Category: writing

Surprised and Delighted

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The prompt this month in the One Little Word class is to be “surprised and delighted” by the appearance of my word for the year. This year, I have chosen “manifest” as my word. I probably mentioned that the word came to me during the Advent season. The last line of a hymn goes “God in man made manifest.” That line continues to hum its way into my brain every once and a while.

First of all, the word doesn’t have those “new-age” meanings for me. I think of the word’s meaning as “revelation.” What is being revealed to me? What new things am I becoming aware of? What new “understandings” are coming to me? These are the things that “manifest” means to me.

So, what is surprising and delighting me this month?

Cicadas. Yes, insects! This year, we have a double treat. The thirteen-year and the seventeen-year cicadas are emerging at the same time! We have been treated to their singing or chirping, or whatever you want to call it, for the last three weeks. I have loved waking up to their songs. They have also been accompanied by the chirping of birds. This morning chorus has been a delight and a highlight of my day.

But more than anything else, this emergence of cicadas has occurred during the liturgical season of Easter (from Easter Sunday to the Saturday before the Sunday of the Pentecost). I have been thinking about the idea of resurrection in the religious, spiritual, and physical senses of the word. I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a Christian. It seems such a physical impossibility. Yet, I think about the cicadas: they have been dormant and hidden (entombed?) for years, and suddenly, they emerge as living, active beings. That is resurrection. That is new life. In a couple of weeks, the cicadas will be gone, and the world will be quieter (I’ll have to get used to that different kind of quiet). When I’m seventy-nine years old, the cicadas will emerge again. That is resurrection. It is tangible proof that it can happen.

I have been tracking the changes in the backyard by taking weekly photos, focusing on the cherry tree in the backyard. It is fully green now in mid-May. The changes are more subtle now than they were in October when I began the project. I have to get closer to the tree to see the changes. The white and pinkish blossoms have turned into little green cherries (hard as rocks!). As I track the changes, the idea of resurrection has manifested more than once–from bare limbs in winter to the pink buds to white blossoms to green leaves and now to the fruit itself. Wildflowers, roses, gladiolas, and other plants have emerged. There is new growth all around me.

Having this word “manifest” is making me aware of life around me. I’m already thinking about my word choices for “next year.” What can follow this word for inspiration and contemplation?

And just delightful is that grandson of mine who is growing and learning and loving. . . .

Reading Roundup–April 2024

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April was a productive month for reading. I read nine books, two of which were audio books, and started two others. Most of the books were “fluff”–easy and escapist reads (yes, they were Regency historical for the most part. Sorry, but those are my guilty pleasures.)

I didn’t read many of the books that came with the two monthly book club boxes; the only one I read was A Fate Inked in Blood, a fantasy novel based on Norse mythology. It is one of several books I read in April featuring strong female characters. I enjoyed this book, but it dealt with some hard issues: father-son relationships; female friendships, loyalty and betrayal; and domestic violence, not to mention war and the threat of war. The novel provided lots to think about while reading it.

Murder, I Spy was advertised as Downton meets Miss Scarlett. I loved the PBS series, The Miss Scarlett Mysteries, and I enjoyed a couple of the books on which the series was based. The lead character is a femme fatale, sort of, who lives a double life as a frivolous socialite and a spy for the British government. When a friend and fellow spy is murdered, she teams up with a British aristocrat to solve his murder. There is mischief and mayhem a-plenty in this novel.

A Proud Woman and A Singular Woman are the first two books in a series by Sarah F. Noel. Lady Tabitha (aka Lady Tabby Cat) is recently widowed. She teams up with the new earl, her husband’s cousin, to solve a variety of mysteries and murders. The novel is partly romance as the recently widowed Tabitha and Jeremy, the new earl (aka Wolf) work together. The Dowager Countess, unfortunately, becomes something of a fly in the ointment for them as she pushes her way into their investigations. I thoroughly enjoyed these books. I wasn’t sure I would like listening to them, but I found that I did! I know I read to my students quite often, and they loved the “read-aloud” days. I think I do, too.

