Confessions of a Grandma

Today started off as a gorgeous day--sunny, temperature at 76 degrees at 9 in the morning when I was preparing for a trip to the library. But the weather report warned it was not to last, and it did not. The sky has turned grey and the palm trees are bowing in the strong north wind while the temperature plummets. It will be a good night to heat up a bowl of this sweet potato soup with roasted red pepper and toast up a crusty roll to dip in olive oil. It is a literary day for me.  This morning at the library I met with an area poetry group and I felt an instant connection there.  Later I will Facebook with two of my Vermont writing partners. I do miss my Vermont family and friends, but not the winter weather.  I have heard too many stories about falling and getting stuck on ice to miss the place itself.  I heard from one friend today who fell on the ice outside her back door  and could not get herself back up again.  After 40 minutes of bein...

Last Monday while driving home from the hospital, I took the interstate, I89. Local people are pretty much aware that the eastbound lane is down to one lane going down French Hill as a large washout is being repaired.  Then there are the signs informing out-of-the-area folks (Flatlanders, as we like to call them) that the right hand lane is closed ahead. So I noticed that a full half-mile before the anticipated lane closing, all the VT cars are single file in the left hand lane.  We have toodled up and down the eastern seaboard states many, many times and honestly never saw anything like that happen before. I had to water my tomatoes yesterday for the first time since I planted.  It is supposed to be hot and humid for the beginning of the week.  So far the weather people have got it right.  But at least we are getting some welcome sunshine. I have heard the thing about women not sweating, merely glowing.  I am glowing so much lately that I am afraid ...

It is time for me to re-read the War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles  by Steven Pressfield. He is an author I would not ordinarily choose to read.  His books are about military stuff and wars.  He is an ex-marine after all.  According to his bio, he was made an honorary citizen of Sparta--for what that may say about him. But I have read the War of Art , and it is time for me to read it again.  From the introduction: There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't, and the secret is this:  It's not the writing part that's hard.  What's hard is sitting down to write. That is really no secret.  It is not that I have not been doing things.  I have, but I still have a nagging feeling of being stuck, of spinning wheels.  Spinning wheels is an apt image.  It is my mind that is spinning, and that means that I am not fully present with what I may be doing. It affects everythin...

I met with my writing group—a small intrepid band of us who get together on a fairly regular basis at the Jericho Town Library to discuss and support each others’ writing—last night.  I attended from 1500 plus miles away through the wonders of technology via web cam. Having the ability to do this was one of the main motivations for getting my new laptop last year. So now I have no excuse for slacking off on the writing.  I was not even the farthest away as the group had a note from one of the original group members who is currently in Croatia. ***********   It looks like a good week ahead—temps above average.  Mike has gone to visit a friend today and I am going to shop for a bicycle.  I have been looking at ads for used bikes, but have decided to go to a bike shop and get a new one.  That way I will know what I am getting.  Way more expensive, but I am worth it.   Tomorrow we will make a trip to Sarasota and shop at the Costco th...

Between getting to know my new laptop and spending time at my volunteer library duties (which seems to be a distressingly rapidly growing list of things to do), I have not come up with much to post here. So, I dip into the bizillion travel pictures.  Here we are, Mike and I, in California, a few years ago.  We're doing our best to look like tourists.  We visited Mike's son and family before and after a tour of Yosemite and Death Valley.  Lots of great trips in our memory banks. I have neglected writing after finishing up a short course on writing.  The advise was to write a lot, read a lot, and write some more every day.  In the past week or two, I have read The Writing Life by Annie Dillard, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King, and the War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  They all had the same basic message--write and read and write everyday.  Maybe today...

In my catch up blog reading, I have noticed a lot of painful experiences.  Accidents, illnesses, deaths, relationships, jobs, any of the stuff of everyday life can cause pain-- physical or emotional .  We all cope in different ways, but, for those of us accustomed to writing, the very act of writing things down can be a tool for dealing with whatever life throws at us.  It seems that writing a blog brings us into contact with a supportive, like-minded community of individuals we might otherwise never have met.  This may not necessarily be a substitute for the support of family and friends in "real life," but it is certainly another source--and who doesn't need a little extra support or an added prayer at some point? Another thing, I often note is that we tend to apologize because we are not "supposed to" mention our aches and pains, examine our trials, expose our emotions in public. Perhaps this is a generational thing.  I remembe...

