Memoirous

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...

The Rest is Memory, a book review Lily Tuck Liveright Publishing Corp. 2025 I’ve written before at the blog about Lily Tuck . Tuck never seems to do just one thing; her work spans/defies categorization. The title, taken from a Louise Glück poem, NOSTOS, dwelling in the subterranean of memory: “We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory.” Glück/Tuck. Tuck is a master of the hybrid, meta novel. A mix of memoir, fiction, Wikipedia, fate and fairy tale. In this small book (114 pages) she employs cruel irony, omniscient voice, pathos, twists and wishes. Things are not always as they appear: there is senseless evil, random goodness, power play showing winners and losers. All the elements of what makes a story and history. It all starts with a photograph of a concentration camp inmate. The small prisoner, overwhelmed in her striped jacket with shorn head, stares into the lens. The camera captures her soul.   Tuck works outward, painting a fictional picture filled in ...

When I was out in Eugene, Oregon on my sojourn I bought a Whirly-gig Popcorn Popper at the thrift store. When I lived in Chicago it was a nightly thing to popcorn for a bedtime snack, while watching TV, or instead of dinner. There was rarely an evening when someone wasn’t in the kitchen making popcorn. The pan was blackened, stained with old oil, never washed. Always there were bits of old popcorn seeds, white stuff, the flimsy shells of past poppings left in the bottom. It was like an archaeologist excavating a dig to clean the thing out. So to find a “new” one, not broken in or seasoned by prior use was a real find. Every time I used the popper I would think of my Chicago neighbors, the Bocks, who used the Whirly-gig popper as much as I did. They LOVED popcorn. One time I called Elanor after popping a big bowl, forgetting the time difference between West Coast and Eastern time—she answered immediately worried. It was hard to explain between chewing mouthfuls: I was just thinking ab...

Remember when you had to use an operator to call long distance, to place a call? Remember asking to call a friend you met at camp and your mother nixed the idea, saying it’s too expensive, meaning you only call long distance if it’s an emergency. Your parents used to call the grandparents every Sunday and everyone huddled around the one phone in order to say hi, tell them what you wanted for Christmas, birthday, you know, emergencies. If a relative from out of town called, Mom and Dad immediately assumed someone had died or been in a car wreck. It was never about anything as frivolous as just talking. Or remember when rates were cheaper on weekends, late at night—that’s why they waited to make a call, hoping the person on the other end would be at home. Remember when you worked summers at Yellowstone National Park and would call your mother from the parking lot as you crossed from the employee dorm to the inn at Old Faithful. In the often chilly morning, the dry air tickling your nose...

 Waiting in a Snowy Wood Riding our bicycles Through a fog-hushed snowy wood A train horn echoes We wait, the sound fills the air Grinding down all around us The above is a tanka, a Japanese form I’m revisiting after my class, The Road to Haiku. In a previous post  I outlined the 5-7-5-7-7 syllable scheme. Truthfully, anything can be a form see renga, sonnets villanelles, and the rondeau. Consistency is the secret sauce. Regardless, the form forces us to search for different words instead of taking the first one that comes to mind, it forces us to pay attention to sound. With a specific word/syllable count we have to make choices—often for the stronger adjective, verb. It makes us slow down, dwell with the piece, ask ourselves, What exactly do I want to communicate? Emphasize the sensory. The context or story behind the story is Jack, my 3-year-old grandson, and I like to ride our bikes in the woods near our house. He on a child’s balance bike and me on mine. Believe me,...