NaNoWriMo Day 4 Burning Questions I Think About When I Should be Writing

 ?

1) Why do the things on the top of my cabinets get greasy?  Does grease float? Is grease lighter than air?  

2)  What toxic magic ingredients make instant pudding thicken so quickly when it takes me a good 7 minutes of stirring boiling hot lava to get the creme patissiere (read: homemade vanilla pudding) for the inside of my cream puffs to thicken?

3)  Why does my heart melt when my grandchildren or my dog tilt their heads when I ask them a question? 

4) When will we trample the patriarchy? (I'm talking to you, Mitch McConnell)

5) Despite my veterinarian's assurances, does it piss my cats off that they are declawed?  

6) Why do I continue to stick my hand in this bag of candy corn when I don't even like candy corn?

7) What does that Prince symbol mean?

8) Why does vanilla smell so good but taste so nasty?  

9) Why am I still in my nightgown at 4:57 PM on the day after the 2020 election?

Oh.  I know the answer to that one.  It's the same answer I have for why I haven't taken a shower today, why I keep sticking my hand in this bag of candy corn, why I binge watched Flesh and Blood on PBS, and why I made instant pistachio pudding and ate half the servings this afternoon and plan to eat the other half after supper.

I am sad.  Hopeful for the future of our democracy and planet, but still sad that there are apparently a lot of people who don't think either of those things is important.  

Back to my novel.  I am almost at 3000 words.

I should be at 8000 by tomorrow.  

Stop laughing and go eat some pudding. 

Peace.

Matchbooks and Emery Boards - Election Day 2020

My dad loved Christmas, but I think May and November Election Days were his favorite holidays of the year.  He was our Jackson 6 precinct committeeman for around 20 years, and of all the things I was proud of him for, that was at the top of my list, as he constantly reminded us of our responsibility as Americans to vote -- it was a gift of democracy.  

Helping others exercise that right was his gift. 

He prepped for election days early, making sure that every adult in Jackson 6 was registered to vote.  I remember riding along with him on those days, and he’d point out each house, telling me if the occupants were Democrats or Republicans.    “Now these people, here,” he’d say, pointing to a neat white house on Meadowbrook Drive, “cancel each other out – she’s a Republican and he’s a Democrat.” 

In those days - the late 60’s, early 70’s - he was a firm believer in the straight ticket.  He was always the first to vote each election morning - it took him less than 30 seconds.  Clarence Wichman, the poll sheriff, would check to make sure the machine was in proper order, then waved dad in with a flourish.  Dad stepped into the machine, pulled the curtain closed, popped a straight ticket lever and opened the curtain.  In later years, I remember he agonized a bit over crossing party lines to vote for a friend running for county commissioner.  “He’s a good man, even if he’s a Democrat,” dad said.  

Most of Jackson 6 was rural.  It stretched from our farm on the near east side of Seymour, east on US 50 to the fancy new Mutton Creek subdivision, then down US 31 South to where 31 crossed I-65, just past our "bottom ground" that's now a part of the refuge.  Dad knew everyone in Jackson 6, knew their politics, and greeted everyone who came to the polls at the Union Hall on South 31 by name.  He made them happy to be there, happy to be doing their duty.  It was his gift, I tell you. 

Election days started early.  Well before 5:00 AM, dad would drive to the Cake Box Bakery in town and pick up donuts for his poll workers.  Each party precinct committeeman had to supply an inspector, a clerk, a judge and a sheriff.  These were always the same people – local women (and Mr. Wichman) who took their responsibility very seriously.  I don’t remember who did what (except Mr. Wichman), but I can still see those women bending over the Jackson 6 precinct rolls, finding names and checking addresses, watching carefully as signatures were written onto cards.  There would be no such thing as voter fraud in Jackson 6.

Dad would be in and out of the Union Hall all day, greeting voters, picking up lunch for the poll workers, driving elderly voters to the hall to vote.  When the polls closed at 6, he made sure supper was there for the workers.  He watched as they completed their jobs – signing off on the poll books,  mysteriously taking the vote count from the machine and closing up the machines until the next election, the judge (I think) taking the count down to the courthouse in Brownstown. 