I have to say that I have never yet read a growing-up-in-the-South novel that I haven't really enjoyed, and so it was with Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall. I also have to say that I have never finished a growing-up-in-the-South novel that in any way makes me wish I had actually come of age in the South anytime in recent history. Even so, it does seem to provide a depth of experience that is fodder for many talented and/or popular writers.

Sometimes I do not know why I read the newspaper. Today I read that a cleric in Iran blamed earthquakes on women who dress immodestly. And all this time, I thought that such disasters were caused by liberal Democrats! Live and learn. ________________ I have started my serious dedication to losing some extraneous pounds. My doctor warned me to last fall, but I ignored her for as long as I could. Now I'm noticing that my clothes seem a little snug. I exercise so I'm realizing I really have to get more serious about watching what I put into my mouth. I figure that I'll limit my glass of wine to Saturday and drink green tea as my dinner beverage. I'll cut back on portions generally but sweets and breads in particular. My New Year's resolution was to eat some fruit or vegetables with every meal and now I'm thinking I'll go to at least one vegetarian meal a week--something out of my long neglected Moosewood Cookbook . The Barefoot Contessa and Paula Dean...

I just finished reading a book of short stories entitled A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom. I picked it up simply because I loved that title. And then there were the tidbits like: I sometimes think that my mother's true purpose in life, the thing that gives her days meaning and her heart ease, is her ability to torture me in a manner as ancient and genteelly elaborate as lace making. from "The Gates are Closing" Sometimes a writer's ability to turn a phrase just grabs me and I am filled with both admiration and envy. ******* On the subject of seeing: I received a denial of payment for my visit to the eye doctor a few weeks ago. I had an increase in the "floaters" drifting across my line of vision and then lightening-like flashes, which were new and worrisome. I called my eye doctor in Vermont and he advised seeing someone, "preferably a retinal specialist" right away. I was able to get an appointment and I thought I was doing th...

I just read a novel, The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker. It's a stream of consciousness kind of narration by a poet who is supposed to be writing the introduction for an anthology of poems that rhyme. It's very funny. At the same time, it seems very revelatory of the thought processes of a poet and it was chock full of tidbits of literary information. I was fascinated...and it makes me want to read some more poetry. Then, I went to the UU church service this morning. The man who sat next to me said it was his second time in a UU church--last Sunday (about spirituality, which I missed) and then today which was themed, "Let the Good Times Roll," complete with New Orleans jazz and Mardi Gras costumes (no nudity or drinking though). He said he was a Lutheran by upbringing so I kept wondering what ever must have been swirling around in his mind as the masked and bejeweled choir danced down the aisles. There was no sermon--just the minister reading poems he had written whi...

The car trip from Vermont to Florida is a long one--something like 1580 miles--so it provides a lot of time to think. Every once in a while I would think of something that I wanted to remember as a topic for my blog. Whenever that happened, I reached into my bag and pulled out the pocket sized notebook I keep as an external brain, then jotted down notes to myself. As the first day wore on, Mike saw me do this several times. Finally he was unable to contain himself any longer and asked, “Just what are you doing in that notebook you keep writing stuff in?” My answer had to be, “I’m making notes of every time you do something annoying so I can remember and bring things up at an appropriate time in the future.” “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was afraid of!” Are those not the words of a man obviously feeling guilty, knowing his annoyance potential when focused on driving a long distance with his long suffering wife by his side? When he starts the car the schedule is set and unalterable (annoy...

The Color of Loneliness What is the color of loneliness? I really don’t know and I have to say the seeing of it is just coming to me right now. Still, I do know something of loneliness. Who could enter the seventh decade of a life without knowing something of loneliness? I know what loneliness tastes like--a bitter sensation at the back of the throat that lingers after a rejection or a painful loss.. An end to a once loving relationship, a parting of the ways between friends, a growing apart, a turning away, or a leaving behind--these produce an acrid taste that only gets washed away by salty tears. This loneliness makes us wary for a while, but then we return to the banquet of living again--sometimes wiser; sometimes, not. I know what loneliness smells like--a bowl of fruit, over ripe and cloying. This is the loneliness that comes from a loss of self, from acting in a way that is against one’s own integrity, from going against what one knows to be the right way. The fruit can only con...