Category: Writing

Life · Writing

A Trip to Maine

Sally2 Comments

This is my response to this week’s Writer’s Workshop prompts

12 things I learned and/or grew to appreciate this month week (because I’ve been in Maine for the week):

  1. I now know the difference between a tadpole, polywog, and froglet. This is a polywog:

          A tadpole doesn’t have any legs and a froglet has all four. This polywog, as you can see(maybe), only has two legs.

          2. Maine blueberries grow low to the ground and are tiny, compared to our New York blueberry bushes. They are harvested with special rakes. They have blueberry bushes in Maine, too, but those teeny berries from the ground plants are PACKED with flavor. Who knew?

          3. There is more than one Fort Knox. My dad was stationed in Fort Knox, KY, and it’s known for all the gold there. But before that Fort Knox, there was a Fort Knox in Maine built in the mid-1800s. It’s a massive granite fortress built on the edge of the Penobscot River.

          Fort Knox outside wall
          Fort Knox — the inside compound

          4. Perspective is always important. When you’re looking from the outside, you can’t see in very well (see top Ft. Knox photo). But when you’re looking from the inside out, the world just seems to open up.

          From inside Ft. Knox.

          5. The Penobscot Narrows Bridge is one of only five bridge observatories in the world. The other four are in China, Thailand, Slovakia, and South Korea.

          Looking up at the Penobscot Observatory from our car.

          6. Perspective is always important. (Yes, I already said that.) Looking down and looking up are totally different views.

          Looking down from the Penobscot Observatory at our car.

          7. Beaches hold amazing surprises.

          We found this crab shell on the beach full of… we didn’t know! It turns out they are Marine Springtails, a relative of the snow fleas I’ve seen at times in New York. They’re an important part of the beach ecosystem, part of nature’s clean-up crew.

          8. Museums are fun.

          We stopped at the Penobscot Maritime Museum, mostly because of this guy beckoning us in. I learned more about sardines than I thought possible.

          9. Sometimes kids don’t appreciate museums.

          “Boring who needs fishermen dont prezerve fishing”

          This was in a box of comments that I looked through. It made me laugh — and feel a little sad for the kid who wrote it.

          10. Museums can be very funny for kids (big and small) who engage with them.

          Captioned: Which animal is not stuffed?

          This photograph was hanging in the ladies room at the Penobscot Maritime Museum. It was taken by a turn of the 20th century photographer, Charles Coombs, who was also an undertaker and taxidermist. The picture made me laugh.

          11. Floating classrooms can be massive.

          The big ship in the back is called The State of Maine and recently came into Castine, home to the Maine Maritime Academy. Its primary purpose is for training Maine Maritime cadets while also being available for federal humanitarian assistance and disaster relief mission. We went to see it but couldn’t get any closer than this.

          12. Sunsets are beautiful everywhere.

          Alzheimer · Alzheimer's · dementia · elderly · family · Leaning In · Life · Writing

          The Feeder’s Table

          Sally2 Comments

          This is a draft written February 6, 2015, pulled from the draft folder because of the RDP prompt word: tame

          From across the room, I heard the man bellow, “NO!”

          I had no clue what this was in reference to — he was across the room, after all, and I was attending to my mother in the midst of her ritual folding and unfolding of her mealtime protector (aka – bib) while waiting for the food to arrive.

          A woman at his table shouted out, “SNOW!” It was snowing out.

          She laughed at her rhyme, a dry cackle-y laugh, not because she was a witch, although it did make me think of one, but because she was very old and shriveled, and even her laugh bore witness to that.

          “He said, ‘NO,’ and I said, ‘SNOW,'” she said gleefully, and it reminded me of the little “jokes” that first- or second-graders make, when the littlest thing sends them into gales of laughter.

          However, the jokesters were across the room, while my mother sat at the feeder’s table, a table set aside for residents who need assistance with eating. She dines with five other ladies with dementia.

          To my mother’s left is a dear lady that reminds me of a sparrow. Her voice is quiet and sing-songy. Sometimes she makes sense and sometimes she doesn’t, but I always have to listen very closely when she speaks. (Professor Trelawny)

          Next to Sparrow is a woman with a chiseled angular face. (Professor McGonigle) She never speaks. She sits erect and stern, like a statue of a school matron staring across her desk at a wayward student.  However, I had met her many years before, when she was an OB nurse. She had come into my room after I had given birth to somebody because she wanted to tell me about my father.

          “I remember your father’s first day at the hospital,” she said. “He came in toting a little black doctor’s bag. A little black bag!” She laughed when she told me the story, and her eyes twinkled with the delight of that memory. My father still has that black bag with its stethoscope, reflex hammer, otoscope, and other doctorly treasures.

