She wasn’t the mother she’d wanted, but she was the mother who’d shown up (from Wildcat by Amelia Morris). What does that prompt you to write?
80th birthday celebration
I Am a Tree
Picture yourself as a tree. All day I’ve seen myself re-cast as a tree and it has been my best new thought, drawing me toward the sky, a seeker transforming the air we breathe. I love trees. Last week I posted this quote from John Muir: I have never seen a discontented tree. Muir’s words speak to two of my deepest places: a love for trees, and a desire to be satisfied. I’ve pondered contentment much of my life, coaching myself toward it, sometimes thinking I’ve arrived. But I haven’t entirely whipped it. I know this because I’m often restless. My restlessness takes the form of wanting to consume things I don’t need, or even really enjoy all that much after the initial dopamine hit. Dark chocolate or some other “healthy” treat is usually my consumable of choice. Sometimes wine or beer, but not on a daily basis, and usually…
La Grande Jatte by Seurat
Seurat and Social Distancing
In Seurat’s pointillist painting, La Grande Jatte, notice how everyone is arranged in small groups with some distance between them? I never saw it quite like this before, but living through a pandemic changes your view on just about everything. Is there a piece of art that represents how life has changed for you since the onset of the pandemic? A painting might inspire a story or poem, or vivid imagery in a poem or story might inspire a painting or sculpture (reverse ekphrasis). Using art as a starting point, describing what you see until the story or idea behind the objects or scene reveals itself. That’s ekphrastic writing and it can bring new layers of meaning, along with new ways of seeing, to your work. Give it a try. And stay safe this Memorial Day Weekend. Writing, generally done alone, is a fairly safe activity.
no tree looks discontent to me
A Discontented Tree
Have you ever seen one? I try to imagine what it might look like. Thirsty, parched, in need of water is the best I can do. Maybe a Yucca in Death Valley. Certainly not the trees lining the Columbia Gorge where I live. We walk under their canopies daily, looking up, breathing in the oxygen-rich air they provide, thankful to be here, sharing life. No sign of discontent anywhere nearby. “I never saw a discontented tree,” said John Muir. He might’ve been in or around Yosemite where he spent much of his time. He soaked in the satisfaction of the trees, of a simple life breathing fresh outdoor air. Trees have stories. They connect and communicate through their root systems. Go for a walk today and ask a tree, What sort of story have you for me? Or write a tree into a scene, along with the word discontented. Enjoy…
John Deere/dear decanting honey left by the last bees
When Writing Disappears
That happens from time to time, right? You forget to hit save like I did yesterday after starting today’s post… At least I think I wrote a post. I’ve been writing a lot lately and dreaming, both day and night, so I realize it’s possible I only dreamed I wrote a post. At any rate, it has not reappeared in my drafts folder where I thought, or dreamed, I wrote it. What I love is how comical this seems to me, when before, maybe last year, it might’ve caused stress or anxiety, like a bee swarm before I knew much about bees. When I’m writing a lot, I know I can just write some more. When I’m not writing much, every word feels precious, no matter how bad it might be. And when I’m writing a lot the writing seems better somehow, like I’m hitting more of the right notes,…
Paper doll Mom
Have you ever imagined a character you’re writing, or your mother, as something you might play with, some relic from your past? I’m going through my dead mother’s artifacts when I find a youthful head shot of her, colored and cutout, like the bust of a paper doll. Back before color photography, my mother painted her sepia photos with a set of Marshall’s photo-oils, bringing a rosy glow to her cheeks, shading her lips to set off her straight white teeth, dotting her eyes deep blue, and adding a touch of auburn to her hair. In the 50s, my mother was starlet pretty, a once-upon-a-time model, so the tinted head shot of her, taken before she stood next to the wrong man, is easy to imagine as an iconic paper doll I’d dress with my youngest daughter, the last one left at home. She’s 11, on the cusp of adolescence,…
Life as an Alien
A few years ago our youngest was drawing space shapes- a moon, some stars, a wobbly planet, when she looked up and said, You’re the best mom in the world. Child #6 was a late-life reckoning, born 13 years ago, when I was 47, the last thing I thought I wanted at the time. But time has a way of changing everything. She looked back at her drawing and reconsidered. No, wait, you’re the best mom in the universe. You’re better than an alien mom! An alien mom is the coolest thing she could think of at age 4. I smile, thinking who loves me like this? I try to remember if the first five were this adoring. I don’t think so. Or it could be that life has since erased the phase of adoration on both sides. Still, I linger, trying to picture what about myself makes me better…
Why We Write
Why do you write? Every now and then I return to this existential question. Like Flannery O’Connor, I don’t know what I think until I write. I need to see my thoughts spelled out in words, and then I can edit them, put them in order. When I see them in black and white, or purple- I love purple gel ink pens– I can shape them. But until then they are floating and abstract. Have you thought about this? I’m almost certain you have, but it’s worth revisiting now and then. Like Henri Nouwen, I’m seeking to articulate the movement of my inner life. As writers, maybe we are also trying to rephrase the world, take it in and give it back better, “so that everything is used and nothing is lost” as Nicole Krauss writes.Or, like Anaïs Nin maybe we want to create a world in which we can…
Devious Dolls
What do you do with your mother’s doll collection after she dies? No one wanted them, except my youngest daughter, but we had to fly home from Las Vegas, and she already had too many dolls for the size of our house. “You can have one box of dolls. One small box,” I said, giving in, trying to think where we would put them when we got back to our down-sized house in the Pacific Northwest. We’d gone from 6 kids to 4, to 2, and now finally, to one; one child who still wants to play with dolls at 11. In today’s grow-up fast culture that’s got to be a good thing, right? A year and a half later, as our daughter turned 13, she asked for only one birthday gift: a dollhouse for her American Girl dolls, which are quite large. But when your quarantined daughter becomes a…
Things We Say
“Get back on the horse,” is something my mother said quite a lot. I fell off quite a few horses… And “things will look different in the morning.” She was right, they generally do. “No good thing ever came from alcohol.” Said with a pointing finger as I recall, and a scouring look, eyes tight. Of course I had to debate that one. “What about when Jesus made water into really good wine for a wedding?” “That was because the water was no good,” she answered, then changed the subject. Even though I don’t ride horses much anymore, “get back on the horse” has become an adage to live by, a saying I quote often, usually to remind myself. What sayings do you carry around in your mental pockets or notebooks? May is a great time to get them out, write them down, maybe write them into dialogue between your…