The Long and Winding Channel

I'm finding my lost words here.

Perhaps all I needed was a used bookstore to operate and fall in love with, an island to return to and claim as home instead of a vacation spot, a different set of worries to toss about during the day, conversations with hubby that start out, 'I think we should..." instead of "What are we going to..."

Sunshine nourishes us. And the salt from the marshes fills us up with its satisfying scent, so primal. Sleep arrives so gently. We're lulled into such sighs of contentment we're often mistaking one another for the wind.

Just Like Tom Thumb's Purples

I’m way past blues. My words have all escaped, slipped out the door and into the woods, climbed the trees and been carried away by the pine siskins to nests so high I haven’t a chance at getting them back again. They're cozy in those nests. I’ve lost the knack to coax them down to this cold, blank screen.

Brown-Eyed Word

I’m mixing more than metaphors these days, as this raddled brain of mine plays its little tricks on me. When I knit, I tell folks about the easy “recipe” I’ve been following. When the sun goes down, I ask hubby if I should turn on the lights on the camp deck that are shaped like ice cream cones, except I call them “pine cones”. I call pencils “crayons” and blankets are “sheets”, close, but no cigar. Tough to write much of anything when my words are mixed up like this.

Last Train to Wordsville

They’ve been clicking down the tracks lately, those errant words that sometimes escape into the woods when I’m walking the pooch before I find time to commit them to paper or computer screen. Some of them are even worthy of keeping around for awhile. Most of them even turn into complete sentences, with coherent meaning found at the end of a paragraph. So maybe I haven’t totally lost it yet. Maybe that special poem is still locked inside my head just waiting for the proper time to make itself known. Perhaps the short story that spilled from my fingertips the other day when I opened my laptop while lounging on the deck in the woods will turn into something that does not generate a rejection letter. It’s even possible one of the novels festering on the shelf will rear its head and demand a rewrite.

I’m riding the crazy writing train again, words flying in and out of my head, and I’m catching some that matter now and then. What more can we ask for?

Me and Bobby Magoo

I feel as if I've gone blind, can't find any of the words I need to express the way I'm feeling right now. Or perhaps I'm seeing things too clearly? Hmmm.

Maybe freedom's just another word for nothing left to say.

Waiting For the Sun

This Could Be The Last Line

How do we know what our last words might be? When will I put my pen to rest, unplug the keyboard and call it quits? There are still rejection letters due to arrive….or perhaps not. Still. When does it become a chore and not a need? And do I have a say in what my last words might be? If so I’d want them to simply be this: I gave it my best.

Things I Didn't Say Today

It's been longer than days now, more like weeks, since I have put any words down that make any sense, that might be turned into a meaningful poem or grow up to be a short story. There's been to time to even edit the words napping in my notebooks. I'm hoping they haven't fallen into hibernation mode; sometimes it's too hard to wake them up again. If I don't keep nudging them, they'll act as if they are lazy teenagers, rebelling against my good intentions to dress them up and bring them out in public. It not as if I've nothing to say. That's rarely the case. I just can't seem to find my way to stay put at this desk. Responsibilities tug me away and are such an elevated level, my playing with words seems not to be the best use of my hours....at least in the eyes of others.

So, there are things I'm not saying today. Or tomorrow. Or possibly even next week.

Time Has Gone Again

It used to stretch in front of me. It was good to me, letting me swirl my words around until they found a pattern that worked, until a character came to life, until a resolution was found. It wound itself between my legs like a loyal cat wanting its daily wet, sloppy food. It seemed endless some days when the words didn’t flow as easily as I’d like. Other days it flew by as quickly as my fingers tapped the keyboard. But it was always there.

Lately, it’s simply gone. It’s not mine any more. Obligations and responsibilities have taken over again. And it’s so very true that the common denominator in all our lives in the 24 hours we each have in every day. So, “my time” has disappeared. Something has to give. And I guess it’s simple. I give up sleep.

