04.28.08
The ‘Mewses’ have their own page
I have 2 orange tabby cats, named Marco and Polo. They deserved their own page which they got today. To see them click on the page tab at the top: ‘The Mewses.
Feel free to submit captions for their photos.
04.23.08
Junk mail: It used to be a tree!
I love trees. I love them for the shade, for their beauty, for their ambiance, for the fruit, for cooling my house in the summer. Here is a beautiful tree the way God intended.
My mail box I’m not so crazy about. It’s probably just like yours. Full of junk mail every day. When I got a 5 lb. Staples Office catalog today, I’d had it. I called to get myself removed from their 
mailing list. They said it would take 4 weeks and I still might get another one.
Every time I get the mail (i.e. 95% junk) I think “these used to be trees!”
This is a junk mail tree. Some artist’s attempt to be creative with all that garbage.
I like the first tree better.
I am trying to figure out how to recycle my paper. It’s not easy. We’re not in the city limits so they don’t pick it up. There’s only one place in town that takes paper and they have ‘conditions’. Not sure what they are yet, because I’m still carrying it around in my car in a plastic bag. The recycle place is on the other side of town and with gas at 3.89 where I live I’m not sure how the carbon footprint measure out.
After a bit of research I found a group that reduces the junk mail for you. Actually there’s a number of them, but this one has a really cool wiget. It’s called GreenDimes.com
Has anyone used this service? There are 3 levels of ‘care’. One is free, so I’m thinking to give it a try. It’s been written up in the NY Times and Business Week, and featured on Ellen and Good Morning America. Here’s the basic idea.
What does a left-brain person do for fun?
This whirling dancer will spin both clockwise OR counter-clockwise depending on which side of your brain is most active. She will whirl for you if you double-click her.
This is an amazing visible detector of the right vs. left activity. It is so incredibly accurate. I can watch it spin one way, then when it seizes up, it might be going the other way. My brain flips back and forth with amazing speed these days. I guess this is good, since I need both sides in a big way. Just taking care of the nitty gritty elements of getting through a day of life require large chunks of my left brain.
LEFT BRAIN
Logical
Sequential
Rational
Analytical
Objective
Looks at parts
However, the writing process requires my right brain and I catch myself letting the “switch” flip when I have a moment to spare. I have to force my Left side to stay in gear, rather like a parent telling a child ‘finish your vegetables first, then you can have dessert.’
RIGHT BRAIN
Random
Intuitive
Holistic
Synthesizing
Subjective
Looks at wholes
Why is being in my right brain is so relaxing? Why can I spend hours here, playing around, writing mostly and not get tired. I could never stay up ’til 2:00 a.m. entering receipt amounts in Quicken, or preparing a profit and loss statement for our accountant. I know there’s a good reason for this, but I’m wondering if naturally left-brained people feel that way about being in their element. I mean how does an accountant relax? What does an actuary do for fun?
Gosh, do they even blog? I’m starting to feel like meeting a truly Left-Brainer would be like a cross-cultural exchange.
04.18.08
I’m looking for a word…
This post is about gardening, but not in any kind of traditional sense. It’s about a subtle, quiet transformation that has taken place over that last few years. It starts with a horse, Yasmine, a white Arabian that was given to us for a while. Beautiful, but too strong willed for neophytes like us. So we had a stack of oat straw that stayed out in the corral after Lynne came and took Yasmin to her horse ranch.
That’s one part of the story. Another part is the 2 acres of property we bought used to have a railroad easement along the roadside. Gone were the tracks, but the rocks, weeds and purple star thistle were abundant.
That’s the 2nd element of the story. I have a thing about experimenting and watching things happen naturally. We are surrounded by prune and peach orchards. All my farmer/neighbors had star thistle on their property too. They sought to eradicate this thorny pest with RoundUp (doesn’t touch it) or burning it (didn’t work).
Hmmm. There must be better way I thought. I researched what to plant that would crowd out the star thistle. Too much work. So we spread the 20 or so bales of oat straw out over the Centaurea calcitrapa -covered easement one summer and I forgot about my project to eradicate this noxious weed while I went on to other things.
I don’t know how many summers it took before I noticed the star thistle was gone. It must be like a bad habit or some annoying person that disappears and you don’t notice the absence. But I did finally realize that we now had oat grass growing out there because it now required mowing. But it was pretty and blew nicely in the wind.
