Monday, August 30, 2010

On, In, and Around Mondays: Room with A View

trees at sunset

It is Saturday. Writing day. Usually I am out on one of the porches, either looking towards hemlocks or the little herb garden where I have—amidst flowers—rosemary, sage and thyme. But today it is peach-yellow bedroom walls, antique carved wooden rocker, a pile of French children's books, and an eclipsed view of the river (trees in full leaf obscure it until winter).

My chest hurts and, oddly, my legs. Yesterday I thought I would be better by today. Instead I feel like I must have run a marathon and my muscles have post-workout lactic acid buildup. I did not run a marathon. I am simply sick.

I can hear guitar in the next room. "For me He died, for me He lives." It is the song for tonight, the accompaniment for a daughter who will sing her father's last request. We worshiped alongside her father for many years, prayed with him and, more lately, for him. He was not that old. His daughter is, I think, too young to have to sing this song.

Now I hear the strains of the final refrain, "And everlasting life and light He freely gives."

I am writing in my peach-yellow bedroom. The color cheers me, even as I lie here sore and headachy. In a few minutes I will pull my sheets over my shoulders and go back to sleep. I look out my window. I know the river is beyond the trees.

Trees by the River photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Book I'm Not Writing, Rachel 2

Tango Dress

It is amazing how much time I spend thinking about a story I am not writing. It is even more amazing how anxious it makes me when I consider how lazy I am (a true novelist would perhaps look forward to figuring out such details as a story's time period and accompanying artifacts, would look forward to finding the answers to questions such as, "How do you, in fact, make a shoe?").

I do not want to answer these questions or dig for the details I would need. I remind myself that it's okay. I am not writing this story.

Still. This particular character has been hanging out in my head for a good seven years. When I first met her, she was strolling in the park, walking a dog. She looks the same. She is just as lovely and wears the same grey shoes. She is not nearly as bold. Her name is the same, and her Jewish heritage has traveled with her, but she is hanging out with sparrows instead of Golden Retrievers.

She is still meeting an Italian man, but he was much older before and rather talkative and married to... well, the same woman he will be married to here... except this wife is younger and I think she might even dance the Tango. Or something like that. Unfortunately, that is a detail I may have to put in and then take out when I discover the story's time period.

But that should be okay, right? Because how much work can it be to revise a story you aren't even writing?

----

Part One, if you haven't read it yet.

Pigeons were cooing just outside the window, and one appeared to be nesting in the geranium box. The geraniums should have been red this year. Last year she’d planted pink, and the year before a brilliant purple. But this year it was time again for red. Instead, a pigeon was staking her claim, making a place for little ones where the geraniums should be blooming.

A hand crossed Rachel's forehead and slipped a lock of silver hair behind her ear. It was Francis.

“Fifth Saturday, remember?” she said to him.

“I remember, Nana.”

Rachel lapsed into silence. The pigeons were still cooing and the sky was that kind of blue that makes you wonder if the whole world is floating in a universe of water.

A voice came from the other side of the room, “What’s she talking about, Frankie?”

“Oh, the fifth Saturday. That was the day she met my mother.”

“She loved your mother, yeah?”

Adored her. Not like how it was with my father. I think he scared her with his quiet ways. But my mom. Maria! They were like a tree and its shadow; one moved and the other bent to follow. You don't come by a friendship like that more than once in a lifetime.”

It was true, thought Rachel. She and Maria had met on the fifth Saturday.

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Do you have a story you aren't writing? Add your link below and link back here from your post. Thanks! :)

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Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Suddenly Tea is Solace and Story

Te de Carpi

I sat outside every day for a year. Most days, I brought nothing with me but a cup of tea. The tea was a way to measure my time. It was something to sort of do, while I sat and watched the trees.

Though I carried my drink to the same spot each day, I didn't know green tea from red from black, except in obvious ways. Imagine. For a whole year I ignored what was in my hands.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with that. I was there to enjoy the breeze, the zebra wasps, the crimson helicopter insects. I hadn't yet thought of considering my tea.

Really, it was not just the year outdoors that I ignored what was in my hands. Tea has been my companion for a good long while. My mother gave me the ritual of tea when I was a child, and I have carried it into adulthood.

