The Murray Tree

The wind and rain have taken many leaves and some trees are looking quite bare. Others have held tight, refused to give up anything yet to winter. The nights are cold making mornings outside too chilly until the sun wipes his eyes and comes fully awake near noon.

I have spent two days and one more to go of merely boxing up tea pots and cups preparing for  coming wall and ceiling work. I have taken pictures down, folded tablecloths, but have top of kitchen cabinets left to do. Mind you, this is not furniture moving yet, only small pieces of “stuff. It is amazing what I have accumulated. I feel strange taking down my own things, wrapping in tissue, and boxing like I am ending something. I wonder if I need these beloved things at all…would life be easier with cleared table tops?

Yesterday as I ran to town for more tissue paper, I noted the change in trees but kept moving on myself thinking that is what we all do…keep going, keep changing. I was coming down the street when I saw the Murray Tree and had to pull the car over to exalt its loveliness. Every year we watch for this tree to change as it is a beauty. This year while other trees were at their peak, this one had not even begun to change! We figured it would be a year it just did not perform. The Murrays have been dead for years and the house falls into ruin while descendants refuse to settle the estate. Yet every year, this tree flames full of color, full of a last burst of life at the end of summer. So this year was to be no different, just late.

The beauty of the Murray Tree made me think of my writing. Would it be slow and late too? Would it burst forth in the middle of a winter snow storm and astound me (and editors too!) with powerhouse words I stacked together? I can only hope this is true. No lines will be written in the next few weeks of sheetrock dust and plaster! But I can hope that like the Murray Tree I will eventually show marvelous creations even if late in the season!

It Is a November Day

November is certainly here. A hard freeze moved in mums for the night on Friday, but all else froze. Leaves fell freely in the weekend winds. We wrapped up the deck for winter all but a few pieces. We sat the mums back out, crowding them around the door so I could see them constantly for whatever time they have left. The rain began in the night—the slow easy rain of late autumn.

It was a November rain we drove to Joplin in this morning. Going for an eye appointment, we never even turned on the radio. The wipers were our music, tap-tap-taping out the rhythm of a “winter coming” song. The skies were heavy and dismal, as gray as river rock. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that soon such a rain would be freezing or turning to white flakes.

The time change makes everything darker too. Poor Biscuit, she comes to me at 4:00 today and jumps into my lap. Her eyes plead. They say she does not care WHAT the clock says, her tummy says it is 5 p.m. and her dinnertime!

Inside we begin to take down pieces on walls and tables to ready for an overhaul of ceilings and walls. Gradually the inside of the house is looking less autumn comfy and more winter desolate. The bankroll is lessened too. The eye appointment went well this morning if one considers being $1000 lighter in the wallet as a good thing, but having healthy eyes is good news after problems for a while.

We stopped at Sam’s before coming home. Mercy, was that place packed! Was it that everyone could not do anything else in the rain so they went to buy food? I will say there was a certain friendliness in people as many stopped to comment on voting, my bracelets, or to ask where the dried fruit aisle was. There was a certain comradery in folks, maybe a common dread of winter perhaps?

But with cooler air and darker days, a good thing appears—soup pots! We had Panera Kale a few nights ago…then Beefy Onion with croutons on top…a spinach bean soup is in the freezer waiting…and all afternoon a chicken has cooked with celery, onions garlic, and tarragon. It will become chicken noodle for tonight.

Yes, it is really looking like November around here!

Writing in October

The autumn continues to be splendid. Each chore is less daunting because of the beauty that surrounds me. In the early morning or late in the afternoon when the sun hits the dazzling trees, the leaves look like they glow and shimmer.

We are preparing for a fall repair of ceilings and walls at this house. I could just cry at the thoughts of it all.  I am going to have to say goodbye to 30 year old wallpaper that still looks good enough for me. Oh, I know it is dated…but so am I, and that wallpaper has looked down on a lot of living in this house. Not only will rooms of furniture be moved, but LOADS of tea pots, tea cups, and “stuff”.

Among other things this week, DH drove a few miles to buy a load of oak and cherry for winter projects. He buys from a great Ozark lumber place that cuts, dries, and planes nice wood. Once this first project is finished, he will move to some handcrafted pieces of furniture. Already I am looking forward to winter days where maybe I can write while he builds.

I belong to a wonderful poet’s group out of Cuba, Missouri called The Bombadils. I've never met a single soul there, but they were gracious enough to include me through my participation in Missouri Poetry Society. Leader Dawn Harmon gives us a prompt every month or two and then we can post our work in group emails. Others can comment. It is like a writer’s group only online!

