We celebrate our 16th wedding anniversary today. For a couple of divorcees who found each other a little later in life and had given up on ever marrying again, we realize now that when God winks on love, it’s a dream come true.
There we were, on a swing in a park, where he proposed while wearing a royal blue button-down shirt. There just happened to be a royal blue car driving by with a teenage kid cheering and fist pumping out the window as the love of my life was down on a knee asking for my hand (is there any wonder that I drive a bright blue Caribbean colored RAV4, even though my personality is more of a muted silver or pearly white?).
I think back to that day, on that swing, and count the joys.
A photo of our swing in the reading room of our home
Marriage Proposal Haiku
a swing proposal with a smashed Cracker Jack ring you'd resurrected
and still I said yes with a yes-er yes because you'd fixed the broken
If you’ve never rolled a set of Taylor Mali’s Metaphor Dice, take note: they’re one of the best ways to make poetry accessible for reluctant writers. The red dice are nouns (conceptual, most), white are adjectives, and blue are nouns that represent the direct comparison to the red dice. I rolled the dice:
Naysay Nonet
the truth is a back-handed mirror because once you say to someone to prove your argument's point that they should have called you you can't turn around and not have called them when you should have called
My son (r) with hunting face camo, and his buddy (l)
My middle child of my gas station Octane Trio, the one born in 1989, turns 35 today. He loves hunting, fishing, Nascar racing, and spending time with his family of 7, plus 3 labs. I’m proud of him – he makes good choices, and I was even fine with that mullet he had going on for a couple of years. He and his good buddy recently sent me the photo above, smiling and proud of the tickets they’d gotten for not having the proper number of life vests in their boat while they were out duck hunting (turns out they were warnings – which explains the smiles).
I asked him what he wanted for his birthday, and our conversation went something like this:
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This got his attention. He knew I’d find a book about how salt marsh species cooperate to survive the harsh conditions of the marsh. I learned it throwing quadrants in the marsh when I took marine biology at University of South Carolina, where he also graduated years later. Spartina marsh grass survives in extreme salty conditions because the periwinkle shells attached to the base thrive on salt and take it in. In this way, both species can survive.
There is a story there for another time, but I guess he didn’t want to learn more about the marshgrass in his back yard. He replied, thoughtfully, moments later:
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Since I haven’t physically seen him since Christmas and know my own battles with quick weight change, I asked about the size. I decided on the medium, but wanted him to know to be on the lookout for the gifts since sometimes with prankster kids (who learned it from him), a box might disappear off the front porch before anyone knew it was ever there. I put him on alert:
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I am so proud of my son and wish him the happiest birthday ever. His family loves him too!
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Birthday Surprise Haiku
he's getting a shirt and a camouflaged fan cap but not a surprise.
I was three minutes late to work one day last week because I was chasing the sunrise. If you’ve ever been on the backside of nowhere in the rural Georgia countryside between 7:45 and 8:00 just after the time springs forward, you’ve seen it: the most gorgeous glowing coral red sunrise ever, so rich and fiery it could be an over-easy orange yolk of a just-laid Buff Orpington egg, the kind still warm upon cracking into the pan, the kind that mesmerizes folks who’ve never seen a yolk so unhormonally free-ranging fresh, that didn’t come from a carton in a store.
Sometimes that egg yolk sun’ll be right in front of you, as it is when it’s waiting for me like a dog who wants to play chase, right at the end of my eastside driveway first thing in the morning on my way to work. Then, it’s like I’ve tossed it a stick. It takes off to the left when I turn south, then stays left when I head back east, only a little lefter than before. At the stop sign, it’s still left, just not as behindish, and then when I turn back to the south right before I turn back east again, I’m approaching what I know is THE MOST beautiful sunrise ribbon of roadway in the entire county and maybe all of Georgia, maybe even all of the southeastern United States or the world or the universe.
And sometimes I slow waaaaaaay down just to take it all in, if there’s nobody behind me.
