Opportunity for New Discussion, by Stacey Murphy

the clematis

too neighborly

to understand

the wooden fence

nature has no choice

but to persist

the vines using knotholes

and the weeds placing seeds

in the cracks of stone walls

sometimes we humans

prefer to resist

we pull back the branches

of rude plants that intrude

avoiding conflict — so human

where plants instead

see opportunity

for new discussion

Do Everything I Say, by Annie Wexler

"Do everything I say," says Judy Moore, my best friend who lives next door to me in our little town in rural New Jersey. We are both seven and it is almost Christmas, and snowing.

"I will be baby Jesus and lie here on this blanket which is my bed of straw in the manger. Now you start by looking up at the stars and wandering."

"But it’s morning," I say, "there are no stars."

"Well then, just wander."

"Where do I wander to?" I ask.

"Just walk to that big pine tree and then come back and bow down and kiss my feet."

"But you’re wearing boots."

"Well then just touch my feet and give me presents."

She’s getting very bossy.

"What kind of presents?" I ask.

"You’re the wisemen," she says, "you have to know."

So I touch her feet and then give her a bunch of red berries from the holly bush and two big pinecones.

"Now tell me I am God," she says, "and then I’ll get up."

"But you’re not God," I insist. "God is up in the sky."

"Well then I’m God’s son."

"But God can’t have a son, he isn’t married."

"He does have a son and I learned that in catechism, so there."

"Okay," I say. "But now get up, it’s my turn to be baby Jesus."

"You can’t be baby Jesus," she says, "because you’re Jewish and the Jews killed Jesus."

I run home crying, and my mother says it’s not true and not to pay attention to Judy.

"But I want to go to catechism," I whine, "so I can play baby Jesus and get presents."

Not long after that we left our wonderful house in the country and moved to a suburb with a large Jewish population. Suburban life wasn’t nearly as much fun as playing in the woods and running in the fields. No one ever asked me to play baby Jesus again. I missed my friend Judy for years and years.

Eleven Shorties — "Memoirlets" — by Saskya van Nouhuys

Gym class
While playing volleyball in high school I collided with a giant Samoan girl. As I ricocheted off her and landed in the grass outside the court I thought with excitement: Wow, I didn’t know a person’s body could be that solid!

High heels
I winced in pain with each step walking back to the hotel, late, after a grand dinner with the king of Sweden. I stopped in the rain to take off my high-heeled shoes. My companion gallantly took them in hand and strode forward tipsily. I walked barefoot the rest of the way through the city, feeling like a princess.

Honeymoon
Andy and I rode a quadracycle, which is a four wheeled tandem bicycle, around Cayuga lake for our honeymoon. That was by far the most married thing we have ever done.

Humming
From a distance, it is hard to tell the difference between a baby hummingbird and a bumble bee.

Music lessons
That creepy piano teacher. I had to break my arm twice before my mother gave up on making me go to his house each week for lessons.

Neighbor
Our yard, our neighbor's yard, our other neighbor's yard, all united as the territory of our patrolling cat.

Pajamas
My favorite nightshirt eventually wore out and started to disintegrate. Before it lost all of its integrity Andy used it as a model to sew a new one. I wear that new one, but it isn’t the same.

Paper
As time passes we all use paper less and less. Now, as the weather gets cold, I have to plan ahead in order to have enough material to start a fire each day.

Pencil
Can anyone think of a number 2 pencil without getting anxious?

Pipe
My grandfather sits in a chair with his pipe in one hand and a can of beer in the other. I sit in his lap, happily, listening inattentively to the conversation of adults.

Purple
On the tiny island of Prestö there are three cemeteries filled with the bones of people who died in the process of building the Russian fortress at Bomarsund, in Finland. The fortress was destroyed by the English even before it was finished. They shot cannons up at it from ships in the bay below. The three cemeteries are populated by the Russian Orthodox Christians, the Jews, and the Muslims. The best blueberries grow among the discretely marked graves in the Muslim cemetery.

