Month: January 2025

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January Open Write Day 4 with Erica Johnson of Arkansas

Erica writes, “Today’s poem was inspired by the poem “Nest” by Jeffrey Harrison.  I loved the surprise discovery revealed in the poem and how the poet marvels over this small miracle that they discovered while putting up their Christmas tree.  It made me want to explore my own little discoveries and what they revealed about myself or the world around me.”

You can read Erica’s full prompt and poem here, but here is her process if you’d like to use it to write a poem of your own today:

Stanza 1 – The initial discovery.  I followed the structure of Harrison’s poem using the words “It wasn’t until…that ___ discovered…”

Stanza 2 – The feeling or reaction to that discovery.  I asked myself the question “What ABOUT this discovery sticks with me?”

Stanza 3 – Start with the phrase “And now…”, how are your feelings/reflection on this discovery evolving?

Stanza 4 – Start with the phrase “And yet…”, what contrast or contradiction comes to play as you continue to reflect on your discovery?

Stanza 5 – Wrap up your poem with a final take away moment.

Photo by How Far From Home on Pexels.com


Scrap Paper Love Note

it wasn’t until

I came to make my coffee

that I found his note ~ ~ ~

amazing, cherished

sentiment on a receipt ~ ~ ~

scrap-paper surprise

and now my heart warms

like steam from my Snoopy mug ~ ~ ~

love wafting outward

and yet he is gone

driving to Alabama

me, spooning honey ~ ~

and adding creamer~ ~

swirling joy, blending heartbeats

across the state line

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January Open Write Day 3 with Glenda Funk of Idaho

Today at http://www.ethicalela.com, our host is Glenda Funk of Idaho, who inspires us to write poems about embarrassing times in our lives. You can read her full prompt and the poems of others here. (I predict this will be a great day to step in for a visit).

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50 Shades of Red

back in the day

before adhesive strips

held pads in place

there were other ways ~

namely, the Beltx Santy Panty

(now in the National Museum of American History)

Luxury Spandex

cool, comfortable

with Sta-Put Crotch

to eliminate all loops and clasps

unconditionally guaranteed

for those

monthly “off days”

let me tell you something

lean in and listen up ~

my first “off day” still haunts me

gives me shivers

it happened in the St. Simons Drugstore

in the village

in 1977 when I was 11, shortly

after reading Are You There, God?

It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume

this was not the way it was

supposed to go down

my mother took me in

to find products

the very day I crossed the

threshold into womanhood

she sought a treasure

promising

* nary a telltale budge

* never a slip

* not a whisper of odor

as she quietly perused the shelves

in the crowded store

I’d ducked to the makeup aisle

many shades of red on the shelves

all around me ~ lipstick, blush, nail polish ~

and I, too, was now red all over

above and below my waist

the most embarrassing day of my life

and Griffin from my class

was there with his mother, too,

waiting on his medicine

when to my absolute horror

my mother caught sight of

the pharmacist

busy at work

while Griffin and his mother

and the rest of the crowd

stood watching, waiting

their names to be called

my own mother boldly stepped forward

inquiring for all to hear

making no secret of any of this

Do you have any of those

Santy Panty things?

My mother.

My mother.

My mother.

All eyes moved from

the pharmacist

to her

to me.

I cringed.

I saw Griffin giggle.

I bled out most of my soul

that day in the drugstore

as my mother handed me

a bag with three boxes of

Santy Panty things,

explaining for all to hear

that they were to be washed

by hand in the sink

as Griffin turned

red with full laughter

as we exited the store

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January Open Write Day 2 with Gayle Sands of Maryland

Gayle Sands of Maryland is our host for Day 2 of the January Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com. You can read her prompt and poem here. Today, we are writing KonMari poems to honor the legendary clutter-clean out queen Marie Kondo. I’m bringing my One Little Word into the first line of my poem today – enough.

“To truly cherish the things that are important to you, 

you must first discard those that have outlived their purpose.”

Marie Kondo

Keepsakes Unkept 2

we’ll keep just enough :

*the dogs

*each other

(in that order)

*our jobs

*our dream of downsizing

for camper travel

*our sparse simplicity

that might seem boring

to anyone else

we’ll jettison some cargo:

* “gifts” bestowed, heavily-storied

relics with sentiments not ours

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January Open Write Day 1 with Shaun Ingalls of Las Vegas

Photo by Kelly on Pexels.com

Shaun Ingalls of Nevada is our host for Day 1 of the January Open Write at Ethicalela.com. You can read his post here. His poem and prompt has my mind spinning with all the possibilities for classroom engagement. Shaun encourages us to write poems using slang words and phrasing from an urban dictionary.

One thing I could do all day is watch Greg Edwards deliver his Thug Notes – – I crack up every single time and love this approach to explaining classics. Even though I never could have shown them in class for fear of parent complaints about language and innuendo, I think Dr. Sparky Sweets (a play on Spark Notes) would have drawn my students into a deeper love of classical literature. I have to say: I got an education as I explored the Gen Z dictionary on Wikipedia. We certainly have a different culture of language from back in the day.

Another thing I could do all day is watch Sam Fricker dive. Lately, I have been following his style on the board and his prankish humor in real life. He has amassed quite a social media following. I’ve always enjoyed watching divers, and I think it stems from my fascination with the high dive at The Beach Club on Sea Island, Georgia. I swam there almost daily in the summers as a child, and there is still something about that high dive that lures me straight into its fear just like those people in horror movies that think they have to go outside alone when they hear a noise in the dark. I jumped off of it several times, but never got my courage up to dive headfirst from it. At that age, it looked like I was looking down from the tip top of the universe. And that’s one of the many reasons I love watching Sam smash all my fears of heights as he boldly twists and flips his way into the pool.

