An early picture of our old house, before renovation.
One of the most enjoyable writing exercises I’ve done lately comes from a biographical poetry template based on a poem by George Ella Lyon. I came across it on Jeannine Quellette’s brilliant Substack, Writing in the Dark. The exercise is familiar to me in a distant way, as though perhaps I’d done it before but lost it. Or perhaps it suited me perfectly this past week because I have been contemplating writing memoir and fictionalized biography, so it seems as though I always had it—a poem about beginnings, and the echoes still heard, the lessons still being learned.
Green grass, Blue water, the whoosh of wind and wings
Flocks of seagulls
I am from Lilies of the Valley, Bleeding Hearts, Lake Michigan’s endless sand and waves
I’m from World War II, Ramblers, and Divorce
From Rachel and Frederick and William and Lorene
From Rae and Bill
I’m from long car rides and listening to albums on the stereo
From Mr. Wonderful and Stop Crying and What did you learn in school today?
I’m from no church, lost pets, and rented houses.
From a mother who scoffed at religious people
And a father who blamed organized religion
For the world’s woes.
But I’m also from Christmas trees and baking cookies, from bunnies and Easter baskets.
And I’m from the hand-written prayers I found in my father’s bedside table when he died.
I’m from Chicago and Kenosha
From Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota
From Scots called Johnstone, and Swedes called Nelson
From ground beef casseroles, navy bean soup, and sour cream raisin pie
From Great Aunt Mary who broke up with her beau when he jumped into a fountain,
Never to wed, who lived with her sister Lorene’s family and then mine until The Divorce when she
Was sent back to Chicago to an old folk’s home
And Mother was hospitalized
I am from women who sewed and worked in libraries
and who cooked and cleaned other people’s houses.
And from men who sought love and adventure and worked on farms and in factories.
I am from Midwestern barefoot summers and sea glass and wandering the West
Restless and yearning for polished maple tables and a place to call home.
RLP, 2025
If you would like to write your own “I Am From” poem, here is the template. Use it as a springboard. Jump in and adjust it to suit. I hope the writing brings you joy, or something like joy, which is sometimes as simple as finding a way to express the inexpressible past.
Blessings! And please share your poems in the comments!
Kenosha, Wisconsin
Template: I Am From
I am from ________________ (specific ordinary item)
From ____________ (product name) and _____________ (product name)
This is not my kitty. It’s a sweet expression though, and I love kitties.
I woke up this morning acutely aware of several things. None of them were good, considering the state of current affairs, but, for me, the first breath of consciousness each day brings the unwelcome reminder that I no longer have any teeth (on the top of my jaw anyway. This may or may not be called the “crown” of my gums . . . I have asked Mr. Googly, but I’m still not sure). Also, I only have 13 teeth left on the bottom, which, hey, I’m grateful for so that’s why I state it only as an aside and not as part of my general complaint. Anyway, this is what waking up means to me.
I am aware that this is not an appealing topic.
Well, some people love me. But sometimes I get sad anyway.
I am an American woman with ill-fitting dentures that I take out at night. Most nights. Some nights I just leave them in.
But you aren’t supposed to leave them in. Why? Something about giving your gums a rest and not letting bacteria build up. According to The American College of Prosthodontists (ACP), the association that represents the specialty of prosthodontics: “Yes, you can wear your dentures at night, but it is preferred that they be removed. You should remove your dentures at night, and this will give your gums and bone a chance to relax from the pressure of the denture during the day. If you need to wear your dentures for social reasons or to prevent your jaws from over closing, you should find time during the day to properly clean your mouth and your prostheses. You should never wear your dentures 24 hours a day without performing proper oral hygiene. Dentures should be cleaned at night and stored in water during the night.”
So, that’s a no, yes? My guy in Fallon said to take them out . . . (he never mentioned unless I needed to keep them in for “social reasons” or to avoid over-closing jaws) . . . more on that later.
So, I usually take them out. Then—I wake up in the morning feeling like my face is a sad stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway after a torrential downpour. Part of me is washed away.
That’s me on the left. All smiles. Brand new teeth.
By now, some readers might be thinking (in addition to oh dear lord please stop), what about implants?
When I inquired about the cost of implants, I was given the “ballpark” figure of $40,000. “It’s like buying a car,” my Fallon guy said. Indeed. And I would be the first person to say that I’d much rather have a complete set of permanent teeth than a new car. Absolutely! But that’s false equivalency; it isn’t a choice between teeth and a car. Not at all. There’s no money for either of those things. I was lucky to be able to scrape the money together for the dentures, which came to something closer to $4,000 (including the cost of the extraction of my “unsavable” natural teeth). I drive a car that I bought used 10 years ago for much less than $40,000 and have managed to pay off. So I’m not in the market for a new car, and implants were never going to happen.
