Memoirous

We greet each other like an echo: Hi Jane! Hi Jane! We’ve known each other for over 50 years. Fifty! Through milestones we’ve stayed connected—if even miles apart. Now separated by a lake. I went through a pile of papers this a.m.—in an attempt to organize, but keep stopping to remember and think. Birthday cards from years past—many of them from Jane. Here’s to fifty more!  

Another Year Of writing. Of shoveling snow. Planting a garden. Inch by inch. One word after another. I’m like those old ladies I used to make fun of. Who keep trying to be relevant. Who think they still have something to say. I’ve been reading literary criticism of Ernest Hemingway—literary and criticism, the author spends the first 30 pages not necessarily defending Hemingway but acknowledging the criticism of the man, the Hemingway myth. Today’s culture wraps the persona into the writing—the two cannot be separated—making it difficult to really examine the literature. Hemingway embraced flash and hybrid before they became a thing. He was king of the declarative sentence. Especially if it focused on an aside. His sparse, naturalistic dialogue was famous for talking around the subject. He approached writing as if it were a job. He called it his “work.” Once he got his work done, he’d drink or box or loaf, go to horse races. As he got older, the process got harder and ha...

How old do you have to be to be nostalgic? I recently realized—I know, pathetic—that time is flying. My own millennial is turning 30 this year. I bet she never thought she’d be this old. I, on the other hand, am old. I deserve to look backward and wax nostalgic. Past summers, riding my bike down hot sticky asphalt roads, milkweed swaying in the breeze, wishing . . . someday. Someday is here. I like to listen to All Songs considered—a national treasure from our government. National Public Radio works very hard at archiving the music of America as well as discovering new voices. So with All Songs Considered and the Bob Brolin Playlist (updated every Tuesday via Spotify) I am introduced to music I might not find all on my own. Thus, Dolly Valentine: "Michigan, 1997 :" Never thought I would be the one To think that I would be the one To blink and life would be this far along Never thought I would be the one To think that I would be the one To blink an...

this is also a flashback to Grace is having a birthday--we never stop worrying Treasures in the Sand July 2015, Mothers Always Write When my daughter was five or six I packed the car and drove to the lake. I had to lug bottles of water, a bag of fishy-smelling beach toys, a lunch cooler, and a lawn chair across the parking lot and down the stairs to the beach. I stopped to take a breath and take in the scenery. Broken flips flops, water engorged diapers, plastic bags, and pieces of glass littered the shore from the weekend. My daughter took off barefoot to scare a gaggle of seagulls. I screeched for her to be careful (I imagined her cutting her foot and getting an infection), but only managed to scatter the seagulls before she got to them. I set up my lawn chair, trying to avoid a decomposing fish with flies buzzing around its dead jelly eyes. Almost immediately we were surrounded by a horde of children wanting to borrow our beach toys. I could not keep track of them and m...

from a previous post:  Friday, July 24, 2015 1989 Before 1989 was the Cold War. There was also no grace. I remember when my daughter Grace was born the summer of 1989. In the middle of the night I’d get up and feed her. I kept a little radio playing by her bed for white noise, so that every little noise didn’t wake her up. It was just she and I and WGN or WBBM in the wee hours of the night. Then one night while I was nursing her within the glow of the radio dial I heard the most fabulous news. I use this word because it sounded like a fable. Often I dozed while feeding her. The announcer said the Wall had fallen. There had been tremors, rumblings leading up to this earthquake that brought down the Berlin Wall. Czech citizens were being issued passes to go to the West for holidays—once a rarity—and in Poland, Solidarity had made headway in their fight for workers and nationalistic rights. Ultimately Solidarity saw the end of Soviet rule and helped move Poland toward democracy. In my...

Before 1989 was the Cold War. There was also no grace. I remember when my daughter Grace was born the summer of 1989. In the middle of the night I’d get up and feed her. I kept a little radio playing by her bed for white noise, so that every little noise didn’t wake her up. It was just she and I and WGN or WBBM in the wee hours of the night. Then one night while I was nursing her within the glow of the radio dial I heard the most fabulous news. I use this word because it sounded like a fable. Often I dozed while feeding her. The announcer said the Wall had fallen. There had been tremors, rumblings leading up to this earthquake that brought down the Berlin Wall. Czech citizens were being issued passes to go to the West for holidays—once a rarity—and in Poland, Solidarity had made headway in their fight for workers and nationalistic rights. Ultimately Solidarity saw the end of Soviet rule and helped move Poland toward democracy. In my dream-like state I thought I heard the ...

I just got over my birthday--it sounds like a sickness. Actually it's a plague. The first week in November brings about 7 birthdays that need to be observed. Not just a Facebook quickie, but card-worthy. If not even out to eat necessary. So for the third time this week I was fêted--even as I fêted and lauded others. While at the same time Christmas keeps coming soon. Maybe it is the desperation of retailers who this year have to contend with a "late" Thanksgiving--throwing everything off. But the past two days, days out celebrating, I've heard Christmas music playing in the stores and walked through Macy's where the windows are decorated and the floors displays are all about the "holiday." A little sad really. That things do no have a time for every season. The seasons all get rushed. No wonder people feel crazy. Global warming and our own internal clocks are throwing the planet off-kilter. Or maybe I'm getting old. The years keep rushing b...