I have read the hype about Sarah Maas’s books, so I gave A Court of Thorns and Roses a read. I “think” I liked it. I know that it kept my interest, and I wanted to see how it ended. It is most certainly a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale with a hint of The Hunger Games in the setting of a distant, but oppressive “government” controlling the provinces and districts. I did not find the male lead very appealing, though. I liked his sidekick better. I have not read the other books in the series yet; the second one is waiting in my Kindle library and in my Audible library.

Of the books I started in April, Jane Eyre is a re-read, or maybe it’s a re-re-re-re-re-read (think Aretha Franklin’s refrain in “Respect”). I remember reading Jane Eyre in high school at the recommendation of my English teacher, Norma Richardson, who suggested so many favorite books and led me to so many literary discoveries. I still remember the cover of the first copy of Jane Eyre: a Scholastic book club edition with a white cover and the title is black stylized type face. I couldn’t name the font now if you asked me! Reading at age 66 is quite a bit different from reading at age 16. I see how the character of Jane was rebeling against the societal norms for women in the nineteenth century and how that rebellion created the problems she dealt with. I am savoring this book, making it a slow read.

Another series of books that I read in high school were the books in Mary Stewart’s Arthurian trilogy, beginning with The Crystal Cave and The Hollow Hills. I did not realize that she also wrote mysteries. So, I was pleasantly pleased to discover Touch Not the Cat, published in 1974. I enjoyed this book. Again, it featured a female lead as the investigator into the mysteries surrounding the estate she is trying to save from her cousins who are trying to sell it out from under her to pay off their debts. There is a hint of the supernatural as the main character has a psychic link with another she calls “lover.” In the end there is a romance and a happy, if not completely joyful, ending.

In the midst of these books, I am still reading Les Miserables–another slow read so that I can savor the language, the characters, and the complexities of the plot. I may finish it by the end of summer!

As I write this, I am expecting my next shipment from Book of the Month. In a day or two, the books from the Aardvark Book Club will arrive. In addition, I will be receiving a nonfiction book about the photography of Thomas Merton. Over the weekend, the complete set of Jane Austen novels arrived. I will have plenty to read this month, and I’m looking forward to it!

I Write Because. . . .

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Something different on my usual Thankful Thursday. I finished the 21 Days of Wild Writing class from Laura Waggoner’s 27 Powers writing classes. It’s an on-demand class. There is no deadline. In fact, she acknowledges throughout the 21-day course that sometimes, we may skip days because–well, because “life” happens.

Today was my 21st day. The prompt is called “I Write Because,” a piece written by Anele Rubin. The jump-off line for today is “I Write Because”. Here is my first-draft, slightly edited, fifteen-minute piece inspired by that line.

I write because–because I cannot NOT write. I write to get the thoughts running around in my brain on that hamster wheel out and lined up so that they make sense.
I write because if I don’t write it down, I will forget. And forgetting sometimes seems worse than death.
I write because I want to remember how Grandmother took us fishing in the shallow creek under the bridge in Peak, and Elaine caught a gar, and the cars crossing the old wooden bridge rumbled like thunder against the quiet of the day.
I write to remember the night Peak burned–the doctor’s office, the drug store. My cousin Jimmy giving the firemen cold drinks from the ice box in Aunt Mayme’s store, red flames shooting upward in the sky; we could see them from our house two or three miles away.
I write to sort things out, to solve a problem, make a plan.
I write to share my days with old friends from school whom I have seen in forty years.
I write because in February the cherry and apple trees bloom; in March, the jasmine blooms, and the camellia I brought from Gramma’s house is red with blossoms.
I write because the birds are singing between the showers of rain.
I write because my grandson and I had a dinosaur war on his Uncle John’s 35th birthday, and Aaron went back to work after an injury and received a promotion, but he still has to relearn the knots he learned as a Boy Scout twenty years ago.
I write because time is passing and I’m getting older and one day there will be only my words to tell my story.
I write because I have to write. I said it before, I cannot NOT write. I write because I like the feel of the heavy fountain pen in my hand, the feel of the nib moving across the page, the texture of the paper against my palm, the quiet scratching that could almost, but not quiet, drown out the writer’s voice in my head.
I write because it’s raining outside, and the sky wavers between light gray as if the sun wants to break through and the heavy darkness just before the “bottom falls out.”
I write because the dandelions are blooming and turning into puff balls and the false garlic is white bells across the front yard and the honeysuckle will soon bloom and the rose buds are opening.
I write because I have to.

