Sunday Serenity #36

This was a moment of serenity Ed and I shared at a family outing with my parents sometime in 1989. We were living in Longview, WA at the time but I'm not sure where this picture was taken. I've never seen it before. I say it was an outing with my parents because Ed is dressed up and my Dad must have taken the picture. We were both oblivious to the camera.

I'm posting this today because I've not been able to get it out of my mind since I found it in one of the boxes of pictures several days ago. I think I'm homesick and missing a certain someone.

Join us for a moment of serenity.

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Friday Snippets 23

My snippet this week is probably the earliest of my fiction pieces of which any manuscript drafts survived. I wrote this in the early eighties. All my world-building notes for this Sci-Fi Fantasy were lost when we abandoned our Medford apartment in 87. I was in my early twenties when I conceived of and began work on this story. I set it aside when I went back to school in 85.

I started thinking of returning to it after being introduced to Holly Lisle's clinics. I won her Plot Clinic in a 70 days drawing last summer. I hope to get ahold of her World and Language Clinics and apply her techniques to this story. I had planned a trilogy and had written some of their myths and legends and even some poetry for their sacred texts. Less than five pages of one chapter remains of all that.

The Wailing Womb

I. The Mourning Mother

by Joy Renee

Warm is his body and alive. Secure in my arms, next to my heart. My son. Soft and supple his skin, deep and dazzling his eyes. Blue eyes that gaze into mine. Soul to soul a bond of love is forged. Stronger than the strongest steel. More enduring than diamonds.

To hold him, to touch him, to kiss his rosy cheeks, to caress the smooth skin, to lay my finger gently on his throat and feel the pulsing of his tiny veins and know that life is in him and that life from me. Passionately possessive I feel, ferociously protective. No harm shall come to him. I will prevent it with my life.

He is mine and only mine, I think, and yet know that he is his own and the Womb’s above all. And sooner than I wish he will break free into the private world of his own soul. He will assert his independence, leave my arms empty and yearning once more, declaring his dominion over the earth as all men have since the Advent. But for now he belongs only to me and the union of our souls is more passionate, more galvanic than that between a man and a woman, more profound than that between a soul and its Augmentor.

***********************************************

Mourna awoke. Tears washed out from beneath her lashes as she blinked her eyes open. Dreaming again. Such strange dreams. Thoughts so foreign to her that even the images and words used to form them had a strange feel to her as the dregs of the dream floated in her mind. Augmentor. She formed the strange word silently with her tongue. The word did not belong to her. But she still felt the emotion it conjured up. Awe and utter trust. And beneath that was the straining of energies harnessed and directed….

The images were fading. She could never hang onto them for more than the moments it took her to come fully awake. All that was left was the feel of an infant’s supple skin and blue eyes gazing into hers. And with these a feeling of desolation washed over her. She came fully awake then, crying out, “My baby. Oh my son, I want my son.”

And with the sound of her own cry she remembered, and knew she would never see him again. A wave of desolation inundated her. Even now Jamyl could be dead. But no, somehow Mourna was sure that she would know when Jamyl no longer lived. There was a bond between them, indefinable but indestructible. It had been there almost from the moment she became aware that life was growing within her. Jamyl had been torn from her arms, had been banished from the Body. But only death could truly separate them.

That death would come soon for Jamyl. A matter of hours. And with his death total desolation of soul for Mourna. Her soul wailed within her and instinctively she put her hands to her belly where so recently he had lain curled. A slight swelling still remained to testify to the truth of his existence. There was an ache in her womb and an emptiness. She felt the emptiness consuming her. Could she survive the death of Jamyl? Did she want to? NO! the answer screamed within her heart like the cold winds of the Season of the Far Suns. She must hold her son in her arms again or die! With that thought she sprang to a sitting position on her sleep-couch, every muscle tense, every sense alert. She must rescue Jamyl!

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Thursday Thirteen #64

I am so late getting this posted. It really isn't Thursday anymore but I began work on this post over thirty hours ago. I kept running into snags of various kinds. Mostly to do with learning my way around using the scanner and the photo ap where I crop and prepare the pics for posting. But also due to the hectic nature of life here at my Mom's where I'm visiting. Then there is getting lost in just shuffling through the photos and other memorabilia in the boxes.

I've taken on the task of scanning all our family pictures into digital files and creating a digital scrapbook for all family members. This will be a huge undertaking and I am just getting started this visit. I won't be taking the photos home with me because I don't have a scanner. The idea was for me to scan as many as I could into my laptop while here and take them home that way and over the next few months use a photo application to crop and otherwise twiddle with them.

Earlier this week I posted pics of my Dad's parents and his childhood. They were the first because they had been hunted out and collected for the collage displayed at his memorial service two years ago. My hopes of doing my own childhood and my mother's family were dampened when Mom told me she wasn't sure where they were anymore. But I went looking for them and found one box. It includes some of my Mom's family pictures and some of my baby pictures. But so far I've not found my brother and sister's baby pictures nor my parent's wedding pictures. I did find my wedding pictures which was really great because I lost my own wedding albums in our 87 move from Medford OR back to Longview WA. I had more pics in mine than the album Mom has but it is better than none at all.

OK let's get on with it.

Thirteen of my baby pictures:

1. In the living room of our new house. Mom and Dad had to move when I was six weeks old because the house they were attempting to buy did not pass muster with the bank when an ant infestation was discovered. We lived in this house until I was nearly eighteen. I loved the knotty pine paneling in the kitchen and living room. But I think I was in grade school before I learned that it wasn't 'naughty'. You can't really see it in this. There is a better view of it in the next picture.

2. At two months. Mom is introducing me to cereal.

3. In my crib at 2 and 1/2 months. I still vividly remember that wall paper. It shows up in my dreams from time to time still. My love for lilac flowers and shades of blue and lavender may have originated here.

4. This was probably taken on the same day as the one below. I am 6 months old. I remember that Holly tree behind us. It was taken out when they put in the concrete driveway and slab for the carport when I was about 5.

5. Late May of 58. The back says 6 months 10 days. Which means this must have been near Daddy's birthday. Mom is getting ready to take me on a train trip to Paul, Idaho to stay with Dad's parents for several weeks. Grandma was ill and needed help. Mom took the swing with us because it kept me so content.

