I miss writing on a regular basis. I really miss taking that block of uninterrupted time to just immerse myself in the laying down of words. ...LOVE to write. When I'm feeling creatively stagnant, when my painting muse is MIA, writing always gets the juices going. ....if only I had more time. I've barely made time for getting down the basics of what goes on in my life, let alone anything creative. I'd like to make more of an effort. Lately I've been looking at writing prompt blogs and have found some pretty good ones that I would like to run with. Here's one and here's another. I also have kind of half-assed started a "Beautiful Words" type of meme where I write something based on some of the words I find, you guessed it, beautiful. I was chatting about all this with my RunnerGirl friend and she pointed me to a reader's blog who is doing a blog-a-day thing for May. I'm going to jump on her blogwagon and hang tenuously to the feed trough, if you will. I need to temper leniency on this one with dedication. I'm not joining the gang and posting widgets to the challenge and responding to peoples posts... I have no one to prove anything to but myself and we have WAY too much going on this month...Chaotic remodeling, my mom visiting, holiday, birthday, Parties, Dylan's graduation and leaving of the nest........ I want to dedicate a little solace time to quiet mediation and writing this month. I'm just glomming some decent prompts from this challenge and doing it my own effin' way. No promises of anything daily....but here goes:
My life story in 250 X 2.5-ish words:
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Earliest memory: The smell of Certs…a triad of lights overhead…birth…a person of gold light who has comforted me in my dreams ever since.
Uncomfortable pretty shoes push a plastic horsey around a limpid Texas pool.
I wait for my Daddy to get home from work on the prickly
grass of our New Jersey front lawn. Eyes
fixed on the blue above me because I was told he was riding a motorcycle today
and was going to jump so high into the sky.
“Whatcha got there?” “Bread and butter”.
Montessori and whistling, finally, I have what it takes to
conquer this fear of that deafening… paralyzing… alarm bell in our Minnesota
home. I love my Irish setter, and my
friend Nick, and rides in the car, my kite, Zoom, and was I on Romper Room?!?!?
New Jersey again. Ridgewood…learning to find my way to kindergarten
all by myself-such a big girl- and Miss Ola is the nicest lady in the world . Imaginations SOAR, my neighbor friends and I visit
many worlds as I dodge the first of many bullies to come. She pulled me down the wooden stairs by my
arm. I dance with Neil Diamond on the
landing…
Another new home. The
last one of my childhood. A pool, my
hair is long, my father unpredictable. My
love for running is born as Dinosaurs chase me in the back yard. Late nights of loud music and arguments chase
my dreams. He smashed my tape recorder on the kitchen floor and promised to
ALWAYS be there. A broken cactus,
someone sleeping it off in the guestroom, “we’re getting a divorce”. My cousin cries, I sigh. My imaginary play reveals truths. The scale tips back and forth…friends/my
step-dad and his grandkids/outside/beloved pets/my tiny glass
animals/grandmothers/ sunlight dappling my bedroom window screen/the green
leaves shimmer along with cicadas/dreaming of mountains. Back and forth… the bullies/the Spirit
Breakers/the prison of my own brain/…my friend dies. My family is not of my blood.
My New Hampshire dorm filled with excited and excepting
students. On their own for the first
time. It gives me freedom and safety to emerge…… only to cocoon again when my
friend is extinguished by a drunk driver and again when my step-father dies(I
knew it before anyone answered my call.)
Things are no longer the same. Off to another New Hampshire college. Too much excess, too many stagnant “friends”. I take control. Body, mind and soul,
And Montana becomes my love. “All my changes where there”. I learn to go it solo. My dog in tow. The quiet on the hills and high peaks
connecting my core to the earth where I dig my toes into its softness in the spring. I am growing up with my garden that I share
with my soul mate although this reality remains locked unacknowledged deep in my
heart. For years. I feel a love for his baby girl like I have
never felt before. And then they are
gone. I’m ready for more…
…So one quick yearlong stay in Seattle… and I miss my
mountains. I miss close friends. I miss my evolution. I was wrong.
This isn’t “more”.
Alaska. Reunited with
mountains, ocean, my best friend and his growing girl. Endings and new beginnings and my heart is
unlocked forever. Free to love. To help complete a broken family. This child that bestowed the honor of
mothering upon me… This man who said “yes”
when I proposed amongst glaciers.
Experiencing the quickening and growth in my own womb. Together we have joined life, rescued life, created life, and learned to live life as
fully as we can. True friendships,
meaningful fulfilling work, raising our young, hard play, continued personal
evolution….
Us four. Held in the
heart of this mountain valley.  |
| Photo by Mathew Crockett Photography |