My friend Barb Edler and I both made spooky posts Saturday. Barb’s post was about the possibility of aliens returning after their suspected driveway visit when her oldest son was a baby. Mine was about loss of sleep because of messages in a sound machine (probably possessed by evil spirits, because its twin is working fine).
All of this gnawed on my brain last night when the whatifs* started spinning on the midnight merry-go-round of my mind…..what if a tree falls on the campsite and crushes us right here in the camper? What if somebody up the hill forgot to chock their tires and their camper slides down the hill in the middle of the night and lands on us? What if a rogue tornado pops up and slings us all the way to Alabama? What if aliens invade Pine Mountain?
Aliens.
And then that whatif gobbled and swallowed my whole frontal lobe with a poem.
What Do I Do?
what do I do if aliens land here and the whole campground nudges me forward to greet the spaceship, elects me their spokesperson like some Hunger Games tribute?
what do I do when the ramp door lowers to the ground smoke spilling out against the backlit silhouettes of aliens the expressionless kind with big heads huge eyes and knobby knees?
what do I do when they confront me and stop toe to toe face to face expecting a word or a welcome or a warning?
what do I do when I start wondering if this is what the Indian Removal Act felt like for those pushed off their own planet?
what do I do when it looks like they start speculating about the speed of all our little earth-anchored sewer-hosed spaceships with lights over the doors?
what do I do when I feel like the fly before the spider says step into my parlor?
what do I do?
I do what I do best
I invite them into my teardrop to read poetry and sip tea
*with a nod to Shel Silverstein for the whatifs in his ear
Our first camping weekend of 2024, and we arrived in heavy rain on our favorite campground within an hour from home. It's pretty full - campers pepper the campground, and kids are out on brightly lit hoverboards, while others are riding bikes and playing frisbee. Folks are walking their dogs (and vice-versa), and one site had its smokeless fire ring going this morning after the drizzle stopped and there was a damp chill for the reckoning.
The dogs were nestled back in the crook of the teardrop on the bed, under blankets like little humans, their heads resting on the pillows in a deep schnoodle-snooze.
I was making the coffee for breakfast when the sweetest moment happened - one I shall never forget, connected to another moment that I shall also never forget.
The first one happened in May 2013, when I got my fingers slammed in the trunk of the honeymoon getaway car at my son's wedding as the happy couple were leaving. I assured everyone I was fine, fine, fine, but as we drove back to the hotel, I cried and carried on because I was afraid I would never be able to write again since I couldn't bend my fingers yet and they looked a lot like a package of Ballpark franks after being in a sandwich press. It sent my husband into such a panic that this moment of fear became forever etched into his scrapbook of memories he'd rather forget. But I was fine, am fine, nothing broken or chopped off.
Which makes this morning's moment all the more special.
I handed him the water bottle as I made coffee
more and more recently I've handed him tight lids
I apologized ~ my hands don't have the strength they used to have I explained again
it’s a scary feeling, this change of neediness
He smiled took the bottle uscrewed the lid handed it back
Special Thanks to Two Writing Teachers for inspiring writers, especially sleepless ones.
#messages in the madness
The melatonin was working fine, just fine, I thought, but I figured either we had a rogue sound machine with broken buttons or that one of the machines was possessed. I kept hearing things, but my husband didn’t. Just like when the car starts making a sound, only not a car but a tiny little white noise machine.
So finally, finally – – he in his melatoninlessness began hearing mysterious sounds, too. I didn’t know whether to cry, be scared, or celebrate.
If your children tell you they hear funny voices at night, believe them and check the sound machine. They’re in there.
The windows should all be open, but Gemini didn’t listen.
A week ago, Lainie Levin posted an announcement that I wish could be reposted every day. Below, she states that engaging with others is the single most powerful thing that builds community during this challenge.
I emailed her immediately to ask if I could repost this announcement. She readily agreed.
