Memoirous

April, new month, new vision I hate what’s happening in this country. It all seems so hopeless and my tiny efforts, futile. I see in my FB feed calls for protest, days of rage, memes. All that too seems remote, virtual, digital—whereas, I’m looking for something more analog: Present. What does it take to build a peace garden? I’d like one of those St. Francis statues of a bird resting on his stone finger. I want a whirly-gig that shatters the sun and sends fragments of facets splayed across the lawn. I want a place of solace. Let’s build it together.

Slowly the tide is turning. Temperatures in the 40s this week, rain in the forecast. I’ve begun work in the new garden. On the first warmish day in February I ordered a set of box planters. What seemed like a great location when I first planted 2 years ago has turned out to be a bust. Once the trees leafed out the seedlings were sun-starved. The tomatoes and everything else planted there became stunted and kale leaves lacey with blight. The plan this year is to create a whole new space back behind the shed where there is a strip of grass that receives abundant sun. I removed the top layer of grass and dug up the old garden and transferred some of the soil to the denuded path. Then I can rake some leaves over it and let it mulch for the next 6 weeks until planting (sometime after the first of May). The new path is approx. 8 x 4 I’ll continue to use containers for the tomatoes, peppers, and thyme. There will also be porch mint and basil. The seedlings wait-on their little heat ma...

Tranås at the Fringe is an international arts festival taking place in Tranås, Sweden, featuring litterature, film, dance, theater and concerts. I’ve been invited to participate and will give a Flash Memoir Workshop while there visiting my friend from college. May 1, I am giving a Zoom workshop hosted by Northside Chicago chapter of SCBWI. Would love to see you there!

I submitted to Redrosethorns back in bleak February—who am I kidding, they’ve all been bleak lately. Anyway, I submitted a small snippet for a themed submission call around aging. Even though I don’t feel old, nor am I old old, stuff has come up, stuff I can no longer ignore. Such as, How do I get up off the floor now that I’m down here? Rredrosethorns is a woman-owned educational publication that promotes mental health and advocates for gender and sexuality education. I sent over their transom (again, showing my age) a poem/prose, prose poem about how it feels to be old/not old. It started with a list of observations about my body. I know, I lnow I run, I ride my bike, but there’s still the stairs at the end of the day. Someone’s going to have to get me up there—and it’s going to be me. Anyway—I made up a list and thought about it some more, then forgot about it, and then pulled it out (again, showing my age—it was there all along in a digital file) and spruced it up and sent it....

I wrote a few weeks ago about my mother and her soap operas, you know, the daytime dramas that were on from about 1- 3 pm. Scheduled right after she got her morning household chores done and before the kids came home from school. That was life for the middle-aged, middle class housewife. Even the term house wife seems archaic. Anyway, I was reminded of this as I watched my daughter doing her business while walking around wearing headphones. She subscribes to a podcast. You can tell the generational difference: me, a baby boomer, has recently subscribed to Country Living magazine as a way to disengage from the world and all the stressful news. She, a millennial, has decided to pay for exclusive content from the podcast. I asked her what that meant. Of course, she rolled her eyes at me. (Just kidding, but it felt like it.) Behind the paywall (again, these terms!) she is privileged to take part in group chats, given access to YouTube videos to watch interviews that normal listener...

We have moved into select deck sitting. On the days when the sun is out we are able to sit within the enclave of the back patio in chairs facing the sun and in the square of sunlight hitting the decks. It’s a miracle. This past Sunday we slowly unpeeled layers of outer clothing. We set up the bistro table to hold mugs of hot tea while lounging. The little picnic table came out so the children could sit with a snack. The baby climbs up and down the stairs over and over, as if at Planet Fitness. We discuss the garden, house projects, new sand for the sand box. A Rubbermaid of sand toys is unearthed from the shed. We know it won’t last—this feeling of hope. We’ll eventually go back to cool and rainy. But, after that it will return. Come and go. For now deck sitting is keeping us going, that square patch of sunlight is lengthening, and we can at least pretend.

The children paraded around the nursery school in an effort to drive winter away and welcome in spring. It didn’t work. Nevertheless, they each got a crown. The day was warm-ish, not too cold, not too snowy, not too too. Except for the wind. The wind moved through the top of the fir trees, swaying the branches, starting small and then growing into a roar. Mom pushed the baby in the carriage to pick up her boy, who was wearing a yellow crown. They talked over the roar of the wind about lions and parades and the coming spring, until they got home. Walking up the driveway, the mom discovered her boy wasn’t wearing his crown; the wind must have whisked it right off his head. Leaving the children in care of their grandmother, she ran off down the street. She searched and searched. It was a challenge as the utility company had just set out little yellow flags on neighbor’s lawns, marking where the gas pipelines were underground. Everywhere she saw fluttering yellow flags that caught her ...