Now, maybe 5-6 years after the fact, I had an amazing revelation. The neighbors don’t have star thistle anymore! Not across the street. Not even way down the street. It’s all oat grass! I know how Mrs. Rhumpius felt!I always thought someday I’d plant wild flower seeds out of my pocket. It turned out to be oat straw! It’s even medicinal. I could harvest it and take a bath with it if so inclined.
What’s the word I’m looking for? The transformation of something that was so barren and ugly, thorny bordering on noxious into a beautiful, natural grassy plot that spread to the neighbors in such a quiet unobtrusive way. While we were all tearing around trying to make a living, this phenomenom was happening. This transformation that did not call attention to itself, but it took me by surprise today to realize how far it had spread. I keep thinking there’s some word, or some concept that describes this (other than miraculous, of course).
04.16.08
How do you get in the writing mode?
I’ve love to hear what processes writers use to get down to work. Do you have a routine? A favorite time to work? Does everything have to be quiet? or can you write anywhere, anytime?
A
fter 9 months of working on a children’s book, I find that I am going through scenes in my head just about anytime. Especially while driving. I try to prepare myself for these moments now by grabbing my notebook when I leave the house….just in case something brilliant happens. So in between the bank and the grocery store, I might be ‘listening’ to a conversation between my protagonist and antagonist. Notes scribbled at stoplights and in parking lots.
Since I am required by law to spend most of my day taking care of our business, doing the books, paying the bills, keeping things organized, I am forced into staying in my Left-brain. Stuffing things into boxes, real or proverbial.
But when I’m done being a responsible adult I get out my box of writing toys and play. The right side of my brain has a lot more fun! I love my characters and the more I work with them the more they let me know how they will act. I’ve heard this same phenomenon from published writers so I guess I’m not crazy.
But what gets my right brain kicking when it’s 3:00 in the afternoon and it’s my naptime! That’s the lowest energy point of my day. How can I possibly write when all I want to do is sleep? The answer? Coffee and chocolate. It works every time. A cup of coffee and 65% cacao. Just a couple of squares….and it’s medicinal!
For better or worse, Starbucks is on my route home from town. They must have known I lived just up the street. When I go in and get my Americano, I also pick up their trash– used coffee grounds. They go into my garden and front lawn. I have a very perky front lawn now, but more on that in another post.
So, what is your writing process like? How do you get into your right brain?
04.11.08
Writing challenge
Here’s a writing challenge from an interesting blog I discovered today called Booking through Thursday
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Pick up the nearest book. (I’m sure you must have one nearby.)
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Turn to page 123.
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What is the first sentence on the page?
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The last sentence on the page?
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Now . . . connect them together….
(And no, you may not transcribe the entire page of the book–that’s cheating!)
Don’t forget to leave a link to your actual response (so people don’t have to go searching for it) in the comments—or if you prefer, leave your answers in the comments themselves! -
Here’s what I came up with. I am reading A Circle of Quiet, by Madeleine L’Engle, her first Crosswicks Journal which has some short sections. Page 123 encompasses the end and beginning of two sections so the topics are very different.
“The haiku is one of the most popular forms of poetry today: what could be more structured? and ends with, “Thomas Mann wrote that if the German writers had, through their fiction, made richer promises than Hitler, it would have been Hitler, rather than the writers, who would have had to flee the country.”
“The haiku is one of the most popular forms of poetry today: what could be more structured?tinpot german god stealer of body and soul writers avenging the lieThomas Mann wrote that if the German writers had, through their fiction, made richer promises than Hitler, it would have been Hitler, rather than the writers, who would have had to flee the country.”
04.09.08
What I don’t remember
An entry from Books on the Brain inspired this post. I read Lisa’s response to a writing challenge from Natalie Goldberg’s new book Old Friend from Far Away. The challenge is to write for 10 minutes about what you don’t remember. How is this possible? Check out Lisa’s list.
The book, Old Friend, which inspired the exercise, is about writing memoirs, something I’ve never given a moment’s thought to. My childhood is a gray blur. It doesn’t conjur up a lot of cozy memories, no eccentric great aunts, plump doting grandmothers, homemade apple pie.
Nothing terrible happened; just seemed like nothing happened. So this was an especially challenging exercise. But it caught my attention and I grabbed my writing notebook as I ran into town to do errands. I thought it was 10 things to write, but it was 10 minutes. After 30 minutes I only had 3 things on my ‘non-remembering’ list, but twice as many remembrances came floating to the surface.