This breaks my heart, and it also angers me. Why is dental care so difficult to attain? Is it because of a general American lack of concern for healthcare for its citizens overall? Is it because I am lazy and do not deserve teeth? I mean, I have a job. I’ve always had jobs, but some of them (at peak important dental crisis periods), didn’t include dental insurance. If I had been born into a wealthy family, or perhaps if I had been born in a different country, would I still have my teeth? I don’t know. Certainly, lifelong, consistent dental care could have saved me some of my dental losses. I remember having a tooth pulled when I was in my twenties that could have been saved if I’d had the money for a root canal and a crown.
I’d like to hear about the experiences of people from other places. Is this something that happens to many of my peers, but I just don’t know about it because it is humiliating, and no one dares speak of it? And what about people who lose their teeth to accidents or illness? What recourse do they have?
More big smiles. Happier days.
I know there are people suffering much more in places that are much worse. I know that many people of my parents’ generation wore dentures for much of their adult lives, and I don’t remember hearing much grumbling about it, perhaps another reason that their designation as The Greatest Generation is so apt. My parents survived The Great Depression, they fought in World War II (Dad was a Marine in the Pacific) or supplied the troops (Mom worked in an airplane factory), they ballroom danced like athletes, swinging with The Big Bands, and they never complained. Perhaps part of the saying about keeping a stiff upper lip comes from their ability to hide their discomfort about dentures? I don’t know, but I admire them for it.
Does that mean I should just embrace my toothlessness? I mean, my parents weren’t crying about it. And if I should embrace my loss, how, exactly, do I do that?
I miss my teeth. I miss my smile. Like Elf, I love to smile. Smiling is my favorite.
Also, I can’t eat numerous foods that I love. This includes crispy raw vegetables and taco shells and chewy candy—the obvious things—but also many others like pizza or sandwiches or good crusty bread. Believe me, dentures do not allow it.
Again, I could be wrong. According to The American College of Prosthodontists, “Most patients need to learn how to use dentures properly and as a result, it takes a little time to get used to them. After a while, you should be able to eat fairly normally, but it may take more time to get comfortable with harder foods or sticky foods. Using a small amount of denture adhesive (no more than three or four pea-sized dabs on each denture) may help stabilize the dentures and help hold them in place while you learn how to get comfortable with them and may make the learning process easier.”
“Fairly” is one of the key words in that paragraph. Fairly normally seems to include scrambled eggs, overcooked vegetables, soup, cooked cereals such as cream of wheat, mashed potatoes (a high point), and pudding. Oh! and thank goodness, ice cream is still an option.
Perhaps I struggle with eating because my dentures are particularly ill-fitting compared to others. This I don’t know. What I do know is that they fall out, they move around, and they whistle occasionally (something I could never accomplish before, that, no, I am not grateful for).
I also know that the denture adhesives help a bit, but the downside of using them includes the overflow stickiness that can make it impossible to move parts of my lips at times. True, I use more than the American College of Prosthodontists’ advised “three or four pea-sized dabs.” That’s because three or four pea-sized dabs do absolutely nothing!
Also, said stickiness, which isn’t sticky enough to stop the dentures from moving around during everyday activities like talking and eating, is somehow too sticky to allow its removal at the end of the day. The only way to get most of the adhesive off I’ve found is to scrape my gums and the roof of my mouth vigorously with one dry paper towel after another until I am sore and gagging and my husband has left the room.
I would be remiss if I didn’t also mention that many dental adhesives contain zinc, and though a certain amount of zinc is recommended, and is usually sourced from a regular diet, digesting extra zinc via the adhesive breaking down and being swallowed can mean that the denture wearer using adhesives with zinc may experience health issues. Excess “oral zinc can cause copper deficiency, and zinc contained in dental adhesives may thus cause hypocupraemia.” [Prasad R, Hawthorne B, Durai D, McDowell I. Zinc in denture adhesive: a rare cause of copper deficiency in a patient on home parenteral nutrition. BMJ Case Rep. 2015 Oct 9;2015:bcr2015211390. doi: 10.1136/bcr-2015-211390. PMID: 26452740; PMCID: PMC4600814]
The good news here is that I’ve just done a search and discovered there are many varieties of dental adhesive currently on the market that are zinc free. This was a welcome surprise! Examples include: Secure Waterproof Denture Adhesive – Zinc Free, Extra Strong 12 Hour Hold Super Poligrip, and Effergrip Zinc Free Denture and Partials Adhesive Cream Extra Strong Denture Adhesive Cream, Zinc Free.