At Dinner's End, by Gladys L. Perkins

At dinner’s end
you know I am too polite
to leave before you are done
so you order more tea
that you do not drink
while the restaurant fills
and people wait for tables
while you prattle about TV shows
and avoid raising your cup
while I clutch mine
and concentrate on the warmth
reaching my hands
through the porcelain
and imagine it spreading
up through my arms
calming and softening my heart
with a kind of distraction
from eyes of the hungry
who long for our seats
and also from your many
descriptions of other meals
in other places
and whether the settings
were charming
and if you were sufficiently
delighted
and made comfortable

Memories of the Full Moon, by Saskya van Nouhuys

the full moon
the smell of wet leaves
stepping on snails whose shells break
under my bare feet

the full moon
that doesn't get close
as I drive toward it

the full moon
its reflection on the water
the sound of that lit water, unsettled
bumping against the dock

the full moon
looks too big in the sky
next to those delicate sparkly stars
especially because it is orange

Bits of Yellow and Orange from a Saturday Morning

These pieces were written in a Writing Circle on Saturday, October 28 — during a 10-minute warm-up period

For inspiration, we chose color swatches from different paint companies. Some pseudonyms have been chosen.


Butter cream frosting, so good — so bad! Please do not color it blue, unless just a flower on the cake. Make it, instead, a yellow that falls between corn silk and honey-gold. That would be best. After all, I'm not marrying, it is not my birthday, and I am not being feted upon retirement. Make this frosting for a humble cake! You do not need to know that I will eat it secretly, alone in my home, while I watch guilty-pleasure TV.
    - Buttercup Buttercup


Hail a yellow cab because the group left in a car without me, for a Big Red / Big Apple event, and I'm snagged by what comforts me, the pain and loss of a woman I love. Snagged in gratitude and anger, sunshine and rage, wanting justice and healing. Intimidated by another story, the narrative of success and failure. I hold both — they seem to be at odds with each other. Power and vulnerability. Will the struggle ever end? Does it have to?
    - Cricket Stone


"Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Orange, red, and yellow. Blood and sunshine. Dying, but not dead. Fading, but not gone. Like the passing of years for a Hollywood starlet. Moving into new life stages, transitions. Silence to talking. Talking to silence. Always changing. And the mischievous faces on Jack O'Lanterns — smiling at the darkness. Like little Buddhas, their laugh is enlightenment.
    - JLL


Autumn moon
rattling your gold like a pirate in the sky
stealing my heart from summer's love
holding me hostage to sail with you through a colder milky way
and fill a spinnaker with afterglow to drift me into winter
    - Kimberly Zajac


Now the days are becoming shorter and darker and I make an effort to focus on things I like to see and do — buying season tickets to the theatre, making apple butter, planning for Thanksgiving, raking leaves — so as not to become enveloped in a dark, cold cloud. The mist that rises from snow in winter is so different than the steam from a scented bath, or the aerated water that floats above a hot tub. In the evening I look across the city at dark shadowy hills, and riding above them like a stream of ribbons, there is yellow and cream, aqua and violet — brightened by a hidden sunset.
    - Liz Ashford


When he was away one spring break I painted my son's room — in the old house — orange. So cheerful, rich, and warmed by the afternoon sun. Will I ever have an orange room again?
    - Sheila Dean


This morning, drinking a glass of Emergen-C Super Orange, with the fizzy scent of 100 oranges traveling right up my nose, I am transported out of a chilly October day and plunked down into a long-ago August. It is city-hot and all the kids on my block are lined up at the Good Humor Truck. Somehow it happens that I end up with a Creamsicle Pop. Orange ice wrapped around vanilla ice cream. Wow. Everything changes for me on this day. I will never go back to vanilla Dixie cups. Dixie cups are for babies. I'm a big girl now. 10 years old. I can manage a Creamsicle. Long lingering licks of deliciousness. And there is a bit of danger, too. A chunk of Creamsicle can slither down my hand and wind up on the sidewalk. But that doesn't happen. No mishaps, no tears. It's a miracle.
    - Zee Zahava

