Memoirous

Souvenirs. Postcards. Today these words almost seem quaint. My husband and I once when traveling told our host in Slovenia that we would send him a postcard from our next destination. He seemed puzzled. You mean like an auntie or my grandmother? I guess it did seem rather old-fashioned—especially since we could easily send an email or upload a picture from our phone. Or any number of things. And easier too. Our next destination was Montenegro then Albania. How does one even ask for a stamp in Albanian? How reliable is postal service? Postcards in the US have been known to take decades. Mail sent from the front during World War II is still getting delivered . I LOVE postcards. I buy them and send them and appreciate getting them in the mail. I save them and tape them to the walls of my office or upon the door to the room we have reserved for couchsurfers . Going through my parents old photos I stumbled upon old postcards. It seems postcard writing runs in the ...

  The word souvenir is French for remember. While traveling I like to pick up little things: a pebble, a pinecone, a seashell to bring home. I have a small shelf where I keep these momentos. I also buy things to bring to friends to let them know I was thinking of them while gone. That even though I was having a great time, they were never far from my thoughts. Souvenir is from the Latin subvenire ‘occur to the mind.’ Memories are souvenirs of the mind. Keep and cherish them. Place them on the shelf of a journal or diary so that later you can revisit them. It is on snowy days such as these that I gaze upon my cheapy Walgreen snow globe I bought in Key West—a margarita floating in a sea of glitter—and relish those warm tropical days of birds chattering in the top of palm trees and warm gulf waters washing the shores.

In The Double Life of Liliane , ( see my past post ) Lily Tuck weaves anecdotes, hearsay, reminisces, family myth, to create a double entendre of a novel/memoir. Fictional autobiography. Always the queen of the last line—something that suddenly sets the paragraph or heretofore off-kilter, Tuck has woven a tapestry of fiction and nonfiction. Told in vignettes—a way of remembering and re-telling—memories domino one after another until a house of cards has collapsed. Greater than one story, one life, we are the sum of many stories, many lives. Succinctly told (again her style)—less than 250 pages—the novel is epic, but not overwrought. Tuck refuses to comment, expand, expound, or pass judgment upon her characters. They are who they are. I wonder about this author, about the hand of God, and who decides fate. There are many sudden twists that no one, much less the reader, has no control over. They story centers upon Liliane a young girl, the offspring of survivors, a glob...

I’ve been going through old photographs, in preparation to send them to a digital scanning service. Finally all those old scallop-edged photos from my parents, from the 1950s, early 60s will be on a memory stick so that I can share them with my cousins, brothers and sisters. I was extremely hesitant when sending them off. What if they get lost in the mail? What if the company I decide to use are reckless? You can insure mail, but you cannot replace these old photos. Organizing by size, etc, the photos became like a flipbook of the past. A past not even always shared. Some of the photos I have no idea who is in them. Where were they taken? I only know they are important, and, perhaps, an older cousin will recognize something and we can build on that shared information. How many times has an old photo opened up doors you never even knew about? Often I wonder: What happens to all those digital pics we take on our cell phones? With SnapChat they will simply disappear, but what...

I’m not sure what brought up the topic, but during a conversation I mentioned The Horse Fair by Rosa Bonheur. Perhaps it was a discussion of art by women or masculine subjects tackled by women artists or masterpieces at the Metropolitan Art Museum. Little did I realize I’d stumbled upon a unique touchpoint. We were virtual strangers, having just met, so it was a huge coincidence that a single artwork connected us. It was Christmas 2002 about a year after the Towers fell and New York City was still jittery. Nevertheless, Rockefeller Plaza was all lit up and the sidewalks were packed with tourists and holiday shoppers. My daughter was probably thirteen at the time. I’m sure the last thing she wanted to do was hang out with her parents, or visit a museum. But it had been my dream to see the Met. All sorts of promises were made and incentives offered, yet after an hour both my husband and daughter were done looking at pictures. I, on the other hand, was just getting started. We fi...

I need to crowd-source my readers and generate more reviews for my books at sites such as Amazon, Goodreads, etc. The number of reviews greatly affects sales and my overall rating. If this is something you’d like to do to help me out, I will return the favor and review your books. You may contact me via this blog. If you are a reviewer who would like a PDF copy, please let me know.