Sunday, once again, I joined the group Adventure-ish for a morning hike. This week the word was WET. (Last week it was ICY.) Soon it became apparent that we would be walking beside the trail more than on it. At certain points we had to traverse new spring streams. This was accomplished by walking further up/down to cross, jumping and getting a soaker, or, and this was my idea, throwing a bunch of sticks and twigs in order to cross relatively dry. At first it was a pain. We weren’t getting anywhere fast, which felt like a big change-up. I approach the hike like exercise, something to get done. Walking in cadence and letting my mind wander. Sunday’s hike was more about logistics, hopping on and over logs and figuring out how to not fall into water. But soon, the problem solving became motivational, exhilarating; I loved being about to figure things out and outfox the stream. There was at first complaining, moaning and groaning, then laughter. It reminded me that as humans we get stuc...

  Running Outside I’m sitting at my desk typing away, thinking about running outside. It’s been awhile. *it’s been too snowy *it’s been too cold *it’s been too icy *it’s been too chaotic   Suddenly I am running out of running excuses. Must get dressed and tie up the laces and remember how it feels to push my body through inertia. Through the lack of will power. ** Just back, huffing and puffing—and feeling invigorated. A truly chilly morning.

This past winter I spent an inordinate amount of time revising my creative nonfiction project about bicycling in the UK. By inordinate I mean time well-spent on making the manuscript better and the transitions more fluid and digging deeper into the emotional heart of the story. Nevertheless, I just received a NO from the editor who hadn’t quite committed to the project, but had seemed interested. I’ll take whatever interest I can get. And, now, there’s no interest. It was a blow. I’d thought I was emotional prepared, but I think with all the other turmoil roiling around me via the news, I was laid low. I’m currently re-calibrating future plans for the manuscript and possibly self-publishing. I’ve reached out to a few writerly friends and they’ve all been supportive. It’s just lately . . . everything feels like too much. Another project that has been circulating with independent presses and trying to find a publishing home is a collection of short stories I’ve titled: Woman of a C...

ACCHHH!! That chaotic feeling in the pit of the stomach when you’ve committed big bucks and are not quite sure of what the future holds. Of stepping out over the ledge. I booked a flight to Sweden for the fall with the hope of hiking the Kungsleden (King’s Trail), southern terminus, Hemavan–Ammarnäs, 78 kilometres in total, I chose this segment of the trail, 6 days walking, 5 nights, 8–19 kilometers per day, as both beginning and ending points are served by the SJ train. I’d love to do the whole trail someday, but wanted to get my feet wet (not literally, but maybe it’ll happen). I’ll stay in the mountain huts and not bring a tent in order to cut down on weight. Also I don’t want to lug a tent around after the hike as I plan to visit friends. I haven’t been back to Sweden since 2018 and before that I first visited in 2014. Each time I’ve hiked and biked while there, so I do have a feel for terrain and weather. Nevertheless, the Kungsleden lies within the Arctic Circle and want to ...

It’s March on the calendar and flakes are falling. Not fiercely, not fast, but a slow, soft flutter. Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent—and snow hasn’t quite let go. On Sunday I went on a hike with a group called Adventure-ish, all female (plus a dog or two). The path in places was a sheet of ice. Our boots broke through where it was crackle thin and mostly we had to navigate the biggest patches by walking off to the side. We could hear the not quite frozen river POINGG as the ice shifted. There was also a persistent woodpecker—getting the ice cube grub. After a 2-hour hike, with snowflakes swirling around, my hands were cold and I was ready for lunch. Despite all this—I know spring is coming. The sun tells me soon, soon. what's left of square of snow on back deck

 The snow, piled higher and higher after each snowfall, is slowly whittling away. The square on the last deck is shrinking. Snow under the trees, at the root base, is also settling. In some places there is the faintest hint of grass. This a.m. I took both children with me to take Jack to nursery school. He for the first time in weeks was able to ride his bike. There is ice at the edges of the sidewalk where he rode to break it into pieces and hear the crack. At one point he gleefully shouted out that he was bike skating. The baby peered out above the collar of his snowsuit while tucked into the stroller, the wheels a snowy, salty mess. After dropping Jack off, we trudged home, up a hill and past the koi fish pond (snow covered, but bubbling away) and turned into the wind. It’s still cold, but there’s a hint in the air. A bit of hope.