Dad would head to Brownstown as well, when all the ladies were safely on their way home and the Union Hall was put back in order.  I went with him once, and immediately understood the thrill of watching vote counts posted in the lobby of the courthouse, candidates, party officials and excited onlookers of both parties all around us.  

When I was 12, I stood outside the polls as dad asked me, and handed out matchbooks and emery boards for Republican candidates.

When I was 16, dad put me to work driving people to the polls.

When I was 18, he was there with me when I voted for the first time.

When I was in college, I came home and worked as a real poll worker for him.  I think I was the clerk. I got a paycheck. 

When we moved back to Indiana after living in Akron for 7 years, dad wasn’t the precinct committeeman any longer.  But since we lived in a house dad gave us on the farm, we lived in Jackson 6, and still voted at the Union Hall.  I shocked the ladies – some who I knew, a few who were unfamiliar - at the desk when I asked for a “D” in the first May primary I voted in.  “That’s Georgie,” they whispered, “Richard’s daughter.  She took a D.”  They continued to whisper, and I smiled as I pulled the lever for the curtain and made my choices, choices I had decided upon long before entering the voting booth, having studied both the candidates and the issues, just as dad taught me.  And when I left, I told the ladies, “It’s OK, he knows I took a D.”

Over the years since, I’ve taken D’s in most primaries, but took an R once to vote for my brother, an R once to vote for a friend.  Consequently, I get political mailings/recycle bin fodder from both parties. 

Over the years since, I wish I still had my dad to talk to  about candidates, policy and elections.

This year, I miss him more than ever.

This year, I voted early.  I live on the same road, on the same patch of land, but am now in Jackson 7, and vote way across on the west side of town.  No curtains to pull - we vote digitally, or electronically, or whatever you call the method we now use.  I thanked the poll workers there that Friday in October – I know what a long day it is, and they have so many of them now that Indiana residents can vote several weeks before Election day. 

I have no idea of who my precinct committeeperson is.  (I blame myself for this - it would be easy enough to google.)

No one was there to shake our hands and thank us for voting.  

No one comes to our door to check on our registration or to tell us the key reasons we should vote Democrat or Republican. 

Maybe it’s Harry’s happy greetings that have kept candidates and precinct committeepeople  away.  (He is a little intimidating, in his big goofy way.)

Maybe it’s Covid.

Maybe it’s just that no one cares like my dad did. 

Thanks, dad.

NaNoWriMo Day 2

I am going to work on my novel(s) today, I promise.  But somehow I ended up with a poem early this morning.  My dear writer friend, Martha, got me thinking about what we remember on a cellular level, and this happened.  (And just to be clear, this is an analogy, and not about my dad.  Take from it what you would.)

Daddy

 

They were different

She knew it in her cells

She was a blanket

He was a freight train

Into a room

Into a handshake

Into a woman

Confidence, he told her

While she watched him from her corner.

She knew he was different

She longed for him to know her

She was a garden

He was a battle flag

She followed him into the desert

Where he left her

She followed him into the cold

Where he left her

To find her way back

Persistence, he said

While she watched him from the doorway.

She knew he was different

She tried to understand him

She was a chess board

He was a drone

Busy

Very busy

Very busy making

Money

Sex

In the daylight

Charisma, he said

While she watched him from her bed.

She knew he was different

She was Galileo

He was a box

Others filled it

Longing to be a money sex box too

Leadership, he said

While she watched him from her grave.

He was different from her

Though ill

He lived

Though vital

She perished.

Peace.

NaNoWriMo Day 1

 Today I wrote 2000 words of a new novel.

Something completely different.

I don't really know where the idea came from, or where it will go, but it's on its way. 

Yesterday, I probably wrote 2000 words in response to my Indiana State District 69 Representative's writing prompt (read: Facebook post), "Tuesday.... MAGA or magazines?"