What a brilliant exercise! Kinda’ like – ‘don’t think of chocolate for 5 minutes’. Then all you can do is think of chocolate. Not the same thing, but it just illustrates another way of how odd our brains are wired.
But here’s my list so far:
- I don’t remember my first, or any, birthday party.
- I don’t remember falling down the basement stairs and knocking my two front teeth clear back into my gums (age 2 or 3). I do remember not having any front teeth until I was 8.
- I don’t remember any laptime with my mother or father; how is that possible? Having had 3 kids and now going on 5 grandkids, laps and kids are inseparable.
There must be more I don’t remember, but I can’t remember what it is.
The following quote from a review of Old Friend from Far Away has me adding this to my Books I want to Read List. ”…her trademark workshop style with its terse, demanding writing sprints that train the hand and mind to quicken their pace and give up conscious control. These exercises divert the eye from the obvious and redirect it to the tactile details we miss, the embarrassments we pass over, and the complications we overlook in the blur of everyday living. Goldberg writes, No one says it, but writing induces the state of love. Old Friend from Far Away guides us into that state of love, where heightened attention and a rhythm of focus allow the patterns and details of the past to emerge on the page.
Natalie Goldberg also wrote Writing Down the Bones which I can’t believe I haven’t read yet.
04.08.08
Not Quite Dead…
The cats are wondering why there’s a paper bag with half-dead flowers sitting on a chair at the dining table. Then they discover the last drops of the milk in my cereal bowl and they’ve forgotten the flowers.
The flowers had such a righteous beginning that it didn’t seem right to toss them in the trashcan. They don’t belong in the garbage with empty milk cartons, coffee grounds and dust bunnies. But they are long past their prime as Table Décor. About half of them are withered. Colors faded. Edges browned. The brilliant yellows have taken on a sickly greenish tinge. The baby’s breath has shriveled up, making the flowers’ demise especially poignant.
But the pinks and purples are survivors! Carnations and the daisy family members still have a bit life. They’re not-quite-dead, so tossing them feels just too careless—like I’m burying something alive. Sometimes I deal with the fresh flower issue by carefully plucking out the few ‘survivor flowers’ and put them in ever smaller vases as I continue to pick.
As I said, the flowers had a righteous beginning. They were given in love and affection by my children for my 60th birthday. (There, I’ve admitted it in public now.) So when I couldn’t leave them out as Table Décor anymore, I took them out of their vase (Oh my, I’ve cut off their food supply!) and put them in the paper bag, which looked more dignified than the garbage can.
Later on I see them as I pass through the dining room. They look pretty silly on the chair at the head of the table. Oh dear, why have I complicated my life with this?
It almost, not quite, but almost, feels like the time I had to make the decision to have my 15 year old cat put to sleep. Am I blowing this out of proportion? Geez, sort of. But wait, maybe I’ll get in touch with a deeper reality. Sigh.
Should I adopt some cats so I wouldn’t get too maudlin here? Oh yeah, I did that already. I have two cats, but they are in the middle of one of their 5 hour naps.
I will need to make a decision about the flowers before The Hubby gets home. They are sitting on His Chair after all and I don’t think I’ll be able to explain this to him. He’ll give me one of those ‘over the top of his glasses look’ even if he doesn’t have them on.
I don’t know which side is going to win. My practical, logical side, which chides me (“Just toss them for crying out loud! You’re being ridiculous!”) and is often at odds with my very right-brained, feminine and contemplative side.
This is the part that lets me spot a marvelous display of sunlight intertwined with delicate shadows dancing on the wall…or the silvery threads of a garden orb spider that I discover just in time so I don’t disturb it. These ‘moments of grace’ are gifts–like being gently brushed with Divine Mercy.
04.07.08
What catches the eye…
What catches my eye/my mind/my heart is the seemingly insignificant. There’s no rational accounting for it, so I am amazed by the catching as much as by what falls into the net – the flotsam and jetsam of life that I collect like seashells.
My tools are words and a camera. They help me capture the odd or intriguing moments that make life interesting. These moments are all free. All I have to do is catch one as it floats by. Cheap thrills I call them.
Here is a photo I took of the wisteria in bloom in my backyard. There were bees everywhere and one actually held still long enough for a photo-op.