I wonder if my readers (both of you) ever get tired of reading my minutia. A cardinal, the sun—it’s making a comeback!—all are about nothing. Pretty much the stuff of real life—when we decide to get off social media. I know, I know. It’s tough these days. But let me tell you about walking to the composter. When we got the spaceship-looking contraption we pondered where to place it. We determined the farthest corner of the back yard was best, so that if it smelled (all that rotting compost) it wouldn’t offend. So now I have to tromp across unbroken snow, the tops of my boots barely sticking out, in the freezing cold to the composter with my little buckets. It seemed reasonable that if one of us was going to dump, then I should take both my daughter’s and my compost. I compost to save the planet and hopefully make some nutrient-rich soil come spring for the garden—ahh! the garden). Once I reach the composter then I have to chisel away the snow and ice locking the lid down and yan...

Today I saw a cardinal the reddest thing ever the most colorful color in the horizon   it stood out in stark contrast to the brown and white all around   nothing nowhere compares to the cardinal flaming in the tree setting the morning on fire

As kids growing up we knew better than to disturb Mom when she was in the middle of one of her shows. Daytime TV was made up of soap operas and everyone had their favorite. General Hospital, All My Children, As the World Turns. I can still recall the opening jingle for The Guiding Light. As a kid, I thought all the stories seemed the same as far as melodrama. Someone was having an affair, someone was getting divorced, some young person was finding out their father/mother wasn’t who they thought. A character was usually being rushed to the hospital. My favorite was Dark Shadows and later All My Children, which came on after I got home from school. The point being: there was no Internet, no streaming, no binge-watching, you had to catch them at a certain time or you missed an important plot point. You might never learn WHY Janie needed an operation or WHY Margo was acting so cool to Don lately. Someone could need an appendectomy in one episode and by the next have bounced back. Somet...

 Soldier Sun   Snow-filled white out a lone orb soldier sun pulsing overhead braving to break through thick clouds inner strength to carry on

We always used to say to our daughter whenever things went to catastrophe or disaster such as a flat tire, or running out of money, or getting lost in a road trip—we’re going on an adventure—meaning: we have no clue what’s going to happen next. I guess nothing too bad because I’m still here. But, the point being, putting things into a positive light in the middle of absolute internal/exterior chaos. It was a way of buying time before freaking out in order to figure out our next step. Sometimes there is no next step, but to let the natural order of chaos work itself out. Either way, whatever happens next, the entire ride is an adventure. I had an adventure yesterday. Sunday after being all cozy in the Tiny House I decided to go get groceries and stop at the library—and, why not?!, put the skies in the back of the Jeep to cross-country ski at the trails behind Aldis. I started the car and cleared the snow off the windshield etc then went to toss the little shovel thing into t...

I’ve written here about my “normal” morning routine. It used to involve reading or listening to the news—now I’m doing a kind of Benedictine hours thing sent to me by the monks at Assumption Abbey in Richardton, ND. We’re in Ordinary Time. It doesn’t feel that way. Whenever I check in with friends from Chicago or at work here in Okemos, they all say the same thing: They/re stressed out from the news aka REAL LIFE CURRENT EVENTS. I hate to say it, but stop paying attention. If the news is killing us, killing our will to live, then we have to ignore it for our own well-being. This isn’t the same as not caring. We can continue to care and read The Sermon on the Mount. We can care by taking care of ourselves and helping others as best we can. So first thing in the morning after I wake up, turn up the heat, take the thyroid pill and my Vitamin D3 gummie, and start my kettle for tea—I go out onto the deck in only my long johns and thick sweater and shovel the overnight snow. Ther...

I was inspired to flashback to this post--originally from January 19. 2023 Pandemic-Inspired Art  . .  . Another piece I stumbled upon was at the Museum of Contemporary Art—WE ARE CLOSER THAN YOU EVER IMAGINED. Artist Shilpa Gupta works in the ever-changing transitory medium of flapboards, those old analog displays at train stations where passengers stand dead-eyed anticipating departure. The messages (as also the messages we were constantly bombarded with at the beginning of the outbreak) take on new context and meaning. The bigger picture of mass extinction, climate change, how we treat each other and the world were gently shuffled and reshuffled in an auditory and tactile rate as to lull the viewer in. We are, indeed, closer than we ever imagined to an end, a destination, to hell or a vacation, to finding solace—or limbo. Much how many of us have felt these past 3 years. The flapboard features poetry, fed to the viewer, line by line, with the odd misspelling. Thirty-five ...