6. From the trip to Idaho. Here I am held by my Dad's paternal Grandmother, Sue Coon.

7. Still in Idaho. Taken at the farm of some friends of the family there. Mom has forgotten their name. Obviously either they or the ones who gave us a ride were from the Bible Meetings I was raised in as there is one of our trade-mark 'Gospel cars'. My Uncle, husband of Mom's sister, painted those for all of the Brethren of our 14 or so Assemblies scatter from Phoenix AR to Rockglen Saskatchewan

8. July 58 just after arriving home from Idaho. Dad is introducing me to the sprinkles from the hose as Mom waters her flowers.

9. This was taken in July 58 shortly after Mom and I returned from our train trip to Paul Idaho. I'm 7 and 1/2 month. This is in our front yard. That street in the background became a major artery of Longview within a few years. By the time I was ten it was four lanes plus center turn lane plus parking on each side. A mall was built in the field across the street.

The stool I am sitting on was made of upholstered juice cans. When set on its side it rolled. There are pics in this series of my using it as an improvised walker--pushing it across the yard.

10. At 10 and 1/2 months. The dress was yellow with tiny pastel flowers. A 6 month photo was taken in it too. This dress was bought for me by my mother's father. Mom says it was waiting in the crib at their house in Gerber, CA when we arrived for my first visit with them the spring of 58. Later that dress was handed down to one of my dolls.

11. Here I am 2 years old. The dress was picked out by my Dad for my 1 year picture and I'm still wearing it a year later. It was pale blue.

12. Here I am in February 1960 at 26 months helping Mom build a snowman in our back yard. That white expanse behind me is the parking lot of Mark Morris High School which I would attend from 73 to76. Where I am standing is about where the carport was built when the addition was built onto the back of the house when I was 5 and 6.

I remember that red snowsuit. Maybe because it was handed down to my brother and then my sister. But I am pretty sure of a few memories of getting stuffed into it and having to struggle out rather urgently because I had waited almost too long to come in the house to tend to certain necessities.

13. Here I am 27 months. Mom made this dress out of material one of her sisters sent her. It was white with tine pink rosebuds. I often wore it under a jumper.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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My Family

Richard and Maurine Coon's family, 1970
Joy Renee age 12, Robert age 10 and Carrilee age 6

My last several posts have been focused on my Dad and his family. I want to do a similar series on my Mom and her family. I wasn't sure I was gong to get to this visit because Mom wasn't sure where the photos of her family were nor the photos of her own children's childhood. In a box somewhere in the rec room downstairs which had been rearranged umpteen times since the last time she had started working on making scrapbooks for each of us kids.

Well about three-thirty this morning I went down there to look around just to see if I could spot the boxes she described. I found one of them which contained many of her childhood, some of her grandparents and my baby pictures. It was a treasure trove which I haven't finished digging through so I'm not sure if my brother and sister's baby pics are in a different box or deeper in this one.

The reason I'd started with Dad's was because I'd been working with the pictures that had been used in a collage that was displayed at his memorial service two years ago.

I'm posting this picture as a segue into the one I'm preparing for my TT which will be thirteen of my baby pictures. I was hoping to post it today but it is taking me longer to scan, crop and resize. Not to mention choose!

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Hayseed From Down On the Farm

Yesterday I introduced my Dad's parents Fay and Jean Coon. Below is a picture of them on their farm in Paul, Idaho with their three sons: Dean, Don and Richard. My Dad is the youngest on the right. On the back of this picture, in my Grandpa's handwriting it says "Hayseed from down on the farm."

Above is a picture of my Dad at around eleven. Below is Dad with his parents in 1949 the year he graduated from high-school and entered the navy. On the back in my Dad's handwriting it says "Taken in our house just before I left to become one of Uncle Sam's boys."

This is Dean, Don and Richard taken sometime in the nineties.

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Got mice?

This is Jean and Fay Coon my Dad's parents taken around the time of their marriage in the early 1900s. Definitely before WWI because Grandpa's hair is still pure black and he came home from the war with shell-shock induced shocks of white through it.

This is Jean and Fay around the time of my own parent's marriage in 1955. The picture was taken by their eldest son, my Uncle Dean who had his own photography business. Below is a scan of what my Grandmother wrote on the back. 'Richard's' indicating this was my Dad's copy. And 'Got any mice?' was a reference to a saying my Mom says was common 'back when'. Something about leaving a 'scary or weird' picture laying around to keep the mice away. Mom couldn't quite remember how it went but she immediately knew what Grandma meant. She said it was her way to be humorously self-derogatory.

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Storytime

I'm soooo tired. Sunday was a long day with family todos. My brother's family came up from Portland and took us out to dinner. Then I chatted with my sister until 3 AM. I don't have a poem ready for Poetry Train and I couldn't think of anything else to post about. Then as I was renewing my library books online, I remembered the pics I took of the Longview library Saturday. This is a bronze statue in the courtyard at the front entrance. It is fairly new. It was not here when I lived here as a child nor when I last lived here in the nineties. I just think it is precious.

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Sunday Serenity #35

Today, my sister drove me to Lake Sacajawea here in Longview, Washington just so I could take pictures of it. She woke me at noon to tell me it was a gorgeous day; perfect for the pictures I had talked about wanting to get and that she would be available until four. I knew it would take me more than an hour to get ready to go so I just got up even though I'd had less than four hours of sleep. I'm probably going to have to cut my Internet session short tonight because of that but it was worth it.

It was a gorgeous day. The first one since I got here as we arrived the night that bad storm hit that put this area on the national news. The sky was a solid bright blue. I swear it. But my cheap camera couldn't handle the glare so it looks white in all the pics.

I've got a lot of memories of this lake going back nearly fifty years now. It has changed a lot since then of course. In fact it has changed plenty just since I moved out of town in 1999. But there are still plenty of nostalgia triggers.

Join us for a moment of serneity

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Scattered and Tattered

I reposted my short-story, That Was a Mistake, yesterday because it was representative of what my days have been like since I got to my Mom's last Sunday evening. I often have days much like that anyway but here I am extra prone to them and to make it even more 'interesting' I am sharing the house with three others with similar propensities--my Mom, my sister and her son. My sister and her son have been officially diagnosed with ADD and she has her suspicions that both Mom and our brother have it too. One of our brother's son's was also diagnosed with it a few years ago. So it wouldn't be too surprising. If so each of us has unique ways of presenting our attention issues. But there is one thing we all have in common--hoarding and its concomitant clutter.

