* A love note from one of my children that says, “I love you, Mom” or “I know that I can always go to you.”
* A piece of pretty cardstock
* Bookstore ad — “Book No Further”
* Used envelope sans the mail
* Cross-stitched cats on hardanger
* Index card scribbled with notes And quotes from the book it’s in
* A tucked-in book jacket flap
* A grocery store receipt
* Slip from an online bookstore that says “Thank you for your order!”
* A printed prayer, * a ribbon
* A postcard, * an old letter
* Class handout folded in half
* Tattered newspaper clippings
* Business card from an artist That I met at a craft show
* Page from a day calendar – 2002 Far Side cows
* An unused tissue because A used one would be quite gross
* A decades old photograph of my kids in a leaf pile
* A Reeses candy wrapper
You have to admit there is always something close at hand to neatly keep your place for when you return to reading
Many apologies. I’m not feeling terribly creative
However, the W3 prompt this week was to write an ode to an everyday object. This may not be an ode, but I do appreciate all the little items that rise to the challenge of holding my place in a book.
Man, it has been a week. I’ve had a cold (not COVID) and, for whatever reason, struggled to write much.
Kudos to those of you who crank out quality posts every single day, sometimes multiple in one day. I spew forth something occasionally, nonsense most of the time, but this week the well has been fairly dry.
Honestly, I had no idea. When have I ever felt infinite? Pretty much never.
I tried writing something about swimming, because there’s something about stretching out in the water, and reaching towards the far wall that’s very Zen, but not infinite. That poem went into the trash.
On one of the days when I was home sick, I decided to tackle some of the sorting that needs to happen in this house. I live in my parents’ house, the house I grew up in, and it is chock FULL of stuff.
I found the remnants of my mother’s wedding dress. She had given it to me so the lace could be used for my wedding dress. For whatever reason, those remnants were saved. In a box. Under a bed.
The remaining lace was quite yellowed. The heavy satin that the lace had been layered over was spotted and almost brown.
“I should throw this away,” I said out loud. I resolved to do just that.
But I couldn’t.
Kudos to those of you who can or could.
It’s just beyond me.
I closed the box.
But I went back to it multiple times, wrestling internally with what should be done.
That’s when I decided that I would ask one of my sons to help me bury it. Somehow, allowing that satin and lace to become one with the earth again seemed fitting for my mother’s dress.
She always loved a garden.
Finite? Infinite? I’m not sure.
But I did crank out a poem if you care to read it at the bottom.
My mother on her wedding day
Me on mine — Dad, me, Mom
My mother gave her wedding dress To me so I Could use the lace for my gown. I frown, I sigh
As I find the remains of that Dress so many Years later. A wreck of a thing – Fitting, any
Joy I might have had now replaced With a heartache. The box holds scraps of what once was – I pause – head-shake —
What do I do? “Throw it away,” Says one voice in My mind. “It’s just garbage now.” Somehow the bin
Is not the proper place for it. It is a wreck – Like my life – but I simply will Not kill that speck
Of what – Love? Hope? Truth? Connection? It is a dress! Nothing more and yet so much more – But for my yes
My own promise — oh, how I grieve! I will bury The scraps. My heart is still not free To be merry
I’m reading a book called Hoop: A Basketball Life in 95 Essays by Brian Doyle. It almost makes me want to watch a basketball game.
Almost.
I don’t think I’ve watched a basketball game since high school. When I went to Syracuse University, I got to know a few of the basketball players, but I never went to a single game.
This was back in the ’70s when they had a new young coach named Jim Boeheim. He retired after the 2022-23 season. I heard a radio announcer on the NPR station talking about the SU basketball coach retiring and she referred to him as Jim Bohemian. I laughed. I knew his name well. I thought it sad that after decades of coaching, he was still unknown to some.
But that’s true of all of us.
No matter how notable our lives, we’re equally unnotable.
And that’s okay.
Mostly, I watched games in high school as a cheerleader.
Yes, I was a cheerleader. I followed in my sister’s footsteps.
Oh, the good old days.
Not really.
My freshman year I had planned to play field hockey but I got very sick with mono and missed three weeks of school. I never tried to play another sport.
