Memoirous

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.