I have blogged before about my hoarding and clutter issues. Since August of 2001 Ed and I have been living with our cat Merlin (until we lost Gremlyn in March it was two cats) in one room in his parent's trailer home. This has served to magnify the problem and make me ultra conscious of it and I've been attempting to address it, in hopes that when we get our own place again I will not begin to turn it into what my Mother's house now is. It is a fourteen room split-level with a garage and fairly typically furnished. There is not one single surface with a clear spot big enough to lay down a single book without laying it on top of something else. Most surfaces are layered in books, papers and paraphernalia relating to projects in progress or pending.

It isn't just a chaos of things but a chaos of time and of four consciousnesses in criss-crossed communication. I find this chaos exhausting. It makes me sleepy. And anxious. And depressed. It makes me want to curl up in a fetal position and stare at the back of my eyelids.

Sensory overload is one of my issues. I can't seem to process all of the sensory info and respond to it appropriately in real time. This makes me as socially inept as my character Jan was physically clumsy in That Was a Mistake. My Mom thinks out loud. She walks into a room talking, she calls out questions from the other room. I, on the other hand, need up to thirty seconds to formulate an answer to a direct question that I was already focused on. If that question happened to interrupt another line of thought or another conversation I need much more time than that and the risk is that my mind will just freeze.

Every task takes me longer to complete here and most get stalled in the early stages because a single interruption will side-track it permanently. At home it is a challenging task to get out to the kitchen immediately after waking to make my coffee and snack but even when I have a day similar to Jan's in my story it seldom takes me longer than twenty minutes to return to my room with a hot cup of coffee to sip over whatever project I'm focusing on that day. Every morning since I got to my Mom's, I have intended to get my coffee and go back downstairs to the room I'm sharing with my sister to finish waking up and complete my morning routine and either read or write. But I never make it back down. Mom will ask me three questions in the first thirty seconds. The TV will be on. The distractions add up and I seem to have no resistance to them. I go with the flow and that flow takes me through the hours of the day and by the time I am alone with my thoughts and laptop and online around midnight each night my mind wants nothing more than to make itself as blank and white as the Blogger post creator.

I've been here five days and just today finished unpacking the materials for the various projects I hoped to work on while here. My sister finally got a workstation set up near the scanner for me to start scanning the family photos. I'm only going to be here another ten days. That project is going to be bigger than I though and I doubt I'm going to come close to finishing it this trip.

I haven't written a work of fiction since I finished with NaNo a week ago. That is the longest break I've taken since July 8 when I signed onto 70 Days of Sweat. I am seriously missing it. Worse, I have done no writing at all other than what I've posted here. That is making me feel like a stranger to myself.

The only mistakes similar to those of Jan in my story which I've committed this week was to drop the container of honey onto the slice of bread already spread with peanut butter and to almost ladle tomato soup into an upside down cup. Unless you want to count all the times I stubbed my toes on something, stepped on the cat's tail or foot and almost fell down the stairs while carrying my laptop and a bag of books.

My sister has made up for it tonight. In her attempts to appliqué a patch onto a two-inch three-cornered tear on the front of my windbreaker, she melted a spot eight to ten inches across with an iron that was too hot because she kept turning it up not realizing that it wasn't on and then when she figured that out and turned it on she forgot to turn it down. I don't know how much to blame the ADD for that as she started the project after midnight several hours past her usual bedtime. She is going to try to fix it with a larger appliqué of butterflies which she has cut out of some fabric she bought for the purpose. Her talents lie in the visual arts and music. Which is why I asked for her help with patching my jacket.



Update: Here's a picture of the windbreaker after my sister got the patch on. As you can see, it took a flock of butterflies to cover the scorched area. Not visible is the fact that the pocket under the patch is reduced in size because the layers of fabric melted together. But it turned out fine. I'm just glad I get to wear it again. I'd not been wearing it for over a year for fear of enlarging that tear.

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Friday Snippets 22

That Was a Mistake
by Joy Renee

Jan began to wonder if waking up was a mistake the minute she put her foot on the floor that morning and it landed in a squishy pile of cat barf. Her consternation was reinforced when she pulled an ice-cube tray out of the microwave instead of the bowl of oatmeal she thought she had put in there. She found the uncooked oatmeal in the freezer. And again when she sat down in front of the hot bowl of cereal with her mug of coffee only to find it was the jug of cream and she had put her freshly poured coffee in the fridge.

Things continued to happen to set off the warning alarms that it would be a mistake to leave the house that morning. But she had a couple of dozen library books and DVDs due that day and failure to return them would result in loss of library privileges until the fine was paid. Now that would be the worst mistake of all. So she plunged ahead, getting ready to go, maintaining her determination to stick to her plan even in the face of finding her hair lathered with shaving gel and her loufa lathered with shampoo.

Even when she forgot to zip up the backpack before she picked it up off the bed and all of the books and DVDs fell out and scattered all over the floor, she just methodically repacked them and grabbed up her sunglasses and sun visor and headed for the door. Out on the sidewalk she turned left and walked at a good pace for three blocks before she realized she was headed to the park where she liked to watch the ducks and swans while she read or wrote instead of to the library. Keeping her mind on what she was doing in the moment was one of Jan’s biggest challenges. She would always rather be thinking about the story she had been reading or the one she was writing than about the curb that was coming up or even her next meal.

That is why she was hardly surprised to find herself sprawled on the ground having just fallen over a tyke on a small trike. Luckily she had not landed on the toddler and his mother was full of concern over her skinned knee and embarrassment with her son’s gleeful laughter.

“Oh, let him laugh.” Jan said as the woman tried to shush her child. “He knows funny when he sees it.”

Her knee cleaned up with the damp paper towels the woman had brought to her, Jan continued on her way. At the library things went surprisingly smoothly and she thought maybe she had been jolted into good sense by that tumble. But apparently it had just been that being in the library, handling the books and movies--the stories--was just one of those things that could manage to keep her in the moment where mistakes were more easily caught before they were committed.

One of the books had been so captivating she had to pull it back out of her rolling backpack as soon as she was out the door and sit on the bench under the cottonwood tree to read until it was brought to her attention by a series of combustible sneezes that she had made another mistake in not noticing that the cottonwood was shedding its fluff. When she discovered that she had forgotten to pack her allergy meds and eye drops, not to mention tissues, she knew she had no choice but to head home and hurriedly packed the book and her reading glasses into the front pouch of the backpack instead of in the roomier interior where the glasses could ride safely atop the pile of books. With visions of the books spilling out as they had done that morning, she thought it would be safer to not open the main compartment.