Then, I was a cheerleader, as I said. I didn’t — and still don’t — really understand football. But I know the cheers. “First and ten! Do it again!” Don’t even try to explain it to me.
Basketball made ever-so-much more sense. At least I understood the basics.
Reading Brian Doyle’s book makes me understand how much of the game I missed — such as the grace and beauty of dribbling a basketball.
The other day I was walking on the track above our basketball courts at the sports facility where I work. Below me, kids were playing basketball. They had just finished their first day of school and come to the gym. It’s a time-honored tradition in Cooperstown.
I watched one boy trying to dribble two basketballs — one with each hand — and struggling to keep them even. Before long, it looked more like playing the bongos than dribbling a basketball.
A bit later, a girl took up that same challenge, same activity. She was considerably younger, shorter, and more athletic. She made it look easy. I watched her in admiration. If I hadn’t seen the boy struggling to do the same thing a few minutes before, her ease wouldn’t have stood out to me.
But it did.
I hoped the boy would stick with it — practicing, practicing, practicing.
I thought this morning, as I was reading another Brian Doyle essay on basketball, that I should write a book about swimming.
About the grace and beauty of it.
About the heartbreaks and the victories, the old pools and dank locker rooms, the shiny pools and pristine locker rooms. About parent timers who forget to stop the stopwatch because they’re so intent on watching their child. About the officials who have fallen in the pool during a meet, or had a coach in their face about a disqualification.
Mostly, though, about the Zen reality of swimming laps – swimming down, pushing off the wall, swimming back, over and over and over. Because if that doesn’t mimic life, I don’t know what does.
At least, it mimics life for me.
This stream-of-consciousness blather is brought to you by Linda Hill’s Stream of Conscious Saturday, where the prompt for today was mostly/at least.
The other day a conversation I was in touched on the phrase “Choose Joy.”
“It’s all in how it’s said,” the other person was saying, and it hit me how very correct he was.
Say it with heartfelt sincerity and it sounds like what it’s intended to be — an encouraging sentiment. Say it sarcastically, sardonically, with a touch of a sneer and it is exactly the opposite. However a person has heard in the past probably impacts how they hear it today, right?
Every trite little slogan has that potential.
When life is an utter sh-thole, the last thing someone needs to hear is “Choose Joy” — as if they had chosen the fecal matter surrounding them. Sometimes, our choices do lead us to the latrine — but sometimes a thousand things outside our control take us there.
Timing is everything.
When I wake up in the morning, I can tell myself to choose joy today. When I drop a cinderblock on my foot, I may not choose joy in that moment.
But, then, I do have a sign boldly proclaiming “HOPE” on the side of our barn. Does”HOPE” also fall somewhere on the sarcasm/sincerity continuum? Can it be said both ways? I sure hope so? not?
Hope somehow feels different to me.
Yesterday, I lifeguarded at a local park. All the young lifeguards are back to school or at soccer practice or some such. I’m glad I can help.
An old woman came down to the beach. I would guess that she was in her late 70s, maybe early 80s. She was unsteady entering the water from the beach. I watched her pick her way along, hoping she had water shoes on because the zebra mussels can hurt terribly when stepped on.
She lifted the rope separating the shallow end from the deep end over her head and started swimming. Maybe she was a strong swimmer at some point in her life, but she wasn’t yesterday. She made me nervous, especially when she had to stop and “rest” holding onto the rope delineating the further boundaries of the deep end.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” she said, and sounded annoyed at the question.
When she went back to shore, she lost her footing in thigh deep water. I jumped up, quite sure I would need to go in to assist her, but she finally stood again on her own and walked the rest of the way. Back on the beach, she sat, exhausted, in an Adirondack chair for the next hour.
Why she came to mind as I pondered Joy and Hope stream-of-consciously is a bit of a mystery to me. I wish I understood how my mind works. Here’s my guess though:
I think she chose Joy when she chose to go swimming that day. She drove by herself — a questionable choice because she hit a bench when attempted to park. She descended steep uneven stairs to get to our narrow beach. Then she swam — even though it exhausted her and she had lost her footing in the water. She chose to do all that even though the rest of us questioned her choices.
