Memoirous

In preparation for the upcoming Festival of Faith and Writing at Calvin University April 11-13, I’ve been a mad woman putting books on hold at the library and checking titles off my Reading List. There are far tooooo many workshop leaders to read all the books, so I’ve concentrated on the main ones, the plenary speakers. This past week I read Yaa Gyasi’s Transcendent Kingdom . Several things put me off at first. If you judge a book by its cover—which WE ALL DO (it’s the relevance behind that axiom)—I hated it. There was a sticker Read with Jenna (not a fan), the colors—sort of a putty puke contrasted against a charcoal not quite black with the figure of a woman awkwardly praying. Nevertheless, I opened up to page one. I was reminded of Daniel Keyes’ Flowers for Algernon , there is an experiment using mice that will ultimately impact the story, the scientist doing the research, and hold parallels for the universal reader. I would also critique the first sentence—“Whenever I think of my ...

When a schoolgirl I remember January as being the s l o w e s t month. There was always the flurry and excitement of a new school year, textbooks, meeting new teachers, the feel of being one year older and in a new grade, a sense of discovery, perhaps. Then from the weeks preceding Halloween to Christmas and New Year’s, time flew. Until January. Gloomy mornings, cold, wet. Either we were stuck inside at recess or forced outdoors to freeze, huddle against the brick wall out of the biting wind. I remember chapped cheeks, wet mittens, the smell of soggy wool. I look out my window now, at age 65, as the morning yolk of sun cracks the horizon. Slowly. We sit at the end of a calendar page, almost February. Now that I’m older, I have a different perspective on time. It seems to move irretrievably faster. And, January, despite the fact that there is a national holiday now inserted, still is as dull and boring as when I was a child. I’m struggling to find things to write about, the motivation...

I’ve had a Tiny House visitor. I told her to pretend she was in a cozy cabin tucked into the woods. She responded, I’ll just think about being on an island off of Norway in a cottage. You see, she actually has one. There, she has no running water and they use an outhouse when visiting. The kindly neighbor offers their facilities for a shower and for them to carry over jugs to fill with water to take back. I’ve seen pictures: there are exposed rocks with ancient runes scraped onto the surface, where they lounge after a swim, sunning themselves. Just like here there are pine trees—though maybe not as tall as the wind scours the island in poor weather and stunts their growth. At one time the only access was by ferry, but now there is an underwater tunnel where cars can cross back and forth. She got up in the morning and had her coffee looking out the windows. For breakfast we ate from a rustic loaf of bread I’d bought just for the occasion and in the evening we lit tea candles and sat...

Is what happens after days and days of sub-freezing temperatures followed by an unseasonable warm-up. To be clear, I don’t mind winter in winter. I love sledding, skating, and skiing. Walks in snowy woods  This a.m. I awoke to a gloomy fog. The weekly forecast calls for temps to rise to near 50 degrees. It’s still January. The low cloud cover harbors a murky odor: diesel from the distant roadway, methane, perhaps, laundry detergent, eggs cooking on a stovetop, something musky and earthy. The ground softening after the intense cold. Mother Nature confused, once again. Then, onto a barren twiggy branch, alights a cardinal in his red dress and I’m startled into joy.

What does it feel like . . below zero So during this cold snap it got down to -2, then 2, then a few days the high was 8, 9, then 10. It’s all relative. Freezing. Lung burning. Eye tingling. The big difference is feeling like I might actually die. I ride my bike everywhere. No matter the temperature. The first really cold day was the worst and scariest. Even though the commute is only 1.7 miles, I worried about ending up as road kill, a forlorn little match girl on the side of the road. Much like the opossum that’s been there for a week already now turned into s mogul. Anyway, I left wearing three pant layers and a thick blanket-type sweater over my work t-shirt. After the negative two benchmark, everything else felt like a moderation. One less layer, or slightly not as cold. Outside of the extra clothes, I’ve been packing in the calories. Hot soup, yes, please! Never say never to hot chocolate! A little more pasta on the plate! I feel like a Russian peasant making it throu...

I wake before dawn—which is easy because it doesn’t start to get light until 7:15. I turn up the heat on my way to the bathroom, after which, I take off my sleep slippers and put on my regular slippers with rubber tread. On the back of my door are coats and fleeces; I put on my corduroy shirt, more of an overshirt with pockets, and turn on the lights and flip the switch on the kettle. The ceramic tiles are still cold as I get down and do a series of stretches—yet the exertion also warms me up. By the time I’m done the tea is ready. At the same time I’m firing up the computer. At night I close the lid and put a throw on top. Corners of the Tiny House can get cold and, since I know nothing of how these things work, I comfort and baby the machine that runs my life. The computer whirls awake and I’ll click on NPR news and select the stories I want to hear. Sorry no Gaza, no school shootings—mostly weather and politics (which is scary enough). By now the Tiny House is warming up, the mini...