When she decided to hoist the pack onto her shoulders rather than pull it along behind her on its wheels, she thought she was insuring a safer return trip home for herself, the books and the glasses. But that was a mistake of monumental import she realized as she found herself laying in the crosswalk ten minutes later, having had to throw herself backwards to avoid being hit by a red pickup that had just run the red light. Of course it was a mistake not to have looked both ways before stepping off the curb the moment she saw the walk signal. But all she could think about, even as the bicyclist who had slammed on his brakes just behind her as she fell back and was now somersaulting over the top of her, was her reading glasses in the front pouch of the backpack which were now undoubtedly crushed. Even the realization that she could not move her legs was not as alarming as the thought of not being able to finish that story.

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The above was a short-short story written to a prompt for a Creative Carnival in Septeber 2006. The prompt was 'making a mistake'.

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Thursday Thirteen #63

Thirteen Things About Longview, WA

1. It is the town where I was born and raised.
2. It is at the juncture of the Colombia and Cowlitz rivers on the border with Oregon.
3. It is connected to Raineer, OR by the 8288 foot long Lewis and Clark cantilever bridge designed by Joseph Strauss, engineer of the Golden Gate Bridge.
4. It was founded by Missouri timber baron Robert A. Long for the thousands of lumber mill workers and incorporated in 1924.
5. It was a planned city with every street mapped and named before construction began.
6. Films shot in Longview include Into the Wild (2007), Men of Honor (2000) and God’s Country and the Woman (1937).
7. Beautiful Lake Sacajawea Park a popular recreational site in the middle of town is where the July 4th fireworks display is held. Year around walking and jogging on the path that circles the lake and fishing and canoing on the waters. I fondly remember feeding the ducks as a child.
8. It is home of the Nutty Narrows Bridge built for squirrels and strung between tree across a busy city center street.
9. My high-school, Mark Morris was one of two the other and once the only one was R. A. Long our arch-rivals. Ed and I first became friends while hanging out in the school library.
10. It is home of the Port of Longview, the first full service marine port on the Colombia River.
11. The Monticello Hotel, one of the buildings on the Civic Center circle facing R. A. Long park, was the first permanent structure completed.
12. R. A. Long Park, originally named Jefferson Park, is in the center of the city and the main streets of the city radiate outwards like the spokes of a wagon wheel.
13. The Longview Public Library on the opposite side of the circle from the Monticello Hotel was the third building completed and was a personal gift from R. A. Long. This was my first library and like a first love will always hold a special place and my heart. I got to visit it today and my sister checked out some items for me. That being on my mind was the inspiration for this TT list.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Running On Empty

Is it possible to run out of words the way one runs out of gas on the road?

I don't know if it was the intensity of the last ten days of NaNo or of the last three days of visiting with family but I just seem to have nothing left once I am sitting in front of this screen again after my Mom, sister and nephew have gone to bed. Tonight it was nearly midnight before I got access to the Internet and after midnight before I was alone with my thoughts in front of a blank screen. And even though I know it could be late evening or later again tomorrow before I can get back on, all I can think about is how comfortable that water bed I've been sharing with my sister the last two nights is. And that pillow made of memory foam. And the cuddly gray kitty named Bradley who seems to think I'm the bees knees.

I can't think of anything that could compete with the notion of trundling myself down to the basement and crawling under the quilt.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty.... Bradley.....

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Unsettled In Longview

When I posted my poem for the Poetry Train Sunday at noon, just as I was leaving on a 300 mile trip to spend two weeks with my Mom, I sincerely expected to be able to start visiting other poems no later than noon today. But it didn't work out that way. By the time I got online here in Longview, WA Sunday night I was just too exhausted. I had spent most of Saturday packing and preparing for the trip. Then Sunday morning Ed and I went out to breakfast with my Mom and sister and her son. It was Mom's treat in honor of our 29th anniversary which was Sunday. As soon as we got back from the resteraunt, I got on my laptop and posted my poem which I'd prepared in draft the night before. Meanwhile Ed and my sister were dragging my bags out to the car. Moments after leaving my comment at Rhian's my laptop was hibernated and slid into its bag along with power cord and I was out the door.

The trip north was one long gab fest between two sisters and their mother. My sister and her son live with my Mom but I've not seen either of them for a year. And the last time I was here at Mom's house was two years ago when I came to say good-bye to my Dad who was loosing his battle with cancer. My Mom and sister have been living in this house without Dad for two years. For me it is as if he is going to walk in the room any second or he is just in the other room. At this moment I am sitting at what used to be his desk in his office. It was disconcerting last night when I first got here. I expected that but hoped it would be easier by tonight.

We stopped in Portland Sunday evening to visit my brother's family for a couple of hours before heading on to Longview. It was after eight by the time we got here and then my sister spent a couple hours unloading the car. By the time she was able to help me figure out how to get my laptop hooked up to their DSL box, it was nearly eleven. I had remained hyped that whole time and still expected that I would spend a couple of hours surfing and commenting on poems, Friday Snippets and TTs. But I didn't even manage to finish reading my email before I lost the hyped state and I crashed hard. I didn't fight it. I slept hard and woke about nine-thirty this morning with a head full of mud and muscles as sore as if I'd been wrestling an octopus all night.

My nephew was on their computer and online. My sister said all I had to do was ask him for a turn but I hated to do so until I was sure that I would be able to make good use of the time. He had been away from all his computer fun for ten days after all. Surely I could wait a few more hours.

I spent the day visiting with Mom and my sister, working on the laundry, having combined mine with theirs. They had been on a ten day road trip and I had let my laundry slide the last two weeks of NaNo so had packed mostly dirty clothes. I also read Bridge to Tarabithia, a novel belonging to my nephew which my sister said I simply had to read while I was here because she was sure I would like it and because my nephew had started to write a sequel to it which she wanted to show me but I had to read the book first. I had started it Sunday night while she was busy unpacking the car but had read no more than twenty pages. I finished it this evening just before my Mom served dinner. It is a good coming of age story. One of my favorite kind of stories since I was pre-teen myself.

I was in the middle of the hankie-honking final scenes when my nephew's cat, Bradley, jumped up in my lap under the book and turned around to push his butt in my face. What is it with cats and butt-presenting anyway. My cat Merlin does it too but not nearly as aggressively as Bradley did. My cat Gremlyn never did, nor her sister Shekhinah. Gremlyn though used to butt her nose against mine and nip it. She would also groom my face and drink my tears.