I know exactly where that idea came from, and where it lead me -- right down the rabbit hole of arguing with people who:

1)  probably didn't pay attention in either English or History classes in high school; 

2)  throw originalist Constitutional ideas around but who probably haven't read or understand the Constitution (I've read it, but don't understand a lot/most of it); 

3)  didn't read my posts for the thoughtful, insightful, kind and fact-based tidbits of information they truly are; 

4)  really, really like guns and are very offended when you refer to a semi-automatic weapon as an automatic weapon (sheesh, sorry!);

5)  don't understand the concepts of sarcasm and hyperbole;

6)  are super good at calling people uneducated, brain-dead, half-brain, brainless, idiot, stupid idiot, moron, lunatic, flaming liberal, snowflake (I didn't mind that one - snowflakes are soft, lovely, quiet and avalanche-building), and my very least favorite of all time, libtard, which I don't even like to type out.  

When I pointed this out to Pepper, one of my sparring partners in the thread (how the term is offensive to those with intellectual disabilities and the people who love them), Pepper's rebuttal was that I was a stupid liberal libtard. 

Let me add "redundancy" to point #5.

I would like it noted that I didn't call any one a name.  

Not once.  

Because I think bullying is the very worst form of debate.  

But because this is my blog and no one reads it anyway, I'll quote my dear and sassy sister and just say it. 

 

Fuck the kooks. 

Peace. 

NaNoWriMo 2020

*

 "I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.” ~ Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

 

Writing the Great American Novel

Writing an American Novel

Writing a great novel

Writing a novel

Writing

 

I have pinky-swore my friend, Margaret, who lives in Pennsylvania (and who I am sure is my baby sister from another mother) that I will do NaNoWriMo with her this year.  NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month, held every November since 2006.  The idea is to write every day, November 1 through November 30, aiming for a 50,000-word completed project.  That's between 1500 and 2000 words a day.  Every day.  So, roughly 10 times what I have written above, which with a nice long quote at the top, is now at 191 words. 

Margaret, at age 27, has completed writing her first novel (or at least the first one I know about), has completed the second of the trilogy (I’m fairly certain) and has outlines for the third. (She also works at a small independent bookstore - my dream job.)

At 60, I have not yet written a novel.  I’ve written lots of serious blog posts and lots of nonsensical poems and song lyrics meant primarily for the women in my writing circle and others with my similar weird sense of humor (and love of Dr. Fauci).

I had planned to complete a novel this year.  It was part of my grand plan for 60, to honor my mom, who died -  far too young -  at 60. 

Not much of my grand plan was completed, however, and I blame Covid.  Granted, I (like the world) was homebound for many many months, and had lots of time to complete my works in progress, but I was busy.  Busy worrying.  

I just couldn’t concentrate on writing.  

Or reading.  

I did a lot of knitting there for awhile, but that lost its sparkle, as well, when the darling Norwegian knitters I was following and knitting along with contracted Covid and became very ill – how could I go on?  (They are much better now, by the way, and have been YouTubing their driving vacation in Northern Norway, which has now become the #2 destination on my post-Covid travel bucket list, right after Austin, Texas and a visit with Grandma Shirley, whose birthday happens to be today.)  

I sewed, which seemed to be the one thing I could concentrate on and not let my mind wander to the ultimate destruction of humanity by Covid or packing the Supreme Court or government deregulations leading to increased fracking and eased environmental protections leading to enhanced climate change leading to the incineration of the planet.  

After you put a sewing machine needle right through your fingernail, you learn to concentrate on your sewing.  

But I didn't write my novel.  Oh, I have started two.  One took shape last year, inspired by my writing circle.  It is fun, but I don't have any idea where it is headed.  

The other - my "first novel", the  novel I left my last paying job for and which I’ve been working on for several years now -- is a highly fictionalized account of what happened to my family (and over 200 other families) when the land we lived on became the Muscatatuck National Wildlife Refuge. 