This bit of happy news, you might hope, will conclude my treatise on the sorrows and lessons of dentures, but I would be remiss if I did not mention . . ..
Intimacy in the bedroom at night on the rare occasion my spouse and I are both awake past eight o’clock. I think this must be one of the unmentionable “social reasons” cited by the American College of Prosthodontists. Alas, my post-natural-teeth desirability rating has fallen. I was never a supermodel, but I was the woman who never went without mascara or lipstick, who shaved her legs every day, and did everything possible within my budget to remain healthy and attractive.
Perhaps I’m being punished for my “vanity.”
I lost my teeth because I tried too hard?
I don’t think so. Mostly because it was never vanity to begin with. It was insecurity. Or, it was being a woman and knowing how women were judged. It may have been many things, but whatever sad mid-century thing it was, it was certainly never vanity.
But, hey. I’ve been up for hours now. I’ve put myself back together. Therefore, the only things I have left to worry about for the rest of today are: The state of current affairs. My missed visit to my family. Medical bills. Owing the IRS. More stray kittens needing to go to the veterinarian. The car that suddenly broke down.
Never mind.
I’m going to make a nice dinner and have a glass of wine. Some nice, homemade, soft and easy-to-chew food. Maybe soup? And a chilled Chardonnay. Definitely, a chilled Chardonnay.
After all, what do I have to worry about? What do any of us?
Two consecutive snowstorms, and the sun sparks diamonds on the snow-hushed surfaces here in Austin and in the Reese River Valley just below us, giving us time to read, to wander, to cook, and to write.
Walking after a snowstorm is one of my favorite activities, along with walking in a warm rain, or on a starry night, or along a tree-lined lane at the height of autumn. It’s like walking inside a dream, a vision, a movie . . . all of it a magical changing work of art. This has been that kind of a weekend. An appreciated and needed balm for the eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul.
Our footprints going down our driveway last winter after a similar storm in Austin, NV. My photo.
After today’s walk, I finished reading Dr. Vicki Atkinson’s memoir, Surviving Sue: An Inspirational Survivor’s Story About a Daughter and her Life with a Mother Who was Riddled with Alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, Anxiety, Depression, and Munchausen’s. Vicki is a fellow blogger, one I follow and read with pleasure, always knowing I will find something positive, real, and insightful in her posts. Vicki is generous with her readers, sharing of herself, her humor, her highs and lows with an empathic interest in our perspectives.
This is Vicki’s voice, and it shines on the pages of her book. She is a profoundly kind-spirited woman who grew up learning how to turn the injury and injustice of her mother’s mental illness into something bigger than her own pain. With keen intelligence, her father’s and sister’s love, and later through her own family and probably also due to her dedication to her studies, Vicki survives and thrives, and she does it without ever compromising her own values.
Vicki’s Wonderful Memoir
Vicki’s compassion for her mother is more than challenged over the years, but somehow, she stays the course of doing what she believes is best for everyone concerned. For those who don’t know Vicki or haven’t read Surviving Sue, I’d like to stop here to encourage you to read it for yourself. This story is worth your time. It may even affect the ways you view some of your own experiences, past or present. It may soften your heart. It’s a beautiful book, and an engaging read.
Austin, Nevada. Yesterday. A Walk Through the Cemetery. The thorny branches covering the grave will burst into bloom this summer. I find that comforting.These are the same type of wild roses. This is the June bloom in our yard.
Yesterday, Austin, Nevada was bathed in sunshine and warm temperatures. Today Austin is buried in snow. It’s mostly awesome, not really a misfortune or doom, and we knew it was coming. Thank you, meteorologists!
Austin History, March 1, 2025Austin YesterdayNearer My God To Thee, Nearer to Thee
We needed snow. We had a dry winter.
Today
As the snow continues . . .
Weather is life. No doubt this is the reason it is so often the topic of small talk. It’s life.
Weather is also death. I fear for our friend who left town just as the snow started, heading west on Highway 50 directly into its path.
And it affects all of us. Humans and nonhumans alike.
Here then is a tiny presentation of the weather in Austin, Nevada, USA, over a two-day period. Life and death. Ironic juxtaposition that the photos with elements of death are awash in sunshine? It was not intended. And that is telling.
It stopped snowing for a bit. But it’s starting again.
Whatever the weather where you are, I hope you are safe and always, always, rolling with the changes. Happy Spring–Soon!
