When your kids say funny things, do you write it down? When they leave home you could hand them a book about themselves- a journal you wrote.
Would I lie to you? (Hana Oliver/ Unsplash)
Another May Down
…there is something about writing a personally challenging piece (on motherhood, of course) that feels deeply refining, like fire.
The Ekphrastic Letter
Dear Mother,
I should’ve cleaned your fingernails before you died. I know dirty fingernails never bothered you, but in that last photo I took of you where your hands wrap around the ceramic mug of fresh coffee I brought with real cream, instead of the styrofoam cup of instant with powder packets you’d been getting—-in that picture the gleam is back in your eyes, feisty again, but a dark, dirty rim lines each fingernail. I regret not offering to clean your nails, but at the time it didn’t occur to me. You had lots of life left in you. You could’ve cleaned your own fingernails….
Would I lie to you? (Hana Oliver/ Unsplash)
The Jesus Chicken
The other day our middle daughter came over to celebrate our youngest daughter’s 15th birthday. Arielle asked what we were having for her birthday dinner. Chicken Alfredo? I said, knowing it’s her favorite. Where is the chicken from? Arielle asked. She’s taking AP Environmental Science in her freshman year at Camas High School. We try to buy mostly free-range, usually organic chickens, but this class has raised the bar on what she finds acceptable. She’s nice about it, but she won’t eat it if she thinks it might not be responsibly sourced and humanely treated. Or if it contains palm oil. From the kitchen, her father called out some details–it was a heritage chicken, woodland bred, fed a diet of sheep’s milk, soy and hazelnuts, local and organic with at least 4 acres to graze upon with lots of friends… (Portlandia episode–ordering chicken) I added that it was a happy…
May (MaMoMeMo) is Here
Are you ready to write, even just 5-10 minutes exploring your story in May? If so, bookmark this site and subscribe to my newsletter… which I admit I’ve never actually sent out. I write my blog posts (here and more regularly on Ekphrastic Mama https://lorilyngreenstone.com/) but I don’t bother with emails. Some of you have asked me about this… I’m working up to it, is my best answer. I’m still figuring out the public side of writing. Mostly, writing is private, something I do when I’m alone, although I do write in groups https://www.pdxwriters.com/ and with partners, which I find drives my writing forward in surprising ways, but more about that later… I find memoir a bit unwieldy- it tends to run off in directions I didn’t think I was going. Sometimes I have to stop and ask, what is the story that wants to be written? However, during May…
More Bees, Less Words
Today a friend said she had two swarms of bees at her house and I could come get one if I wanted. But it was about 20 feet up in a tree. I like a challenge. The hub was reluctant, in the middle of a project… but he’s a game guy. This time our 13 year-old daughter came too, all three of us suited up in our bee suits. Bee girl It was a huge swarm. Actually, the two swarms merged into one. We went back and forth with ideas of how best to get it down, if it was even possible. The professionals from our bee club said it was too high; they’d just leave it. Huge swarm up high But we figured out a plan. The hub climbed up a ladder tethered to his truck, lassoed the branch with a rope and shook this huge swarm into a…
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…
swarm
Secrets of the Writer Bees
Late afternoon on Sunday, a day that began with a hike to several waterfalls in a forest nearby where we live in the Columbia Gorge, I got a text about a swarm of bees nearby. They were congregating at the Moose Lodge in Camas. Sunday afternoons are lazy, dinner over early, and lots of outdoor time if weather permits, but also reading, writing, relaxing. Having already been on a 45-minute hike that turned into a two-hour slosh through mud, but an adventure nonetheless, we were well spent. But the weather was lovely, so once we had brunch and revived we pulled blackberry vines and stinging nettle from the bank in our backyard forest. And now it was evening, time to relax. The hub did not want to add a bee venture to the end of this day, so I said the thing that will usually rouse him. “I’ll go by…
Comfort and Challenge
In making my list of 10 elements for a great day (yesterday’s post) I found myself contemplating the balance between comfort and challenge. A good day possesses them both, in unequal measure, as one bleeds into the other. Writing, for example, is both challenging and comforting. I begin with the easy flow of words in a journal, just writing whatever comes to mind, which I find comforting, seeing my thoughts materialize on the page, the abstract inner workings of a mind translated into black and white, or in my case, purple, my ink gel color of choice. Purple both soothes and excites my soul. From the space of colorful freewriting, I find it easier to move into the work of writing, developing stories and putting words together that others might make sense out of, or be moved by- more challenging, and sometimes unexplainably exhausting. And yet, at the end of…
Top 10 for a Great Day?
Do you ever wonder why some days end on a high and others end in defeat? Today was a great day, but why? What makes for a great day? In an attempt to quantify it I made a list of my top ten elements. All are actions I can take to push my day in the right direction. If my actions are good then every day can conceivably be good, if not downright great, right? Before you look at my list you might want to jot down your own. In no particular order- Drinking enough water; 6-8 glasses at least Doing Yoga, ideally 30-45 minutes, but 10 is okWriting. And more writing.Accomplishing something on a project I want to finishNot overeating or drinking/numbing emotions with food or drinkGetting outdoors for 30+ min. strenuous exercise, or at least a walkBeing kind, and showing it with a smileNot getting carried away by…