Which brings me to a connection that stopped me in my tracks. I was having a conversation with the Poetry Fox as we were working out the details of his visit to Georgia from North Carolina. I asked him to describe what his events look like, and he told me that he sits at his typewriter and writes on-demand poetry for people who give him a word. He said, “And really, it’s not even about the poem. It’s about the connections I make and the people I get to meet. Those moments of connecting with someone are what it’s all about.”
I’ve thought about this again and again as I have returned to the conversation and the blog announcement and reflected on the power of connection. This community would be nothing without it. I realize that when I wake up during March and get to open the blogging windows and drink my coffee with an entire community and we’re all talking to each other about the slices of our lives and what is happening, there is power in these moments. We may all be tired and worn thin some days, but I know things about you – the people in my community – and I know many of your family members and how you spend time.
I know Paul likes to cook and actually likes Brussels sprouts (I thought I was the only one), Glenda likes to travel and has a voracious appetite for adventure (and will be having quite an adventure today – – I won’t spoil her surprise, but be on the lookout for something uniquely and colorfully …..uplifting)! Denise hikes in the desert and has a stargazer window in her house, Fran watches birds and is teaching her little granddaughters to love them too, Maureen also has two young granddaughters who love music and art and the outdoors, Peter is beginning to grieve the loss of a loved one and many of us are keeping his family close in our thoughts, Barb loves poetry slams and art exhibits and spending time outdoors, Sally checks in on her mom and has a granddaughter with new shoes, Margaret lives on the bayou and has the cutest ducks that jump into the water on jump day, and Joanne loves flowers and gardening. And I’m getting to know each of you, too!
Even though we all live in different places across the nation and beyond, I imagine a high rise brick apartment building where we’re all sitting in an open window chatting, waving, greeting each other at the start of the day, and smiling, rather like we might look from windows on the cover of the New Yorker if someone illustrated all of us in one drawing. We’d see floral window boxes for the green thumbs, cats and dogs with the animal lovers, and food cooking on the stoves of the culinary artists. We’d see children playing with grandmothers and, in a Paul Fleishman Seedfolks-ish kind of way, we’d all be connecting, contributing in beautiful ways to the community vegetable garden and sharing what we have to share, helping as we can, reaching out as we have needs that others can help meet.
Connection. Conversation. Sharing. Caring, Responding in kindness. Giving. Living.
Because that’s what community and connection are all about, and it’s also what writing is about – – reaching the next person. Not the word choice, not the capitalization of proper nouns, and not the run-on sentences (which, like Brussels sprouts, I love, by the way).
Thank you for these marathon days in March where we build our own neighborhood, and the Tuesdays throughout the year where we keep in touch! And to the owners of the Slice of Life apartment building for letting us move in for a month, rent-free, a huge debt of gratitude is owed for all of your hard work in keeping the lights on and the water running.
You each make a difference!
Slice of Life Challenge
Slice of Life Challenge community connections: open your windows!
pour a cup of tea share family recipes show trip photographs
compare hobby notes reveal hopes and dreams share fears and shed tears
open your windows! connect with fellow writers plant seeds. water them.
Last year, Denise Krebs asked me to share what I had done to plan a National Poetry Month celebration in my rural Georgia town. Today, I’m sharing a list prose poem (I think I just totally made that combo form up) of How To Plan A Poetry Event In Your Town. I’m currently, still, and always in the planning stages, so these are some of the things I’ve done to plan this year’s event (and last year’s too). At the end of April, I’ll share a picture tour of these events that began in February this year (we couldn’t wait…). Stay tuned.
Painted canvas in the palette of awakenings poetry – ready for lettering!