5 Poems, by Heather Boob

Inspired by fragments-of-fragments of Sappho's poetry


Let me tell you this —
When your hand touches my face
a burst of electricity
is transmitted
from solar plexus
expanding upward
and out
through to my heart
like a sun dog
catching rays
behind cirrus compilation
refracting and shining
suspended diamond dust
back down to earth —
A gift to the iris of daylight.

= = =


Love shakes my heart . . .

In kindness —
from a stranger’s smile
passing on a littered street

In gratitude —
of generosity giving
with no expectation of receipt

In warmth —
from worn hands
opening to every embrace

In words —
over hot coffee
steam rising

= = =


Do you remember
the smell of summer
as autumn leaves fall?
When you were still
just a child
and the moment
was all that you had —
The feeling of innocence
when you didn’t know
what innocence was?

Do you remember
falling from your bicycle
for the first time
then getting back on
and riding further and faster
because the feeling of freedom
topped the fear of falling
a second time around?

Do your remember
when time seemed to
stand still —
when the second hand
on the turning dial
almost seemed to hesitate
and you, sitting there
willing it to stay
or wishing it to leap forward
into the future?

= = =


I confess

I do not know what to do.
At my age,
If you are squeamish
Day in, day out
Picking flowers
May be the only remedy

= = =


The most devoted of friends
Don’t ask me what to wear
A purple ribbon . . . a purple kerchief
A fish basket and oar
Together we live in
Silliness and sorrow
With
No complaint

6 Odes, by Rob Sullivan

Ode To Odes

Let us sing a song of praise
for all the kind words
the many warm memories
observations of nobility
that have been written
before we sat
and took the time
this very hour
this very day


Ode To Coffee

Most legal of drugs
most essential of jump starts
you bring about speech
overflowing with rabid rapids
cascading down roaring rivers
of thoughts that ricochet and rebound


Ode To Playtime

Thank you for time and space
to be more than myself
thank you for allowing
for whimsy, heroics, and happy endings
Thank you for the eternal chance
to re-write and pre-write history
Thank you for laughter
Thank you for wonder
Thank you for imagination
Thank you for the fun of it all


Ode To Things That Go Bump in the Night

Dear daklings
stealth and silence
inform your travels
until the sound
that cries to be ignored
at last can not be denied
and our fears of mortality
of being vulnerable and powerless
have their night
and yet somehow
we endure to dread once more


Ode To Death

Greatest appointment
written in our life planner
though we may not know when
or how or where
we do know who and why

You invented planned obsolesence
expiration dates and dead lines
you are the omega
for even the most alpha
of dogs, cats, goldfish
grandmas and movie stars
can not delay their end times


Ode To Zee

You knew where it was at
before we knew where it wasn't
you found strength in words
wonder in phrases turned
beauty in an "ah-ha" moment
humor in the voice
and girl's-eye-view
of your younger self

Love was seen wherever
cruelty, fear, and bigotry
were unwelcome guests
honor was felt whenever
people stood up for others
and their right to a heart path
all their own

Great giver of gifts
cherished champion of the shy
welcome warrior of words
all those about to write
we salute you



 

Memory, by Nina Miller

All of my contemporaries are worried about their memory.

It begins with the elusive noun — what is that guy's name? We had this wonderful dinner at ______?  It moves on to dates — when was it we went to Russia? to Yosemite?

We all complain of household lapses. I walked down the hall to get something but I couldn't remember why I was there. And we sometimes let things we should do slip by: appointments we should keep, performances for which we have tickets. We tease each other as a way of minimizing the anxiety, but it hovers over our shoulders, threatening what is supposed to be the serenity of the later years.

