Memoirous

The plants against the light which shines in (it's four o'clock) right on my chair: I'm in my chair: are silhouettes, barely green, growing black as my eyes move right, right to where the sun is. I am blinded by a fiery circle: I can't see what I write. A man comes down iron stairs (I don't look up) and picks up brushes which, against a sonata of Scriabin's, rattle like wind in a bamboo clump. A wooden sound, and purposeful footsteps softened by a drop-cloth-covered floor. To be encubed in flaming splendor, one foot on a Chinese rug, while the mad emotive music tears at my heart. Rip it open: I want to cleanse it in an icy wind. And what kind of tripe is that? Still, last night I did wish— no, that's my business and I don't wish it now. "Your poems," a clunkhead said, "have grown more open." I don't want to be open, merely to say, to see and say, things as they are. That at my elbow there is a wicker t...

Please ask James Cappelman, alderman of the 46 th ward of Chicago—WHY are you shutting down a program for elderly, disabled homeless men right now, in the middle of winter, at Christmas? And if his office says they are not shutting it down but that the men can use REST, then ask the alderman WHERE will the elderly, disabled homeless men go during the day when they must leave the building? And HOW the men with Stage 4 cancer and using walkers and canes will be able to do all this transitioning? Ask James Cappelman: WHY are you shutting down an existing program that is already funded and in place and working well at CCO? Email: info@james46.org Tel: 773-878-4646 Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago supports Cornerstone Community Outreach and loves our programs!

The more I live, a little over 50 years, the more I am boondoogled, dismayed, broken and built up, discouraged to the point of wishing I’d never been born, left decrying America land of the free, suffused with gratitude, speechless at the kindness of strangers, the common heart that beats within all of us, the evil that resides in all of us, the sense that it is gonna take years for things to change, and wishing that things would stay the same, all the time and forever. This year I have seen death, not just death but disappointment, people I thought I could trust turn against me, claim they never knew me—and people who never knew me give of themselves in abundance, the least of these, without any means, turn around and love me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know who you are, all of the above. And, especially Aunt Jean, whose benevolence to us all was exhibited in her stories and kind deeds. Jean Merrill, author of The Pushcart War  Her books em...

This is the AR-15 rifle also referred to as the .223 rifle, a civilian version of the U.S. military's standard-issue M-16, as intended "for law enforcement, security and private consumer use." The Bushmaster .223 comes with a 30-round magazine, enabling the shooter to fire all 30 rounds, one for each pull of the trigger, in a minute or less. John Allen Muhammad, the D.C. sniper, and his youthful accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, used a Bushmaster .223 in nine of 10 sniper-style murders that terrorized the Washington area in 2002. Many AR-15s have ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartel pistoleros, including the Bushmaster .223 that was later used to kill four police officers and three secretaries in Acapulco. Since the federal law banning assault weapons expired in 2004, the weapons are sold legally but the purchasers must sign a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives document saying they are buying the guns for themselves. The NRA decri...

It was one year ago December 11th that Dad passed away. Just wanted to re-post my eulogy for him. Still coming to grips (gripes?) with his death and the aftermath. We weren't a tight-knit, cozy family and now there is very little that draws us together. Dad--you are missed. http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2011/12/harold-caywood-feeback-1925-2011.html

This is from Jeremy Nichols @ Setting Prisoners Free George: Homeless and Fragile... My co-worker introduced George to me.... He looked like an fragile old white man; he was scruffy, pale and scrawny, he had a dazed and glazed look in his eyes and when he spoke, we struggled to find any rationality or logic in his words. George seemed to be unsure who he was, where he was and what he was doing. And then there was something that made this whole situation worse; this fragile old man, who could barely stand up, was homeless! Yes, homeless! Homeless in the dead of winter! Homeless and struggling to survive. Homeless and lacking any sense of direction. Homeless and sick. Homeless and alone. Homeless and fragile! As with a number of our participants, George carried a paper bag, (protected by a plastic bag), full of his myriad of medications. He had a host of medical issues that were triggered by a failing liver, kidney problems and sarcoidosis, causing this poor fragile...

It’s that time of year—when people decry the war on Christmas. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing another war, a silent war—on the elderly. This is not exactly a marginal population, but rather a sizeable chunk of America. Actually world-wide demographics are shifting as young people are delaying marriage, children, often times full-time employment. The recession/depression probably has a lot to do with this. But the Baby Boomers were always going to get older, always going to suck the life out of Medicare and Social Security. Between the shelter (CCO) and a retirement community where I write up resident’s life stories (Friendly Towers), I know quite a few seniors on fixed incomes. There really isn’t a lot of extra. This month both of these programs have been impacted by a war on the elderly. At CCO the director has been very deliberate about going out to the parks, the loading docks of abandoned warehouses, searching under the city’s viaducts for people sleeping rough, out in t...