Rakin' Robin

Yeah, I wasn’t “rockin’” but I sure was using that rake! It’s always amazing to me how many leaves there are to get out of the way before we can even open up the camp every spring. And, of course, as I raked, words seemed to flood my head. Isn’t that the way it always is? When there isn’t time or laptop available, the ending to that short story pops into my head, the perfect wording for the poem I’ve been struggling with. And today, in these early morning hours when the house is quiet and I’ve no obligations except to try to put words on this screen, I can’t remember anything but the swish the dried leaves made as I raked them onto the tarp I then dragged across the road and then dumped the leaves into a huge pile.

Ah, that’s where all my words went, into that huge pile of leaves! By the time I get back there, they’ll have blown away.

I once wanted to live long enough to benefit from time travel. My wish now, however, is for someone to invent a devise that transfers my thoughts into a notebook for me. Especially the thoughts that come to me when I’m raking leaves.

House of the Setting Sun

We’ll be heading for the woods soon, where I can sit on the front deck and watch the setting sun. My words float in the leaves there and then fall into my head so easily, I have to take long walks with the dog to catch them all and sort them out. Summer words are so much lighter, too. They laugh easier, stay around longer, don’t prick my fingers when they finally make their way to this laptop. My pencils are sharpened. Batteries are working in my hand held recorder. And I know my favorite trees are there waiting for me to come back and read my latest words to them as Rupert and I stroll by or stop to sit beneath one of them and enjoy the comfort of the day. I’m ready, ready, ready.

If Ever I Would Read You

I often have difficulty selecting poems to read aloud when asked to do a reading, mostly because my work is so personal. When something is troubling me, I write about it. I encourage other writer friends to do the same and the work of others I read certainly tells me I am not alone in doing this. Yesterday while sitting in the sun on the front porch I read poetry by Billy Collins, a favorite of mine. His “Ballistic” collection contained poems that made me laugh out loud and then choke back tears; if he has not just gone through a divorce himself, he certainly has been close to someone who has. His poetry in this book tells the story of it. I wonder if he can read those poems aloud without tears. Some of my poems I can’t read in public because I still can’t get through them without breaking down.

This week I had the extreme pleasure of listening to Seamus Heaney give a reading. His wealth of words is often what I turn to for inspiration, comfort, and support. Three of his poems would be on my list of my top ten favorites and I was in awe when he read two of them that evening. I will never read them again myself without hearing his Irish brogue.

One of my favorites, one with an ending that tugs at your heart – a style I’ve tried to copy in my work, never hitting the same chord as Mr. Heaney – is “Mid-Term Break”. He recited this from memory, on his 71st birthday, to a full house in Hendricks Chapel on the Syracuse University campus. It’s a chilling poem, so well crafted it sometimes makes me wonder why anyone ever would write another poem. What I did not know until that night was that it was written about a personal experience. I’m not sure why this surprised me, because I write about what happens to me, as do most other poets I know. He recited it so well, the words are so deliciously arranged, the emotions so crisp and raw…..and as one of his very early poems, I simply never imagined it had such personal meaning to him. How he can read it with dry eyes, I do not know, yet he handled it masterfully.

Although Seamus Heaney was inspiring on several levels and I will long remember sitting in those pews with my poet friend Mary Ellen enthralled by the Irish accent and the rhythm of his magical poetry, I will also try to read the poems I’ve written that are personal, because these end up being the most honest, the most real.

Also, I will keep these words of his in mind always now as I write: “Write through your grief for the pure joy of writing.”

My Baby Brought Me A Letter

When the white envelopes arrive in the mailbox, I expect them to be there. Those self-addressed, stamped envelopes I toss into larger envelopes that contain manuscripts I’ve slaved over before submitting to various places hoping someone finds my work worthy always return home sooner or later. I’ve gone quite a stretch recently without any landing on the doorstep. At least a dozen are floating around out there. I wonder what that might mean, when I dare to think about it. What I anticipate is opening the mailbox one day soon and having a dozen of these envelopes fall at my feet, slapping the porch with such force it will almost sound like someone whispering “I told you none of your stuff is any good!”