Maybe that’s choosing Joy — choosing something for ourselves, even when it doesn’t make sense.
That line that she clung to? That was Hope. It’s not so much a choice as it is something we just hold onto when we need it.
I drove to Roanoke and back, stopping overnight in DC where we visited an amazing new museum called Planet Word. I delivered my middle daughter to school and drove home yesterday.
In the meantime, I fell behind in the minimal writing I’ve been doing. Tanka Tuesday and W3 — you’re on my list for today. Readers, stay tuned.
For this post, though, my Stream of Consciousness writing exercise, I want to try to unravel the writing process a little more. I’ve been wrestling with the W3 prompt for this week which is to use line or lines from Leonard Cohen’s song “Anthem” as part of a new poem.
I had Anthem on repeat for a good year at one point not so long ago. It’s a great song.
There is a crack, a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in
Leonard Cohen, Anthem
So… process… I reread the words to the song, and immediately, the whole thing was playing in my head.
How can I take something so epic, so classic, and craft it into something new?
Enter Doctor Who. Remember the episode when the Doctor meets young Amy. For the record, it’s called “The Eleventh Hour,” S31 E1. My favorite line: “Must be a hell of a scary crack in your wall.”
Process — continued — Suddenly I have two sets of background singers in my head. One is singing, “Must be a hell of a scary crack,” and the other responds, “That’s how the light gets in, that’s how the light gets in.”
Seriously, I even hear a tune to their words. I can hear them going back and forth. And it’s like I’m just waiting for that lead singer to step up to the main mic and start singing the verses.
That’s what I have to write. The verses that go with the background vocals.
In the meantime, all I can think about is this homeless man that came in to eat the hotel breakfast at 6 AM of my day in DC.
I was drinking my coffee and doing my morning reading down in the breakfast area while my daughter was still sleeping in our room. He walked past me, and the first thing I noticed was the worn grocery store bag he was carrying filled with recyclables — bottles, mostly.
He wore a dirty army green jacket — and that was noteworthy to me because it was hot out, even at 6 AM. His hair was unkempt. He was unshaven. All this was one quick impression as he passed me.
I had my back to the food, so I didn’t see what was happening. I was reading, so I didn’t even really pay attention to it at all. There were a few other patrons there plus the woman who was keeping the food stocked and the area clean.
Suddenly, four men went past me in a hurry. They were big and wore vests with the word “SECURITY” emblazoned on them.
I heard the scuffle behind me, but didn’t turn to look.
They literally dragged the homeless man out. He cried, “Where is the humanity?! Where is the humanity?!” all the way out the door.
Then silence.
I sipped my coffee and pondered his question.
The woman who worked the breakfast came over to me. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He can’t just come in here like that.”
“I understand,” I replied. “It’s sad, though, isn’t it?”
“If he came back at 10, I would give him the leftover food,” she said. “I have to throw it away. I’d rather it be eaten.”
We co-existed in silence for a bit, each lost in our own thoughts.
“Thank you,” I finally said. “You do a lovely job here.”
But that story, I knew later, was the fodder for the verses to go with my insistent background vocals.
Because, really, where is the humanity? It’s masked by a scary crack. And that’s where the light gets in.
“Some years ago” — the first three words of the first full sentence on page 146 of Brian Doyle’s book, Hoop. That was the prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday — to choose the first three words of the first full sentence of a randomly chosen book near you. Here’s the shelf within reach:
Some years ago I made choices. I mean, don’t we all? We make choices that seem right at the time — and then we go with them.
And they take us all sorts of places — up hills and down, around sharp bends with unexpected trials and encounters.
They take us through dark valleys.
They take us on hikes up steep hills where bramble scratch at our legs and bugs bite leaving itchy welts. But the view at the top can be amazing.
Or disappointing.
We don’t know until we get there, right?
And we can’t change the decision, we can only press on.
Some years ago I made a decision, or rather, a series of decisions — and those decisions impacted my family.
I became the primary caregiver for my father in his final years.