This is my second winter in the Tiny House. I moved in in October 2022. As a kid I always loved the Little House Books by Laura Ingalls Wider and the series about the Little family. I was destined to live small. As an adult I lived in a single room occupancy in Chicago at the mission where I served for almost 40 years. So, yeah, I’m used to living in one compact space. Winter in a Tiny House can be cozy. On the counter I have an electric kettle and a tea caddy. On a shelf above hot chocolate; mugs hang below on hooks. On my upholstered bench are blankets rolled up and there is a wool throw on the back of the rocker. My mini split keeps the place relatively warm—especially my loft bed. At night I’m used to turning down the heat because it can actually get too warm and stuffy up there. The only problem is the ceramic tile floor. Great for keeping the place cool in summer, but holds the cold in the winter. Also not quite sure how insulated the structure is. That being said, it is -2...

I watch YouTube before bed as a way to wind down and something Jimmy Kimmel said resonated with me: A sick joke about Covid, influenza, and RSV. I’ve been wondering if I might be a victim. About a week before Christmas I wasn’t feeling the best—we assumed because the one child is in nursery school that he’d brought something home. We were all congested which led to coughs. Even the baby would cough, then sneeze, then give a puppy-size yelp. My son-in-law is an expert at de-snoggling with a contraption that he uses to suck snot out. Definitely leave this to the experts, I thought. Christmas we all were slugging back hot drinks, taking Mucinex, and slipping away for naps. I thought surely by New Year’s we’d all be better, but instead I’d wedged into a constant cough and head sludge that was s l o w l y draining, On top of all this brain fog and sleep loss and physical molasses, was the weather: a complete funk. No snow, every day low clouds, thus no sun, rain, everywhere gray. It w...

The Vulnerables Sigrid Nunez Riverhead Books, New York 2023 I realized I was a title or two behind some of my favorite authors and have been putting down holds at the local library at a furious pace. I was first introduced, literally, to Sigrid Nunez at Breadloaf and have since really enjoyed her work. She is not your stereotypical memoirist or novelist—but has cunningly combined the two. She blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction by writing what some has termed the autobiographical novel or autofiction—a kind of hybrid. In a hybrid there are liberal doses of the “real” and invented parts. Poetic license. Where we as readers assume she is writing about herself, while she is aware of constructing a story that makes sense, which means playing with the facts. Often “real life” is too strange and convoluted to appear real. Subtext gives it a little more credibility. Often in her “novels” the narrator is herself a writer. She often writes about writing, and in The Vulnerables, which ...

If you are attending this years Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids, please consider signing up for my Festival Lunch Circle. Slow Looking: Freeing the Mind to Observe This Circle introduces participants to Corita Kent, an Immaculate Heart sister known as the "Pop Art Nun," who captured the imagination of the 60s and early 70s with her free-spirited designs (her iconic LOVE stamp is still sold by the U.S. post office). Sister Corita helped her students to see the world a new way—in small bite-size pieces. Her “finder,” a small cardboard frame, reshaped the everyday and brought minutia into perspective. Jane Hertenstein  is the author of over 90 published stories both macro and micro: fiction, creative non-fiction, and blurred genre. She teaches a workshop on Flash Memoir and can be found blogging at http://memoirouswrite.blogspot.com/ Join this Circle Use this link to read more and sign up: https://ccfw.calvin.edu/festival/festival-lunch-circles/ From To Begin with ...

  The above titles are from 2 of the people I visited on my Rhine River Ride this past fall. Neither is available in English translation. Mia's book is a look at the Ego (   HAPPYNINGS & LESS EGO….MORE LIFE)  from a psychologist point of view, Mia is a vibrant person and speaker and her book is meant to shake the reader into action. She has been busy promoting it at the Frankfurt Book Festival and been the featured guest on numerous podcasts, etc. I'm grateful that she was able to take time out to host me . My Sex is a compilation of highly curated interviews with various women into their inner lives and physical needs. The subjects run the gamut--including a recent refugee. Monica is not a trained psychologist or sociologist, but has come to the subject out of her own curiosity and wanting to get these women's voices out there.  Congrats to both Monica and Mia

I just watched Maestro on Netflix—maybe I’m getting old, but I kept checking to see how many minutes were left half-way through. It’s a little over 2 hours. I remembered that Leonard Bernstein was a contemporary of the poet Frank O’Hara and that their orbits had at times crossed. The Brad Gooch biography of O’Hara had two index listings for Bernstein. There’s a lot of reasons for the connection—both were in New York City and social gadflys in their own right. One of the mentions in City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara has Bernstein as team captain in a game of charades that O’Hara sat out. It is likely in the New York social scene for gay men that they shared many of the same friends. When Frank O’Hara entered Harvard after World War II his intention was to study music and composition. He was a trained classic pianist. While reading the Gooch biography I couldn’t help but think, like a lot of young people with artistic passions, that studying the arts after a while fee...