So when my husband handed me a white envelope the other day, I simply shrugged. At first glance I did not notice that there was a return address hand-written on the back. Instead I wondered why someone had written my name and address on the front of the envelope. Where had the address label that I always use gone? Had it fallen off? Had I made a mistake and forgotten to put it on? The postage stamp was the kind I use, the envelope identical. Someone had taken the time to hand address a rejection letter to me? Oh! Maybe they wrote me a note then to tell me why they didn’t find my work suitable for their publication. I ripped it open.

And read the letter enclosed twice before realizing that my poem had been selected as an “Honorable Mention” entry in a contest. I’d forgotten about entering the contest, one I’ve entered often and had some success with. Last year I’d won first prize. I had hesitated to submit this year, imagining that they would certainly pass on my work and give someone new a chance. What a pleasant surprise to be selected again!

Wonders never cease.

I Shot the Poet

At least that’s what it feels like.

There must be a wound somewhere, though as many times as I search, there’s no blood seeping through my t-shirt, no gash on my brow, no gaping hole in my thigh. I can’t find my pulse, can barely feel the contraction of my lungs as I gasp. Even the glorious spring sunshine flooding my room and such welcome warmer temperatures haven’t stirred words to the surface. When I open my mouth, silence dribbles out. My fingers feel frostbit, unable to peck out sentences that bring sense to anything I’m twirling through.

I’m trying to decide on a second mangled line to my song…..maybe it will be as simple as “I shot the poet, but I did not shoot the knitter.”

This reminds me of a quote I recently read, a thought Dame Edith Sitwell shared regarding Virginia Woolf: I enjoyed talking to her, but thought nothing of her writing. I considered her a beautiful little knitter.

I Wanna Hold Your Pen

May I borrow your pen?

Maybe then I could write a better poem, a happy poem full of sunlight and memories of days spent on the beach with summer wind blowing through our hair, no cares in the world.

Today all I write is fear, grey and dull, pulling me down into the void where even voices cut me into a dozen pieces I can’t fit back together.

We Can Write It Out

Whenever I’m faced with one of many difficulties life tosses my way, I tell myself to simply write it out. While not everything I write is purely autobiographical, issues I’ve dealt with do find their way into poems, stories and novels eventually. And if it’s not something I’ve dealt with directly, I’m not above stealing from the lives of my friends. A cousin once read something I wrote and then spent weeks stewing about it, feeling I had stolen a little too much of her life for others to read.

However, isn’t this how we often cope? I got through a horrible first marriage by reading fiction about others who got through horrible first marriages. The librarian in the small town I lived in then saved books for me after becoming familiar with the theme I seemed to select. I didn’t even realize that she eventually selected books for me about women who found their ways out of horrible marriages. I should have thanked her.

It helps to write it out. There are some things we never make sense of, such as the death of a loved one before we’ve had time to say all we wanted to say or do all we’d planned to do. Still, writing about it dulls the pain momentarily, or connects us for a second with someone else who remembers what that felt like, making us feel not so alone in our grief.

I read for pleasure and escape and also searching for connection. Instead of focusing on the differences between me and my neighbors, especially at first glance, I long to know what experiences we may have shared. Reading helps me learn about others who feared walking into a first grade classroom as the new kid in town or being a young mother afraid she’d end up screaming right along with her howling infant if someone didn’t lend her a hand or being that wife trapped in a marriage that seemed impossible to escape.

That’s why I write, too. If I can write it out, write what I’ve gone through, what I might have learned along the way, what I’m still trying to figure out, maybe I’ll connect with someone who can find their own answers through my words. Maybe I can help someone else write it out for themselves. We can work it out, if we write it out. Honestly.

Tiptoe Through the Daisies

Standing in the Shadow of Doubt

Every word is suspect, each sentence creeping across the page. Will it ever be good enough? Why bother? Isn’t there something better I could be doing with my time? The shadow cast by my doubts covers every word.

Then I hear him, the cardinal outside my window. He’s singing away, as he does most mornings when I first sit down to write. I close my eyes for a minute and imagine that this gorgeous flame red bird is the reincarnation of some unknown poet who spent hours toying with words urging me to cast away my shadow of doubt, lift my hands above this keyboard and allow my words to spill out of my head in the same manner as the cardinal’s song fills the morning air. He sings because he can. Does he care if anyone listens? Does he return to his nest and tell his mate, “Today I hit all the right notes"? No. He simply sings.