Some of us take preventive steps, like courses in memory retention. I do jigsaw and crossword puzzles and play Scrabble, having read that the brain-hand connection is useful. Recently a group of students came to the house to include me in a study of seniors living with chronic pain. The study seemed flawed to me in its design, but there was one element that I loved, which involved some mathematical memory activity forward and backward. I knocked it out of the park, and for weeks I comforted myself with that success as I searched for lost glasses, keys, a dental bridge.

I like to think that the decline in memory is not due to cells that are dying, or knots deep in the interior of my brain, but rather on an overload of information. The reason I can't remember the last novel I read is because I've read so many novels. My friend's name, a friend I've known for years? Well, I have so many friends; how could I possibly remember all their names? The video I just put on seems vaguely familiar. Ten minutes in and I realize I've already seen it. But then, I've seen thousands of movies.

Nice rationalizations, but really of no comfort. Mnemonic devices, notes to myself, younger friends who tactfully whisper missing information into my ear — those things help. As does letting go of the struggle to retrieve a name or event from the foggy forest of my mind. Somehow, when I'm not struggling, the missing piece of data pops into consciousness, and I want to kiss it, out of gratitude. It may happen moments after I've given up the struggle to extract it, or even  weeks later.

I would like to know more about the physiology of the aging brain. Did my smoking (given up almost 50 years ago) leave blank holes? And what is the impact of my daily Scotch? Wait, no, I don't want to know about that one because it's a behavior I'm unwilling to change.

I've watched several friends travel the terrifying road of Alzheimer's. That, or dementia, is the fear that lies beneath our anxiety over lost names and missing keys. Mostly these friends have descended quietly into that dark and lonely place, though a few gentle, sweet people have become aggressive and even violent. It is the survivors who suffer most, I think, as they watch someone beloved, someone who was an anchor of strength, fade away. 

I cannot, will not, do that to my children. I don't want to leave them with a memory of me lost to them, lost to myself. And so I formulate a plan to obtain what is needed and try to work out the legalities, the  alternatives. Most of all, I hope I can remember the plan in all of its details when the time comes.

The Day of Possibilities, by Nancy Osborn

The day . . .

when nothing happens

of sorting spools of thread

of sitting on the upstairs porch in the sun, drinking too much coffee and wishing there were still weeks of summer to come

of backyard sweeping

of silence, when I talk to no one

of smiles

of no slugs or snails on the garden walkway


The day . . .

of facing the fact that I'm not a very courageous person

of loving the feeling of my sneakers and socks (that are not falling down) as I walk down the street

after a night of uninterrupted sleep

of no internet connection

of no obligations to anyone

of being curious

of eating only healthy foods

of cleaning the spiders out of the basement


The day . . .

I stop fretting over how I lost my favorite shawl

of not dwelling on how far our nation has fallen in the realm of civility

of looking at every person I pass on the street and wondering what they are grateful for

I throw out my folder of resumes; I'm done applying for jobs

I consider the merits of meditation, which is probably not the best approach; I should just pull out my bench and sit

I realize that despite those fantasies of my younger years, I'm never going to be a back-to-the-land homesteader

I delete everything on my Amazon Wish List because I've read that article about "how many books do you realistically think you can read in the remaining years of your life" and I know my Amazon list is far too long and I already have more books stacked by my bed than I can ever read

I consider who I want to be in my next lifetime; a creator of illuminated manuscripts is my number one choice


The day . . .

I really sit down and try to devise that message to someone I think is my high school friend, our connection lost these last 20 years, whose name I found on the internet. I need to say enough so she'll know it's me, but not enough for it to come back and bite me if it isn't her. I think of this in the same way I used to construct love letters to potential romantic partners. Cryptic, but secretly meaningful, if they know the sender.


The day . . .