I headed home from my holiday travels at the end of December, heart-filled with the love of family. I was tired, but happy in the distinct way grandmothers know well. I had just been given a multitude of irreplaceable moments with my best beloveds . . . Tiny hands holding mine, some still so small, and some growing too fast. Also bigger hands and hearty hugs. Teens and twenty-somethings updating me on their lives. Strong, beautiful, and grown. Smiles. Laughter. Storybooks shared. Snowman crafts. Game playing. Sleepy cuddles. All of it so cherished.
After tearful goodbyes, I checked in for my flight and went in search of a new journal at the airport gift shop, thinking I could begin it on January 1st. Last year, returning from my Christmas trip, I had purchased one there, and it had been a terrific addition to my writing life. Alas, this time nothing spoke to me, probably because I already had it in mind that I wanted a guided journal like the one I used in 2024 (The Breathe Journal 52 Week Guided Planner) and they didn’t have anything similar.
Once home, my usual routines resumed, but with more than the usual spark of wonder and worry that a new year brings. This was not going to be just any new year. Apprehensive, sad, and often angry, too, I knew that I was going to have to work hard to maintain my usual optimism and good will. Honestly, my optimism was at one of the lowest levels I have ever known. Somehow, I was still hanging on to my feeling of good will in all my daily encounters. My genuine love of the people I see during the course of a regular week’s activities lifts me up. But when I was at home reading the news, I was feeling helpless and exceptionally low.
Mr. P and I stuck to our walking schedule, which we know is a nonnegotiable necessity, and I was happy to return to my library job and to church on Sundays. These things always help. Still, I knew I needed to get more writing in, and was stuck—am stuck—as far as my historical fiction manuscript goes, so I searched online for a new journal. I found and ordered Journal Like a Stoic: A 90-Day Stoicism Program to Live with Greater Acceptance, Less Judgment, and Deeper Intentionality by Brittany Polat, PhD.
By the time the journal arrived, we were more than halfway through January, and I was physically unwell. I am only into my third day of using it, but I would say it is helping me in the way that almost any honest attempt at writing truthfully from my heart and mind can do. It focuses my mind with reading, questions me with depth, and sets a task before me. I like it.
From the book: “Stoicism is a philosophy of life in the fullest sense. As a framework for daily living, it can guide us in every decision we make, from our career choices to what’s for dinner tonight. What’s more, it helps ground us when we’re living through what feels like unprecedented times.”
The kitty is also interested in stoicism.
The three disciplines of stoicism are logic, ethics, and physics. The four virtues of stoicism are wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. All these things I can get behind, believe that I mostly already embrace them. I say mostly, because I am ignorant when it comes to physics, and historically slack when it comes to temperance. Still! I am in. I will faithfully read and respond to the prompts in the book. I will write honestly.
I plan to continue with the other things in my life that sustain me: my love of friends, family, community, church, library, nature, reading, art, music, cooking, and pets (to name a few). And I will write the occasional blog post! I love connecting with all of you!
Cheers
To us! To a year of introspection and growth, and to a lifetime of love-motivated action and purpose. God Speed.
I have thought a lot lately about the discomfort of being in a perpetual state of waiting for something to happen, of worrying about what the results will be when something finally does happen, and then, wondering if I will navigate any of it well. The word “limbo” is often in my thoughts.
2024 brought new health concerns for my husband, and with that a reconsideration of where we should live, since we are currently in a very remote location, three and a half hours by car from the nearest medical center with cardiac care. We responded decisively by putting our house on the market. That decisiveness did not break us out of Limbo, however, as we do not know when or if our home will sell, and we do not know what it will sell for if it does sell. We cannot make plans on where to move until we sell the house. Still, we’re thinking about returning to the Midwest where real estate prices are more reasonable than here in the West and where we can reasonably expect to afford to live in a town with a hospital. But, until we sell, we are in Limbo.
Also, in 2024, I was thrilled to receive an invitation from my dream literary agent to send her my full manuscript, A Fine Suddenness, a World War II historical fiction novel based in Lake Arrowhead, CA. I’ve no idea if she has read it yet. It has been out of my hands for six months now, this after having worked on it pretty consistently for years. Many years. I miss it terribly (it’s an odd thing, really, the attachment I’ve made), and I have no interest in beginning a new novel yet, though at least I am continuing to write. Even so, journaling or posting online, as important and healthy as they are, do not give me the same sense of mission as novel writing does. I wait to hear from the agent, and I do not move forward on a sequel to the book I sent her, nor on some new unrelated novel, because I desperately want her opinion on A Fine Suddenness first. More Limbo.
