Memoirous

So, 600 miles later here I am on Deer Isle where tomorrow I'll take the mailboat to Great Spruce Head Island to start my one-week residency. #artweek I started 17 days ago flying into Halifax with my bike and ended my bike trip yesterday. A trip diary can be found here: https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1mr&doc_id=19472&v=2t There may or may not be blogging. Electricity is solar and I might not be able to charge batteries. I will certainly be writing. So check back for updates.

Here is an excerpt from my bike diary at Crazy Guy on a bike, pics to come https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=1mr&doc_id=19472&v=2t When I left last year for my UK JOGLE I'd hesitantly written about the violence in my neighborhood. Not just Chicago, but in front of my house, the building where I live. I'd also written about how much the election and candidate Trump bothered me. Never once did I think it would get worse. Now a little over 6 months later the stress is intense. At my blog Memiorouswrite.blogspot.com I've talked about how Trump has triggered emotions that go way beyond politics. His policies hurt the poor, people I serve. The next few years will be ones that will deeply impact my neighborhood and the shelter. At the shelter a few years ago we were able to house and help a mom and her daughter. We ran a story in our newsletter about Misty.  http://www.ccolife.org/i-dont-have-to-run-anymore-mistys-story/ Checking into the motel this afterno...

CLICK HERE TO ORDER We begin with a sudden memory, follow it to see where it leads. Yet so many of us tend to ignore these flashes. We think later yet later on we might have forgotten or lost the relevance of the moment, the urgency that led us there. I recommend a process I call write right now. In the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth, you can jot down the memory and an outline which can be filled in later. The prompts in this book are designed to spur memories, to get you writing. I’ll also direct you to resources, authors to read and study, and places to submit.  Amazon Apple Baker & Taylor Blio Baker-Taylor Axis360 Barnes & Noble Diesel Flipkart Gardners Extended Retail Gardners Library Inktera (formerly Page Foundry) Kobo Library Direct Odilo OverDrive Oyster Scribd Sony Tolino txtr Yuzu

click here to order from Amazon We begin with a sudden memory, follow it to see where it leads. Yet so many of us tend to ignore these flashes. We think later yet later on we might have forgotten or lost the relevance of the moment, the urgency that led us there. I recommend a process I call write right now. In the amount of time it takes you to brush your teeth, you can jot down the memory and an outline which can be filled in later. The prompts in this book are designed to spur memories, to get you writing. I’ll also direct you to resources, authors to read and study, and places to submit.  Amazon Apple Baker & Taylor Blio Baker-Taylor Axis360 Barnes & Noble Diesel Flipkart Gardners Extended Retail Gardners Library Inktera (formerly Page Foundry) Kobo Library Direct Odilo OverDrive Oyster Scribd ...

Route (maybe) Wednesday, June 14 15:08 (3:08 pm) Halifax  Thursday, June 15 Halifax Via Lighthouse Trail Via Peggy’s Cove Friday, June 16 Graves Island ) via Chester Connection Trail Saturday, June 17 Ovens Natural Park Via Lunenburg Via Blue Rocks Via Mason Beach Sunday, June 18 Ovens Natural Park to Port Mouton Hostel Includes a ferry (53.6 miles) via NS-331 and Lighthouse Rte Monday, June 19 Port Mouton Hostel to Cape Sable Island (59.2 miles) via NS-103 W and Nova Scotia Trunk 3 W lunch Shelburne Tuesday, June 20 Cape Sable Island to Yarmouth via Shelburne County Rail Trail and Yarmouth County Rail Trail Wednesday, June 21 Yarmouth to Digby via Evangeline Trail/Nova Scotia Trunk 1 E and NS-101 E Thursday, June 22 Digby to St. Johns, NB to New River Provincial 11 a.m. ferry 30 miles Friday, June 23 Extra day New River Provincial Exploring Bay of Fundy Saturday, June 24 New River Provincial Park to  St. Brendan's Retreat Center, Dennysville, ME Mon...

Does anyone remember The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson a young, zealous pastor who ventured into the inner-city to confront and evangelize New York City gangs? Pat Boone starred in the film adaptation. The book and movie were highly dramatized to heighten the tension(s). That was 50 years ago. Fast forward. Uptown. Chicago. 2017. A couple times a week we have a shooting at the corner of Sheridan and Wilson, between Uptown Baptist Church and McDonalds. I’m always hyper aware as I approach that intersection to be on the lookout. 1) Is there a bunch of people hanging? 2) Are there any cars driving by real slow with their window down? 3) If there’s been a shooting recently at one end of the street there’s usually payback at the other end. This is a lot of to keep in mind while out doing errands. I’ve heard different explanations of why this corner is so deadly. One is, of course, drugs. It is disputed territory. Two rival gangs claim it as theirs for vending. T...