Anyway. While eating dinner, I got started in the movie that started before we finished eating and sat through it with the rest of the family. I made a token effort to work on this post in draft while watching the movie. I brought my laptop out to the living room on battery power and tried to start writing but I sat without striking a key or touching the mouse pad for so long it went to standby and I never bothered to wake it up again until I brought it back to Dad's office. By the time I was online I was once again too tired to care.

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Monday Poetry Train #28

print for sale at art.com

Coverstory

by Joy Renee

Sorry, this poem does not relate.
I’m running a little bit late.
It’s already half-past eight
And I’ve got still to do
Many stitches times two
And the wrapping of seven plus four.
It’s got to be ready to go out the door
Not a minute later than one.
And I’m afraid I won’t get it done.
If I continue to fiddle
With riddle and rhyme
I am sure to run out of time.
So I’ll have to forgo my remarks
On the silliness of making
A thing for protecting
Worth more than that which it guards!

############

This poem was written in 94 or 95 to slip into the gift bag with a needle-pointed book cover for a paperback which I had been frantically putting in the last stitches on the morning our gifts for Ed's family were being picked up by his brother as they left the Longview area on their way to Phoenix, Oregon. We didn't get to go that year as Ed couldn't get off work, nor did we have a reliable car.

This is the last of my poems. I'm going to have to start writing them again. Or else recycle. Or post fiction snippets. Maybe all the exposure to poetry since I hopped aboard the Poetry Train will help. Or maybe the immersion in the lives of three imaginary poets and/or Professors of poetry will have stimulated something. Or necessity. Or... Oh, I don't know why I kept putting it off. I knew this was coming. I calculated when I first hopped aboard that what I had would not take me much beyond Thanksgiving.

And now I'm going to be hard pressed to find the time to compose new stuff. I'm leaving Phoenix this afternoon and traveling up to Longview, WA to spend a couple weeks with my Mom and sister. I'm dragging a big bag of my sewing materials with me because I hope to make a few Christmas presents. Yeah. Another thing I let slide way too long. And there will be two year's worth of catch-up visiting.

I'm preparing this late Saturday night after spending seven hours packing and preparing for this trip. I'm going to save as draft and ask Ed to publish it for me in the late afternoon or evening as I don't know how late we will be getting back to my Mom's and I imagine we will all be too exhausted to figure out how to get me online with my laptop or alternately, teach me how to use their new Vista which wouldn't have my bookmarks. I will have Internet while there but time available for it will be limited. I mean, if I would rather spend ten to fifteen hours online every day I might as well stay right where I am.

One of the projects I'm going to be working on while there is to scan my family's photos into my laptop or onto CD-ROM. I will then be spending the next several months creating an electronic scrapbook that can be duplicated for every family member. These pictures will include those from my parents childhood as well as my own. So stay tuned. I will probably post a few.

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Sunday Serenity #34

Join us in a moment of serenity.

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NaNoWinMo 2007

I don't have a printer but my Mom does and I hope to be at her house by Monday. Can't wait to print this out and fill it out. Maybe multiple copies and fly some off the Longview-Rainier Bridge over the Columbia River. Or better yet rolled up in a bottle and dropped into the river. Or both.


Does that seem a bit too extravagant? Obnoxious? This was my fourth attempt and first win.

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Friday Snippets 21

Finally a snippet from my NaNo novel which I'm willing to share. It took two days of reworking it to get it to this point. I crossed the finish line shortly before noon yesterday but have not uploaded to NaNo's verifier yet as I was focused on getting this prepared. I'm going to get that done before I start my blog visiting for Snippets, TT and Poetry Train. Said visits will be the focus of all my Internet activity for the next week but may be hit and miss over the next few days as I'm supposedly traveling north to spend a couple weeks with my family in Longview, Washington.

I'm not sure exactly when as I've not heard from my sister yet as to when they will be driving through here on their way back from visiting with my Mother's family in Gerber and Sacramento where they spent Thanksgiving. I haven't even started to pack yet and that is going to be a huge endeavor as the chaos in my room reflects the chaos of my Spring Fever manuscript. I've not been keeping atop the clutter for several weeks and haven't done laundry since the weekend before Thanksgiving. I hope my sister took me seriously when my last IM message was that I would not start packing until she called to let me know when to expect them. When they stopped by to see me on their way back last year she called from her cell phone as as they approached the Phoenix exit on I5. Since our trailer park is right next to it they were here within five minutes.

OK. Enough blathering. Here is a snippet from the second chapter of Spring Fever, it has no title of its own yet but it may be helpful to know that this chapter is governed by the themes expressed in the Emperor's card of the tarot.

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Graham paced the perimeter of the room as he read aloud from the slim volume he held in one hand as his other hand kept brushing back the silver and charcoal marbled hair that kept falling over his brow. His words were as measured as his steps.

' La gloria di colui che tutto move
per l'universo penetra, e risplende
in una parte più e meno altrove.'

"Who would like to translate?" His eyes swept the faces of the dozen grad students gathered around the long table that nearly filled the small room. Some few were studiously ignoring him as they stared down at their own copy of Dante's Paradiso. Others were doodling and several were fanning their faces with their books. Only one zealous hand waved high.

Graham stopped behind the one empty chair, besides his own at the head of the table which he'd abandoned in the first moments of class, and leaned his forearms on its back, resigning himself to the inevitable. When Maia Robins missed a class the life went out of the party. She had a way of eliciting the participation of the others in an easy repartee. He was often irritated by the frivolity that would ensue, feeling the reins slipping from his hands with his carefully scripted lesson.

"Mr. Egan." Graham pronouced the name with care, restraining himself from saying aloud the mnemonic which helped him remember this student's name. Eager Beaver.

He closed his eyes in a mental wince as the rush of words, squeezed out of the soggy sponges that were Dave Egan's lips, poured in a tuneless torrant.

"The glory of Him who moveth everything
Doth penetrate the universe, and shine In one part more and in another less."

Having stood and spun towards the window with his back to the circle of faces Graham opened his eyes, finding his unfocused gaze wandering over the pink and green spackled blue through the blooming branches of the nearby Dogwood grove. "That was a fine display of an ability to memorize Longfellow's translation, but it demonstrates neither your translating competence nor your comprehension of the author's intent. Which of course was the aim of this exercise."