When Sam Fricker Dives

the GOAT looksmaxxes
then plunges without a splash!
who is this diva???

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Fitz’s Fit Nonet

Fitz spots a Deer – January 12, 2025, 8:22 a.m., 24 degrees

Sunday morning: hell hath unleashed its

fury at the Johnson Funny

Farm, where all silence shattered

with ear-piercing echoes

when a hungry doe

sought breakfast on

the frozen

ground out

front

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The Stillness of Snow

We had far more ice than snow last weekend, but there is something transformative about the stillness of snow. As a year turns, the tranquility of snow brings a feeling of a clean slate. All the old crap of last year is frozen solid, then melts away faster than a million snow cones on a hot summer day at the softball field, leaving only the fresh breath of newness, ripe for the rightness of a new start.

Which, I’ll speak for myself while knowing it isn’t just me, we all need. Therapists often tell patients to write down all their woes and then ball up the paper and throw it into the fire to watch the negativity burn away. But there is also renewal in the power of cold. Take this pine tree farm, for example. It suffered the least amount of loss of any other pine tree farm planted in this area the year it was sown. I remember my husband telling me that he, his father, and his brother were so cold that day that his father’s eyes and nose were stinging and running so heavily that the frigid temperatures made ice crystals all along his eyelashes and mustache and beard. They worked in rotating positions that day. One of them drove the tractor, while the two on the back end were the planters. One would unbundle the frozen saplings, and the other (lying down on the back end facing the ground) pushed them into the earth in spaced out rows. When the foresters asked them what they had done to prevent such loss of trees, they didn’t really know – until they all looked at the calendar and made some comparisons of data. They’d planted the Johnson Funny Farm pines on the coldest day of the year.

If pine trees thrive when they’re planted on the coldest day of the year, I like to imagine that this cold and snow and ice have repotted people, too. I’ve needed a hard reset for well over a year now, and my sapling spirits-at-heart have needed a re-rooting.

That is what the stillness of snow does. It brings a magical reset, filled with a Narnia-like magic to all the possibilities for the year ahead. And there are snowflake pictures for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, too.

As I stood on the porch so many times taking in all the beauty last weekend, I couldn’t dismiss the feelings of sadness and fear that I felt for my California friends evacuating from the wildfires at the opposite end of the cold spectrum, on the opposite side of the country. I reached out and checked on them, and they replied that they are fine but are keeping heightened awareness of the fires. I continue praying for their safety.

it speaks for itself

the snow, silently falling

blanketing the hush

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2025 Book Club Picks

If you’re ever in the small rural county in Georgia where I live, you might find yourself at one of the two traffic lights we have, right along the courthouse square. You’d look at the historic buildings lining the square and wonder about the curious little shops and what all goes on inside once you stood back long enough to take note of the intricate patterns in the old brick facades. There’s a bank, a couple of hair salons, a coffee shop, a donut shop, a few boutiques, a couple of restaurants (every small town in Georgia must have a good barbecue joint), a dentist and an optician’s office, a realty office, a mercantile, a Chamber of Commerce office, and…….{drumroll, please}………my favorite: a bookstore, A Novel Experience. Click here to check it out.

It’s not just another familiar bookstore. This one is magical, with its historic interior brick walls with rustic plaster repairs, a creaky wooden floor, a refrigerator where you can have a free water if you need one (there is wine in there, too, and a coffee bar), a circle of eccentric mismatched comfy chairs by the back door so you can sit and talk or write or knit or….just sit, and the most amazing lineup of books for the monthly book clubs. They have a few different clubs, too, which meet at different times and focus on different interests so that there is a club for everyone.

I got there on their first day of business in 2025, and I saw that they had their books already chosen from their last meeting of 2024. They’ll create cards that readers can take to put on their refrigerators to remind them of which book is scheduled for which club for which month, but I took a snapshot or two of the “rough draft” of the lineup with the cards that tell what the books will be. Some of them have not even come in yet.

This is the place I go when I need the calm reassurance that there is still peace to be found in a place other than my own home. I swear, I think they have some kind of essential oil that is called stress-free small-town down-home-rooted belonging or something. Every bit of hurried pace disappears right when you walk in. Of course, I’ve lived here long enough to know all who work there, and this shop is one of several places that still greet customers by first name. It thrills me when I walk in and Karen throws her hands up and says, “Hi, Kim!” Chris does, too, and they stop to talk to their customers with sincere interest in what is happening in our busy lives.

What are you reading this year? I’ve started the year with Rosamunde Pilcher’s book Winter Solstice, but I’ve already cheated and delved into the movie. I finished The Beautiful and the Wild over the break just as the year turned, and we’ll have our office book club to discuss that one January 21. I started James, and I’m halfway finished. If you have any recommendations, please share. I tend to prefer nonfiction that reads like fiction or that spotlights travel or nature in some fresh and unexpected way. Sy Montgomery is always, always a favorite. I’m looking for a few readers who can recommend some amazing reads, and I hope you’ll be one of them!

If you’re ever here, call me and I’ll run right down to the shop and meet you for coffee or wine and book talk, ’cause that’s how we do things in small towns here in Georgia.

our local bookstore

announced its monthly choices

for each reading club

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By the Fire Nonet

not for one second did I take this

ice day for granted ~ nope, I read,

sat by the fire, sipped green tea,

snuggled our spoiled schnoodles,

threw on the throw,

observed the birds,

worked crosswords,

prayed prayers,

napped