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WH officials are trying to explain the Paris Climate Agreement pull-out by saying that Trump promises a fresh approach. My guess his approach will be from a perspective of paranoia. ( Link to transcript of announcement .) What’s with that statement: The world won’t laugh at us anymore? He said: “The United States, under the Trump administration, will continue to be the cleanest and most environmentally friendly country on Earth.  We'll be the cleanest.  We're going to have the cleanest air.  We're going to have the cleanest water.” As someone who appreciates fresh approaches, I have tried to keep an open mind. Albeit, in his announcement there is nothing concrete, not even a particle of policy or plan.  His approach is isolationist, entrenched, submerged in paranoia. A visionary is one who looks beyond the current situation and envisions a new world based upon—wait, this is important—what’s best for EVERYONE. A new approach inspires innovation. What ...

Memories have been stirred by the song Carissa by Sun Kil Moon or Mark Kozelek . Mention the state Ohio and today one might be greeted by several responses. Rust-belt. Went for Trump big time. Ground zero for pill mills. Overdose country. Craigslist serial killers. (That last one is not made up.) It has become a place of desperation, where residents felt left behind, misunderstood. Also the pill mills. They were rip[e and ready to be taken advantage of by shyster doctors and lawyers, using them for SSI money. Many have been left behind by an economy not built on manufacturing or mining. The population of the small towns has been decimated—the overdoeses don’t help. But that isn’t the Ohio I remember. Because many of my memories are colored by bike riding ( see even back then I rode way too many miles. Often too far to get home. More than once I had to call my dad from a pay phone to come get me because I was too tired or it was too dark for me to get home.) I remember...

Carissa Autobiographical songs, Ohio Sun Kil Moon or Mark Kozelek Left Ohio. Carissa was his second cousin, killed in a freak accident. Burned to death. Just like their grandfather. What are the chances? he asks in this highly autobiographical song full of melancholy and wondering, loss and unending questions. The landscape of rust-belt Ohio, devastated by prescription drugs, black-tar heroin, unemployment when the manufacturing jobs left, when the mines closed. I might have been drawn to this song because it deals with memoir, or because of the Ohio connection (I hail from there) or because of the voice. Nothing spectacular, the whole song is somewhat flat and not exactly full of emotion, but it evokes. It tells a story that demands our attention, because we all know someone like Carissa, someone deserving of a little poetry in their life, who vanish way too suddenly from this earth. He also brings us back to family, all those needling connections that we sometimes ...

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TRUMPED So there was that—the time America participated in global diplomacy. I know I do a lot of railing on Trump at this blog which is supposed to be about memories and writing flash memoir. This might be because Trump triggers stuff inside of me, stuff I thought I’d taken care of, a past I’d squished down and hidden away in a drawer. For anyone who has lived with a mentally ill parent and survived all the uncertainty that comes with that experience might know what I mean. You have no control; you are at the whim of a capricious mother who might suddenly change her mind and throw your life into a whirlwind. In fact you learn not to trust. You build up walls in order to cope. Pretend you really didn’t want to go to camp anyway. Or you didn’t need the car after all. You can’t count on the adults around you. But a president— I guess I thought there were certain jobs where the person had to be in charge, knowledgeable, capable. Not crazy or perfidious. Machiavellian,...

Tim Tintera’s Thesaurus I don’t know when I decided I was going to be a writer. Certainly I was a big reader, always had been and admired many writers, especially Louisa May Alcott. I wanted to be Jo. But that didn’t necessarily translate into being a writer. There must have come a time when it became obvious that it wasn’t a phase. The Jane who wrote poetry and fastidiously kept a journal was going to write her own stories. But first I had to steal Tim Tintera’s thesaurus. What a word! What was this odd kind of book. It was about numbers and words. It was half science and half English. With a smidgen of Latin—at least when it came to the arcane classifications. Yet a thesaurus made sense of the crazy universe. I was maybe a 6 th grader and Tim Tintera was a lot older. Likely an 8 th grader. I played after school with his sister. I might have thought he was cute, when he wasn’t being annoying and a bully. He mostly ignored us. Which was good because when I snuck into his...

Small Poems The work of Nayyirah Waheed Discovered on Instagram, Nayyirah Waheed has made a career of writing short, minimalist poems.   “there/ are/ feelings. / you haven’t felt yet./ give them time./ they are almost here.” "I will tell you, my daughter / of your worth / not your beauty / everyday (your beauty is a given. every being is born beautiful) / knowing your worth/ can save your life." “all the black women. in me. are tired” At first they might appear as a small stack of words, a scattering of ask after a fire. Though small they are mighty, weighty, have relevance. “sometimes the night wakes in/ the middle of me./ and/ I can do nothing/ but/ become/the/ moon. I first read about Nayyirah Waheed HERE . Check her iout and her self-published volume, salt . And, why not, try to compose a very short poem . . .

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