          To her left sits a white-haired lady whose dementia has a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde effect on her.  (Quirinius Quirrell) One minute she is sweet and the next she is spewing venom.

          Next to Mrs. Hyde sits the newest diner at the feeder’s table. I’ll come back to her.

          To Newby’s left is Mrs. Tiggywinkle, so designated because of her hedgehog hairdo.  Teens pay a lot of money and use a lot of product to get hair like hers, sticking straight up all over her head. My father has to repeatedly request that my mother’s hair get combed. Some of us are just stuck with wayward hair that no amount of combing can tame, and I suspect that’s the case with Mrs. Tiggywinkle.

          The draft ended and I never finished it. I don’t remember who the person I called Newby is, so I can’t come back to her now. I don’t even remember the point of this story.

          My mother died 9 months later.

          Reading drafts and posts from that time in my life are interesting to me. I’m glad that I chronicled the journey.

          Advice to anyone going through a stressful time: Write down what you see and hear and feel. It’s a gift to your future self.

          nonsense · Writing

          Sometimes

          Sally1 Comment

          Sometimes I am lazy
          And use imprecise words
          Instead of wrens or robins
          I just refer to them as birds

          Sometimes I can catch myself —
          I know what I should do!
          But sometimes I say “sometimes”
          Instead of “yesterday at two”

          This is my stream-of-consciousness ditty brought to you by the prompt “sometimes.”

          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

          Writing

          Football

          Sally3 Comments

          Just to be clear, this post has nothing to do with altruism.

          Altruism is the prompt for JusJoJan.

          True story: I don’t follow American football. Not even a little. Honestly, I’ve never really understood the game. It looks like one people-pile after another. They talk about downs, which are different from people-piles, although it sure does look like a lot of people go down in a people-pile. Then there’s the whole scoring thing: some things earn 6 points, other things earn 3, and still others earn 1, or is it 2. I don’t know.

          I coached swimming. The first person to touch the wall won.

          My kids played soccer. If they kicked the ball in the goal, they got one point.

          Easy and straight-forward, right?

          I knew my son and his family were watching some Buffalo Bills game on Saturday night, so I half-watched about 5 minutes of it. Some guy caught the ball, but another guy ripped the ball right out of his arms. The whole thing didn’t look fair. I later told my brother about it, saying (again) that I really don’t understand football and wondered why people watch it.

          “You need to watch this,” he said, and he directed me to a video of a guy running back-back-back, pushed by a bunch of guys from the other team, and he throws the ball — a long long pass to a guy waiting in the endzone and they scored.

          Running backwards AND throwing accurately impresses me.

          All this goes to show that an impressive bit of athleticism impresses me.

          Is it altruistic?

          No. The fact that I can’t easily find a video that shows this shows how UNaltruistic American sports are.

          It’s all about the money, right?

          These things happen in a vacuum accesible only to those who sell their souls to something.

          I did. I watched some inane advertisement to see that video.

          So now the fact remains that I am NOT a football fan, and it has nothing to do with understanding the sport. It has more to do with the $$-wall around the whole thing.

          family · Writing

          A Large Family

          Sally9 Comments

          Don’t get me started.

          Family size is a personal decision.

          I can’t tell you the number of rude things that have been said to me because of the number of children I have. I have eight.

          “When are you going to stop?” — said to me by a woman at church when I was pregnant with #4. She later said to me after that baby was born — a daughter after three sons, “You got your girl, thank God. You can stop now.”

          Another woman told me, “You have too many children.” This was when I had, I think, six. I responded by asking, “Which one should I get rid of?” I received no answer.

          I haven’t gone to high school reunions, in large part because I didn’t want to spend my evening answering questions about my family size. That — plus the fact that while my classmates went on to pursue careers, I chose to be a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t really want to spend an evening at reunion answering the question, “What do you do?”

          I chose to be a mom.

          And it was, without a doubt, the right choice for me. It shaped me. It allowed me to be creative and loving and strong. I developed patience. I learned that I LOVE taking care of people.

          So much so that I took care of my parents, too.

          Did I resent doing that? Never. Not even for half a second.

          Now, while my age-cohort is retiring, I’m just a few years into my first full-time job since 1984.

          I have an office where I work. People stop in a lot to say hi, to talk, to complain, to suggest. I have an open door. Just the other day I was telling someone how being a mom prepared me for the constant interruptions of having an open-door policy in my office. When you’re a mom, you learn that your interruptions ARE your work. The same is true for me today.