 

I want readers to know the story of how the idyllic farm (at least in my 8-year-old’s memory) was condemned by the federal government.  Of how my parents and grandparents took the United States of America to court, initially hoping to stop the seizure of the land, and that failing, arguing that they be paid a fair amount per acre, in order to be able to buy an equal amount of land outside of the refuge boundaries and continue farming (that part, they won).  

Of how eminent domain, a set of laws established for “the good of the people” brought with it broken hearts and broken spirits.  And yet, I want to capture all the sweetness of the life we had.  The beauty of the farm.  The hard, hard work.  Milking and butchering and harvest and planting.  All the cool and disgusting and fun and stinky things we did just because of where we lived -- on a farm.

I want people to know about my amazing grandma’s love of her neighbors and her unspoken yet loud competition with her sister.  I want to write about my smart, smart dad and my sweet, loving mom.  

Because I want to write something people would want to read, would carry with them in their hearts and their heads for awhile.  And if those people are just my people – not the general reading public who buy my published book  in their favorite small independent bookstore – that’s ok.  I once thought maybe my writing would make me famous – now, I just want my writing to make me happy. 

Will I complete NaNoWriMo?  Probably not.  Or maybe.  Consistency and stick-to-it-tiveness are not my strong suits.  I have 2 pretty good chapters - 23,000 words - of novel #2 (which I've tentatively titled Writing Class - how clever, right?) written.  Four years of writing later, I have 69,000 words in a mishmash of “chapters” of novel #1, Bright Fields (a variation of my grandma's maiden name). 

Something could happen, I guess.  I could surprise myself and write every day. 

So I am going to try really hard this November.  Just for myself.  And my kids, so maybe someday they can say, here’s what our mom accomplished.

And for Margaret, of course.

Peace 

*image courtesy of NaNoWriMo

Another Quarantine Poem - To My Crush

I call these my Dr. Fauci masks - button-down on one side, a little fun on the other

I adore you, Dr. Fauci;

Come sit with me on my couchy
And speak sweet words of immunology.
Whisper how you whipped Swine Flu,
SARS, MERS and Ebola, too;

Now, solve Covid while I serve you snacks and tea

Because I believe you, Dr. Fauci
Though you have made some people grouchy
Just as you did researching HIV.
“Too slow!” They cried, “There’s people dying”
But you wisely kept on trying,
Reducing AIDS and changing history.

And still they fuss in this pandemic,

(It's folks who aren’t so academic - 

Do you think they passed high school biology?)

They see the issue black and whitely

(Googling “viruses” and reading slightly)

And put no faith in your advanced degree.

“A hoax!” “No masks!” I hear them cry,

Each one quite willing to deny

The Covid facts you so succinctly present;

“CO2 breath” and rights, Constitutional,

Their arguments counterrevolutional

To an illness you KNOW they could prevent.

Dr. Fauci, how I miss you,
I would never contradict you
If I were the seated President.
Like Reagan right through to Obama,
I’d be your ever-listening mama
And flatten curves to your heart's content.

I’d never make you touch your face
Or bow your head in sheer disgrace
By saying things both stupid and untrue;
I know you are the voice of reason;
Truth-telling is no cause for treason

(Hey!  That just might be my new tattoo!)

And when they ink it on my arm,

I'll think on your smart sexy charm

And give thanks that you always will hold sway

With science, facts, your impish shrug;

I dream someday we share a hug

That's closer than the cursed six feet away.  

Peace

A Quarantined Continuation of an Ongoing Problem

Our state representative is in a lot of hot water again.  I used to argue with him, and wrote a lot about him on my old blog - here - but I felt trampled and disheartened and afraid for our state and country after engaging with him and his minions.  

So I stopped.  I didn't look at his Facebook page for two years, I stopped following his ineffectual legislative proposals, I stopped worrying about having to run against him (because I would be a terrible, weepy opponent) and thank goodness, other good people have taken up that gauntlet only to have been surprisingly and  soundly beaten and, I'm sure, spiritually devastated.  

