Life

Wednesday

Sally1 Comment

Yesterday, as I walked the dogs down by the river, I saw a bald eagle leave a tree and fly slowly and gracefully over the nearby field. Last week, I had seen a blue heron, another beautiful graceful bird, fly over the same field.

There’s my beautiful moment, I thought, as I watched the eagle fly.

Nature is full of beautiful moments.

The skunk was out in the yard again. I watched a woodchuck scamper down my brother’s driveway. Chipmunks scurry up and down the ramp leading to my side door. Even these more humble animals are amazing in their own way.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. This was a look back at Wednesday. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

The Visitor

Sally10 Comments

Day 3 — Beautiful Moments

Yesterday, when I got home, I saw a visitor in my yard. I’ve seen him before, but today he lingered and I could admire his beautiful coat. I couldn’t smell him, so I think he hadn’t sprayed. He was oblivious to me as he searched for grubs and bugs in the yard. When he finally spotted me, he turned tail and…. ran.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. This happened on Tuesday. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

A Walk Outside

Sally5 Comments

Day 2 — Monday: I used my lunch break to walk around the block. It’s a big block — maybe a mile and a half. It always half an hour to walk it. Yesterday was hot in the afternoon, but when I walked late morning, the full heat hadn’t come yet.

I lifted my chin to feel the sun.

I waved at friends that drove past – and loved the fact that I live in a small rural town where I know people and am known.

I’m challenging myself to find a beautiful moment each day for a week. How about you? Did you have a beautiful moment yesterday?

Life

Seven Day Challenge: Look, a Beautiful Moment

Sally3 Comments

Day 1, Sunday: I sat on a friend’s porch drinking coffee and watched a phoebe swoop and fly as it caught its breakfast. I heard a bumblebee then saw it, burly and buzzy, flying above the garden. I heard a turkey but never saw it; I tracked its movement by the shift of its gobble.

Do you ever sit and just be in the moment? I’d love to hear what a beautiful moment in your life looks like.

Life · poetry

Because I Lack Chutzpah

Sally1 Comment

Prompt: List ten things you would say to ten different people in your life, if you had the chutzpah.

  1. Please stop coming by the house.
  2. Please come by the house and help me sort through all this.
  3. Call your doctor.
  4. Do your job.
  5. Should you be eating that?
  6. Stop being such a bitch.
  7. Do you remember that time twenty years ago when I came to you for help and you shut the door on me?
  8. As a Christian, how do you feel about warehousing people? What would Jesus do?
  9. Could I tell you my side of the story?
  10. I love you.

This is a response to one of the prompts in this week’s Writer’s Workshop.

Ten things I would say. Ten people. No chutzpah.

Here’s a poem with the names of those 10 people hidden inside in no particular order.

A hadj
I’m dreaming of a hadje
Anywhere
Let me look
Arles looks nice
(Van Gogh and all that)
Or a farm
Where I could grab udder teats
And milk a cow by hand
Buy ripe fruit and vegetables
Harvested that day
Or visit the Cape
And hope terrapins emerge
From brackish waters
Travel to South America
See pika
(thy love for small animals satisfied)
Flee
Annotate
Breathe deeply
Visit an adobe house
Wear a robe
Kahuna visit
Honestly, though,
The best ever
Is home
Always home

Life · Travel

Munchkins

Sally3 Comments

I went to Dunkin this morning to get coffee. I’m traveling with my brother and needed my morning joe.

The young man who helped me was sweet. I’ll bet he was still in high school, trying to make a little money before he heads off to college.

So, I ordered my coffees — two of them. One for me, one for my brother.

The young man said something to me which I didn’t understand. I shook my head and said, “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that.”

He repeated his words.

I repeated what I heard back to him — “… rice?”

He laughed, and then spoke more slowly. “Hot. Or. Iced.”

“Ah!” I said. “Definitely hot.”

I paid him and put some money in the tip bucket.