There are mornings I feel as though this cardinal is my only cheerleader. When he’s finished with his song and has flown off, the silence he leaves behind deepens, as does the shadow of doubt.

All those voices in my head seem louder in this silence: all those who’ve wondered how I could quit my “real” job to sit here and write, others who believe it’s a total waste of time, those who give me a smirk of a smile when they ask me what I do and I’ve replied that I’m a writer. Unpaid bills giggle at me and the pile of rejection letters flutter hello. I can even hear my mother reminding me that I have responsibilities to tend to, can’t spend all my time “pretending I’m Margaret Mitchell”. And then there’s the loudest voice of all, my very own internal critic, wondering if it’s worth it all.

And then the cardinal returns to that tree branch that sits directly in front of the window outside my office. He sings away again. Because he can.

A phrase pops into my head. I start scribbling a poem. Because I can.

It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Writing

I can still remember it as though it happened only yesterday.

I must have been around 13. My parents bought me an antique desk for my bedroom. I dusted its wrought iron legs and shiny, slanted writing surface. On the book shelf that was part of this desk, I gently placed my treasured books: Little House on the Prairie, Dr. Doolittle, Little Women, Bartlett’s Quotations, Famous Poems Old and New, Mud Pies and Other Recipes.

Many a homework assignment was completed at that desk, and I fumbled at writing my first poems there, too, hiding them in my homework papers if someone should come into my room. Having this great desk to write at was partially to blame for my dream of being a poet. The librarian at our town library had also been saving biographies of poets for me. I’d read about Sara Teasdale and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but the book about Sylvia Plath convinced me of two things: I could be a poet and the mood swings my mother experienced weren’t a novelty after all.

Then came the evening I coughed up the courage to tell my parents that I wanted to be a poet. We’d been discussing my high school class schedule, so it seemed a good a time as any. I’d already been accepted in the Advanced English class, one focusing on literature and writing. I figured all I needed was four years of French to assist me in ordering food at the cafes I’d be visiting on the Left Bank and I could skip Biology and Geometry. I paced my bedroom practicing the presentation I would give at the dinner table, until I was absolutely certain I had chosen my words so perfectly that no one could argue with the fact that I must follow my dream. I could stop hiding all the poems I was writing, start wearing a black beret, maybe smoke a cigarette or two….

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! You’d never be able to feed yourself. You’re going to take a typing class.”

And there it was. My first review. My first critic. The same one that haunts me each and every time I slip a manuscript into an envelope to send out, every time I stand in front of a room full of people to give a reading. It never goes away. Partly because of the ring of truth within those words: I would never have been able to feed myself – literally – with poetry, although I have definitely fed myself spiritually. I don’t think this is something my parents would have been able to understand, though.

I am very, very thankful for one thing, however. I did, indeed, learn to type. And I have earned a very good living in the past because I knew how to type. BUT…..I’ve also been able to write more efficiently because I can type 80+ words a minute. I thank my folks, both gone now and unable to experience the poems that get published here and there, for making sure that I learned how to type.

Dissatisfaction

Dun dun da da dun da da dun, dun dun da da dun da da dun.....

Come on. You must know the riff. "I can't get no...." Well, yeah, I've changed the word because, in case you haven't noticed, the title of each blog post is an altered song title. But I guess I shouldn't be singing "I can't get no....dissatisfaction" because my cup runneth over with such.

Is the earth spinning on its axis at an unusual angle, and not the one that tips us a little closer to the sun that I welcome every year around this time? I mean the one that seems to be making everyone around me act almost exactly the opposite I expect them to, or whatever is causing situations I once felt to be well in hand to cascade out of bounds. I'm spinning my wheels, and I haven't the energy to run after myself any longer.

Where will I end up if I have to stop chasing words across my computer screen every day and return to the world of hiring/firing? I shiver to consider it, yet I see the path ahead of me and it's littered with poems bleeding by the side of the road because I have too many things on my "to do" list again to lavish any attention on their wounds, patch them up and ready them for the party. Will I turn into a resentful shrew with more grey hairs and a screech to my voice when I inform others that I "used" to be a writer? How do I hide my disappointment, buck up and take my turn at the wheel of our life, steer our course awhile in the gracious manner that I know is the route that should be taken instead of throw the colossal temper tantrum I feel welling up inside of me, totally unwarranted, that would inflict undue harm?