And 2024, oh my goodness, has been a year of intense worry and anticipation for our nation and the world. We are no longer in the first stage of that particular limbo state, but we are certainly still in a place of transition and uncertainty. So many possible scenarios there, and so little I have control over. More Limbo.
Earliest historical references to Limbo describe a place in-between—not heaven, not hell—a place for deceased unbaptized humans born before the birth of Christ, or who died as infants before baptism, to reside until the second coming of Christ by the Roman Catholic Church, and these begin in the 14th Century. From there, the word limbo (more and more with a lower case “l”) entered usage in less theological contexts: as a place or state of restraint, confinement, neglect, oblivion, uncertainty, or an intermediate or transitional place or state.
Etymology also traces limbo from the English of Trinidad and Barbados limbo “a dance that involves bending backwards under a pole,” related to Jamaican English limba “to bend,” from English limber “flexible” (merriam-webster.com).
Which leads us to the dance, or funeral game, which dates back to the mid to late 1800s on the island of Tobago. In the beginning, the game started with the bar at the lowest possible height and the bar was gradually raised, signifying an emergence from death into life (Wikipedia.org). It is possible that the roots of this practice come from the slave experience of being transported across the seas in ships, where the slaves were separated and tried to squeeze through narrow spaces in order to see or touch one another. In some African beliefs, the game reflects the whole cycle of life . . . the players move under a pole that is gradually lowered from the chest level and they emerge on the other side as their heads clear the pole as in the triumph of life over death (Stanley-Niaah, Sonjah “Mapping of Black Atlantic Performance Geographies: From Slave Ship to Ghetto.” Quoted on Wikipedia.org).
The secularization of the dance began in the 1940s where “it became a popular entertainment in Trinidad and was adopted as a physical fitness exercise by American troops,” . . . and is now “considered the unofficial national game of Trinidad and Tobago” (Wikipedia.org). It has become a fun and happy pastime.
Historically, Limbo to limbo, has moved on. Broken free, so to speak. I wonder if my own limbo could progress that way, too. As for human history, perhaps also for me? If I am stuck in the place between heaven and hell right now, will it be possible for me to become limber enough to squeeze myself through the narrow places that block me from reaching the open, even joyful places that still may exist beyond my current ability to see them or experience them?
In order to do that, I would need to understand the constructs of the narrow places. What are they exactly? What are they made of? Are they hard and impervious, like granite? Splintered like rough wood? Flexible and sometimes deadly like serpents? Or are they only real because I make them real in my own paralyzed mind? Maybe I could wish them away, disintegrate them, with new knowledge or some kind of personal epiphany.
Perhaps there is a way. Perhaps not. But I must strive, at least, to remember Helen Keller’s words, these taken from her open letter in response to Nazi book burnings in Germany on May 9, 1933: “History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas. Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them. . .You can burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.”
If Helen Keller believed that ideas and hopes have always “seeped through a million channels,” who am I to deny it? Might not a few of those ideas and hopes, and more likely a multitude, have made their way to us now at the dawning of the year 2025? Might not they sustain us, quicken our minds, and help us find a way out of our narrow places and into the light?
Today we were going to Fallon, NV. It is 112 miles away, but we go there quite often for groceries and other necessities, such as pellets for the stove in winter. We also had a date with the hairdresser, one that we both look forward to as a luxury, and to moderate the ill effects of our unmanageable hair. Also, in Fallon we can go out to lunch (with our new haircuts), which I adore.
My first look out the front door this morning.
But we woke up to snow. A lot of snow. And the 112 drive to Fallon involves, well, 112 miles of road—on Highway 50, the loneliest road in America. Over three mountain passes. The weather service (which, thank goodness we still have, for now) predicted more snow throughout the day. No hope of everything clearing up soon.
So, we cancelled our trip to Fallon. But the day was far from lost.
I read an article with my morning coffee: “Cold Comfort: You Can Loathe Winter, Or You Can Embrace It with These Cool Strategies” by Amy Maclin (Real Simple, November 2024, 43-44). I have never loathed winter, but I realize it is a thing some people do, so I am always intrigued by the concept. This article briefly describes the research of Kari Leibowitz, PhD, “a confirmed winter hater.” The result of her research is her book, How to Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days.
Three main points of the “survival guide” are: 1. Focus on Opportunities, Not Obstacles. 2. Don’t Assume Winter & Depression Go Hand in Hand. 3. Make Sure You Get Outside.
