reached into the low cabinet for the heavy skillet. A saucepan lid came clanging out. “Now, where did you come from?” Anna exclaimed. “What? Well, I was just leaning against the door there, minding my own business….” The lid sounded wounded. “Never mind. Just get back in there and stay there. I don’t need you tonight.” Anna was irritated, but her voice softened when she heard Lid’s hurt tone. “ I think we’ll have a stir-fry.” “Then I’ll see some action tonight!” Apron declared. “Just what do you mean by that?” Anna said. “Choppin’ and fryin’? Things’ll be flyin’!” “I’m not denyin’!” Anna shot back, smiling. She was beginning to feel some energy. She took the baguette from its sack on the bench and quickly sliced it into generous slabs. After putting a chunk of garlic butter into each little maw, she laid the loaf on a cookie sheet and put it into the oven to heat later. The vegetables were gathered on the counter: the celery, the onion, the bok choy, the mushrooms. They were all murmuring among themselves, excited and giddy about what was to come.* “Okay, line up,” Anna commanded, and the celery stalks spooned up against each other, front to back, front to back, across the cutting board. They behaved nicely. Chikak, chikak, went the chopping blade. Three neat stacks of celery c’s went sliding into the bowl; at least, most of it did. The apron giggled. “Stuff’s a’flyin!” “Now you,” said Anna, holding the onion steady by his tail. “Off with your wallpaper! There. Now, stay still. No, no, no, don’t go slipping all over the place!” *“What if I don’t want to be chopped up?” wailed the onion. “Why not?” the garlic asked in its big strong voice. “What else could you possibly want out of life? It’s what you were made for, boy. Now buck up.” “Ooh, what courage! What leadership!” sighed the potato, rolling her eyes. “I wish she could use me too!” “You’ll get your turn at the front another day,” Anna said. “All right,” said the onion. “I’ll try to be brave if you’re sure it’s the right thing. But look, Anna’s crying!” “You do have that effect on people, but they love you all the same,” the garlic assured him. The onion slices rounded up and got back into position. Chikak, chikak, went the blade. First up and down, chik, chik, chik, chik, then across: chik, chik, chik, chik, chik. “Who’s next?” Anna asked. The bok choy waved its leaves and said, “I am! I mean, We are!” Soon the chopping was all done. Anna took out the olive oil and poured a gl-op into the pan. As she started to turn on the heat, she said, ““Wait! “I’m forgetting something.” “It’s about time you remembered,” scolded the pearly rice, having a clear view of the proceedings from its glass canister. “You’d be all ready to serve, and what would you put this stir-fry on top of? You almost forgot the most important thing!” “My stars,” said Anna, “wouldn’t I have been upset!” That rice certainly has plenty of starch, she thought, as she set the water to boil. Anna busied herself by setting the table while the rice began to cook. “Forks on the left, and spoons on the right.” She sang the words like a jump rope rhyme. “Knives are the soldiers standing tight. Glasses go above them, plates in between. Serve up the food for the king and the queen.” The china gleamed with pride, and the crystal gave a little celebratory clink. “Here comes the best part,” Anna said as she heated up the oil. “Garlic, I’ll put you in first so you can flavor everything.” She squeezed the plump buds from their overcoats and sliced them right into the skillet. “Um, smell…there’s nothing like it!” “Now for the meat! Come here, beefy!” she said as she unwrapped the plate holding the slices of round steak. “Are you talking to me?” came a voice from the living room. Bill’s eyes were still held by the tractor beams of the TV, but his chin shifted slightly toward the kitchen, his left ear aimed in her direction. “No, honey, I’m just getting dinner ready.” Anna stirred in each vegetable expertly, adding a little soy sauce and sesame oil. Holding a piece of ginger root above the pan, she grated an inch of it on top of the mixture. “Ooh, that tickles!” squealed the ginger. “Tickles the tongue too, my dear,” Anna said. By now the rice was done, and she piled it, steaming, onto two plates. Then she covered it with the aromatic meat and vegetables. She peeked into the living room, and the game was over--perfect timing! “Dinner is served,” she called to Bill. “It looks wonderful!” he said as he sat down at the table. The Seahawks’ win buoyed him up, and she had his full attention. “How do you do it? I know it will taste every bit as good as it looks.” Bill was always so gracious with his praise. “All it takes is a will, and a bit of imagination,” she said. ”Dear God, please bless this food to our use, and us to your loving service.” The dinner smiled contentedly, its fragrance wafting upward. From all corners of the table there came a soft, “Amen.” |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