I just read over the galley proof for my short story in Two Thirds North, coming out Spring 2025. I worked closely with Adnan Mahmutovic and a student editor. They were GREAT! I definitely felt the work of a close hand in revising the piece. So close that at one point I had my cursor placed to make an edit and suddenly there was another cursor there—from across the ocean and time zones in Stockholm, reading along and seeing my changes. It was weird and surreal. I sort of wish I had that little cursor following me around now as I work on my hard big revision project. This fall I intend to go to Sweden to 1) see friends, 2) hike the Kungsladen, and 3) do a few Flash Memoir Workshops at Writer Festivals. The itinerary is just now getting set up and is a bowl of mush right now. Hoping by end of February things will come together—and then pray for a great air sale. Let me know—both of my readers if you have Scandinavian connections . . .

  originally from April 18, 2018 Readers of this blog know that I am addicted to Antiques Roadshow. I watch mostly for the description. Crenulated. Wingback. Bezel. That thing on the top of cabinet clocks. When is an object more than just a thing—when you hear one of the Keno brothers go into detail about it. You come to understand it is the sum of the parts, the work invested, the craftsmanship. One of the appraisers was evaluating a book of police mugshots from Portland, Oregon circa 1900s. The term she used to describe it was vernacular, as in vernacular photos have become very popular. Here’s how Daile Kaplan defined the term: The photography of the everyday, the photography that's a record, that's a document, that has a historic truth. This is also how I might define flash memoir. This is not the letter from Abraham Lincoln or the guy who found the Rembrandt in the trash. This is more like the story behind the toy train. I got it for Christmas one year and it’s been in our...

Evangelina Everyday by Dawn Burns Cornerstone Press, Stevens Point, WI, 2022 Evangelina is the kind of book you want to curl up with. It is a small collection of flash stories—indeed reads like flash memoir, of a Midwestern wife who hails from Indiana—a state that I saw in my feed, the latest to institute posting the Ten Commandments in schools—who has a vivid thought life and not so much a vivid life. She wants to go along with the flow, but has a hard time getting into the flow. She is intelligent in the way a Renaissance thinker may have been, but, being a woman, may have also been judged a witch and drowned. At the wrong place at the wrong time, if she had tried to tell her whole story she would have been outcast. The “stories” features her looped thoughts and ponderings. All she really wants to be is accepted and walk in the fields—not the wind-whipped ones full of trash and plastic bags sticking to straw grass, but the ones just waking up from night and enveloped in dew, gli...

 NEW WORK accepted Just checked in with my submissions grid—I juggle two, one at Submittable and the other at Duotrope, it’s hard to keep up at times ): — anyway, I saw I have a new acceptance. Litmosphere has taken a shorty called I wish the Virgin Mary was my girlfriend. A weirdo that I wrote, revised, and revised some more, and then changed from poetry to a prose poem to then making it a haibun. Thanks Cheryl J. Fish! It will appear in the spring 2025 issue end of March.

In December, around Pearl Harbor Day—does anyone still observe, even care, or know what this means?!—I had a nice phone call with an editor from a small publishing house. They are intrigued by one of my manuscripts, a nonfiction project that I’ve been pedaling, peddling (it’s about cycling) for a while now. I wish someone would love it like I do. In fact that’s what our conversation consisted of: Why do I love it? Why did I write it? And can I change it and revise it and make it better? I wasn’t sure. Another good friend and reader told me—you have to bleed on the page. Not literally, but go back she encouraged me and really drive down to the emotional core. I mean it’s a memoir. She’s right/write. I did need to drill down and really think about how I felt about living in community, my marriage, and about riding my bike. Writing/riding is like the saying goes: like riding a bike—except that doesn’t explain things, such as the why and how I got here. So for the past 2 weeks I’ve bee...

I’ve been in Michigan for a little over 3 years and there is still so much to explore. I’d heard of Burchfield Park, but had never been. But when a notice for a Moonlight Ski came up in my feed, I thought—I’ll go! This kind of thing was right up my alley. For the past week I’ve been skiing at the Meridian Township Historic Village. The distance—both on the ski and from the house to get there were perfect for after or before work jaunts. Of course, on the sub-zero, sub-human cold days, I didn’t go. When I did, I’d be out for 40-45 minutes—not sure of how far I trekked. There were numerous trails that weaved through the woods and a ditch called Muddy Creek that laced the paths. Also a couple of picturesque footbridges over the creek. In fact, everything looked picturesque and gift calendar-like under mounds of glittering snow. The Moonlight Ski was at Burchfield Park, so here was my chance to check that out. It was far driving in the late late afternoon. I missed a turn and had to re...