I already pretty much have #1 & #2 managed. Always have. Opportunities to read more, write more, bake more, make chili and soup more, light candles and fires more, wear cozy thick socks and turtleneck sweaters more, drink eggnog more … (I could go on…). Check. As for assuming winter would make me depressed. No. I realize that seasonal affective disorder is real, it is just not one of my personal disorders (I have a few of those, but none of them are cold/snow/winter/holiday related!).
#3 is the one that spoke to me today. I do go outside in the winter. I really do! I usually walk every day, or almost every day, but I also love to lounge around the house in my pajamas. Anyway, this morning after reading admonition #3, Mr. P and I pulled out our ski pants from storage and started up the Rhino, our old side-by-side 4-wheel trail vehicle. We have only ever used it in the spring, summer and fall before, around town and out on the mountain trails across the road. Never in the winter. Today seemed like a good day to try it out in the snow.
The Rhino just getting started! It performed beautifully even up on the higher trails outside of town.
Breaking a fresh trail over the first ridge of the mountain was exhilarating! What a wonderful ride. It was not unlike snowmobiling. And we were the only ones out there. The only trails we saw were deer tracks once we passed the first half mile. It was more than wonderful to get outside!
And, of course, it’s ever so lovely to come back inside to a warm house, a fire, and your lounging cats.
The perfect warm snack when we arrived home (I think that falls under #1. Focus on Opportunities….)
Wishing you all the most beautiful of days and nights, whatever that means for you. Much love, Lori
The American Writers Museum is located in Chicago, Illinois. My Photo.
Saturday afternoon. Wondering what to write. Obviously, lots to comment on if I were to verge into current events, but I don’t want to do that. I want to find one good thing to write about—something good for writers, since this will be a post on my writer website.
Perhaps something about writing into your pain, both as a way to expunge it, and as a way to find a path through it. A way that perhaps can teach you something about what you really think, or want, or can make possible, and if you can do this, then so can anyone else. It can be healing.
So, let’s see what comes up in a five-minute timed writing. Just a furious spilling of whatever comes up. It must be nonstop and unedited. Ready?
If I ask you to do it, I must do it, too. . . (sad writer nervously sets timer). . .
My Clock
Begin!
The first thing I want to say is that I am sad and I wish that things were different. I wish I had gotten busier being successful so that I would have more options now. Now that I want to change things and move and find a yoga class and travel more and eat wonderful vegetarian food in beautiful restaurants and have a home big enough to have a guest room with an extra bathroom and I want to have a place right near my daughter and grandchildren but I cannot afford to live there and it’s because I never figured out a way to make enough money when I was young and never knew how to save money or grow money and money is the only thing that seems to make freedom work in America.
I have always been a dreamer. I have always been a worker, too, and I thought I could be a dreamer and just keep working and that things would consistently get better over time. By get better, I think I meant that I would be able to afford health care and all those things I mentioned above. I also expected that people would want to love each other, help each other, and understand each other. Teachers and librarians and ministers and social workers would always be revered. A college education would be attainable and who wouldn’t want to go to college?
And it would be a great equalizer, because a lifetime of learning and studying history and art and literature, science and geography and math … all of this could illuminate anyone who wished it … and why wouldn’t everyone wish it?
But I was wrong. And I am filled with regret about so many of the choices I made that probably made things worse, but my mind is vague about what those things were and why they were so wrong when obviously I was doing the best I could at the time. But it was never enough. I’ve never been enough.
And I miss my kids. And I want to live in a little house near water where I can walk every day and admire the ducks and the geese, I miss Canada geese, and where I can stop in a little coffee shop and write on my laptop. Which I do not have. But I have a desk computer, and I have a lot of journals and paper is still affordable and I can write longhand, which is better in some ways for me anyway, So why can’t those things happen?
My Photo. The Drawing of Our House is by Derek Zacharias.
I know that the outrageous cost of housing in this country is not my fault. I don’t know who is at fault for that, but there’s a part of me that blames the people who made better choices than I did or who were born into “better” families… And it does me no good to think that way.
Bitterness is knowingly biting into the peel of a grapefruit, chewing it slowly, perversely enjoying it, even though as a child your mother cut the sections loose for you, sprinkled the pink fruit with sugar, and centered your portion with a cherry. That’s the way I like my grapefruit still, that, or in a grapefruit martini with a sparkly sugared rim.