Graham was about to turn back to the class when he caught a glimpse of movement, a splash of color airbrushed against the green grass of the yard. A familiar figure glided in a flurry of fabric. A lithe-legged, bramble-headed wood-nymph clothed in scarves with a garland of flowers woven into her autumn leaf colored hair and a half-dozen bangles between wrist and elbow that he knew mimicked wind chimes with every movement of her arm. A sound that had annoyed him enough in class one time for him to offer her a roll of tape to silence them only to have her hold out both arms for him to apply the tape himself right there in front of the others. Another quirk of hers that annoyed him, this willingness to display in class the familiarity with him borne of her many visits to his home since last Fall to meet with Holly who was her advisor.

Holly, his beloved Holly who spent most of her hours these days strapped into her wheel-chair her own lithe-limbs imprissioned by MS, whose much sought after poetry writing classes had been cut back to one small by-invitation-only class which met at their home. Maia, of course, was one of the invited. If not for Maia, Holly would probably have taken this entire year off. She had stopped taking on new advisees a couple years ago and, about to see her last one graduate, was contemplating the possibility of taking this year off when she got the submission from Maia last year. Graham was equal parts grateful for the new light in his wife's eyes and envious that it was Maia and not he who put it there.

He could not understand what it was Holly was so enthused about nor why she was so indulgent with this girl, this child-woman. Several times over the last months Maia had called to cancel appointments with Holly and she had missed an occasional class with him, including the first one of the term last week. When he expressed his disapproval of this evidence of a lack of seriousness to Holly she just smiled. And last week she'd said Maia's excuse was probably the most legitimate one possible short of death or an incapacitating accident or illness.

What was she doing now? Stooping on the grass and fishing around under that voluminous tent of cloth, yet another poncho or cape covering her to mid thigh. She must have a wardrobe of the things as she had sported a series of them in every fabric from felt to cashmere since last Fall. This one a shimmering sky-blue in silk or light-weave linen. She stood now, fumbling at her collar-bone area--with a bra strap? with the the knots of one of those saris that looked always to need but a firm tug to end as a puddle around her feet?

With an exasperation reaching unfamiliar heights, he opened the window and called down to her. "So nice of you to join us Ms. Robins." The blossom-scented breeze assaulted his face and a cloud of butterflies swarmed up from the bushes below him

He was gratified to see her startle and to catch a glimpse of a fleeting expression of chagrin.

“Ah, I’m sure Miss Robins you have heard often of the proverbial early bird and the worm.”

“Often and often Professor Carmelo and I always thought the late worm had the best deal of all.”

A gurgle of laughter flowed though the room and Graham felt himself blushing like a callow kid. Raising his hand he brushed at a tickle on his brow only to find the tickle transferred to his hand. He stared in bemusement at the butterfly on the back of his hand.

In hopes of regaining control of his class and putting her back in her place he called out again. "Perhaps you would like to share with us your translation of the first tercet of Paradisio?"

From below came the musical tones of a voice trained for stage and choir, projected as though to reach the wispy clouds above as her hands made graceful gestures about her head that did not disturb the halo of butterflies that had lit on the wreathe of flowers in her hair:

"The gloriole of the Choreographer,
Riddles the Cosmos, illuminating
Here a little more and there a little less."

"It's original at least. Though you've taken some mighty liberties."

He could hear her sigh from where he stood and could not help but hear within his head an irony-infused declamation of the of Paradiso's thirty-fourth tercet.

Ond'ella, appresso d'un pio sospiro,
li occhi drizzò ver' me con quel sembiante
che madre fa sovra figlio deliro,

#######
If you simply must see the translation, highlight below to read Longfellow's rendition. And no, I do not read or speak Italian. Maia's translation took me hours of perusal of four different translations and my J. I. Rodale Synonym Finder to turn out three lines that reflected both Dante's words and Maia's unique take on things.

Whereupon she, after a pitying sigh,
Her eyes directed tow'rds me with that look
A mother casts on a delirious child;

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Yipee Ki Yi Yay

I made the NaNo 50,000 before noon today but I'm waiting until tomorrow to upload to the verifier as I've still got to transfer it into a text file and then scramble it. I wasn't in a hurry to get that done today because when I input my word count for yesterday at just after 11PM my time, the scripts at NaNo credited it to today which left me with another zero showing for yesterday. The same thing had happened to me the first week when I input my word count just after 9PM my time and that quite frustrated me since I was scrupulous to not start writing until after midnight on the first day and was assured that I had until midnight on the 30th to verify. A couple of weeks later though I input after ten and got credit for the still current day. So I relaxed. Then this happened last night.

I decided early today that I wouldn't worry about updating my word count today at all because, for one thing, whose gonna believe that total of near 7K for a single day? And for another I hoped to get one scene polished enough to input into the excerpt form at NaNo finally and then use it for my Friday Snippet this evening also. That project was going quite well all afternoon and evening but its still not quite ready to post.

I'm not getting nearly enough return on investment of minutes to warrant continuing to force it. This is due in part to having had only three hours of sleep this morning because I could not go back to sleep after Ed woke me up to tell me to relax about going after our glasses today because his Dad was going to drive him over to pick up both pair and then drive him to work before returning here with mine. I was just too excited to go back to sleep. I had them before eight-thirty. For the first several hours I was silently singing 'I can see! I can see! I can see!' I was able to change the font I was working with for my NaNo story from 20pt down to 12pt. I discovered I could read some of my most important reference materials without a magnifying glass again. I tested a page in The Historian, the novel I was reading for the Read-a-Thon in October and so demoralized me then when I found my reading speed had slipped below 20 pages per hour from the better than 50 of six years ago.

But by mid afternoon things were not so thrilling. I was suffering what amounted to motion sickness brought on by my efforts to focus and refocus between screen, keyboard and reference material through the unfamiliar bifocals. I also lost a lot of time to attempts to reorganize my workspace to find a better level for the screen so that I wouldn't have to point my nose at the ceiling in order to focus through the lower part of the lenses.

I lost even more time to an exploration of a baby name site to look for a new last name for my male POV. I've been unhappy with it almost from the get go but hadn't wanted to take the time to look for another one. It is one of those things I can easily spend all day contemplating and researching and I was deliberately denying myself the right to indulge that little fetish. But when I chose one of his POV scenes to showcase and began working on it this morning, I just couldn't keep typing 'Professor Simons' it wasn't clicking for me. I couldn't bond with him. I considered going with his middle name, Palmer, as his last. That almost worked but I had reasons for wanting his last name to reflect either his Italian or Jewish heritage. After more than an hour I found this: Carmelo is pronounced kar-MAY-loh. It is of Italian and Hebrew origin, and its meaning is "fruitful orchard; garden". Biblical place name: refers to Mount Carmel in Israel, which is referred to in ancient writings as a kind of paradise. What better name for a man who has made Dante's Divine Comedy the focus of his life? There are actually several reasons this name and it's meanings mesh right in with the fabric of this story, thematically and otherwise.