I finish the letter I've owed to my brother since July. A brother I hardly know as we went our own ways back in another century. But now that we are approaching the last decades of our lives, it seems as though I am longing to reach across the years and miles to find what was lost between us for all this time; to see whether there is anything that might fill in the gap between us.


The day . . .

I take out my mother's journals and try, again, to transcribe her reflections on her love for her best friend — a love she never revealed to her friend, as far as I can tell. But I like to believe her friend knew, as you often can know these things, without the need of language.


The day . . .

I start writing my honest feelings about how I've led my life. It seems like it might be now or never. What have I been waiting for? What knowledge about myself do I already possess that I can't bring myself to commit to the reality of ink on paper.


The day . . .

I re-read the various love letters I've received in my life. There are four packets of them in the attic, and their contents tell me something about myself, or at least the self I was in the imaginations of these lovers.


The day . . .

I finally sit down to write that tell-all memoir I've promised a friend. The memoir of men, women, and sex in my life. I've only gotten as far as compiling the list of who I'll write about and the pseudonyms I'll assign to them.


The perfect day . . .

One that is all my own, with nothing on my schedule.

September Mornings, by Kimberly A. Zajac

in the cooler mornings of September
the smell of earth and mushrooms
is caught in the gossamer
of spider webs I can not see
but feel when I walk through
only that which glistens

a sticky near-invisible thread
clings to my arm bare with a shiver
my throat holding my poetic truth
waiting for the words
my cheek still warm from the pillow I dreamed upon

and I'm captured in the magic it teases of —
i could stay here forever
in this pause between season
when I do not have to be ahead
and before I fall behind
always struggling to catch up

I do not need to confine my freedom
in boots just yet
laced in expectations and calendars
still earthing instead barefooted

I feel the moon drops that fell
from my lunar sister
just last night
ignore the clock, she whispers

I drink in the heady grapes being harvested down the road
I'm near drunk in the cooler mornings of September

The Child Who, by Kathy Hopkins

The child who explores anywhere with small sure-footed steps.
The child who agrees with life.
The child who sees things in the clouds.
The child who is excited to come along on any adventure.
The child who giggles with delight at the water.
The child who can fight over sharing his toy and roll on the ground in laughter with the same friend.
The child who went to school excited to learn more reading and was put in the non-readers group.
The child who would not leave the truck while his household was being moved.
The child who slept on a suitcase for 3 months in Africa.
The child who had a very special blanket.
The child who had a sibling and was sad when she didn’t leave our house.
The child who went to a foreign school and learned by watching.
The child who skied one small hill at a time until he was at the top.
The child who could not spell.
The child who had a mind full of stories.
The child whose paper stories got too many red marks.
The child who teaches himself music.
The child who sings.
The child who draws cartoons.
The child who paints full canvasses.
The child who inspires friends.
The child who loves.
The child who jokes himself out of trouble.
The child who explores the world.
The child who experiments.
The child who discovered he is smart after so many other messages.
The child who teaches.

3 Poems, by Heather Boob

Dance Your Heart Out

The room was so hot that
the walls were sweating.
The floor was sweating.
A direct effect of the energy exuded
by a band called The Nightsweats.
When you really start to let go
your knees will sway.
Your pelvis will shake.
Your inner Elvis will show himself.
I dance alone
in an empty room
to let go.
I dance, surrounded by
strangers.
Sweating.
We harvest heated energy.
How efficient.


Laugh

We have laughed under three full moons.
Through summer nights.
Who knew
that strangers
could feel
so close, so familiar.

The first moon —
Witness to the Spark.

The second moon —
The Unravelling.

The third moon —
Bidding us Adieu.

You said that
A sense of humor
was of most
Importance.
I agreed.

So many moons shared
over decades of bellies laughing.
Hearts bursting joy.
Cheeks sore
from statued smiles.

Laughter —
Carrying us through
like a glue
that bonds us.

Laughter —
Centuries old
Inherited from ancestors.
Gifts given by the gods
as the
cure-all medicine.