I've lived through those times when my words were THERE but the hours weren't. It wasn't pretty. Relationships with everyone within a hundred mile radius suffered. I don't even like myself when that happens. And the older I get, the less inclined I am to give up sleep.

I'm reminded of a favorite poem by Kenneth Koch: You Want a Social Life, With Friends. Basically he cautions that you can have a family, a social life and be a writer. But you can never have all three at once. I'm wondering today, did I learn anything from juggling friends, family, a job and writing when I tried it all before to be any more successful at it if I have to do it again? The very thought of it literally makes my stomach turn. If I was a drinker, I'd be drunk right now, even though as the daughter of an alcoholic, that's hardly my style or solution to anything. I'm terrified of losing my words again....especially now when, for the most part, they visit me almost every day, perky and ready to oblige. What I do know is that they'll vanish if they don't have the attention they deserve.

Oh...there's that riff playing in my head again.....I can't get no satisfaction, and no answers. Not today, at least. Not today.

In the Early Morning Dream

Words tease me awake. Long before the dog nudges me as an alert that his bladder has reached its capacity. Long before hubby has stumbled to his closet, pulled a shirt off a hanger, kissed me goodbye and driven off to work. Sometimes I've been dreaming a line of a poem or an ending to a chapter I've been struggling with. Often it's pure nonsense. Yet there they are, precious words dancing on the end of my eyelids, tickling my tongue, tingling at the ends of my fingertips, awaiting their release onto the stark white pages of my bedside notebook or the sterile computer screen.

If I'm lucky.

Sometimes I'm unable to capture them, and what might have been haunts me through my day. I'm always certain those morning dream words were my salvation: the beginning of the very poem The New Yorker can't possibly reject; the solution that gets one of my characters off that bench in Central Park; the ending for my short story about the couple having a fight in MOMA.

And today is one of those days those words are teasing me, hovering over my shoulder, slightly out of reach, whispering too softly for me to hear them, their brilliance fading in the bright sunlight of a day too filled with distractions.

Ain't No Sunshine When They're Gone

Yes, they're gone.....those short stories I've labored so hard over. Gone off into the hands of friends to be read and critiqued. Some have already been through the scrutiny of my writing group, a couple have been previously published, but for most, it's these stories' first time out of the comfort and safety of the notebook I've coddled them in. I gathered them all together, dressed them up in their best fonts, and polished them with prettier words. After begging them to be on their best behavior, I then let friends I respect carry them off to their easy chairs. Now I hope these stories don't belch in anyone's face. I don't know which one will charm Kathy, which one will grate on Mark's nerves or make Lynn cry, which one Denise might think was a horrendous waste of her time to read.

A couple of these short stories are autobiographical: about telling my son he needs to use condoms when he has sex; about the time my ex-husband followed me into the library with a baseball bat; about an unexpected visit from my mother. My heart and soul have gone into many of them. It makes me nervous to have them out of my sight, as if they are toddlers who have gone to a play group and parents are not allowed to attend and watch over them.

I'd love nothing more than to bring them all back home, possibly where they belong. But they'll never grow up without an overnight or two away from home. I'd like them to follow a path to the big city some day, all the way into the hands of a publisher who might put them between a hard cover. They could eventually find themselves sitting on a shelf in a book store in the company of those I could only dream they might rub book covers with.

Isn't that every mother's dream?

Please Release Me, Let Me Write

That's how I'm feeling lately.

Release me from laundry, household chores, dog walking and.....my writing group?

I'm frustrated. Had anyone from the outside world dropped by, he would have thought he'd stumbled into an AA meeting or a group therapy session, definitely NOT a writing group.

Don't get me wrong, now. I have total respect and admiration for my fellow members and absolute understanding that we need a safe place to discuss the things that are going on in our lives. We often do this at the beginning of our meetings as we catch up on what's been happening to all of us. And some of us have been going through extreme, life altering events. However, I truly mean it when I say, "I want to write the drama, not live it."