Since settling on that around two this afternoon, I was able to make quite good progress on a rewrite of one of Professor Graham Palmer Carmelo's scenes. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent in his company too. This is the way I keep anticipating the whole month of NaNo will be like and then get horribly dispirited when there are only there or four days like this out of the entire thirty.

There is a very good chance I can have this scene ready to post by early afternoon tomorrow. That is if I can get some solid rejuvenating sleep first.

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Thursday Thirteen #62

Thirteen More Whacky Title/Author Combos

40 Yards to the Latrine by Willy Makeit and Betty Wont
50 years in the saddle by Major Asburn
Body Parts by Anne Atomy
Boring Midwestern Cities: Cole Lumbus
Boy Scout's Handbook: Casey Needzit
Brane Surjery Maid Simpel: Sarah Bellum
Breaking the Law by Kermit A. Krime
Bring to the Grocer's by R. List
Bubbles in the Bathtub by Ivor Windybottom
Candle-Vaulting by Jack B. Nimble
Car Capital Of The World: Mitch Egan
Car Repairs: Axel Grease
Care For A Chop?: Marsha Larts

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I've got ten more pages of these. As in 8X11, single-spaced, narrow margins. This is the forth batch I've posted in a TT and I just now dipped into page two. And from now on I'm going to have to actually read them before I post them because I haven't read past the first page before. And I just now had to delete one of them because it contained an offensive term--the one that got Imus in trouble last spring.

I'm putting this up now but I may not get to do any visiting until tomorrow afternoon--after I've gotten my NaNo quota for the day which stands now for me at 2K which is a lot better than the 3200 per day I was faced with a week ago. That 2K will only hold true if I get another 700 or so in the next three hours.

I think I'm going to make it. And without missing a day of posting.

The call from the optometrist came today. My new glasses came in but it was already too near their closing time. So I've got that to look forward to for tomorrow. It's going to eat a chunk out of my day but it might just pay it back over the following hours in lessening eyestrain and in allowing me to ratchet my font size down from 20pt so I can see more than a word or two at a time.

For those of you who have visited this month and not gotten return visits, I am paying attention and I will find my way to your TTs in the next two weeks.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Almost Dug Out

5996 words to go. Three days of NaNo left. Ain't got many words left in me tonight so let me say it with pics:

Be careful what you ask for.

the prints are all for sale at art.com and each is linked to its catalog page

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Monday Poetry Train #27

Flying Buttresses of Notre-Dame, Paris, France
print for sale at art.com

Flying From Grace
by Joy Renee

As flying buttresses skyward yearn,
So lovers for transcendence burn.
Yet many tend to fall for less,
Snared by a butter-colored tress
Wind-blown against the cyan sky.
They are in this like butterflies--
Those sky-flowers that flutter by
In search of earth-bound images
Of self, stem-tethered camouflages,
On which to alight to gain a respite
From all varieties of alien inspection--
Spurning all offers of reciprocal affection.

??????????

I kept this one back so long because I'm not satisfied it is finished. Although I like what is there well enough, I'm sure I meant there to be more to it. The point, the resolution or something has not been reached.

I wrote it over a decade ago and only have a copy because I liked it enough to 'waste' ink and paper to make a hard-copy for my portfolio even though it was unfinished. All the electronic and handwritten rough-drafts which might give me clues to what my intentions were at the time were lost with the rest of my manuscripts, journals and notes in our 2001 move.

As I read it now it strikes me there is something similar to a sonnet to it and I wonder if that was what I was attempting. That would fit with the time-frame as the early to mid nineties were when I was immersing myself in everything Shakespeare because of the character in my Fruit of the Spirit story world whose every utterance is a line from Shakespeare.

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I Just Might Make It: NaNo & Sven Progress Report

I'm sitting at 37511 words for my NaNo and 70 Day round two project. To earn my NaNo win I must maintain a pace of about 2500 words per day for five more days. By several times surpassing the 3200 word daily quota that earlier lack of progress had subjected me to by last Wednesday, I've managed to make the next five days a bit more manageable. But I must say, I'm feeling fragile and frangible right now. I'm exhausted and I've overused my hands and eyes since Wednesday after the breakthrough I made last Tuesday. I've clocked in over 15K since last Sunday just on my NaNo novel, Spring Fever. That doesn't count the blog posts, commenting on other blogs, emails, IM, and note-taking and journaling unrelated to the NaNo or Sven projects.

I'm posting this progress report tonight instead of my poem for Monday Poetry Train. I'm still hoping to post the poem sometime tomorrow, I'm just too tired and distracted tonight and my hands are about to go on strike. I'm producing a typo for for about every eight to ten keystrokes.

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Sunday Serenity #33

Laughing with babies is one sure route to serenity. You can't watch this and hang on to your anxiety or anger or fear or sadness or boredom. There is just something about a baby's laughter that energizes and uplifts and lightens the heart.

Join us for a moment of serenity.

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Friday Snippets 20

This is the continuation of last week's snippet. I repeated a few of the paragraphs near the end of last week's so the context wouldn't be too hard to slip into here. But if you missed last week's it might be worth it to catch up first as some of what follows makes makes little sense standing on its own.

Part One.

To remind you, the story is about Marion, a woman in her late forties who is loosing her eyesight and suffering symptoms of menopause and has been holing up in her room for most of the winter. Her suitor is EMT Clay, a man about eight years younger whom she has held at a distance for nearly two decades. He'd fallen for her the night he helped deliver her son shortly after the young widow with a small daughter had moved in with her blind mother next door. Marion's own daughter Ernestine, recently abandoned by her husband, has moved in with her daughter Verna. As this part opens Ernestine is calling her mother and daughter to breakfast and they were off to wash up.

How Does Your Garden Grow (part 2)

"Verna Ruth! Walk!" Ernestine commanded. "Better yet, come help Mare-Mare."

"No need. I may be washed-up but I’m not laid up." To prove it she stepped forwards without reaching for support. With the second confident step she grinned but the next instant her grin was plastered to the wall as one foot surged forward, surfing the waxed floor.