But last week, he posted a meme he had made on his FB page, and after all the Indianapolis stations and paper ran stories about this latest debacle, I had to go look.  

I don't like him, I don't want him to be my representative, I pretty much hate everything he stands for, and I really really hated the blatantly racist meme he posted.  But that part of me that's been working so hard on inner peace and kindness thought he needed something good for his page, so I sent him a link to an ABC Nightline segment about some good things going on to Cummins (where Clay works) - you know, something to be proud of in District 69.  His people working hard to make the world a better place.  Something you would expect a State Representative to post on his Facebook page. 

He shared it without fanfare or comment.  But I was happy.  

But then, I'm a schmucky Pollyanna. 

Not 10 minutes later, he posted a long rant about why he isn't a racist.  He gave his readers a dictionary definition of "racism" (as a former English composition teacher, I always wanted to inscribe a huge "F" in smelly red Magic Marker on any paper that started, "Webster's Dictionary defines ______ as ______."  Egads.).  He railed against those who see racism in what he posted - we are the true racists.  We are the uneducated.  We are the unreasonable.  We don't have a sense of humor.  

Against my better judgement, I posted a comment.  As you can imagine, I commiserated over my comment for a good hour, making sure it wasn't too snarky.  

It's a little snarky.  

A real and important part of the fight against racism, hatred, intolerance and injustice is to take a moment before speaking (or posting) to consider how your words and actions will affect others who are in very different socio-economic, racial, ethnic, religious, or political situations from yourself. To “put yourself in another’s shoes.” To speak kindly with others and genuinely consider differences. This is leadership, leadership for both those who agree with your political leanings as well as those who firmly disagree with you. As you well know, what seems funny to you can be horribly offensive or simply obnoxious to others. Even if you swear you didn’t mean it that way. Even if all the other kids are saying it. Be better than that. Be a leader who values human spirit more than the fast giggle. Be a leader who values human dignity more than the “clever” meme. Maybe give up meme-making all together in an attempt to repair the integrity of the position to which you have been elected. 

And I signed it "from your favorite SJW Liberal Peacenik Snowflake."

Just because.    

He didn't reply.  

There were over 700 comments on his post, split fairly evenly between "Good job, dude, don't let the libtards get you down"  and "we need to get these POC out of our country" to "you are a raving egomaniacal racist lunatic"  and "you piece of shit." 

As superior and sassy as I felt when I posted my comment, I felt like ick inside after reading the comments from his supporters.  These are the people who open carry.  These are the people who refuse to wear a mask, citing it as an infringement of their freedom.  These are the people who break the arms of employees who are simply trying to enforce store policies about masks and social distancing. These are the people who shoot black men out for a run.  

And even if I quarantine myself from his Facebook page again (which I have already done), these Tea Party Republicans, these KKK members, these NRA nuts, the Make America Great Again folks are out there, spewing the  evil on Statehouse steps, carrying grammatically illiterate signs and waving Confederate flags while their guns swing from their shoulders

And it scares me.  
I wish I knew the solution, the key to some sort of peace between them and us.  Us and them.  Some glue that will make us all OK with each other again.  

If you find it, let me know, ok? 

A Quarantine Mother's Day

I tried hard to write something clever about Mother's Day in quarantine, but everything I wrote looked like a big bowl of sap covered with a generous helping of cheese.  

So let me just say this: 

I love my kids fiercely.  And their kids fiercely.  They are all amazing people I really like being around. 

I miss my mother something awful every day. Most everything I have done during this quarantine to keep myself sane can be traced back to her.  Sewing, knitting, cooking, baking, watching  BBC mystery shows.  Not gardening, but she tried hard to make me a gardener. 

And I'm so thankful for my grandmothers, who have left me with nothing but happy memories, and therefore something to write about. 

Peace. 

A Quarantine Thursday - Non-Essential

I have little motivational sayings posted all over the walls of my workroom.  On my desk.   Stuck to the front of my computer. 

I have a Pinterest board full of little motivational sayings.

