On, In, and Around Mondays: Imagining What We Need

The deck is empty of toys. Just grown-up things are placed here and there. A table with black-armed lawn chairs. An old mop. A pillow for grandma to lean against. A faux black-iron pot, which once held flowers. Twine, rope, a suitcase carrier. A plastic blimp whose function is undetermined.

My Littlest senses this won't do, for young cousins in need of diversion. She proposes a carnival.



Mop becomes pony ride, rope becomes tether. Blimp becomes hanging boxing toy. Pot, a receptacle for a tossing-the-twine game. Suitcase carrier is suddenly trolley (only for the youngest, my girl tells the cousins). Chairs, in a row, are a roller coaster. "I'm the dwiver!" shouts the tiny boy cousin. "Okay, you're the driver!" shouts my Littlest in return.

Children become players in a play. Cowgirls are attacked by a tiny cowboy. "It's a bandit!" cries my girl. "I'm a band-aid!" he cries in return.



When it is time for supper, grandpa tries to put the chairs back, undo the blimp. The tiny cousin protests, "No! Don't. We worked hard on dis!"

And they did. I sit in the family room, watching all. Learning from the children, again. To laugh and imagine.



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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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This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

Secret Red Shoes

The Secret

for Kelly Sauer

When I was a girl,
I wanted shoes like Dorothy's.
Red sparkled, to fend off
witches, grant my wishes.
Mine were leather,
with a strap.
I walked into life
anyway, where I found
a red-lipped me,
a star-like you.


This post is also being shared with One Shot Wednesday.

On, In, and Around Mondays: Listening to the Past

"What is it?" my Eldest asked.

She was standing in a used bookstore, in front of a showcase of old music albums, touching one of the covers lightly. She liked the colors and the idea of whatever this thing was. An album. It felt strange, that she would not recognize what I grew up with. But I smiled.

Last night, at a friend's house, we noticed an old mahogany phonograph. No electronics. Plays hard vinyl and ceramic records. I remembered that day in the bookstore, and it was as if we were touching time-past again. This time, 1911.

"Can you play it?" we asked the owner.

He pulled it out, cranked it up, opened the doors in the base (that was the volume control), and played Carmen. My daughter and I stared and listened to an opera we love. The sound was faraway, oddly bright, yet oddly scratchy and muffled.

"See? The needle vibrates and sends the vibration to this disc, which sends the sound up the arm and down into the base of the casing," instructed one of the older friends among us. My daughter peered underneath, through the open doors, as if she would be able to see the sound.

I closed my eyes and listened, held back tears. "I don't know why this makes me want to cry," I said. "Something about the sounds."

"I want one," said my daughter. This, the girl who has no interest in IPods or Kindles.

In that moment, I wanted one too. And I could picture my daughter and I held close, just listening.

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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. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

On, In, and Around Mondays: Red on the Farm

I went back. How could I stay away, when Sparkle strawberries were calling, and the teapot tree.





Also, I am on a hunt for red, because, Claire sent me looking. And I was sure there must be red at Linsay's place. There was.








I can see I will need to write things down before I go, because I am utterly distracted when I'm at the farm. This time I got lost in talk about Jemima the duck, as I was trying to remember to buy sugar snap peas. I went home without the peas. But I bought duck eggs, which apparently have more protein and something or other. For my part, I kept thinking about Beatrix Potter's duck in her little blue bonnet, and this disrupted my ability to memorize nutritional profiles.

I did get greens that were so Linsay. Graced with rose petals, marigolds, clover flowers.



Now I know I will be back here each week, wondering what will turn up next. The raw honey I drizzled into my mint water would almost be enough. The sweetness of Linsay's vision, and her whimsy, makes me promise my Friday afternoons.






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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. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

We pulled in to the shady drive— fields and hills opening out beyond. Amber mares, and chestnut. Faun and dappled.

"They say he's like a steed, Mommy!" my Littlest said, pointing to a midnight black horse in the distance. "That a knight in shining armor should ride him. They say we should see him run. He goes so fast."

My girls wanted me to come here, had been here just yesterday with others. And I see why. I am only just taking it in and already I want to come back again.

We park and walk to the stuga ("That's what they call it in Swedish... not a cottage, Mommy!"). The stuga— let me get that right— is shaded by an old apple tree. Wooden benches and tables are crowded with potted herbs for sale— parsley, sage, rosemary (I don't see thyme). There is an heirloom variety of strawberry ("Sparkle," says Linsay the proprietor) and heirloom tomatoes. The farm has been in this family for 103 years. There is Linsay's house and grandmother's. There is a brother.

Linsay has been up since 4 a.m. picking kale, strawberries, lettuces, and putting out glass cups with minted, lemon ice water. The mint clings to the side of the glass pitcher. I want a glass of this green.

This space is only open two days a week, for four hours. "I worked 70 hours a week last year and didn't make a profit," says Linsay. I'm doing it different this year. I want it to be about the experience."

There is water boiling on the stove up at her house and she needs to shut it off, but she's hesitant to leave us. Finally, her friend goes off to save the kettle from sure demise.

Beyond the apple tree are the gardens. At the fringe is a teapot tree. It is a huge, weathered branch that Linsay rescued from the saw after a storm. She dug a hole, placed the branch upside down and hung it with kettles— ultramarine blue, yellow, red, white. Maybe these are the ones that didn't make it on her stove.

I do not want to leave. The horses, the water glasses, Sparkle strawberries and Sweetie tomatoes. I do not want to leave this day, this hour, and the way that Linsay rescues things.

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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. :)

<a href="http://seedlingsinstone.blogspot.com"><img src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5083/5217906589_c7120874ca.jpg" width="308" height="69" alt="On In Around button" />

This post is also shared with Laura Boggess, for...

Taking Back the Morning

I found this fun prompt via Maureen Doallas. It was supposed to involve a post-it note. Mine involved a morning.

Reading all these God in the Yard posts, I've been jealous of my own past experience, thus the mornings. Sitting on the back porch at 5:30 am, watching the sun come and touch all the things I've left unmown. Buttercups and field grass. And the Lamb's Ear watching from the garden.

Anyway, my mornings have been bringing back questions, and poetry. Thus, the answer (the questions) to the prompt...


Existential

How can I
how can you
how can we?
Maybe the answer
lies in poetry.