I don’t want to be bitter. I want to find a way back to optimism. It’s just so hard. I miss my kids. The holidays I so love to celebrate are nearly upon us, and I don’t have a way to enjoy them with my family all together. I come and go always somewhere where I am half happy or half as happy as I fantasize, I would be if everyone I love would be there together at the same time. But the drive to Arrowhead from here is much harder than I thought it would be, and since we now know that it’s more expensive here because we regularly leave and stay far away in the city when we have a healthcare need, such as my husband’s recent helicopter trip to Reno and subsequent stay in the hospital there. The hotel bills for me to stay near him during his procedure. All the money spent on gas and restaurants.
Lake Itaska, Minnesota. My own photo.
Moving to Minnesota seems the only semi-practical solution. At least there will be doctors nearby. We still won’t have a lot of money to pay doctor bills, but at least we won’t have to spend extra money just to get to the place where the medical facilities are located. And the houses in Minnesota that are outside the Twin Cities range in price of course but some of them are much more affordable than anything in the West. We can’t afford anything here near healthcare.
I will still have to fly to see my kids of course. The flights may cost slightly more from St. Paul, Minnesota to California than they do from Reno, Nevada, but that’s the only way I can go. I don’t know how I will afford it, but perhaps I can get a part-time job again like I have here (never as lovely as this job here, I don’t think… I’ve been so lucky in that way). My library position is the reason I’m able to buy plane tickets, and it is a complete joy. But I believe whatever happens, moving again offers the only glimmer of hope.
Time.
And there you are. Or there I am. Do I feel better? Maybe a bit, and I’ll take it! Next a walk. A walk after a writing session helps all the thoughts flow better and meet one another and mix and calculate. Also, writers need to take care of the body that carries them around and allows them to experience many of the things that feed them as creatives.
I believe I’ll go for a walk now.
Wishing you lots of “free to worry” (and resolve) writing time—and all the healing you need and all the hope.
Jiminy Cricket from Pexels Free Photos, Disney.
P.S. I came back from my walk and edited my freewrite just a tad. It’s what we writers do!
Suddenly the leaves turn red, yellow, and orange; the night temperatures dip into the thirties, and I enjoy sitting in my front yard both in the morning and the early evening. Ahhh . . . those morning coffees and evening wines . . .
The steeple front, right, is on the old Methodist church, now our community center. The steeple across the canyon (you may have to zoom in if the image is too small) is on St. George’s Episcopal church, where I attend. Sunday services have never stopped at St. George’s since the church opened in 1878.
Just a month ago it was much too hot to sit here for any length of time. It is an unusual yard, not yet shaded, one that we created by tearing down an old carport that covered the entire front of our old parsonage for sixty years. This reclaimed space has an incredible view of two one-hundred-plus-year-old church steeples and an impressive hillside on this, the northern end of our section of the Toiyabe Mountains, but no large trees yet. We have planted an oak, a cottonwood, and a blue spruce there, but they are small still.
In October, we venture out on the mountain trails, we get supplies ready for the long winter to come, and we sit in quiet reverie, grateful for nature’s hush. Enjoying the splendor. Soon, it will be too cold to sit out here without a coat. Soon, there will be more time inside, tending the fire, cooking large pots of soups and stews, reading, and writing.
This gradual gathering of the special autumn light, the relish we feel as we take it in, and our own eventual inner-directed shift is a very great gift as the seasons change, I believe.
Mostly Marigolds! Some of my favorites.
Here is a poem of great beauty by John Keats on the season:
“To Autumn”
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
Written September 19, 1819; first published in 1820. This poem is in the public domain.
Three Months ago, at the beginning of summer, I received an agent request for the full manuscript of my historical fiction novel, A Fine Suddenness. I am told that 3 months is about the time I might begin to expect to hear back from the agent, and so today I am checking my email even more regularly than usual, and I am thinking about the origins of the manuscript.
My Journal
It began in May of 2011 with the glimmer of a character suggested by a signature of ownership in an old red leather-bound book a friend gifted me: The Conqueror, by Gertrude Atherton. My friend Lynn is a librarian, a teacher of history, a seller of used books, and a maker of reclaimed book journals. You can check out her business at brownbagbooks.biz. This book was one of her rescued book journals. The cover was intact, rebound into a smallish wire bound blank journal.
The original inscription inside was simple: Mary Miller 1903. Who was this lady, I wondered? She must have loved her books, I thought, to have signed her name and the year of acquisition on the inside cover, a habit I also have. I usually add the place I acquired the book also, but Mary Miller did not do so. A quick search told me that Gertrude Atherton was a San Francisco author, and The Conqueror had been published in 1902, was about Alexander Hamilton, and was widely acclaimed.