Il va neiger dans quelques jours FRANCIS JAMMES The giant Norway spruce from Podunk, its lower branches bound, this morning was reared into place at Rockefeller Center. I thought I saw a cold blue dusty light sough in its boughs the way other years the wind thrashing at the giant ornaments recalled other years and Christmas trees more homey. Each December! I always think I hate “the over-commercialized event” and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank shops and how can I help falling in love? A calm secret exultation of the spirit that tastes like Sealtest eggnog, made from milk solids, Vanillin, artificial rum flavoring; a milky impulse to kiss and be friends It’s like what George and I were talking about, the East West Coast divide: Californians need to do a thing to enjoy it. A smile in the street may be loads! you...

Here is a timely word (see my last post) from my office mate Tammy Perlmutter with her poem introducing  this Advent season--and HOPE "A Hope That Doesn't Disappoint" By Tammy Perlmutter

Well folks a few weeks back in an expression of exuberance I wrote that No News is Good News. I wasn’t at liberty to reveal I’d been sent a pub contract. I heard what every author longs to hear: I love this! With the state of publishing in flux and the Big 6 dwindling down to the Big 5 and Amazon gobbling up a chunk of the bookselling market and e-books at the point of outselling physical books (waiting for the most recent stats on this), I, the writer, the maker of “content”, am even lower on the literary food chain than ever. The writer above all is analog. Soon to be irrelevant. Akin to an antique. Then on Thanksgiving weekend I received an e-mail informing me that the publisher was pulling the contract. I know I’m not the first person this has happened to. I know of many writers who have even gone through revisions with editors only to be told their book project has been decommissioned, dropped from the list. Or, I’ve known writers who have gotten through r...

Even though I haven't had a foil-wrapped Ding-Dongs in years , I am still feeling nostalgic. I remember as a kid taking a slice of Wonder bread, trimming the crust off like a lawn mower with my teeth, rolling the slab of white, crustless bread into a ball and then eating it. One time I ate half a loaf using this method. We lose another chapter from our life story.

On vacation (a couple of weeks ago, just now getting my land legs) I probably took in 7 or 8 museums a day. Literally. This is easy to do in New York City and Washington DC. There might be one or two we missed. Maybe. So in my crazy circuit of museum hopping (it’s all a blur) we were in the Hirshhorn Museum—one of the Smithsonians—and stumbled into an exhibit on famous Chinese artist and activist Weiwei “According to What?” Exactly—according to what? There was a sandbox of sunflower seeds, or an installation consisting of a conflagration of sand crabs, like scarabs, flamingo pink and shrimp gray, massed up in a small gallery room. It was the kind of art that makes one question: What is art?  It provokes the response—I could do that or what makes Weiwei so great. But, as one turns corners in the gallery, you keep running into things that boggle the mind, until even your own perspective is skewed. His box sculptures are out of the box. His world view is outside ...

Last week I was walking through the park; the ground was thick with fallen leaves. Seems the series of recent storms have stripped the trees of all their leaves. I think that particular day the sky was lead gray and the afternoon had already slipped into twilight. A mist was falling gently around me. Even though I am only 8 miles from the loop the ever-looming skyscrapers were lost in the low clouds. I felt totally alone. Just me in the park and the soft thump of my feet plowing through piles of soggy leaves. I remembered a conversation I’d had on the plane coming home from vacation. I sat next to a Chinese gentleman. We had in common daughters in college. He saw I had a book out on my tray-table and our conversation turned to reading. He said this time of year always reminded him of an O’Henry short story: The Last Leaf. I’m not sure I’ve ever met another human being who has referenced that story besides me. It is the story of two friends, both artists, try...

Friends, Family, Fellow Bloggers, Reviewers     Flash Fiction (Kentucky Flash) will be available free by download on Amazon this weekend, November 10 and 11 . Click here! * FREE d ownload for Kindle users In addition I have a PDF or epub for you to download if interested in publicizing the release (or my story!!)   The story is called “The Arrowhead” and is an excerpt from my YA manuscript of a forthcoming book, CLOUD OF WITNESSES—more news on this later.   Thanks so much—hope to hear from some of you. Always interested in feedback here at Memoirous.  

Let the party begin. With all 50 states reporting--I can now confirm it is time for me to celebrate my birthday.* YAY! *Paid for by people who appreciate kittens playing pianos and muskrats in birthday hats. ALSO stay tuned for more publishing news SOON.

Yesss!!! Hold on for upcoming announcement. Until then . . . . I’m in  this  And a new story appears here   Now, late at night sometimes, when I’m lonely and afraid to sleep, I find myself thinking of St. Basil, resting there in the dark. link to story Also last night it was A Gift of the Magi—I decided to surprise my husband and went to the airport to meet his plane. I waited at the wrong arrival gate for 2 hours. I got home to find him waiting for me. Just like a turn of the century couple—the last century, not this one—we both have no cell phones. I flew into his arms.

