Memoirous

  I want to write something here about a tree. A tree outside my window. That all winter I hardly noticed was there. It’s huge. Denuded it was bleak, skinny, dowdy, shaking in the wind. When suddenly it leafed out. At the same time it got hot and my west-facing window Absorbed intense sun—except Now the tree, I never noticed, shades My room, keeping it cool. Perfect! This tree, which, was a wallflower, a nobody Is now a somebody, a testament to faithfulness Right outside my window

 Sooooo what’s it like having Covid? If this were 2019 I’d say it was an inconvenient head cold and be back to work in 3 or 4 days, but because it is Covid I’ve had to be off work and isolated for 10 days. The Great Interrupter: I had to cancel plans for a bike trip. At the front end of my quarantine was a 3-day trip I’d planned and negotiated a day off from work. I had train tickets and a hotel booked, all for naught. Then at the end of quarantine I cancelled friends coming from Chicago to visit. I just didn’t want to have to deal with the possibility that they could get sick. All of this has been stressful—more impacting my psyche than physical. More than ever it has again reminded me of the Lockdown, when in spring 2020 we were told to shelter in place. Where I felt I was living a parallel existence. As I’ve been in isolation is seems as if spring has finally arrived. The weather got hot, then cooled off. There was a storm. The trees flowered and ripened and have begun to ...

 Not sure how or when--but I finally caught Covid. Nearly two years after the virus first hit the US I got it.  And, yes, the Great Interrupter lay waste to all my weekend plans. All the glorious weather after months and months of wet and cold--and now I';m inside, resting, drinking lots and lots, and hoping . . . It will soon all be over. Not likely.

I was invited to Michigan’s Night for Notables at the main Capital Library—a wonder on its own. My friend Lisa Sukenic was being awarded for her Middle Grade novel in verse Miles from Motown. SEE my review here:  http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2021/10/miles-from-motown-book-review.html It was a gala affair—but MOST NOTABLE was the fact that I haven’t been in a roomful of people in about 2 years! I actually took a video on my phone while in the auditorium waiting for the “event” to start. The whole thing was an EVENT. For some reason, though it wasn’t mandated, I wore a mask. I hate wearing them, not sure how I ever was able to keep one on for like forever a while back. After the awards part of the evening we ambled over to an area for a great catered reception where we stood at bar tables and ate—unmasked. All of these details are leading up to the alert I received a day or two later that people I was with tested posted for Covid. I immediately felt sick. The appropria...

Derby Day was always a big day in my family. My dad would put all the horse's names in a hat and have us kids pull out a name or two and we would root for that horse.. It made us pay attention when the gates opened and gave a backstory to that particular horse. My dad was from Bluegrass country where the number of thoroughbreds are raised. This year’s winner included was a hometown hero. Sort of. The owner and the trainer were from just down the road which isn’t always the case. Also different this year was the fact that the winner was an 80 – 1 longshot. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the race. This is a story of endurance, not giving up, of being at the right place at the right time—as the videos prove. But first, how Rich Strike got into the Derby. On Friday before the deadline for any more additions a horse was scratched which allowed Rich Strike into the race: in the 20th post position, the farthest on the outside. Rich Strike was given an 80 - 1 chance of winning. R...

Began with warmer temperatures. I wasn’t the only one waiting for this to happen. There were days early in calendar spring when I wondered when it would actually feel like spring. This weekend at the bike shop proved that I wasn’t the only one—we were packed out. People suddenly needing bike repairs bringing in their steeds left out to pasture. Or needing to buy a bike because their old one was beyond repair. Suffice it to say I was happy for a day off. My daughter is also in a busy seasonal business. She is a design florist at one of the biggest flower shops in East Lansing. Mother’s Day and Prom caused a surge in orders. Friday and Saturday she probably worked a total of 22 hours trying to get bouquets done. We started the day with a brunch, then gardening and a bike ride, ending with a brat grill out. Nice family time. Jack discovered the joy of throwing sticks into water and we eventually had to distract him from Lake Lansing as he decided he wanted to climb in. Still too c...

In My post Baby Games http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/2022/05/baby-games.html I realized later after writing about playing with my grandson—how much this approach is similar to my writing process. 1)       Starting with a kind of structure or form, such as standard hide n’ seek 2)       A plot twist, baby changes games by putting on a hat 3)       Story spins off into make believe, pretends to hide in plain sight In fact upon rereading some notes I’d made a couple years ago about activist/artist nun Corita Kent I happened upon this: Learning By Heart. “Try looking the way the child looks—as if always for the first time—and you will, I promise, feel wider awake.” In her book Learning by Heart: teachings to free the creative spirit, was published in 1992, six years after her death. The first chapter is devoted—simply but significantly—to “LOOKING.” She starts by conjuring the lofty ghost of her f...

  I’ve learned a new word: vernal ponds. Here in Michigan in the spring I ride my bike past snow-laden fields that slowly give themselves over to marshes. In the woods the trees are submerged into run-off pools. From Wikipedia: Vernal pools, also called vernal ponds or ephemeral pools, are seasonal pools of water that provide habitat for distinctive plants and animals. They are considered to be a distinctive type of wetland usually devoid of fish, and thus allow the safe development of natal amphibian and insect species unable to withstand competition or predation by fish. Certain tropical fish lineages (such as killifishes) have however adapted to this habitat specifically. This description almost makes them sound magical—ephemeral, but they are temporary and are slowly, even now, fading. Everyday there is more field than pond. And, on the really nice days I can hear the boisterous bull frogs, the chirpy peepers, and all the other members of the vernal pond orchestra camoufl...

 I play the stupidest nonsensical games with my grandson, but these games in themselves show that he is meeting cognitive milestones. He’s a genius, y’all! One of these games—and by game I mean this loosely as the rules constantly change. Sometimes there are no rules—it’s all a game. He runs behind the couch that sits in the middle of the room and I creep up on him saying stuff like I’m gonna get you or Where’s Jack? He’ll stand next to the back of the couch with his face into the upholstered back and because he has his face hidden or eyes closed it means he’s invisible. Thus, when I grab and tickle him he’s all amazed and cracking up. He can’t stop giggling and we do it over and over. The “game” quickly morphs into him putting on a hat or curling up into a little ball on the floor or he will suddenly turn and chase after me. I have to be ready for these pivots. Everything is a game.