Last weekend, almost four years after his passing, we finally placed his ashes in the columbarium niche next to my mother’s ashes. Both of them were in the plastic boxes, provided for free by the funeral home or the crematory. They would have been pleased with that — no frivolous expenditure there.
I still wish I had saved a Cool Whip container to put my mom in. She would have loved that.
We were raised in the most unfrivolous way, but with a great sense of humor, if that makes sense. The Cool Whip container would have encapsulated that. That — and my mother’s thriftiness.
The Columbarium
Each of their surviving children went forward to the columbarium to spend a private moment or two with the ashes before they sealed up the niche. A bagpiper played Amazing Grace while we did that.
I went forward alone — a consequence of my choices — and placed my father’s college ring in with him.
He always wore it. After he passed, I carried it in my pocket every day, as a reminder of all the life lessons he had taught me. He was a good man.
Now I’m ready to move on.
Alone in some ways, but not alone in so many others.
Some years ago I made choices — and I continue to make choices.
Immediately, Three Dog Night was playing in my mind.
But here’s the thing:
One is strong. Okay, two is stronger — collaboration and all that. But one is okay. One stands.
One is responsible for one, and isn’t pointing fingers of blame at anyone else.
One is decisive.
One makes progress. One doesn’t get bogged down wondering what two or three would want or do. One moves forward.
Honestly, two can be far lonelier than one.
And crowds can be downright desolate.
Other notable ones this week:
One bottle of Chardonnay purchased this week. Today, actually. Chilled. The glass I had tonight — alone — was so good.
One dinner out — with one son. One of my children invited me out to dinner with him last night. AND he picked up the tab. So nice!
One Otto the Orange appearance — for my one granddaughter’s birthday. My granddaughter is quite smitten with Otto the Orange, so when my son mentioned that they were going to be attending a semi-local Otto the Orange appearance, of course I went.
One really good night’s sleep — I woke up this morning at 5:30am. Unheard of! I’m typically at work at this hour.
A few more numbers:
Two workouts in the Fitness Center this week.
Two days driving down to the house we’re selling so I can pack things ups and get them out.
Three mini-ciabatta rolls with sprouts and tomato that became my dinner tonight.
One disappointment.
One unsettling conversation.
One delightful conversation setting up a talk called “Farming With Dynamite.”
Seven days of goodness.
I think that pretty much sums up my week. In numbers.
I’ve been focusing so much on trying to write poems that I almost forgot to blather write a prose-y stream-of-consciousness post. (By the way, did you know that proseas a verb means writing in a tedious, dull way? Hmm — I’ll have to save that for an appropriate occasion.)
The prompt is one/won. Well, I haven’t won anything this week so that narrows it down. Here are some ones, though.
I thought for sure that the dragonfly was a goner, but when I took it away from the cat, I could see that it was still alive. It flew away. Seriously. And I was left with amazement and questions and wonder and all sorts of feelings that are so hard to describe.
Number of operas that I attended: One.
On a bit of a whim, I went to Candide yesterday. I know it’s not really an opera; it’s musical theater. But it was at the opera house. I loved my seats — cheap seats that allowed me to see the orchestra — except I couldn’t see the French horns or the timpani. Ah well.
Earlier in the summer, I had met the actor who played Candide. Now, mind you, I knew literally nothing about the show, the story, the music — nothing. This guy came into my office to purchase a short term membership at the gym. For the summer. He was with the opera.
“Which show are you in?” I asked, trying to sound like I knew something about it.
“I’m Candide,” he said.
“You’re in Candide?” I replied.
“No,” he said, “I am Candide.”
Silly me, I thought Candide sounded like a female role.
But let me say this — that same wide-eyed cheerful attitude that he brought to the stage sat in my office that day. I highly recommend the show.
Number of times that I swam in the lake: One.
Actually, that’s the number of times for the whole summer. Friday was hot, humid, and miserable. I jumped in the lake and swam back and forth along the rope at far side of the swim area. It was so refreshing.
And those are the ‘one’s that stand out to me.
But then, there was the one time that I got drenched because the heavens let loose and I hadn’t an umbrella and I had to get to my car.