You have no idea what to do. He was the only person you could ever talk to. Your sister plays high school varsity basketball and attends Bible study: two things you know nothing about. He was the only person who didn’t treat you like a kid. Your other brother flicks you on top of the head with his hard fingernail and makes jokes about niggers and watermelons—which you don’t get, not because you’re naïve about racism, but because you don’t find his jokes very funny. He was the only person who ever listened to you. To get Dad’s attention you’d have to turn off the TV. He was the only person who ever understood you. Mom gets a confused look on her face when you mention you’d like to be a writer. And now he’s leaving. Remember that time you walked together in the woods and you told him you were thinking about getting an M.I.A. bracelet and he said it was just a ploy to legitimize the Vietnam War. You never sent away for one. Don’t go, you begged...

This coming weekend in Chicago is an architectural event entitled Open House where the public is invited to travel to view architectural treasures scatter throughout different neighborhoods. The building I live in is part of Uptown and one of the options to visit. http://www.openhousechicago.org/site/184/ Some background here. We got the former Chelsea Hotel out of receivership with the promise we’d continue to house senior citizens. So we got a ten-story building that needed a lot of help and a new program, Friendly Towers. For the past almost 20 years we have worked endlessly to refurbish and renovate the building. Our latest effort was the lobby/foyer. When one walks in they are greeted with over thirty panes of original stain glass back lit from above. The ceiling decorations have all been replastered (if needed) and repainted. I can truthfully say lovingly restored. If in the area, please come Oct. 13 & 14 th —and, as always, the coffee shop is OPEN . Last nig...

I was sharing just this morning with one of our residents at Friendly Towers about memoir. She read my contribution to a themed anthology on memoir ROLL , my essay “Sense of Smell.” This was a flash memoir that arose organically out of lilacs growing at a corner by the hospital on the way to the park—and then spiraled into 2 or 3 other memories. The resident commented that the piece she read seemed to have spiritual implications. How to respond? Not to get too abstract, I said that most memories stem perhaps from a physical jog (in the case of my essay I was literally jogging) ie a tangible reminder sparks the memory. But that most memories are seated in the heart. Consider the word “reminisce.” Yes, it means looking back, but it also implies nostalgia or longing. More than simple recall, certain aspects of remembering involve the emotional child, the hurt little girl, the angst-ridden teenager. I can remember exactly where I was when I was packed and ready to go to ca...

I'm pleased to announce I'll have an essay in Black Mountain Institute's journal ABOUT PLACE--the Peaks and Valley issue. From their website: "Black Earth Institute supports the artist as prophet and visionary who helps create a society attuned to earth’s rhythms and to the rights of all people." Yup, that's me. Actually in my piece "Ostrog Monastery" my husband and I take a crazy excursion from our hostel in Montenegro (formerly Yugoslavia, formerly the Balkans) up into the mountainous inner spine of that small nation in search of . . .  read the essay. Out soon. I'll post. Until then Grace Hertenstein has 2 new stories OUT NOW. You can  DOWNLOAD IT FOR FREE Her piece is called Foxcrow Hill and is best described as Americana. In the story a young man goes traveling, train hopping, hoping to forget a childhood friend that he might be a little bit in love with. Here is a description of Wayfarer from their website: The Wayfarer is releas...

“Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both.” ― Christian Wiman I’ve written here at my blog numerous times about funding for the arts. Endowments for the humanities. In other words: a handout. A piece on NPR this a.m. caught my attention—so many musicians are gaining an audience because of Spotify, YouTube, and other mediums made possible through the Internet. Yet the Internet is killing them. With downloading and digital sharing royalties are siphoned or greatly diminished. It’s the same for publishing. Without the Internet I wouldn’t have had 30 stories published. If I had to rely on print journals alone maybe I’d have 2 stories out there. But with the advent of hand-held digital devices, more and more people are reading from the screen—thus flash is growing in popularity. It is a f...

I just had new work published in the latest issue of Ruminate . Included in this issue is Shann Ray whose new short story collection American Masculine is part Job and part Psalms. He has an incredible way of writing description that marries the reader to the landscape--even an alien one made up of Montana, Spokane, and unnamed tribal lands. I recently read an article about him in Poets & Writers Magazine about his MFA process. Gregory Spatz, who teaches in the MFA program at Eastern Washington University, makes a case for why creative writing can be taught, holding up Shann Ray as a shining example.       Apparently Ray was a hard read in draft form. I think I know a little bit about this--aka "I can relate." There are many times when you know where you want to go--it's the getting there that's the actual process of writing. People tell me--that would make a great story--yet they have no idea what makes a great story. An anecdote is not a great story....