Tag Archives: Everyday Life

Dropping in from my dreams

21 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Life at Home, Writing

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Dropping in to say hello, world.  To let you know I’m well.  And that the writing goes well, too.  Most days.

There are lesser days, though, when nothing goes right, when I erase more than I write, and wonder why I think I can deliver this story.  On those days, I’m not so well. Because the well runs dry.

Have you ever wondered how authors of other centuries wrote such beautiful stories with paper and quill and ink wells?

Writing should be easier today.  Thanks to digital keystrokes.  And tools like cut and paste.  And no messy carbons.  And no need to blot.

But no. It’s not easy. No, it’s not.

Not.  Notty.  Knotty.  Now, there’s a word.  There’s so much story in my memory that, too often, it becomes KNOTTY.  I don’t know which thread to pull, first.  I pull one.  Then, put it back.  Another.  Nope.  Not than one, either.  God help me untangle the nots.

I’m learning to back away on ‘lesser’ days.  To leave the blank screen and go outside for fresh air.  What is it about a blank screen that causes words to die?  And what is about being outside in the garden that invites words to come?  Complete sentences, mind you.  One pretty line after another.  Ones I’ve never thought before.  Ones that feel so right I rush back in to preserve them.  Lest I forget.

My ghostly grandfather, who plays a prominent role in ‘my’ story, must be worried about something.  He’s been dropping into my dreams the last two weeks.   A few nights ago, he told me I needed to season the story a little.  Then, handing me what looked like an ordinary salt shaker — he told me to “just shake some of “this” on it.”  That “it” would help my stories sort themselves out.  “Just like cream rinse helps tangled hair.”

Hmmm.

It’s funny how dreams work.  I mean, really — salt shakers with secret seasoning?  But, every since Papa seasoned it…..

How I wish I knew that secret recipe so I could share it.  But here’s a dreamy thought — send me a link, and I’ll forward Papa to you through a dream.

Interrupting Regular Programing

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Far Away Places, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

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Sitting outside my borrowed balcony, I thought about life, then recorded an odd mix of thoughts — regular schedule programming stuff as well as that which tends to interrupt the norm.

Questions like — “What to buy for upcoming birthdays?” — mixed with — “What to think about my Arthur Andersen gal pals retiring?”  — led to one on the limits of photography:  “Is it possible to capture the way a particular vintage of early light washes over surfaces to soften steel rooftops, while making a far-off tree defining my horizon, turn red and aglow, each limb and leaf separate and distinct?

The camera is poor help in recording glimpses of reality.  Maybe its fully programmable nature is in part to blame.  After all, the images it takes are limited by what it’s programmed to record.  Since the sky shouldn’t be mauve, light-washed with orange, perhaps the camera filters out those glorious shades so that the sky ends up bleached of color. And while the red of the horizon tree is there, its distinctive shaped edges are lost in translation.  By the time the camera and its lens has done its best work, that glorious tree has become a mere smudge of itself.

Looking at image after failed image, I began to wonder whether the camera didn’t do its job just right.  That is, what if the image the camera actually captured, WAS the reality of things?  What if it was my eye or mind that allowed me to see a different reality, inviting me to see something more than that which was really there to record by machine?  Perhaps I looked out on that tree and saw not only its goodness and raw beauty, but as “like calls to like”, could it be that I beheld hints of hidden reality, shimmering beyond my camera’s ability to capture?

Stories of old friends, told around the table Saturday night, made me wonder similar thoughts, regarding the direction of my life.  They all have such grand plans.  And hearing them dream made me wonder whether I was living my quiet life as I should or whether there were other, more important things, I should be devoting myself toward.

One gal pal, recently retired from her high-powered tax career, is helping to plant a new Methodist church in Kentucky.  Another is making plans to travel to Africa, with hopes of helping women and communities by sharing her business expertise.  Another, just returning home, after years of living in South Florida, is looking forward to finding another job.  Not so much for the income, but for connections with the new community she is transplanting into.  She knows not what, only that there will be something with her name on it.

Can I see myself in Africa?  Or helping to plant a church?  Or entering the work force again — especially in days of a shrinking job market?  No.  Not really.

But do I dismiss too quickly?  Is it possible my own distant vision, when it comes to seeing my own abilities and potential, is as faulty as this morning’s camera lens, when focusing on the sky and that red tree?  Do I white out multicolored adventures by concluding they aren’t for me.  Could my regular scheduled programming of life keep me from focusing properly on a fuzzy horizon?

If not Africa or church-planting, then what else might be lying just beyond that horizon whispering my name?

The Last Word

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by in Life at Home

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Twenty years ago, when my youngest was four and I was thirty-something, he told me he was going to live with me forever; that way, he’d be able to drive me to the grocery store when I got old.

Of course, I always knew the time would come when he’d have new and better dreams than living with his mother.  I figured it’d happen right after college graduation — as it so often does — though, lucky for me, the big bad wolf recession ended up granting me a two-year reprieve.

Not that the extra two years together has always been a cake walk.  No, truth be told, at times, we’ve driven one another crazy rather than to the grocery store.  He’s called me snarky.  And I’ve called him a slob.  And he tells me he’s not as much a slob as some of his friends.  That, in fact, compared to his friends, he’s quite neat.  And, then I say  — with a long gaze across his bedroom, how hard THAT is to imagine —  and how, he needs to compare his housekeeping standards to those he shares life with rather than with the bigger slobs he doesn’t.

And then he says something else.  And I say something else.  Then he.  Then me.  Then he.  Until finally, I stop talking and walk away.  Not in a snarky huff, mind you.  No, being the adult, or at least the older adult, I walk away THINKING a reply, that I keep to myself.  Or sometimes share with my husband.  Because, both being writers, Kyle and I each want the last word.   And this way, we both get it.  He verbally.  Me mentally.  And we’re both happy.  Sort of.  Mostly.

Except now I’m sad.  Mostly.  Because Kyle’s moving out this weekend.  And the parting is truly ‘such sweet sorrow,’ and not just on my end, I think.

And all week-long, when it seemed as if we had a zillion things to do, my husband and I have instead been moving furniture to Kyle’s new home, twenty minutes down the road.

And all week-long, I’ve thought of how good this move will be for Kyle.  And said the same to Kyle.

And all week-long, I’ve thought about how much I’m going to miss Kyle living with us.  And said the same to Kyle.

And all week-long, I’ve thought off Kyle’s silly sweet dream of living with me forever and driving me to the grocery store when I get old.

Funny how it was Kyle, not me, who brought that old dream up.  It happened last night, I think.  About the time he mentioned that he’d miss living here with his father and me.

To which all I could do was nod.  Because there was nothing else to say. Then.

And now.  Maybe just this:  Kyle has always been sweet and always had a way with words, too, so that they’d stick, if not to memory, then at least to my heart.

Last night was no exception.