And the one time that fruit flies took over the kitchen because I hadn’t emptied the compost bucket.
The one earring I lost.
The one earring I found.
The one guy who got under my skin in a 20 minute complain-y phone call. I can listen to people, but when you’re calling to complain, please understand that I don’t make the policies.
The one former neighbor who moved back to the area and came in to get a membership at the gym and I couldn’t place him in my mind until two hours after he left.
The one turkey reuben that “hit the spot” as my mother used to say.
The one young man from Romania who tried to teach me how to pronounce his name and I couldn’t.
The one woman from Russia who told me that the rolling hills of upstate New York remind her of home.
You know this could be you, right? You, too, could Be buffeted by winds and beat up By trees and cars and birds and kids. Life could happen to you in Mean ways. Your student debt Insurmountable When medical Expenses Overtake You. Bank Account Empty. Cards Maxed. Marriage bro- Ken. A move. All the Degrees in the world can’t Float you high enough to miss All the brutality of life. That fatal heart attack was mercy. Don’t judge. Don’t judge. Don’t judge. This could be you.
This was the prompt from Sadje’s WhatDoYouSee? post this week.
This week, in sorting through papers, I came across a box of unopened mail from my brother’s apartment when we cleaned it out after he died from a heart attack nine years ago. Most of it was bills and debt collections notices. Yes, depressing.
For the record, I had a great week despite it starting off with a high level of anxiety.
I had had one of my hare-brained ideas — and this one involved taking a group of seniors to a bluegrass festival.
My contact person at the festival was one of those people who, like Bartholomew Cubbins, wore at least 500 hats. In addition to being the Office Manager, Contract Coordinator, Vendor Coordinator, Logistics Manager for that festival, she also coordinated a bunch of other events. One day when I called her she was out purchasing food for a camp or something. Another time I tried multiple to times to call her only to learn that she had dropped her phone in a lake where she was working and it was gone, gone, gone.
It stressed me out because I had trouble reaching her. I wanted confirmation of these tickets and didn’t actually get that until the morning of. Because it was my first time going and I didn’t know the lay of the land, I was worried. Add to that a couple of octogenarians, a bunch of septuagenarians, a few people with mobility issues — well, you can imagine how I asked myself many times, whose dumb idea was this?
A week ago I was out for a walk. Sometimes, when I exercise, it’s like the idea generator turns on in my head. I start having ideas — admittedly most of them dumb — but one idea leads to more ideas that lead to more ideas.
I have a friend that I haven’t seen since the last high school reunion I didn’t attend (he sought me out at home). While walking, a song he wrote popped into my head. Idea! Must get him to come sing that song for my seniors! When I got home I immediately reached out to him.
Over the course of a bunch of text message, I learned that he was going to be at the festival to which I was taking this group. To make a long story short, I called him the next day and he told me more about the festival. Then he met me shortly after I got to the festival. While my charges were eating gyros and bloomin’ onions, my friend showed me the lay of the land. Later in the afternoon, when folks were happily settled in various tents listening to or participating in sessions, we sat together and talked.
Have you ever been hungry for good conversation? I left that day feeling full.
The next day I went to the opera — La Boheme.
If you want two diametrically opposed musical experiences, go to a Bluegrass Festival and then go to an opera.
I listened to the orchestra warm up, the clarinet, french horn, and violin all skittering up and down the scales.. I love the orchestra. I could listen to them all day. Even when they’re just tuning before they begin, there’s something magical about it.
The orchestra violin? Just the day before everybody had been calling it a fiddle.
The opera musicians were all dressed in their orchestra black and sat unobtrusively in the orchestra pit.
The day before the musicians were on stage wearing t-shirts and hats and sunglasses. One mandolin player bobbed his huge mop of hair in time with the music. Sometimes the band members were barefoot.
The opera audience listened from their seats, clearly loving the amazing music, but also following the protocol of an opera, where you listen and then clap at appropriate times.
The bluegrass audience danced and clapped and cheered and sang along.
Which did I enjoy more? I would be hard-pressed to choose musically.
But the full day bluegrass experience definitely fed my soul.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 