"Mother!" Ernestine lunged for her.

Marion watched the red slime slide past her eyes as her face floated down the sky-blue wall and the bright white floor drifted up, a fathomless cloud offering endless embrace….. Slugtrail slugabed snuginbed snugasa bugaboo bugout slugitout knockout knockabout knocked…

"….up to your room, and leave it. I warned you what could happen." The sound of ice-cubes breaking accompanied Ernestine’s words.

A sobbing Verna freed her blanket from Marion’s foot. "Is Mare-mare dead like Daddy?"

"Your Daddy isn’t dead, baby. He’s a deadbeat. Whole different thing." Ernestine’s voice harbored a smile. "Mare-Mare’s just knocked out. She’ll be sassy as ever in a few minutes I’m sure."

The tinkle and splash of ice-cubes in a bowl of water and the squish and splatter of a cloth immersed and wrung out, the shock of the cold compress applied to her nose, all served to focus Marion’s attention on the heart of the matter. She reached out Raggedy Ann hand’s. "Don’t" she whispered.

"Lie still, Mama." With tender strokes she wiped away gummy blood, looking for its sources.

"Not Verna’s fault. Own foolishness!" Words molded by rapidly swelling lips.

"She must learn to accommodate your eyes."

"That’s no chore for a child not yet five."

"Adjusting to the exigencies of her environment is every child’s chore. Three Psych degrees and you don’t know that?"

Marion squeezed her eyes shut against the pain--not of her wounds but her inexorable guilt. By giving her children life she gave them and theirs eyes likely to fail by middle-age, bequeathing on their youth dependent elders and foreknowledge of their relentless fate.

"Looks like just a split lip and bloody nose. But maybe you should see a doctor."

"No doctor. Clay."

Ernestine put Marion’s hand on the compress. "Hold this then."

When Ernestine returned Marion was sitting at the table. "He’s on his way." She paused. "He was expecting your call." Longer pause. "Pottery lesson was it?"

Marion stemmed the smile stinging her lip. "I still haven’t the knack of the wheel. I fear he’ll give up on me."

"If Clay were going to give up on you, he would have fifteen years ago."

Marion blushed. "I made it clear long ago there’s no hope there." Must be firm with him today.

"If he truly lost hope, it’d destroy him."

"How long have you known?"

"At thirteen I had a crush on him. He made it clear his heart was already vowed. He said it was his destiny to kiss awake a sleeping beauty but he had to wait for her to finish dreaming her dreams. And no, he didn’t tell me it was you but that wasn’t hard to figure out. Shh now, he’s here." Ernestine turned calling out, "Come on in Clay."

The patio door slid open and Clay set down a terra cotta planter. "Join us for breakfast." Ernestine said. "Can you manage scrambled eggs, Mother, or would you rather have a milkshake?"

"Eggs are fine."

"VERRRRRNA." Ernestine called.

"She’s out front." Clay said.

"I best get her." She stopped him closing the door.

Clay sat beside Marion. "Let’s see." His breath on her cheek made her shiver. "Going to be some nasty bruising."

"What’s that?" She pointed to the planter.

"I noticed the quince in your room is root-bound. Better repot soon or risk having to break the pot getting it out."

Marion was alarmed. "That’s one of your finest pieces." He’d given her the quince when they’d graduated from college. The night he’d first proposed. "But this won’t fit in there."

"Make room in here. Better yet, bring it to my house."

"Oh, Clay."

His hand behind her neck drew her face to his until their foreheads touched. "You’re breaking my heart, Marion." His earthen-brown eyes searched hers until she closed them to resist the urge to plant her soul there.

"I’m aging by the minute."

"I know what’s eating you. I had my own theory. Here." He slipped a slender object in her hand. Some kind of pen? "The other day, when I was over fixing your toilet…and you used a bucket?…I took the liberty…" His voice sank to a whisper. "You’re pregnant."

Laughter welled to overflowing within Marion, but just then Ernestine drug in a wailing Verna. "Go sit on the stairs."

"They’re for Mare-Mare!" The child’s feet plodded past Marion and the door to the stairway creaked open and the shut on her heartbroken wails.

Ernestine rolled a doll buggy chock-full of tulips to Marion’s knees. "She got them all, Mama, I’m so sorry."

Marion lifted a velvety bloom, cradling it in both hands as sobs echoed in the stairwell like memories.

"Remember the day you dusted Grandma’s desk?"

Ernestine inhaled sharply. "Yes! I moved everything and she panicked that she’d never find anything."

"She sent you.."

"To the stairs!"

"While we named and placed every last thing."

"I could’ve put everything back exactly but she wouldn’t listen."

"That’s when I swore to stop the cycle. If I ever led you to believe that my things or comfort were more important than a child’s heart, I’m sorry."

Ernestine ran for the stairs and returned carrying Verna. "Mama’s sorry. Mare-Mare’s not mad. We’ll put them in water."

Marion lifted the stem-less tulip to her nose, visualizing the acres of manicured lawn and loamy soil designed to frame a few prized blooms--now gone--and suddenly understood Clay’s preference for a yard growing with the abandon of a woodland meadow and bursting with varieties of blooms every season.

"I’ve been so contrary." She moaned against his neck.

"Quite."

"Take me home?"

He gathered her into his lap. "You are my home." He whispered against her earlobe as she let her body relax against his, surrendering finally to the firmness of his resolve.

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Thursday Thirteen #61

Thirteen Things I'm Thankful For

1. Stories
2. Storytellers: writers, novelists, poets, scriptwriters, movie directors, actors and anyone else involved in the creation of stories
3. Dreamers
4. Dreams
6. Books, Movies, Plays, DVD & Videos, and all the other delivery systems for stories.
7. Libraries!!!!
8. That Southern Oregon reopened their library system a month ago
9. Music (it is story telling in its own right and what would a film be without it?)
10. Imagination
11. Vision (both physical sight and the other, inner sight that illuminates meaning)
12. Artists (story tellers in visual and tactile media with special kudos for those who illustrated the picture books of my childhood and those for children today)
13. Mothers, Fathers, Grandmothers, Aunts, Uncles, Grandfathers, Teachers, friends, children and all the others who weave their stories into each other's lives to form the web of community and culture which is the ground in which story is rooted.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It's easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants

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Writing Rules

print for sale at allposters.com

Nuf said.

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