Autumn arrived quietly today, wrapped in brilliant sunshine and summer heat. I walked down a path edged by swaying golden-rod and purple English asters, looking for signs of the season. Fall is a season that sneaks in softly after a green summer. You look up at the dark green canopy one day and the locust leaves have yellowed. A few days later, small bursts of bright orange explode like fireworks in the sugar maple trees. The oak trees burnish
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…” The words spoken over my left shoulder are meant to be funny and encouraging. I smile lamely at the cyclist beside me but all I am thinking is that the little train in the children’s book had a motor! It’s 90 degrees with a stiff headwind and my legs are laboring to spin up the umpteenth hill of a century bike ride. That’s 100 miles on a bicycle.
My weaving needle carries twisted aqua wool over and under periwinkle threads as a tumbling brook grows under my fingers. It slides below a mossy woolen rock and swirls around the roots of a half-finished oak tree. Pulling another color through the needle, I add a clump of spring-green over the rock—fallen leaves from a tree that is yet to be created. I’m weaving a tapestry tonight on a wooden loom across my lap, watching nature flourish under my fingers,
As I recline in my favorite chair and browse through the new Writer magazine that arrived today I soak up inspiration like a sponge. “Be funny and fearless” “Write what you love” “…persist like you’re the greatest author to have ever laptopped with the brightest idea to have ever burned and the most compelling voice to have ever told it – and like there is an audience that will die if it doesn’t hear your story.” (Meredith Turits, Delusions of
What an incredible, beautiful year 2014 was! Pam and I both became grandparents for the 3rd time! So here on the last day of 2014 we leave you with a small tribute to our little ones… Wrestling with Grandma Little hands, little feet Chubby cheeks, hair so sweet Belly laughs from ones so little Screams of joy—me caught in the middle. Our makeshift tent surrounds us all Hung over the couch, the sheets always fall
Who has time to make the bed anymore? Most people are in a mad dash in the morning to get out the door on time (or is that just me?) So it’s much easier to just shrug and use an “airing out the bed linens” excuse. That gem is actually backed up by scientists, who say pulling the covers back for at least an hour after you wake helps to remove moisture and discourage dust mites. But let’s not go
Why do we call it “falling” when we talk about falling in love? That’s an easy one. Most of us remember teetering along the edge of an emotional cliff before we choose to leap into someone’s arms. We know we could get hurt…but we jump anyway because we trust we will be caught. Or at least we hope so. We also hope that if they don’t catch us, or don’t feel the same way about us, that we won’t break
The emotions display gently across her face as she reads the words aloud. I can hear confidence mixed with vulnerability in her voice. Her words paint a picture of eloquence and grace. I am there with her…with the characters, and with the writer who bravely bares her soul as she entrusts us with her story. I feel like she just handed me her heart. I hold it gently, trying to protect it as I savor the privilege of an incredible
Looks like February is not the cruelest month….it just feels that way. I was positive the second month of the year was called the cruelest by an old poet—after all, it’s the last month of winter and the weather is usually lousy. But when I looked up the phrase (thank you, Google), T.S. Eliot actually called April the cruelest month in his long poem “The Wasteland.” April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
“Rabbits are brave…rabbits are brave…” So says Benjamin Bunny, a diminutive little guy with a green knit cap holding down long bunny ears. In the Nickelodeon show, Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny is the personification of the skittish, scared-stiff rabbit, softened by his fierce loyalty to his adventurous cousin Peter. He has an adorable, innate clumsiness and a comically growling stomach that is always hungry for radishes and strawberries. I adore Benjamin Bunny. And so does my three-year-old granddaughter, Elsie. She
Autumn rolls across the hills and valleys here, painting trees in myriad shades of scarlet, orange, yellow and gold. A walk in the woods is like stepping into one of my favorite fall tapestries. Dark brown threads twist around tree trunks and brighter wools weave in hills of red and gold to make October on my wall. Fall is definitely upon us, lifting my heart and my spirits every time I walk in the woods. Even while driving to work,
Inhaled any rotten apples lately? I don’t know if every writer longs for ways to make the right words appear on a page, but as a fiction writer I have always longed to find the “secret” to successful fiction. No-one could call me a beginner in the writing game. I’ve worked as a journalist for 12 years and I know better than to “wait” for inspiration. My interviews with teachers, city officials or whoever, act as blueprints or outlines for
Writing is scary. Well, not all the time. Not when inspiration strikes suddenly and you are caught up in a wave of passion that simply must be communicated. But those times are really quite rare, even for the most prolific writers. The scary part is at the beginning—when that little cursor line is blinking at you from a totally blank screen. It’s taunting you…Okay you’re a writer, so write. Now. Think of something. Now! What are you waiting for? Are
Writing an essay about an essay on writing seems redundant to the extreme, but I was so impressed with a piece by Kelly Caldwell that it made me think about how we choose what we share with readers. The essay is called, The Care and Treatment of Sacred Things and Caldwell is an instructor at the Gotham Writer’s Workshop in New York. The main theme of the essay was, “How do you write about life’s experiences without sharing sacred and
Orson Wells said, “We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone.” I’m not sure about the dying part yet, but I can honestly say that the quote above is not entirely true for my sister and me. We were created from a single egg that split into two and we were born within minutes of each other. Where one usually emerges and is celebrated there were two. Two crying babies, two mouths to feed, two to comfort and cuddle.