And still,
even if just temporary,
we harvest it.
Like a second moon
in the month of May,
on the brink
of hot, summer evenings —

To fill us
with its warm magic
and sweetest joys.


Be Daring

The words
on the tip of my tongue
refuse to reveal themselves.
They are reluctant
to be heard in open air.
For the spark,
that may ignite,
could create a wildfire.
Or,
be drowned out
by the reaction
of Sound.

What if, by Stacey Murphy

what if forgiving was easy?
what if
overcoming heartache was as simple as
a long nap,
a float on a pond,
a few tears at sunset?

would I
still cling to the ragged memory,
refuse to sleep,
stay on the shore,
swallow and hold my tears?

would I
believe that pain proves a loyalty
no one demanded
gripping the bars on the window
and ignoring the butterfly
that brushes my arm
as it slips out

through the open doorway?

I Remember . . . by Sue Norvell

The very first thing I can remember is seeing a cardinal sitting on a snowy evergreen branch when I looked out our front living room window. I was between 2 and 3 years old.

I remember the new powder-blue wool coat with the dark blue velveteen collar, bought at Mrs. Peter's shop, and worn for the first time on Easter morning.

I remember loving the Good Humor toasted almond bars best of all.

I remember reading all the Oz books, then all the Nancy Drews.

I remember when I started to wear glasses in fifth grade, and could suddenly see the board in school. Even better, I found that I didn't get carsick any more.

I remember our class assembling boxes of school supplies to be sent to children in Europe after WWII, and receiving carefully written thank you notes in French, or Polish. I remember being fascinated by their different handwriting. All I had ever seen was the Palmer Method.

I remember the struggle each morning when Mom braided my hair before school. I don't know which of us hated it more, me or Mom. Finally, when I was about eight, Dad had had enough, and he marched me off to his barber's shop. "Choppin' Charlie" cut my hair in a most unflattering style for me — a page boy. And I never went back to braids. I don't know who was more relieved: Mom, me, or Dad.

I remember my Lone Ranger secret decoder ring. I mailed off 3 Cheerios box tops and a quarter. The ring arrived, got lost, then found, then lost again. I still think I'll find it when I'm sorting through old bits and bobs.


Editor's Note: Ten years ago I compiled memory lists from dozens of people and published them in pamphlets, calling the whole thing The Memory Project. In the Writing Circle on Tuesday morning,  as Sue looked through one of those pamphlets, she found her own early memories popping up in response. What are YOUR earliest memories? Suggestion: Write them down! Make your own list. Share it with people (or don't).

Grains of Sand, by Nina Miller

No matter how much I vacuum, there are grains of sand on the floor of the car and the trunk. Some mysteriously find their way between the sheets of my bed, but the scratchiness is friendly-evocative.

I wish I were of a religion that believed in cremation.  I like to think of myself becoming grains of sand, washed onto a beach and captured by children
building an elaborate sand castle. I will be the turret, on which they place a flag made of a red, white and blue ice cream wrapper. And eventually a wave will come and invite me to rejoin the water of the ocean, until once more, with the shifting tide, I arrive on the beach.

But my people insist on pine boxes lowered into six-foot holes when the sand runs out of someone's hourglass.  I would rather spend eternity in that glass, being flipped to measure the length of lives, or at least the timing of a 3-minute egg.