But suddenly I am looking at this drink I hold daily, this companion I have steeped from bags and loose leaves, in pots and cups. I am reading about the history of tea, its chemical properties, its rich cultural and literary connections. I am even writing poetry (and next week you'll see a new story with tea at its heart).

Where will my new attention to tea take me? I suspect that doesn't matter. For now, it is taking me right here, to my own cup and the stories it holds.

Suddenly

Solace is me, opening
pages, white leaves that whisper
the secrets, the stories of tea.


---

This post is offered as part of One Shot Wednesday and HighCallingBlogs' Random Acts of Poetry.

Creme Earl Grey Tea photo by L.L. Barkat.

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Monday, August 23, 2010

On, In and Around Mondays: Greensleeves, Green Tea, and a Circlet

mountain dulcimer

"Where's the stapler?" she asks.

I answer with my usual reminder, "You guys used the stapler and never put it back. You'll have to find something else." I imagine the black stapler is cavorting with dust bunnies under my younger daughter's bed, along with The Magic Treehouse: Christmas in Camelot, which I tell the librarian we have lost but will find someday in the abyss.

My daughter looks at the ceiling, frowns, and walks away.

I am at the dining room table. Sunset-golden walls reflect morning light. I'm sipping a green tea I bought on the streets of Granada, Spain. It is called "Te de Carpi." My favorite part is the lavender-blue petals. What kind of flower is that, nestled in full-leaved green tea?

Not ten minutes ago, I took a slight teaspoon of the mix and placed it in the tea basket to brew. I leaned to take in the fragrance, light and promising, then stared at the dwindling jar of leaves. It won't be long now. And I don't know that I'll ever walk those streets again.

"Look." My daughter has returned. Her small hand pushes a collection of papers in front of my face. The papers are connected by a piece of green yarn, the same pearly-slate-green as my tea leaves. "Do you know why I used green?" she asks.

I want to tell her to go away. I am sipping my morning tea. I like the quiet of the moment.

"Why?" I entertain her question.

"Because of the song."

She has found the lyrics to Greensleeves on the Internet, copied them into Microsoft Word, and printed them on two pages now connected by a small piece of green yarn. The circlet of yarn should be smaller, I think. There is too much space and the pages hang apart as if they are possibly not together at all. A staple would be better.

"Can I sing it for you?" she asks.

My morning tea is officially interrupted now. I acquiesce. "Sure, sing it to me." She sings the first verse and the chorus, then nods in my direction and points to the next verse. I sing and am surprised at how much our voices sound alike, though hers is softer, younger, sweet in the way that only a child's voice can be. And now we have decided, without planning it ahead of time, that we will sing this song together taking turns.

The last verse is mine. While she is finishing her chorus I whisper, "Let's sing it together." We do. Her voice and mine, loosely held in harmony, as if by a pearl-green circlet of yarn.


Sonia's Dulcimer (on which she loves to play 'Greensleeves'), photo by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Book I'm Not Writing: Inheritance

foil wrapper

Isn't it freeing to simply play at writing? I think so. That's why I'm not writing a lot of books. You should not-write-a-lot-of-books too. In fact, at the end of this post, if you'd like to link up a brief piece of a story you aren't writing, that would be fun. :)

This particular story I'm not writing had its beginning at a restaurant. I overheard a conversation and thought, "Oh yeah. Perfect." That was about 10 years ago. I have a lot of stories like this that I haven't been writing (just wait and see). Some of them I might follow a little more. Like last week's. Maybe I'll post a continuation next week. In the meantime, here is another book I am not writing...

---

"I could make it work. I know I could."

George tilted his head, thinking hard now, calculating the worth of the Dodge sitting in the restaurant parking lot.

She picked up a packet of foil-wrapped butter and slowly pulled back neat corners. The butter was too warm, so when she went to gather it on her knife, it slipped onto her black lycra pants.

Traci swiped at it, only pressing the mistake further into stretch-cloth. She sighed quietly and reached for another gold packet. But now he grabbed her hand and stopped it, pushing her palm flat to the table before she could get her fingers around the new pat of butter. His own meaty fingers toyed with her wedding ring.