When You Feel Alone

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I know there is a difference between being alone and being lonely or feeling alone. A young neighbor brought that sharply to mind this week. I know those feelings well.

First, I’ll reiterate that I am an introvert. I enjoy my time of solitude, aloneness if you will. I like being in the company of others, but it drains me, sometimes to the point of developing migraines, which are no fun at all. Being in large groups, having to be “social”–it takes its toll on introverts. I have to have time, sometimes days, to recharge and “recover.”

However, feeling lonely and isolated is something totally different. Even the most extroverted person can feel lonely and isolated, or even alienated, in the crowd that normally gives him or her energy and joy.

My time with my young friend yesterday made me think about that line of discrimination between solitude and aloneness and loneliness and isolation. What if those feelings of loneliness are brought on by difficult circumstances? What can another person do to help?

The first thing is to listen. Just listen. Let the other person tell you what she is feeling and why.

The second thing is not to try to fix her. Most of the time, the other person does not want you to fix her; she just wants to be heard.

The third thing is to empathize. Most of us have had those times of loneliness. Let her know that she is not the only one. I told my friend that she could always come over to sit on the swing. I would give her a cup of tea and hold her hand while we sat there watching her children run around the yard (It’s been almost 20 years since little ones ran around the backyard). If she wanted to, we’d gather a handful of rocks and throw them in the pond. I must admit that there is something very satisfying about chunking that rock into the pond with all the force I can muster; the same goes for slamming a door! If you have your own story, sometimes it’s helpful to share that story–not what you did to fix the situation, but enough to let her know that she is not the only person who has felt that way.

This is pretty simplistic. I’m sure psychologists have much more insightful advice. But these are things that we can do right now. I also believe in the power of prayer. Certainly, my young friend is now on my prayer list. I can’t fix her situation or give her the one solution to remedy it. I can pray, though, that a solution or remedy is forthcoming. Sometimes, just sharing your burden with another person is enough.

Our conversation brought me to another point that is important to me. For whatever reason, mental and emotional health issues are just not talked about openly, and therein, at least to me, is the reason why we often feel isolated and lonely. My friend told me that once others said, “I feel or have felt that way, too,” to her, she felt better. She still struggles, but she knows she is no longer alone. We need to have these discussions openly with each other. We need to take away the stigma that often accompanies discussions of mental health. It is still another way to relieve the isolation of loneliness.

And I will be checking up on her in the coming weeks. She will know she is not alone.

A Thankful Thursday

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It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve written a “Thankful” post for Thursday. Today is the day.

After yesterday’s storms and rain, I am thankful for the sun, blue skies, and white, wispy clouds of this afternoon.

I am thankful that there are still full-service gas stations! Yes, there is one in the nearby small town. The owner and head mechanic is my neighbor. They put four new tires on my car this afternoon.

I am thankful for the ministry of my church and our pastor.

I am thankful for the friendships in my community.

I am thankful for the time to have quiet afternoons and days of “leisure” in my retirement (and, no, I don’t think “retirement” is a bad word. I have retired from teaching, but not from living).

I am especially thankful for allergy medications. The pollen is getting to me this year. NIghtly doses of Xyzol and morning “shots” of AsterPro are getting me through the season.

I am thankful that I can sit in the rocking chair and enjoy a small patch of sunshine and the beauty of the orchids blooming in the living room window. I think it’s time to find another pot to add to the window sill!

“When I Was Seven”–Wild Writing, Day 13

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Last winter, I signed up for Laurie Wagner’s self-paced class, A Wild Writing Practice, 21 Days of Pen to Page”. Each Day, Laurie reads a poem, usually by a contemporary poet, and provides some “jump-off lines” to get us started. Then, we set a time for fifteen minutes and write, keeping the pen to page without stopping. It’s like Peter Elbow’s freewriting. When I engage in this practice, I never quite know where I will end up.