This week I’ve updated my post about True Love and written about How I Met My Husband . It is fitting as this weekend we celebrate St. Valentine’s Day. For Hot Flash Friday let’s take a minute to meditate on true love. Stumped? There have been endless love songs and poems written about true love and yet we’re still as lost as ever. Who can know the ways of the heart? All we know for certain is when it hurts. Heartbroken, downhearted, disheartened. Are you from the heartland, that place of memory that holds the secret to part of the pain and the joys that make you YOU. Some say that memory resides within the heart. Memory like love creeps up on us, surprises us. We are overwhelmed. Some of us have left love behind only to discover it looping back around, to encompass us. The saddest word in the English language is lonely. The very word stirs us—when we least suspect it. In our lonliness looking for love. Touch, A hug. To connect. An invitation for coffee, a movi...

A while back I posted True Love and True Love Will Go On . It has now been a year since Don Hill passed (February 13 th ). This time last year I was finishing up my bike ride in Florida, Jacksonville – Key West. I had Don in my thoughts as I rode. I had health, I was fit, I had the gumption to ride over 550 miles. I was hyper-aware of my own mortality and how it is a fleeting thing. I loved being alive to the sun, the flower, the palm trees, the slate blue ocean. I wished Don could have seen it. Still missing you.

The homeless shelter I help support, Cornerstone Community Outreach , has started a physical store called the Rummage Room with an on-line presence. Go to Facebook and LIKE to see their specials. I remember when I first came to Chicago and volunteered with this group. I was put in charge of the Freestore. Times have certainly changed. My husband reminded me Sunday that when the Freestore started it was a time still emerging from the groovy 60s—where a lot of stuff was supposed to be free. There still is: the shelter offers free hot meals and a weekly food pantry. Just drop in, no need to “qualifiy.” And, of course, all that free stuff from the 60s such as free love came at a price. It’s just at the time no one wanted to count the cost. CCO has been helping people since 1989 and over the years funding for the homeless has been getting less and less. Illinois and Chicago in particular are in a budget crisis that doesn’t seem at all near to being resolved. So the shelt...

Hot Flash Friday is my attempt to get my many readers (both of you) writing. A flash can be anything from a 50-word story up to 1,000 words. The important thing is: getting started. That’s what prompts are for. There are times when all we need is one-word to get the juices flowing. But there is another way to let go and enter in—ever hear the phrase: a face that launched a thousand ships or a picture is worth a thousand words ? I sit and meditate. What is this feeling that I’m feeling, what is it I’m after, where is it? Abstracts. But have you ever googled these same questions. In that tiny space, that is actually infinite, I’ve typed in stuff such as I thought I saw you through the rain or the happiness that is just beyond me just to see what pops up in images. It’s interesting what Google gives you. Sometimes it allows me to see more concretely the intangible or a possibility. The very idea that my device can sense my needs, is somewhat disturbing and at the sa...

--#febflash Starts Today! Mom Egg Review and Half-Shell Press are sponsoring a Flash Fiction (and creative prose or prose poems) Challenge for the month of February.  Just write a short short story (1-250 words) every day for the month of Feb. Three ways to participate: Join our private group on  Facebook  to receive prompts and post your tips, challenges, and short work.   https://www.facebook.com/ groups/febflash Twitter --Tweet with  #febflash and tag us @themomegg.   Allergic to social media?  Visit our MER website #febflash page to see daily tips and prompts, from established fiction writers and editors--Lore Segal, Rick Moody, Tara Masih, and more to come, here:  http://bit.ly/20BtZMX It's a great way to keep those words flowing!  Please share the links with your writer friends. Facebook Group  https://www.facebook. com/groups/febflash #febflash on MER website  http://bit.ly/20BtZMX

When I traveled to Sweden the fall of 2014 and met up with an old friend (we’re both pretty young!) she asked at the time if I might help out on some future projects she was working on. Lotta is a journalist who has also been recruited for writing for the web—just like most of us. Her English is excellent but to actually translate something out of Swedish into English, an English that sounds native, well, she needed a native English speaker. Thus, I somehow got involved with an English translation of this book. Min stad or My Town. I wish I could take credit for such a beautiful book, but I actually had no idea what I was getting into. I thought the end product was going to be a promotional pamphlet stacked up on a tourist counter in Tranås , Sweden. Instead it is a gorgeous coffee table book with over 300 pages of photographs and text. I’m proud to have been part of this project. Though after looking through it I have begun to see numerous mistakes. I didn’t have the...