21 Steps to a Town Poetry Celebration: A List Prose Poem
1. Ask the local Arts Council to pick a theme that fits your town. Imagine the infinite possibilities when they pick Awakenings after two years of the same theme of Bloom. 2. Say a prayer of thanks that your community works together to make poetry happen and has given you the title The Crazy Poetry Lady. (Move over, Crazy Cat Ladies!) 3. Ask a friend to write a poem on the theme (the one who writes a book instead). 4. When he writes the book, set him up with a poetry reading and book signing event. 5. Ask another local poet to read and sign his new book, too, in the coffee shop. 6. Think back to Fran Haley's post on The Poetry Fox and invite him to town with his Fox suit and his vintage typewriter to bang out poems in under 70 seconds when folks throughout the land give him a word and then watch them be amazed when he stamps it with his little fox paw print, suitable at once for framing. 7. When he agrees to come from North Carolina, create canvases for the Chamber of Commerce windows of all the poets' verses. Paint the backdrops in shades of sunrise awakenings. Pretend you are a New York City window dresser and borrow easels and buy fishing line and eye hooks to hang the artwork, then stand back and wonder if any Crazy Cat Ladies will loan you some poetry cats to curl up in the window display. 8. Set up a Progressive Poetry Walk around the town square (read it in sections on stands). Since people will come throughout the land to see the fox, they’ll need something to read while they wait in the long line. 9. Make YouTube shorts of directions on how to write poetry for those who think they can't. 10. Set up community poetry writing kiosks with QR codes to scan for directions and create a community Padlet to showcase the writing online. 11. Ask the Georgia Poet Laureate to come read her poems in the coffee shop, too. Jump out of your skin with excitement when she sends you two poems that will appear in her new book and allows you to put them on a canvas in the Chamber window. 12. Plan an Open Mic night so those throughout the land can come listen....read.....recite. Note that 2 other community partners planned them without your prompting this year….and smile that your seeds are blooming. Pray your garden will grow and grow theoughout the land. 13. Bask in the glow of what poetry does in a town and a state and a nation and a heart. 14. Invite all your writing group friends to come to 1828 Coffee Company on April 25 at 6:00 to read their poems and drink the best coffee in all the land with you. Because Glenda Funk keeps a suitcase packed and ready, you know. 15. If they can't be here in person, invite them instead to record themselves reading a favorite poem or one they've written and send it to you or upload it to YouTube so you can make a QR code and put it in frames all around your town and throughout the land. 16. Create canvases of their verses to go in the Chamber windows, too, on your theme: awakenings. 17. Wonder why you haven't created a collection and put it out on Amazon. 18. Start a Word document of all the poems you'd put in a poetry collection on your theme. 19. Decide to self publish a short collection and choose a title and create an action plan. 20. Bask in the joy of poetry and all the healing it brings to a heart and a town and a state and a nation and a world and a universe. 21. Don't wonder where you'd be without the gift of poetry. You don't even want to know.
and then wonder if you can rewrite 21 into a poem all its own…..try a Haiku….
you don’t want to know where you’d be without the gifts of life-changing verse
its healing magic reaches in, awakens souls throughout all the land
Shelley of Oklahoma is our host today for the final day of the March Open Write, encouraging us to write poems to help us relax. You can read her full prompt here. I have one of those conferences today – the kind in a town with a gas station and a stop sign and maybe a hot dog in the gas station and nothing else, and I’m driving in with coworkers from an hour and seven minutes northeast, and I’m not overnighting so I have to leave early and get home late and I know the coffee’s gonna suck because it always does when they have those plastic canisters of powdered creamer and only pink-packet off-brand sweetener.
But I’m trying to relax.
Really.
Frumpy
Relax - no one cares whether your pants match your shirt or that they're wrinkled
Relax - no one cares that the tops of your feet are white as unbaked bread
Relax - no one sees you picking at your fingers of chipped nail polish
Relax - no one knows your Odor Eaters are now expired by three months
Relax - just because you forgot to tweeze your lip doesn't mean don't go
After all: you're the driver....others are counting on you to get there
Relax - your oil got changed, your gas tank's full and your car is vacuumed out
Relax - your riders might find your car is cleaner than theirs (not driven)
Relax - wait, is that .....is that a seam coming out? It's right on the butt
Nope, don't relax. Go change pants. Nothing clean? That's what long sweaters are for.
Heck, grab a blanket and wrap up like a student .....relax for a change!
Common Threads 