          A man stopped in my office yesterday. He often pokes his head in to say hello. He was a caregiver for his disabled wife the last few years of her life. He used to bring her to the gym and wheel her around in her wheelchair so she could have contact with other people.

          Then she died.

          And it turns that by coming to the gym he was building his own support system. He comes every day — not to work out so much as to visit with people. He makes the rounds, and I’m on them.

          Anyway, he poked his head in, chatted about nothing, and then asked about my necklace. My youngest daughter gave it to me and I always wear it.

          It has three discs: one that’s a tree, and two progressively larger ones with the names of my children around the edge. When you have a large family, you have to be creative about mother’s jewelry.

          I explained the necklace to him.

          “You have eight children,” he said incredulously.

          “Yes,” I replied.

          “Did you adopt some?”

          “No.”

          “Did you have twins or triplets?”

          “No,” I told, “they were born one at a time.”

          I turned around to grab the photo I have of them on my bulletin board.

          “There’re all adults now,” I said, showing him the photo.

          “You have eight children?!”

          “Yes, this is them,” I said.

          He was shaking his head. “You have eight children?!?!”

          “Yes –”

          He was backing out of the doorway. I was feeling rattled and small and angry and sad.

          “You have eight children?” he said again. “I need to process this.”

          “I’m still the same person you’ve been talking to for a year,” I called after him, but I don’t think he heard me.

          Don’t get me started.

          There are so many things that can define a person. Mistakes made while young. How they invested their life over the past four decades. What they are doing today.

          I have eight children. They are amazing people and I’m so proud of them.

          Really. Don’t get me started.

          This overly-wordy post is my response to the Stream-of-Consciousness prompt: don’t get me started.

          Linda Hill got me started on a rant.

          Writing

          Intentional Walk

          Sally6 Comments

          Once upon a time I did a whole bunch of research on my hometown, Cooperstown, which is also the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame.

          Tourists come here in droves in the summer for baseball stuff — but the village is so much more than baseball.

          Years ago, when I was taking care of my father, the home health aide came and shoo me out of the house. “Go do something for yourself,” she would say.

          So I would go to the research library. I mean, isn’t that where everyone would want to go?

          I researched the town, the old homes, the founders, etc. I made up a walking tour of the village and walked it a gazillion times with one of my daughter. She knew the tour better than I did, I think.

          Then I was talking with one of my sons and asked what he would call a non-baseball tour of Cooperstown. He thought about it, and then said, “An Intentional Walk.”

          I loved it.

          (For those who don’t know, an intentional walk IS a baseball term for when the pitcher decides to throw four balls and intentionally walk the batter because he would rather face the next guy in the line-up. These days, the pitcher doesn’t even have to throw the four balls. They can just declare it. Where’s the fun in that?)

          But life happened.

          My father died.

          We had a pandemic.

          I took a full-time job.

          The Intentional Walk fell by the wayside. Maybe I should resurrect it.

          James Fenimore Cooper, part of the tour. This photo shows him avoiding the pandemic.

          This post is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: Intentional

          Writing

          Bear Arms

          Sally1 Comment

          Philomena Cunk’s thoughts are always priceless:

          @bbc

          Good point… are they legs or arms? 🐻 #CunkOnEarth #BBCiPlayer #Comedy #PhilomenaCunk

          ♬ original sound – BBC

          The whole bear vs bare debacle (leaving the arms out) is further complicated by Fuzzy Wuzzy.

          You remember the poem, right?

          Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
          Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
          Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy
          Was he?

          Clearly Fuzzy Wuzzy was bare. A bare bear.

          But did he have arms?

          This bit of nonsense is brought to you by the JusJoJan prompt: arms.

          Writing

          Fast/Slow

          Sally6 Comments

          I fell asleep last night thinking about the word “fast” because I had seen that fast/slow was the Stream of Consciousness prompt for today. I know, I know – maybe pondering the words at bedtime makes it less true stream-of-consciousness but whatever.

          Fast is such a funny word. We use it to describe abstaining from eating. That seems like the opposite of fast. No eating equals fast. Slow eating means enjoying a meal. Go figure.

          Then I woke up this morning and saw the news. We’ve attacked Venezuela and captured their president. Well, that happened fast.

          And it’s scary.

          So I sent an email to my congressman and both senators at 5:30 AM.

          Supposedly, Maduro has ties to drug cartels.

          But didn’t Trump pardon a convicted drug trafficker who had been the president of Honduras?

          He is inconsistent at best.

          And waaaaay too impulsive.

          Where are the checks and balances?

          It’s moving too fast. Someone needs to slow him down.

          I think I’ll fast today.

          And pray.