That's not really what's frustrating me, though, because I know not every meeting takes on this cloak of a therapy session and often is full of twisting words around and ideas flying around the room so fast it's often hard to catch them all. It was the way I felt almost personally attacked because I offered information on publishing options and gave an update on the submissions I have circulating. When I'm in this cycle, I'm in the need of cheerleaders, I'll admit it; I look to the members of this group for support. Instead I received kind of a "why bother" response, even a "I may not even write any more" response from one, although I know he will get through this part of his life and the words in his head and heart will bombard him back to his computer.

So....I left feeling like my dog Rupert must feel when I reprimand him. If I had a tail, it would have been between my legs all the way home. Am I foolish for spending most of my days here in my office pounding the keyboards and filling this screen with words, or preparing manuscripts to send out? If I don't write.....well, ask my husband. I'm sure he'll tell you he'd rather live with me writing every day than not writing. Whether the rejection letters fill my mailbox or not. Because it's not about getting published, it's about doing the writing. Publishing is the "dessert" for me. I'd love my grandchildren to see something in print that Nana did, because I know my daughter will toss all my notebooks in the trash, after she has gone through them all looking for stray $20 bills.

Perhaps we all need a change of scenery. Winter stays too long here often, and we may be feeling the need for an early spring. The group takes a summer hiatus. Maybe I'll hang in until then, see what might have changed again by fall.

Until then.....I'm going to write. I'm going to submit. I'm going to do what a writer does.

When Will I Be Read?

It has been said that behind every good book one can find a pile of rejection letters. If that's the case, I'm collecting my own pile.

Currently I have two separate poetry manuscripts circulating and more than a dozen individual poems, sent off as one might send a child off to school, for indeed those words are a part of me being shown off to the world to see if I've raised them properly, if they'll fit in with the other "kids", if they'll shine and prosper and maybe find their way onto a crisp, printed page in a respected journal somewhere.

And then those stamped, self-addressed envelopes arrive home announcing that my work was not good enough. Perhaps it's more painful for me because I have a post office box that I only visit weekly so there's always more than one letter awaiting me, for certainly they do not all arrive on the same day. I've become better at ripping them open and saying, "Your loss" when I read the form letters that try not to be form letters. Occasionally there's a scribble on one, and I always take those to heart because someone may have actually read my work before dismissing it as unworthy.

I will keep on sending my work out though, making sure that I have more paper sitting on editors' desks than rejection letters in my pile. Eventually the odds have to be in my favor. Or is this too much like playing the lottery? I dont' know. I do have those moments when I wonder if it's not a complete waste of time.....after all, it isn't writing. I'd sure like to get back to that.

But there's this pile of short stories now, yapping at me to send them off somewhere......

Happiness is a Warm Sun

Sunshine is dancing through my windows today, hardly enough to melt the eighteen inches or so of snow dropped on us last night, but sunshine anyway. I crave its warmth as some crave the melting of Godiva chocolate on their tongue. When the snow is piled higher than my knee caps, I usually have to get books about pioneer women out of the library in order to realize that I don't have it all that bad.



But my words freeze. My bones bleed ice. My fingers are numb to type well from too much shoveling, from walking the dog (who can never catch enough snowballs, ever) . All I want to do is crawl under the covers and not come out until the sun shines.



And today it shines...brightly. May the warmth of this winter sun melt away the snowbanks in the neighborhood and AND the word freeze in my brain.

The Coming of the Snow

That's the title of a Rod MacDonald song I love. Well, I love listening to him sing it in the summer anyway, not when the snow has actually made its way to us. We've missed most of the horrible storms of this season, until now. I cannot see the street because of the snow piled on the branches of the tree in front of my office window. I can't hear the sounds of traffic either, maybe because every school within twenty miles is closed.

I actually like the hush this kind of snow brings with it, and am thankful that I can remain in my pjs and sit here typing words no one reads. Didn't have to shovel and hubby walked the mutt this morning. Didn't even open the door to wave goodbye to them. I'm hunkered down over this laptop trying to edit the poetry manuscript I finished yesterday. My deadline is Friday. I have today to find all those words I am absolutely certain are spelled correctly that the very first person who picks the book up finds at first glance.