"If I sell the Dodge and your ring, plus everything that's in the apartment, and we borrow some money, I could make it work. I always wanted a ranch. How hard can it be to raise cattle? Come on, Traci, you know I can do it. You know it."

She looked down at her unbuttered bread, then off beyond him, to the exit sign at the back of the room. If she could just look straight into his green eyes. Or excuse herself to the bathroom. Or something. Her hair caught the light so that instead of looking like the vivid red she'd asked for at the beauty shop, it morphed into an odd dark pink that looked unreal.

The waiter came now. He set down a broad-noodled alfredo with peas, for her, and an oversized steak for George, who stabbed his fork into it before she even picked up her own fork. Her bread was still unbuttered too, and would stay that way for the meantime, since George must have taken the last portions while she was looking at the exit sign.

And now it was suddenly too late. She hadn't looked George straight in the eyes, and her food was waiting, and George was chewing fast and hard.

----

Do you have a story you aren't writing? Add your link below and link back here from your post. Thanks! :)

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Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Seems It Was Yesterday

underground

This underground place reminds me of a canyon, its substance being emptied by water passing through. I took the picture while at Ruby Falls in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I wrote the poem two days later, north of my memories.


Cowboy

Seems it was yesterday
he came riding
on a chestnut wild horse,
fingers twined in black shaggy
mane that had already seen deserts,
ravines, rivers high daring,
"Ford me, if you think you
are man enough for mountain
water old as Geronimo, painted
red canyon raging." Seems it
was yesterday, he traveled
through time to meet me
on the other side.


This poem is also in honor of One Shot Wednesday.

Underground Chasm photo at Ruby Falls, by L.L. Barkat.

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Monday, August 16, 2010

On, In and Around Mondays: A Strange Solace

Grandma and Self Portrait

I have been gone for nine days. Nine days in Tennessee. For some of those days, I slept in my grandmother's room— or, I should say, what used to be my grandmother's room in her latter years.

When I opened the door, the first thing I saw was her "gallery of us." Pictures of my sister and I, displayed in a group, like a window into a mind now gone. My breath caught just the littlest bit. I don't know why this, of all things, caught me off guard, pressed me inward.

For the next moments, I cataloged the other contents of the room... a picture of her New York house before it was hers, a large needlepoint of Jesus knocking at a door, the tiny Snow White and Seven Dwarves painted woodcut I used to gaze at as a child, another painting of two beggar women eating what surely must have been someone else's picnic.

I opened a flip-top on the oak dresser. Empty. I opened another one. There lay a white Spanish fan, shut. I could picture my grandmother having closed it with a final click. I opened a drawer. Empty. Another. Empty. A third. Oddly full of powdered fragrance that might have been hers; if not, I preferred to believe it was. It surrounded me like an invisible embrace.

grandma's house

A few days later I went to exercise in a room on the other side of the house; I recalled childhood days when my grandmother exercised before dawn. "Thump, thump," I could hear her moving, moving.

Now in this room where I came to move, I remembered seeing my grandmother sit in her final years, staring blankly at a puzzle she intended to do, holding pieces static in midair. The closet of the room was open. Her card table, where the puzzles used to lay, was faced away from me. Closed. Its legs, which also close with a noisy click, sat still.

I lifted my arms to the sky and remembered how she used to do the same, and pray. I prayed tiny prayers that sounded like nothing more than, "Lord. Oh, Lord."

More needlepoints surrounded me here. An old fisherman, a Spanish courtyard, a Parisian sidewalk scene. Did my grandmother like Paris? She must have. Do I remember that? No. Odd, I think, that maybe I am living-remembering through my new penchant for French.

On my final morning I ate breakfast on the deck. I peered over the railing, looked down at a barren walk dotted with a few weeds. If my grandmother was here and still strong, perhaps there would have been flowers. I remember that too... how everywhere she went she planted flowers... so many you could hardly come to the end of them. Zinnias. She especially loved zinnias, a straightforward flower if there ever was one.