Today, is Day 13 of the practice. The poem is “Twelve, Twelve, Twelve” by Aimee Nezhukumatathi. The jump-off is to use numbers and/or the alphabet to organize the details of the story. Today, I began thinking about the old song, “When I Was Seventeen” and the next line in the lyric, “It was a very good year”–except for me, my teen years were not all that great. I didn’t have the language or the knowledge to understand that I am my nature an introvert, and I just thought I was an odd-ball and a misfit. So, today I wrote about “when I was seven” and used the letters, not as an acrostic, but as an organizing principle. Here is the result:

When I Was Seven

  • A–When I as seven, we moved from the “Old House,” a simple “shot gun” farm house with white clapboard siding and a front porch with green chairs and a faded yellow and white glider, where we lived with Grandmother and Granddaddy while the new house on the hill was being built.
  • B–We moved in the spring after Grandmother died of leukemia and a cerebral hemmorhage. I didn’t know what that was then, but I knew she went to the hospital one day and did not come home. I remember the huge purple-black bruises on the underside of her arms.
  • C–When I was seven, we had a whole new place to explore. There was the fort in the woods across the driveway next to the road to Peak where my sister and I could hide from our brother and the cow path across the GP land betwen our new house and the Old House.
  • D–Before we moved to the new house, Mama and Grandmother would carry us from our bedroom to the kitchen to dress for school because the floor was so cold in winter. The Old House had no insulation in the floor or underpinning to keep out the cold.
  • E–We learned to pop open crepe myrtle buds from Grandmother. She picked the buds from the crepe myrtle tree that grew in the corner at the back porch. We squeezed the buds until the pink petals opened between our fingers.
  • F–That back porch corner was a good place to play, especially after a rain storm. There was a puddle of clear water that ran down the corner of the roof where the porch intersected with the rest of the house. The puddle was filled with tiny brown and tan pebbles that sifted through our small fingers.
  • G–It wasn’t long after we moved before Granddaddy sold the Old House and moved in with us. Strangers moved into the Old House, and it lost its magic; it was no longer my home with its wood and linoleum floors, dim lights, kitchen and pantry filled with the wonders of home-canned vegetables, staple goods, and the pies and cakes Grandmother and Mama baked.
  • H–And yet, it is the Old House that reminds me of childhood, of exploring the outdoors with Grandmother who introduced me to the little critters of the world–lizards and glass snakes, bugs and beetles, and salamanders in the spring box; to fishing in the creek at Peak where the rumble of cars over the wooden bridge above us sounded like thunder.

The Simple Things

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It’s the smallest things

the petals of the apple and cherry blossoms littering the ground like so many snowflakes;

tiny purple flowers like stars that have fallen between the blades of grass;

jasmine trumpets hanging in the tree branches.

It’s simple things

the sweet burn of the hot cinnamon spiced tea at breakfast.

It’s as simple as

the turtles sunning themselves on the water-soaked logs in the lake;

pollen-swollen pinecones in the making;

the rumble of thunder before the rain.

It’s the simple smell of bread baking and the taste of butter melting over hot-cross buns during the Lenten season.

It’s the glitter of sunlight on the water and the shadow of trees on the pavement.

It’s the sound–or rather the silence–of my steps along the straw-covered path through the woods.

My Reading Goal–an Update

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I just finished putting in the last book I finished toward my reading goal. As of today, I’ve read 16 books toward my modest goal of 52 for the year. I think my Story Graph app says I’m six ahead for the year. I do have a few that I’ve started but am reading slowly over time. And there is one book that I’m not sure I’m going to finish.

My StoryGraph chart reveals that I am certainly partial to mysterious and adventurous novels, but to be realistic, most of those are historical mysteries.

I joined two book clubs: Book of the Month and Aardvark Book Club. I wanted to read more physical books this year although I still read quite a few ebooks on my Kindle. And I do order the occasional book from Amazon still.

Currently, I’m reading Les Miserables–all 1,500 pages. It’s sitting here on the arm of the chair. I have to admit that this is a very slow read in part because the font is small, but also because Hugo goes into so much detail about character and place. I honestly have not tried to look up all the allusions he includes to people and places. I’d never make progress through the story if I did. And even though it is a long book, it isn’t boring. I love the cover of this soft-bound book–leather cover with a word cloud embossed in it–characters’ names, descriptions, quotes. . . . It is a recent translation by Isabel Hapgood (2009). As a result, I think it is relatively readable.