Editing is not what I like to do. I'd rather be wrestling with my words, rearranging them on that computer screen until they fit right, not staring at those crisp, white sheets of paper until every word seems wrong. Yesterday I grabbed the dictionary to check on "jump" after staring at it way too long.

I'd much rather sit here and look at the snow today, get tangled up in it, write poems about the way it's so softly layered on the tree branches, how it keeps falling, falling, falling, how my early morning silence is lulling me back to sleep, and when I peek outside, I see a field of white, except for the cherry red ski cap the Iraqi girl wears. She's waiting at the bus stop in her usual spot. She is new to the neighborhood, new here period. Perhaps no one has explained "snow days" to her. I'm getting my boots on.

Under My Tongue

That's where the words were stuck, right under my tongue.

I snored myself awake, after dreaming of wading through tall prairie grasses, swirling a walking stick beside me to stir away any critters that I might not want crawling up my skirt. When I pulled back the covers, set my bare feet on the round rag rug Grandma Priscilla made that sits on the floor by my bed and stumbled to the bathroom, the dull awakening that it's another day of mid-winter in an apartment in a place that calls itself a city with not one ounce of the hustle and luster of Manhattan, I groaned, looked at myself in the mirror and said, "She hadn't found the time to let herself grow up."

What might that possibly mean?

Now that those words have escaped from under my tongue, I need to examine them, toss them around a bit, allow them to somersault across my computer screen until I know what they want to be when they grow up. I doubt they apply to my almost sixty-year-old self. Perhaps it was the beginning of a story about a girl on the prairie, although I can't think of a more boring subject to write about, personally.

And so I must ponder this.......

If You Should Read My Mind....

...this is what you'd find first thing in the morning.

These words filled my head this morning as I showered. Someday they may grow up to be six stanza poems, the first line of that short story where things almost seem as if they might get back to normal by the end, or a line or two in a novel where the hero realizes that he hasn't the power to fix everything around him and simply gives up. Who knows? Their journey has yet to begin. I'm pasting their baby pictures here, and we'll have to wait to see how they mature, which ones pull on purple hats and develop wide toothless grins and which ones hide from the camera.

comfort softens the morning

the grace of accepting

curb your wanderlust

beyond this pale horizon of snow

She slept through the blizzard again.

inconsolable

Alfred was afraid his mother would send him more books and then he'd have to read them all.

Hummm...only time will tell if this has been a productive morning or not. But I believe somewhere within these lines there's something I'll be working on that shall make me sigh by midnight.

Morning Has Spoken

In the morning the words in my head rattle around upon rising. They begin to whisper to me even before I lift my head from my pillow. Sometimes it's the beginning of a poem teasing me awake, a sing song pattern of nonsense words easing me into the day with the promise of rhymes to come if I'll just open my eyes to the possibility. Or it's the dialogue needed between two characters in the story I've been working on.

Often it's an idea for a story, as it was this morning when I was in that half-dream state, wrapped tightly in the covers when hubby bent down to kiss me good-bye before he took off with the dog for their morning walk. Of course, I then bolted awake and whatever I was dreaming floated away into the lands of lost ideas.

Once the curse of what has to be done creeps into the daily routine those words that seemed so glorious upon rising evaporate.

I also discover words on long car rides, possibly because I do not drive and have the luxury of riding in the passenger seat and pretending to observe. My mind automatically begins writing after about an hour of this. There was a time when I was able to simple repeat my words and once I found paper I'd have a complete poem; now I must have paper readily available or such delights are forever gone. Of course, I fight to read the finished product as it's often difficult to write in the dark in a moving vehicle.

Wish I could remember the rest of what started out yesterday as..... never more and often less/haunted by my second guess. It might have been "the one".

Tangled Up in Goo

While I slept, a quiet spider worked her magic and spread a gigantic web around the bedposts. I'm covered with the delusion that I can make it through another day as if I lead a normal life, when all I wish to do is wrap myself in this luscious goo of failure and waste my words here where no one reads them anyway.