I have missed several of her last prompts due to time and opportunity to work on a poem. I notice that others have been quiet too so everyone has a busy life these days. This month’s prompt seemed like a good assignment to work on.

October Writing Prompt

Pick out a poem either from your own "Dead Letter" file or choose one of your favorite poet's pieces.

Read it through, line by line. 

Re write line by line telling the same story in the opposite emotion.

Re write this two more times changing the emotion each time. 

This is a good prompt because writers should be readers too. Many great writers use the work of others to put them in a writing space, a mood, a genre to write. So when DH drove away to fetch wood and I found the new Mary Oliver book Blue Horses in my mailbox, I gave myself permission to put down the dust mop and sit a spell under autumn skies for a read. It wasn’t long before one of Oliver’s poems moved me to work on a poem for the October writing prompt. While not an exact opposite…and it could use more work…it was fun to do, to play with.

Now that is what a poem, any writing, should be, fun, right?

 First stanza from Mary Oliver’s  I Don’t Want to Be Demure or Respectable.

I don’t want to be demure or respectable.

I was that way, asleep, for years.

That way you forget too many important things.

How the little stones, even if you can’t hear them are singing.

How the river can’t wait to get to the ocean and sky, it’s been there before.

What traveling is that!

My take was I did not want to be thin. (Actually I would, but chances are it won’t ever happen so accept it!)

I Don’t Want to Be Thin

I don’t want to be thin and lean anymore.

I have fought portly pudge for years,

Missed the chewy pull of taffy on my teeth,

Avoided sugar to soften the sharpness of my tea.

Is that really called eating?

What joy to indulge in sauce-drenched pasta

Followed by a decadent frothy tiramisu.

I would be a hefty bulge then but still be me,

As fascinating and sensitive and intent as now.

So instead of suffering the crunch of kale

And sipping chalky protein drinks,

I’m going to enjoy the taste of luscious food,

Savor each salient calorie.

Who I am will still be there--

Just cradled under soft mounds of tasted happiness.

A Favorite Bracelet

I was about nine and my sister five the year Gran gave us bracelets for Easter. It made more sense than an Easter basket filled with candy that would be eaten by the next Sunday. The bracelets were alike except for the colors of the stone. Gran gave us our choice, and while reaching for the blue one, my sister squealed for the blue. Knowing the constant admonition to “be a big girl”, I was fully aware of what was coming and just gave in taking the orange stone I was less fond off.

While the bracelets were sterling, the stones were some form of glass. I wore mine forever, through college and into marriage. The stone became rough and pitted. One day I noticed it was cracked. However, the stone continued to hold fast though I was sick about it. I eventually put it away taking it out occasionally to ponder, to remember Gran herself.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across it again. I was amazed I could still wear it. Thankfully Gran had thought ahead and got us bigger bracelets that would grow with us, not tiny baby type pieces. I was still sad to see the broken and abused stone.

But I remembered a jeweler only a few miles away that had impressed me with his work. He repairs, builds, and designs even. He is an artist. He does not like to overcharge so is quite honest about things, refusing to do simple jobs that will take man hours to execute thus costing much. That was his response to this bracelet. Hubby asked about turquoise and there was no way he had a big enough piece. He wasn’t sure he had any stone to fit…was afraid it would be costly…agreed the sterling was worth saving so he said leave it a few days and let him think.

We left it on Wednesday morning and Friday morning he called. I could tell from his voice he was pleased with himself. He had found a piece of turquoise with pyrite in it. Pyrite is a mineral deposit of iron and sulfur giving off a metallic gleam. The charge was less than a dinner out.  I just love it, and though it took fifty years, I got my blue bracelet in the end.

Nice to have a memory back on my arm again!

Autumn Splendor

Autumn in the Ozarks can be marked by a frothy fog that lingers early morning in furrows of plowed fields, near creek beds, above valleys that rest among hills and bald knobs. The temps have been chilly, but the sun brings delightful temperatures as it rises. One starts the day with a jacket, eases into a sweatshirt, and finally peels down to shirtsleeves for bright and temperate afternoons.

These last months we have missed favorite pastimes and crowd in all we can now at the end of the year. Yesterday we arose early, packed a lunch, loaded Miss Biscuit among fishing poles and headed for Roaring River. Unfortunately, it was her first ride on Ozark curves and twists making her lose her breakfast as we coast down the big hill into the park.