Sometimes, I copy, paste, crop, and shrink them, then print them off and cut them apart and put them into highly-decorated recycled Altoids tins to give to other women I think just might need a tinfull of little motivational sayings.  Like this one: 

It's a good motivational saying.  Especially for people like me who are basically moms with side jobs.  I think on it often.  

But I haven't been feeling it lately. 

Because I'm non-essential.  

I'm not medical, or media.  I don't work at Wal-mart or a gun shop.  I'm not a teacher, a policeperson, firefighter or electrical linewoman. (I am, however, inclusive.)

But today I was called in to work at the food pantry, a place I've volunteered at for years but have been a little frightened to work at for the past month.  The last few times I worked, we hustled to bag hundreds of bags of groceries for hundreds of families, and members of local service organizations delivered them.  

After the last time I worked, I woke up every night for two weeks with a panic attack, afraid that I had come in contact with the Rona.  Was it on the bags, on the food, carried by the beautiful people standing beside me bagging food, singing along to my carefully curated Spotify Food Pantry playlist?    

But as is the case with many things during this pandemic - social services, opinions on mask-wearing, hospital visits, snack selections - it changed.  Customers are again coming to the pantry, but just not like they used to. 

Everything was different.

Everything was safe.

Customers came to the door with no close interaction, no complex paperwork.  Just give me your name and we'll give you some food.  

It was a good day.  We did good work. 

I feel a tiny bit more essential.  

Peace.  

A Quarantine Wednesday - Rest

It is ok to rest. 
It is ok to rest in the middle of the day. 
It is ok to rest in the middle of the day in the middle (middle?) of a pandemic even though there are still lots of things you'd like to accomplish during this quarantine.
  
Specifically, write your novel and clean the basement.

It is ok to rest when you had a panic attack at the grocery store yesterday.

It is ok to rest when you had a panic attack at the grocery store yesterday and are a little embarrassed but no one knew you were having a panic attack because you always shopped the right way down a one-way aisle and you stayed 6 feet away from everyone else and you had your mask on and you looked down at your phone pretending to be puzzled by your list all the while naming the 5 things you could see, 4 things you could feel, 3 things you could hear, 2 things you could smell and 1 thing you could taste even though you switched out 4 and 2 because you were afraid to touch anything other than your phone and you could smell chicken frying and bread because you were in the bread aisle.  And you were doing pretty well calming yourself until you realized that more than half of the people in the grocery did not have a mask on and one tall idiot without a mask seemed to be laughing at you so you put your right hand into your cardigan pocket and flipped him off. 

It is ok to rest. 

A Quarantine Tuesday Poem - Upon Thinking of Going to The Grocery Store

At 6

All I wanted was a pocketbook.
Grandma said I had a pocketbook,
The white patent leather, gold ball-snap
Purse with gold chain that I carried
Over my wrist
On Easter that held three kleenexes and
a red-stripe peppermint.
I wanted
a real pocketbook.
A big pocketbook to fill
With important things like 
Lipstick.
Floral-printed handkerchiefs stained with lip prints.
Assorted coins.
A small sewing kit. 
A wallet with money and a social security card
And a library card
And a license for driving a car.
I could go to the IGA with that pocketbook
And buy ice cream in little cups
With little wooden paddle spoons glued to the lids
And sour cream and onion potato chips
And foot-long hot dogs and foot-long buns.

At 13

Mom sewed me a purse out of the top
Of a pair of dad's overalls
To carry Kotex. 
To junior high. 
Such a cool purse, lined
With pink stripe fabric leftover 
From a pair of baby doll pajamas 
She had sewn for me that summer.
Wendy Calvin told my 
Social Studies class it was too bad
My mom couldn't afford buy me a real
Purse at JC Penney
So I stopped carrying it to school
And bled right through a pair of white pants
In the lunchroom.

At 35

Why is my damn purse so damn heavy?