I immediately began writing in Mary’s book-turned-journal, taking on an imagined persona of the unknown lady. It began: “May 8, 1903. Lake Arrowhead, California. I am proposing to tell you a story which I am quite sure you will doubt . . .” Rather quickly it took on the overtones of a ghost story, and I named Mary’s father, described his field of study and stated that her mother had died of influenza when she was a child. All of that came to me very spontaneously. Also, Mary’s husband was dead, but she had a vision of him. So, A Fine Suddenness began as a ghost story. And in some ways perhaps that is what it still is, but not in the way it began.
Eventually, the real Mary Miller, whoever that lady was, disappeared from my mind and became instead a woman who lived in Lake Arrowhead, California during the 1940s—70 years before I read her inscription rather than the actual 108 years. Once I placed Mary in a new time and most certainly a different place than the real Mary had lived, I began to conjure what life was like during World War II on the mountain we shared, not in time, but in place.
All of that pondering gradually grew into a scene of Mary in her yard among her roses, the trees towering in the background. And so, she became real to me, and I wrote her story. She is completely fictional, other than the sense I got from seeing her name, and from the beautiful red and gold embossed cover of a book.
She, I hope, would make her namesake, the real Mary Miller, proud.
Photo generated using AI (which I never expected to use…a story for another day)
"Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference" With those 22 words, Robert Frost concisely summarized my life. The road I chose has been rift with rabbit trails which, more oft than not, my innate impulsive, adventurous spirit couldn’t resist exploring. Therein lies my life's greatest joys and sorrows . . . triumphs and trails. Such were my yesterdays, now buried in the past. The future owns all my unknown tomorrows. Today alone is God's gift to embrace, explore and enjoy. Perhaps Amy Charmichael penned my life’s credo . . . "Love to live, live to love" After 8 decades I've finally begun to grasp the serene simplicity of Amy's 6 words which, when truly embraced, convey tranquil comfort, soul soothing joy, and mystical peace. I’m truly blessed to still be able to "Love to live" wandering through the wilderness and climbing among my Creator’s majestic mountain cathedrals, astounded in wonder by its utter magnificence. "Love to live" is my portion to joyfully grasp with both hands each new day. "Live to love" is my portion to share with open hands each new day. My prayer is amidst my musings and ‘creationscapes’ my camera captures, someone may glimpse a "Love to live, live to love" moment that will brighten their day. Keep Looking Up ^ . . . His Best is Yet to Come! Fred D
Surviving Sue Review and Traces in the Snow
Two consecutive snowstorms, and the sun sparks diamonds on the snow-hushed surfaces here in Austin and in the Reese River Valley just below us, giving us time to read, to wander, to cook, and to write.
Walking after a snowstorm is one of my favorite activities, along with walking in a warm rain, or on a starry night, or along a tree-lined lane at the height of autumn. It’s like walking inside a dream, a vision, a movie . . . all of it a magical changing work of art. This has been that kind of a weekend. An appreciated and needed balm for the eyes, ears, heart, mind and soul.
After today’s walk, I finished reading Dr. Vicki Atkinson’s memoir, Surviving Sue: An Inspirational Survivor’s Story About a Daughter and her Life with a Mother Who was Riddled with Alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, Anxiety, Depression, and Munchausen’s. Vicki is a fellow blogger, one I follow and read with pleasure, always knowing I will find something positive, real, and insightful in her posts. Vicki is generous with her readers, sharing of herself, her humor, her highs and lows with an empathic interest in our perspectives.
This is Vicki’s voice, and it shines on the pages of her book. She is a profoundly kind-spirited woman who grew up learning how to turn the injury and injustice of her mother’s mental illness into something bigger than her own pain. With keen intelligence, her father’s and sister’s love, and later through her own family and probably also due to her dedication to her studies, Vicki survives and thrives, and she does it without ever compromising her own values.
Vicki’s compassion for her mother is more than challenged over the years, but somehow, she stays the course of doing what she believes is best for everyone concerned. For those who don’t know Vicki or haven’t read Surviving Sue, I’d like to stop here to encourage you to read it for yourself. This story is worth your time. It may even affect the ways you view some of your own experiences, past or present. It may soften your heart. It’s a beautiful book, and an engaging read.
Surviving Sue, Eckhartz Press, Chicago. Copyright © 2023. Vicki’s Blog is victoriaponders.com. Vicki also shares a podcast with her friend and colleague, Wynne Leon of Surprised by Joy (Blog). Their podcast, The Heart of the Matter can be found at sharingtheheartofthematter.com.
Now it’s time for the cooking part of the day. I’ve got an eggplant, lots of spices, cheese, pasta, greens, and tomatoes. Oh, and wine.
Should be a beautiful night.
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