I moved back from the railing and sat in a wrought iron chair, my time here coming to a close. The air was thick with humidity. The lake made little lapping noises, something like eternity, it seemed to me. I sat and watched the water ripple endlessly. Where do the ripples come from and where do they go? I thought how impossible it would be to trace or count them. A small, strange solace.

Tennessee Lake



Join Claire, Kelly and Sarah for their "solace" prompt. Also, you might like to freeze frame your life's journey the way I have here (my entry is the first photo above... a portrait of my grandmother as a child that contains my reflection too).

Grandma as a Child, Grandma's House, and Lake photos, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Friday, August 13, 2010

Surprise in the Tea Pot

tea pilgrimage

I opened my email the other day, only to find this delightful encouragement from A Simple Country Girl: the photo above and this sweet message...

Two days after I read your tea pilgrimage post, I was taking some photos early one morning while the light danced on the kitchen table. I was snapping pictures of a basil in a green creamer. Then I added the tea pot and honey jar, sans the basil. Look what I saw! A wonderful cross reflected on the teapot. I couldn't see it with any of the other stoneware, just the tea pot. Immediately I thought of you. So, here you go miss L.L., something for your new yearlong journey.

Thank you, Simple Country Girl. Indeed, I felt inspired, so my girls and I placed our first splurge order tonight... a green Earl Grey, a passionfruit mango red, and a lychee blossom green. We were oohing and aahing and we can't wait to taste the new teas and write about our experience.

Teapot and Crockery photo by A Simple Country Girl. Used with permission.

MORE TEA STUFF:
LL at Curator with The Art of Drinking Tea

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Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Book I'm Not Writing (yes, I stole your title, Bradley)

Russian Egg

What could it hurt to write some fiction? A scene here and there? Besides risking a little embarrassment because it's not my best suit, what could it hurt? I remember Julia (sorry my anti-Julia friend) saying that any one of us could write a novel just because. Just for the heck of it. I'm anyone, aren't I? Not a novelist by any means. But someone who wants to play...

---

The first thing she noticed were his fingers. Or maybe his fingernails. They were cropped to the tip, ridged and beaten. Yet despite their obvious wear, for a shoemaker’s nails, they seemed remarkably clean. This is the first thing she noticed.

The second thing Rachel noticed was the way he looked at her when he put the bag containing Edward’s shoes on the counter. It was not an unusual look by any means, and not too long. It was simply a flicker across black, like something remembered. Then it was gone.

She fumbled through her worn leather purse to gather the appropriate payment, which she placed on the counter in exchange for the paper bag containing Edward’s shoes. The bag crinkled and muttered as she gathered it against her chest, and she glanced at the wall of shoes behind the shoemaker. So many shoes stacked in little openings, like orphans awaiting adoption. Brown and black, grey and navy, and a pair of red shoes off to the side. Who did they all belong to, she wondered. Then she blinked and said, "Well, thank you, Mr. Delano."

The transaction complete, and thoughts of what Edward should need for lunch beginning to crowd in, she walked out into the day. Elm shadows played at her feet, gray against her gray flats. Her shoes were rough at the toe, perhaps because she sometimes scuffed the ground when she got distracted looking at this or that sparrow. Who knows why Rachel’s shoes were actually in need of repair. It could have been any number of reasons—their age, her gait, the wrong leather, maybe even that she never polished them. But she suddenly understood what needed to be done. She would wait, though, for three Saturdays. And then she would go.

---

I think it is good for me to write in arenas where I'm a beginner. It reminds me how tentative a person can feel when putting his words out there for the world to see. It reminds me to be very encouraging, accepting, and careful when I work with new or shy writers. I think it is good to write something I have no plans of writing... to simply play.

(As an aside, my older daughter just gave me some feedback: "Well, it's not very bad." Yes sirree. This is definitely embarrassing. :)

Egg in the Window photo, by L.L. Barkat. Apologies to Bradley J. Moore for stealing his title. :)

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Monday, August 09, 2010

On, In and Around Mondays: Getting Things Done

hemlocks

The blue and white book sits to my left, on a table with makeshift tablecloth (floral on white fabric several yards long). I am lazing on the porch, morning sun warming my legs. My ivory socks literally say, "I am calm," in purple block letters (that's another story about a catalog order mix-up).