At 57

Oldest daughter:  Mama, hand me your purse.  
I'll clean it out for you.
What's this? 
This chapstick is ancient.
Do you really need 11 pens?
You have so many coins in the bottom of your purse
It could be a door stop.
Or a lethal weapon, swung just right.  
Line up your bills according to value
Like dad does.
All the guys facing forward. 
Toss these old receipts.  
The newer ones are behind the bills.

Now keep it this way, she says. 
And then we laugh and laugh at her
Funny joke. 

At 60

Don't take a purse into the store, they say.
In and out quickly, they say. 
Carry just a card, they say.

But where do I put my keys?
My little pad for writing down interesting things?
Kotex.  Peppermints. 7 pens. 
Too many coins. 
Kleenex.
Hand wipes and Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer and plastic gloves.
And a mask. 

All I wanted was a little cup of ice cream. 
And a little wooden spoon. 

A Quarantine Monday

Today, quarantine is that little piece of nail that chips off on the ring finger of your left hand and you know that you should stop, file it down or get a clipper and round it off, even though you keep your nails short so they don’t gather dirt or tap on the keyboard.  But you don’t stop, and before you know it, the chip is bigger and catching on the yarn you’re knitting with or the t-shirt and stretchy pants you pull on so your neighbors, who you don’t think pay a bit of attention to you -  but you never know -  won’t think you’re a weirdo for spray painting two old rocking chairs in your nightgown.  But you don’t stop to clip or file, and when you pull on gloves to weed the mint patch of those SOB stinging nettles that you should have weeded a week ago, you catch that now-torn fingernail on the inside of the glove, but you don’t stop to clip or file because it looks like rain and those SOB stinging nettles aren’t going to weed themselves.  And then halfway through the mint patch you pull some SOB stinging nettles and discover the entrance to a huge tunnel, probably dug by that cute chubby groundhog who sometimes hangs out in the back yard and you scream a tiny scream because although he looks adorable through the kitchen window, you don’t know what groundhogs are like close up, even though you’ve seen the Puxsutawney spectacle a hundred times and don’t think they are mean or would launch themselves out of that tunnel and toward your carotid artery.  So you back up slowly toward the garage and get out the power washer and blast the moss off of the plant ferris wheel your dad welded together for your grandma 50 years ago and which you inherited after she sold her farm and which you clean up and re-paint every few years.   And when you go to dig your hammer out of your tool box to repair one of the little baskets on the ferris wheel, you catch that nail again and realize that it’s torn farther into the flesh of your finger, and although it’s going to hurt, you’re going to have to rip it off.  But not now – now you’re in the cathartic throes of power washing, and you scavenge your gardens and garage for more things to power wash!  More things to power wash!  You power wash the corona from the grocery store shelves.  You power wash the guns away from those terrorist/protestors in Michigan and Kentucky.  You power wash the smug right off the face of the president.  You power wash the picnic table where you and Anthony Fauci will celebrate the end of the quarantine with expensive wine and delicious cheese and crisp fig crackers and lovely little pastries you learned to make while quarantine-watching The Great British Baking Show then you and Dr. Fauci will make sweet sweet love right there on the picnic table on your back porch and your dear husband won’t even care because it’s Dr. Fauci for pete’s sake and anyway, he’s too busy watching for the groundhog to emerge from the cavern under your porch to notice the bacchanalia and then the power washer stops because you have drug it out too far from the plug.

And your finger hurts.  And you rip off the remnants of your nail. 

And you put on a band-aid and promise yourself never to let a broken fingernail go too far ever again. 

Peace.

To Bloomington on Tuesdays

There are 34 ways to get from my front door to my writing circle.

By interstate or by avoiding the interstate.

Heading west or heading east – really, they both work.

975, 50, 65, 46, 135, 58, 446 – big numbers that bring me to my favorite place for words.  Words and sentences and paragraphs and stanzas that I write and hear, that take me so much further and farther than the numbered roads I just drove in on.

Grant and Lincoln and Washington Streets, where I turn and park and land to laugh and wonder and discuss all sorts of interesting things, from parking to weather to dogs to the current president, who I am certain will never have a street in Bloomington named for him. 