I took a break, though, this week to read one of the books I received from the Aardvark Book Club, A Spinster’s Guide to Danger and Dukes by Manda Collins. It is a historical romance/murder mystery with many of the usual tropes of Victorian gothic novels–except the “things that go bump in the night” (although one of the characters does say that the duke has not mentioned any hauntings of the family estate but there could be one). It also makes use of the “enemies-to-lovers” trope. I enjoyed it. It was a fun read. The protagonists are very likeable. Manda Collins avoids most of the stereotypes of historical romance, such as the “knight-in-shining armor” and “damsel in distress,” although the femaile protagonist does have a problem which which the male protagonist assists. And in one scene, it is the female protagonist who “rescues” her duke when he has a panic attack when they are locked in the chapel folly; the duke is clautrophobic.

The one book I have not been able to finish is The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett. This book is also a mystery whose primary detective is patterned on Nero Wolf. It is somewhat dystopian nature, which usually doesn’t bother me, but the world-building and characterization in this novel did not suit me–at this time. I may go back and finish it, but for now, it will be on my did not finish list.

I could stay up all night reading, but my eyes won’t let me. Look for a another post at another time with more of my picks of books worth mentioning.

Thankful Thursday–February Wrapup

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I thought my days would be slower somehow, that time would would not “fly by” once I retired. It seems the opposite is true. Today is Leap Day, February 29. I don’t get the math or the science behind the reasons for this additional day added to the calendar every four years–or even why February has to be the shortest day of the year with only 28 days. Someone with a more scientific and mathematical brain will have to suffice.

In spite of being a short month, it has been a full month. I am thankful for the gifts that this month has brought me:

  1. The Making Kin through Photography practice circle hosted on the Kinship website. The eleven people in the group have been so kind and supportive, and I have eased back into a photography practice. I am taking more (short) walks and exploring the land where I live. In the coming months, I want to expand my walks to include exploration of the state park system with the goal of earning the Ultimate Outsider status.
  2. Lent. I know, it sounds odd, but Lent and Advent are my two favoriate liturgical seasons. To me, Lent is not a time of “giving up” something. It is more reflective than that. It is a time of introspection and a time of slowing down, even as it seems that Nature is speeding up.
  3. Cherry blossoms and camelias. The cherry tree is in full bloom, and it is beautiful! I have been photographing the cherry at least once a week since October, watching it as it turned from green to orange and red to bare branches and now to white. By next week, it will be green! My photography practice has made me mindful of the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle changes in this tree!
  4. Moments of sun and days of rain. There is something about winter rain. It is darker and heavier than summer rain, but when the sun shines, it is glorious. Is the sunshine after a winter rainy day brighter and the air clearer than in summer? It seems so to me.

February is the big birthday month in my family: two of my uncles and my brother, sister, and I all have birthdays this month. One of my uncles and I share a birthday. As a friend from school puts it, we are birthday twins (that friend also shares a birthday with me; we are also birthday twins. I need to ask him where he was born. It would be quite the coincidence if we shared the same hospital nursery!). I am thankful for all the birthday wishes I received, and I am especially thankful that I could spend the day with my grandson. There is nothing quite like getting a birthday hug from a two year old!

Currently–Monday Musing

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It’s the last week of February already! Not possible. . . . My brother, sister, two uncles on my mother’s side of the family, and I have had our birthdays. March will have just as many (my father-in-law, sister-in-law, niece, and son in person; my mother-in-law and my father in heaven). The cherry tree is blooming, the blossoms just opening into white “snow,” as A. E. Housman wrote in his poem. And because it’s the end of the month, it’s time for my monthly “Currently” reflection.

Currently, I’m

loving taking photo walks around the ponds Grampa built so many years ago and exploring the woods off the “beaten trail” I usually take.

eating dark chocolate with sea-salted caramel centers

reading historical novels. The First Ladies is one of my favorite ones so far, but I do love escaping into the nineteenth century.

working with some soft bamboo yarn to make a crocheted blanket

celebrating my sixty-sixth trip around the sun with my family

giving thanks for the life I have and the loves of my life

planning the spring tour of South Carolina’s state parks

feeling sad (a former student, a former principal, and spouses of dear friends have passed) and joyful at the same time.

I have to say that my life at this moment in time is good. I have reconnected with my college roommate, who lives about an hour and a half away in North Carolina now instead of five hours away in Florida. My health is much better, and I am becoming more active in other ways. I am making the most of my retirement!