I appreciate kids working. I remember how hard it was for me in my first public-facing job. I was 16 years old when I first worked at the Baseball Hall of Fame. We saw all sorts of people there.

I had also ordered a few Munchkins as a treat for my brother. When my young friend went over to put them in the bag, I listed off what varieties I wanted.

He handed the bag to me and sheepishly said, “I gave you an extra one.”

Was he appreciative of the tip?

Had he miscounted and couldn’t take the extra one out?

Or, did we have a connection in our brief interaction?

I’m going with the last theory. He was a sweet kid.

This is my response to this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday prompt: sweet.

Every word of this really happened less than an hour ago.

poetry

Exploring Roots

Sally3 Comments

An ancester named Zidsel is in my tree
’twas a new name to me
Looking through the smoke of generations past
(No — no one asked)
I am curious about my roots
And look for attributes
Genetically passed down my tree
So that I understand me

Who am I? Why am I the way I am?
It’s an anagram
I try to rearrange letters to see
Nature? Nurture? What’s the key?

Zidsel married Peder to whom she bore
Four children, maybe more
My great-grandfather Andreas was her son
He left Denmark — US life begun

I think, though, I would learn the most
Walking Zidsel’s Jutland coast
Seeing where she was born and died
Visiting the church where she was a bride
Finding old homes in the town of Varde
Imagining Zidsel in the yard
Nearly two centuries have gone by
Still, I’d like to give it a try

One of this week’s Writer’s Prompts from the Writer’s Workshop was to write a post based on the word smoke.

This poem is what grew out of that.

Well, that, and some poking around on Ancestry.

poetry

Beach Souvenir

Sally8 Comments

My mica flakes sparkle
In contrast to my blackness
I think that’s why you noticed me
In the water
At the provincial park
In Nova Scotia

You picked me up
And caressed my smoothness
Water is so patient
At smoothing away edges

Well, water and jostling
Jostling against other rocks
The daily tides make us all a little smoother
All a little less edgy

But at my very core
I always sparkle

This is my attempt at a Dinggedicht: a poem that enters so deeply into a thing that the thing seems to speak for itself through image, texture, movement, and sensation alone. That’s the W3 Challenge this week.

Life · Writing

a List

Sally2 Comments
  1. I won the award for best speller in 4th grade, beating out Jack Harvey (aka Merritt Harvey). Does that inspire me to do better? No, I’ve learned that there are people for whom spelling comes naturally or for whom it is an obsession — and I am neither.
  2. The messiest room in my house, which I will change to the messiest SPACE in my LIFE is my desk. At work and at home, my desk is messy beyond messy — and yet it is MY space which I covet and love.
  3. The contrast between these things — of being a good speller and having an incredibly mess desk — is that I am slowly figuring out what is REALLY important.
  4. What inspires me to do better — daily reading, daily contemplating, daily trying to look beyond me to the world.

This is my response to a bunch of prompts, namely

poetry

Shucking Peas

Sally11 Comments

Pods
In hand
Peas removed
Bowl slowly fills
Mom’s garden harvest
In her lap as she works
Orange-red sunset outside
Head falls forward [snore] then snaps up
“I’m not sleeping — just resting my eyes!”
Pods in hand, peas removed, bowl slowly fills

The W3 challenge this week was to write a Dectina Refrain in honor of Mother’s Day and be sure to include the word “mother” (or a variation of it).

The Dectina Refrain is a 10-line, unrhymed, syllabic poem with a precise structure:

  • Line 1: 1 syllable
  • Line 2: 2 syllables
  • Line 3: 3 syllables
  • Line 4: 4 syllables
  • Line 5: 5 syllables
  • Line 6: 6 syllables
  • Line 7: 7 syllables
  • Line 8: 8 syllables
  • Line 9: 9 syllables
  • Line 10 (Refrain): Combine the exact text of lines 1–4, in order, as a single closing line