Some mornings I drive over hills and twisty turny highways, across Monroe, across that causeway that scared me so when I was a high school junior, planning to come to IU to study music.  I was scared that the road would suddenly collapse as that station wagon full of high schoolers barreled over the road over the water to gawk at the dorm rooms and classrooms of our future.

Somedays I drive through campus just to watch students, some hurrying, some not, as they head to class.  I remember wanting nothing more than an oxford blouse with my initials embroidered on the pocket, and a button purse with my monogram embroidered on the outside, penny loafers and knee socks, a pile of books in my arms and a boyfriend to walk me to class. 

Somedays I drive through the IU campus and think about not going there, not getting a music degree.  I did the other stuff, even knee socks, but at my beloved university to the north, where their unofficial and slightly crass chant at the end of “Hail Purdue” is “IU sucks”.  

Tuesdays, I drive and listen to NPR, knowing just where those stretches of road are where I can’t receive either the Louisville or Bloomington stations, and then I turn down the static and think about what the writing circle that day will bring, what I will hear, what I will share, what I saw on the morning’s journey that I want to be sure and jot into my journal, what might become a longer piece of writing, what may lead me to some great enlightenment – the tailgater on 46, the lone kayak on Monroe, the trees a slightly different color than they were the week before, the buzzards finding a possum breakfast, and always bikers preparing for Little 500.  Which didn’t happen this year.

My weekly hour and a half drive isn't happening any more, either.  
I miss my friends, their enthusiastic welcomes, the brief catch ups, the quiet of the circle room, with only the tippy tap on keyboards or the scratch of pen on paper or the whispered “good morning” or the giggle at sitting on a squeaky chair to interrupt the silence until we come together to listen, share, and be filled by women's words. 
Our friends' words.  
Our friends' hearts.

How I miss it.  And even after technological disasters on my end, I am thankful for Zoom circles. 

From my spare bedroom, I’ve found one more way to get to Bloomington.

NaPoWriMo Fail

I wrote an entire one poem for National Poetry Writing Month, April 2020.  I thought I could do better than last year, when I wrote  around 10, but while some would think the pandemic/quarantine/worldwide chaos we are in would make good fodder for writing, it has literally shut me down.  I can't explain it.  This would have been the perfect time to work on my novel(s), but I've written very little - just enough to get me through my writing circle.  

That's embarrassing to admit.  

So here is my one and only sort-of poem.  Our prompt was to describe your life metaphorically along the lines of "life is like a box of chocolates."  I think.  

My Life is Sarah's Birthday Cake

The recipe is old, but good

From the 1959 edition of the Betty Crocker Cookbook, 

Found in an antique store and

Inscribed on the inside cover "to Georgie, from Mom, for her

Wedding shower, September 1982."

I've made it so many times, 

I'm comfortable with changes.  

An extra half teaspoon of vanilla,

One more egg white.

Now, I spray the 2 eight-inch pans with Baker's Joy 

Instead of rubbing them down with butter then 

Tossing around a few teaspoons of flour to coat.

Sift.  Cream. Fold.

Into the pans, into the oven.

Out of the oven, out of the pans.

Let it rest.  Let it cool.  Let it be.

For about an hour.

Then get busy.

The party is soon. 

The party is always soon. 

Beat the shit out of two sticks of butter and a block of cream cheese.

Add vanilla, sift in a half a bag of powdered sugar

And turn the mixer up too high so powdered sugar flies

Into each and every crevice of your kitchen.  

Split the layers in two, because fancy is everything.

Set the first layer on your favorite fancy cake plate,

Spread with buttercream, jam and repeat.  And repeat.  

The slather the whole cake with buttercream,  smoothing and 

Filling in holes and gaps and smoothing and filling. 

Top with a crown of raspberries.

Because fancy. 

Leave room for candles. 

White ones are best, but any combination of 

Colors, scavenged from the back of the silverware drawer

Will do 

As long as there are candles. 

Sing, clap, blow out the little flames.

Eat, laugh.

Wait a year and do it all again.