It is true that my legs and feet are calm, set on a folding chair, facing light-tipped hemlocks. But my elbow, which is dangerously near the blue and white book is practically twitching with stress. When I am finished writing this, I plan to rescue my elbow and my neck (which is also tightening at the very thought of what lies between those blue and white covers).

This is a rebellion I cannot explain. But it is real.

To my left sits a best-selling book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, and my upper body is all in a twist. Last night I glimpsed the contents— phrases like Getting Control, Five Phases, Setting Up, Reviewing, Next-Action. Like black plastic knobs (turn, turn, turn), they upped my stress level about five notches. I closed the book almost as soon as I opened it.

Blue and white are two of my favorite colors, but on this book they are battling with the purple-lettered declaration of my socks. There is only one course of action, which involves a return-to-the-library book pile. Now I put my pen down, get it done.


Hemlocks photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? Write something 'in place' and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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Thursday, August 05, 2010

The Republic of Tea

The Republic of Tea

Two unacquainted men left a business conference early. They shared a taxi to the airport, where they discovered they were also about to share a plane ride. Seven hours later, it was semi-settled. They would start a tea business together.

I didn't know much about their story when I ordered The Republic of Tea from the library. It was on a list of 100 Best Business Books and sounded intriguing. I also didn't know I was about to suggest a year-long "tea pilgrimage" to my girls.

It is probably subversive to call a year of pursuing something ordinary a "pilgrimage." But I'd already forged the way with another journey. So here we are. On Tea Pilgrimage.

The Republic of Tea showed up right on time, and I'm reading and discussing it with my 13-year-old (who stole it away and is already two-thirds through). The book is a delightful chronicle of a business, born and forged. It feels right— this playful treatise on business philosophy, packaging, tea markets and "Tea Mind."

After all, we have purposed to put tea on our minds (and in our cups) until at least next July. Who knows. Maybe this will begin a longer journey, like the 18 years that is now behind two men who left a conference early... and who are still filling cups (and minds) with tea.

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Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Writing 10,000 Times

white flowers

Recently, a friend told me about the 10,000 times principle. I'd heard about the 10,000 hours principle, which I suppose is the same. Anyway, the idea is that you may be, say, a terrific writer. But you haven't put in enough times to make that clear to the world. The idea is also that talent may be a false construct.

I don't know. I kind of disagreed with that. I think there is some basic talent that's necessary. Though of course, it helps to put in your 10,000 times (or hours, depending on your version of the theory).

Anyway, in the end, the whole thing inspired a poem...

Explanation for Our Disagreement

I have no particular talent
for arguing with you;
I've simply done it
nine thousand, nine
hundred and ninety-nine
times. And besides,
it is so fun to make up
with a poem.

This is in celebration of One Shot Wednesday.

White Flowers photo, by L.L. Barkat.

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Monday, August 02, 2010

On, In, and Around Mondays: Basil, Vines, and Possibility

orange flower

Red notebook in hand, I sit near the little herb garden. It seems important to write in the place I am going to tell you about, rather than recalling it later at a keyboard.

susans-trees

And isn't it good for my soul, after all, to listen to the dance of hemlocks, maples and wind. This sound could be water if I didn't know better. Funny how things are more the same than we let them be.

pink begonia

The garden contains possibility— basil for red sauce, sage for French lentil salad, rosemary for new potatoes, chives for cream cheese (my daughters love to snip green stems with scissors).

susans

Just a few years ago, this yard had too many views of trampolines, garages, tree house, chain link fence. But I have cultivated possibility, let vines grow, allowed branches to come between me and the neighbors.

herb garden

Is that all it takes sometimes? A few short years of letting go... leaning into possibility... to find such as this? I get on my knees beside the little herb garden, push my camera towards beauty, and click.

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On, In and Around Mondays (which partly means you can post any day and still add a link) is an invitation to write from where you are. Tell us what is on, in, around (over, under, near, by...) you. Feel free to write any which way... compose a tight poem or just ramble for a few paragraphs. But we should feel a sense of place.

Would you like to try? This week, consider writing something about your yard and add your link below. If you could kindly link back here when you post, it will create a central meeting place. :)

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