The day was cloudy in the beginning but soon the fog and chill burned off. People were few and all were older, slower paced folks casting lines across the roiling stream or lingering over warm campfires. The trees were beautiful to say the least. Not the vibrant reds of some areas but muted shades of orange and yellow. 

Biscuit and I walked some. I had books and paper, as always, but found myself unable to concentrate on distant locations and varied stories when I sat in front of such calming splendor. Mother Nature had her own story to tell using color to spin magnificence. I did not want to take my eyes away for fear of missing a single minute of pulsating transformations among the trees. 

Tiny Library in a Tiny Town

My tiny hometown had a tiny public library, but it was a gigantic window to the world for me. It was built like a brown shoe box. The front door had to be pushed a bit, and in summer the wall unit air conditioner rumbled like thunder.  The librarian was a tiny white haired lady with wireframe glasses and heavy tied black Granny shoes who spoke in a tiny voice that made you speak softly like you were in a church.

I can still tell where some of the books sat. Katherine Ann Porter’s Ship of Fools was on the top row of the first set of shelves by the front door. Second row hat horse stories and nurse love stories. Then an area in the middle of the long room opened up with some magazines and a table for browsing in a chosen book. Right under the air conditioner on the east wall was a long row of the classics…Last of the Mohicans, House of Seven Gables, Around the World in Seven Days, War and Peace and others. Below them was the children’s section, a feast for me on many a summer day.

It was close to the bottom that I found the set of chapter books dealing with Native Americans. I can see the turquoise covers yet and wish I knew the publishers today so I could re-find this series of books. Each book told stories and myths of different tribes. I felt right at home with these books and became so absorbed in the tales that I read them over and over again. I did not know that my own blood ran Red so to speak. The stories were full of moral lessons, of First People’s beliefs about living responsibly, respecting the earth, honoring elders and right living in general.

My grandmother put silver and turquoise bracelets on my arm before I started school. My dad vetoed any baby ear piercings or I might have had them too is my guess. She was a quiet but proud woman. She did the responsible thing always; she respected the thoughts of others. She held her temper, spoke in soft voices, and turned the other cheek. She put more on me than just jewelry. She was a visible form of the little turquoise books I found on the tiny library’s shelves that gave me a big start in life. 

Telling Our Stories

Editors are an unexplained lot these days. I think there used to be a rigid protocol to follow by both the writer and the editor. Now days many editors do not even acknowledge receiving a submission. But you can’t be sure it is rejected just because you haven’t had a response in six weeks. It can be many months and then you get maybe a question or inquiry back so when you answer you can wait another six months to hear more! Alas, I submitted Sunday and already have a rejection today so there is no rule for time.

I recently got a rejection that was most unusual. They were sorry because my poem did not fit their issue. However, they were impressed and would like to see more. The editors (more than one) rather picked apart the first stanza of said poem although they liked the rest. I have not visited the poem again yet. After all, the editors’ opinions are just that--opinions. Someone else might not agree. However, I do appreciate ANY feedback at all so I can consider it.

My opinions often differ from others. For example, the rave reviews of Gone Girl did not include one from me. I hated this book. Oh, I thought the writing was very good, kept me reading. It was fast paced…snappy and read like a Facebook post in brevity. But the ending…a surprise, but I also felt duped as a reader. Maybe I was just not a sharp reader! Now it is a movie…maybe that will be a good venue for the story, but I do not intend to watch unless it appears at the local video store for a cheap price.

We rarely go to the movies anymore, but this is birthday week so a movie with theater popcorn! was on my week’s list. Very little draws me to pay the price and inconvenience of our local theater, but I chose to see The Judge.  I am glad I had seen few reviews as they say story leans on clichés and is poorly told. Not so in my book. Here were real people, suffering human faults, portrayed by very good actors. Duvall as always shows his stuff; Downey is not a particular favorite of mine, but I was mesmerized by his work in this film. Yes, some of the points are melodramatic, but so is life with real people. I found the relationships painful to watch because I know people living them. The ending was about ten minutes too long in that it would have been more poignant had it stopped in the boat scene. Enough said until you see the movie for yourself.

Telling our stories, preferably without vampires and space ships, is what I love to do, to read, to contemplate. This month’s Country magazine carries an essay of mine, a scene from my “story”. You can read it online if you wish—or not. http://www.country-magazine.com/short-stories/nostalgia-stories/grandpas-dx-a-true-old-fashioned-gas-station/

I hope your story today is a good one.