I’ve reached into the back of my drawer for a couple of sweaters reserved for only the coldest of days. They are in rotation currently. They are both horse-blanket type sweaters, thickly woven, one acrylic and the other wool. One was hand-knitted the other from L.L. Bean. The green one I put on in the morning, right out of bed. As I’m turning up the heat and changing from my wool sleeping booties to shearling-lined slippers, I shimmy into the green one—sort of a throwback to the 1950s, gee-whiz Mrs. Hertenstein, kids walking a mile or two to school kind of sweater—before going outside to shovel the decks. I’m not sure how this got to be my job. Most likely because 1) I don’t want to fall, 2) I’m out there first thing because I need to go to the mothership for something, 3) I actually love doing it. No one makes me. I love waking up and in a sleep-daze go outside into the startling fresh cold air and exercise my arms, back, shoulder muscles. I’m reminded of why people sit in saunas an...

This Winter—Okemos Yes, it’s cold, but I’ve gotten so much inspiration from the frigid sunrises, The sun pours over the horizon like molten gold around 8 a.m. It starts as a lavender hue, a tiny glow that grows stronger and stronger, changing from mauve to orange. The pinks and bronzes get all mixed up, a backdrop silhouetting the bare tree limbs, tinting the snow on the ground. For a moment everything looks new again. As if we haven’t been here before—and we haven’t. There is only today—and when it is gone, we have tonight, and then tomorrow. Neolithic societies had all kinds of traditions to welcome the sun mid-winter. I’ve actually been to Newgrange in Ireland, where the docent contrived, after we clambered through a tunnel into the center of a submerged dome-like structure built around 3200 B.C. before the Celts were the Celts, to show us how the inhabitants had aligned the doorway in conjunction with the Winter solstice sunrise. Back then there was no way to mark time and an...

This Winter February 12, 2014, written in Chicago   This is the first winter I can remember when 2 coats wasn’t enough. This winter I’ve worn my long underwear for the past 40 days. This winter has been so cold that 4 above feels like a heat wave. This is the first winter where I’ve come to understand the principle of hibernation. As someone who loves winter, I can’t stand the thought of another 6 weeks of it. Instead of putting on my normal winter weight of 2 – 3 pounds, I’ve gained ten. The idea of a snow day no longer holds delight. I dread the weather report now. In the past I’ve run throughout the winter, unless I was x-country skiing. This winter I’ve had to push myself to exercise. It’s hard to move when wearing 6 layers. There are some days when I never step outside—and I like it. This winter my skin has been so dry I’ve gone through a whole bottle of Jergens; my last bottle lasted 2 years. This winter nearly all the Great Lakes are ice covered. I ...

2 That was the temperature this morning when I awoke in my Tiny House. I sleep in a loft under layers of warm covers. So climbing down the ladder, I wasn’t immediately hit by the cold. At night I turn the heat down, though last night I wondered if it was a good idea. This a.m. it was about 56 in the Tiny House, but after I bumped up the heat. The temperatures climbed. I use a ceiling fan to send the air into the corners. My writing table and computer are near the doors, Again, not insulated, but I put a draft stopper and a blanket down at the bottom at night to help. These next few days will test the mini split, Tomorrow’s high is expected to be 3 degrees with an overnight low of -3. Fortunately I have work and keep busy babysitting at my daughter’s house. Meanwhile, I’m cozy, all bundled up at my Tiny House drinking tea and hot coco, reading in my chair with a wool blanket on my lap.

The Vaster Wilds Lauren Groff Riverhead Books, September 2023 In the Distance Hernan Diaz Riverhead Books, March 2024 I wanted to slip out a quick review of these titles. My Christmas vacation was spent reading. I think in one week I read four books. It was lovely— You know, with all the snow and cold, hot tea and chocolate, cozy slippers, warm blankets, putting my feet up in my Tiny House. I was blessed. I’ve been a fan of Groff for a while. I love her Florida stories and the novel Matrix , not so much her highly-acclaimed Fates and Furies . In fact, that novel put me off so much, I thought I might not return to her work. But every time I hear of a Florida hurricane (which is frequent) I think about her short story collection, Florida . Also, I think I might have been at the Sewanee Writers Conference in a critique group with her. She looks so familiar in her author pic. It seems that Groff’s interests are varied and far-ranging. All her books are different, coming from, I’m sur...