I Remember Rain, by Nancy Osborn

I remember rain . . .

dripping from the low pine branches all around our house

pounding on the tin roof of our bedroom in my grandmother's farmhouse

sliding down the sides of the tent — don't touch the fabric!

tapping on the sailboat's deck just above my head where I'm sleeping, in the forward cabin

running off the edges of my first umbrella, a gift from my father, from his visit to Switzerland

drawing the worms from the dirt along our path to school, so we would walk on the curbstones to avoid stepping on them

sweeping across the lagoon in Venice, which we could see from our 4th floor apartment

bringing out the street umbrella sellers in New York, Venice, Barcelona

falling all around us as we sit warm and dry on our upstairs porch

catching me unprepared on a hot, hot day; no umbrella, but who cares?

making the garden smell so lovely at dusk, once the storm is over

during my freshman year of college — my roommates and I walking in the downpours in our blue rubber mackintoshes, imagining we were living in A. A. Milne's world

blowing so hard against the windows of the train in Wales that everything I saw — fields, sheep, mountains — was seen from a watery perspective

turning into ice, then into hail, making such a racket on the day I sat with my mother in the hospital, under a skylight

changing into mist and fog in the autumns, when I lived in Maine

making the streets gleam at night under their street-lamps

and my rain-drenched pants wrapping their clammy folds around my legs . . .

. . . but I don't remember walking in the rain with a single one of my boy friends

Things I Used to Know, by Susan Lesser

I used to know all the elements on the periodic chart that hung from the top blackboard rail in Mrs. Carlisle’s chemistry classroom.The chart has grown since then, the rows filled in with new fancy-named elements, one colored box after another with the atomic number included. Or was that the valence? Or is the atomic number the same thing as the valence? I used to know.

I used to know the names of everyone in my 2nd grade class, but last week I found a class photo of us all, a black and white photo. There was one boy in a plaid shirt who had a front tooth missing and one girl in a dress with puff sleeves and her hair in fat braids, that I couldn’t identify. I suppose it doesn’t matter, but I’m hoping their names will come to me, maybe when I wake in the middle of the night sometime.

My 2nd Grade teacher was Miss Lipscomb. The longer than usual skirts she wore were dark, but not black, and her shoes were clunky. She was not afraid to go into the boys' bathroom if she heard laughing or if Joe Hoyt Akers was fooling around and flushing whatever flushes in the boys' bathroom every ten seconds. Miss Lipscomb told us it was impossible anyone would ever go to the moon. The moon was scalding hot where it caught the rays of the sun and freezing cold on the shadow side and no person could last more than three and a half minutes on either side. I used to know that, but not anymore.

I used to know absolutely that if I sat quietly for long enough and didn’t wiggle my toes or breathe too loud, a rabbit would hop up onto my lap, or maybe a grasshopper would jump onto my knee. I was certain we would have a conversation about some common interest, maybe grass or rain or coyotes. I also knew all animals spoke English.

I used to know how to jump rope and the rhymes we chanted when we jumped, how to tie a fancy bow for a birthday gift, and how to dance the Merengue. I’d still like another go with the Merengue.

I used to know how to ride a bicycle. They say you never forget. That is probably true, but now even when I am attempting to peddle down a flat road, I am afraid I will fall. I used to know how not to be afraid of falling.

I used to know Latin conjugations and declensions — hic, haec, hoc, and huius, huius. huius, and so on. But even on a rainy Sunday afternoon, I’d rather clean a closet than go through all that again. I have chosen not to know them ever again.

I used to know how to take notice of the little things like cheerful bees collecting pollen from the sunset orange lily, the gentle sound of the purring tabby cat nestled on the chair across the room, and the golden flicker that springs up in the candlewick I light for my cousin who died this week. Wait a minute! I still know all that, and I want to know that, and I will know it as much as I can.

Open/Closed — Closed/Open, by Barbara Cartwright

Open or closed? Closed or open?

When I’m driving, I like the doors to be closed but the windows open, my right hand on the wheel, my left arm resting on the window’s sill, half in, half out, in case I want to imitate a dolphin, rising up and diving down in imaginary waves, an imaginary sea, just currents of air really. I switch things up and take the wheel to get something from my purse — lodged between the driver’s and the passenger’s seats — open, unzipped, but closed off enough I have to feel for what I want. Driving along at sixty-miles per hour, my mind is open, playing ping pong with possibilities — though it craves the safety of closed, closed off, when I have too much to do, too many things to mix and match. I can actually sense information flying out of a hole in my head drilled wide, made deep, by anxiety and a lack of time. An opening I must close as soon as possible lest I become a flibbertigibbet — with a driver’s license.

Closed or open? Open or closed?

Flowers start off closed up tight tight tight until the sun’s light, the ever warming air, spring’s nourishing rains coax clenched blooms — held tight by what, I wonder — into a state of open vulnerability. Beautiful but short-lived. Because that kind of tenderness, nature’s tenderness, can’t last. Hour by hour, day by day, that state of perfect openness overreaches itself, stretching past any point of sustainability. Some flowers hang on, as their blooms dry out, and remind us daily of their former glory. While others collapse into piles and heaps, clinging to any surface that will have them, if only for a little while, before they decompose and disappear from view.

Open, closed. Closed, open.

There’s no guarantee. No perfect state of bliss. Just the journey from one state to another and sometimes back again.

Things I Used to Know, by Nancy Osborn

I think I used to know a lot more than I do now. As I get older, details seem to dissolve away.

I used to know the names of every student who rode my school bus and could anticipate every stop along the route. I can't tell you any names now but curiously I quite often have dreams of riding this bus as it makes its way along its circuitous route. In the dream I am the only rider.

I used to know all the rules for playing cribbage and I know I loved playing it with my mother every evening, after doing my homework, though she was always able to add up our scores quick as a wink, while I was still trying to figure them out.

I used to know where I did my laundry when I was in college. I'm sure it was somewhere in my dorm. But in the basement, or down the hall? How could I forget something I must have done every week.

I used to know how to play the piano. As far as I'm concerned, playing the piano is not at all like riding a bike. You do forget how to do it. Sitting at the keyboard nothing comes back to me; my fingers have happily given up any memory that they'd ever been familiar with the keys in the past. However, dancing is something else. My body still remembers the repeated and practiced movements of ballet, and though it may no longer move in those controlled yet limber ways, it wants to.

I used to know Kathy's phone number, my friend who I called every night, so we could compare our algebra homework answers.

I used to know how to type really fast, on a non-electric typewriter.

I used to know how to use hair curlers to give my very straight hair just the sort of curls I wished I'd been born with.

I used to know the skills to fit a lot more activities into my day.

I used to know how to conjugate verbs in French, Russian, and Latin.

I used to know the titles of every Little Golden Book I owned at age 5.

I used to know how to get my father's sailboat ready for a cruise — specifically how to turn on the batteries and start up the diesel engine so it would be ready for any emergencies that might come up when leaving a harbor and maneuvering through moorings. Those details have disappeared from my mind, as they are no longer needed. But I used to know and still do know, how to use the sails as the wind requires (jib, genoa, main, mizzen and spinnaker). I doubt those details will ever vanish.

I used to know the words for a lot of Girl Scout camp songs and only realized I no longer did when my sister suggested a sing-along at the upcoming memorial gathering for my mother, who had been a Girl Scout her entire life.

I used to know all the varieties of swim strokes that were required to pass the Red Cross advanced swim test and lifesaving course. But I secretly hated swimming lessons and so promptly forgot almost everything, except the side stroke which I loved, as it seemed like a lazy person's way of swimming, and the frog kick, whose quirkiness appealed to my sense of humor.

I used to know the names of my sister's boyfriends and the addresses of where she lived with these various partners.

Red Ball Jets, by Christine McNamara

“Do you like them?” the nice man asked me as he finished tying the second shoe. “The fit is perfect,” he said, poking the front of my sneaker trying to find my toe. “Why don’t you walk around in them? Give ‘em a whirl!”

“They’re perfect. Beautiful. Just right.” I marveled, unable to take my eyes off of them. “I love them already.” Looking down at my feet, I was almost speechless — my very first pair of Red Ball Jets.

The salesman continued to encourage me. “Go on. Walk around the store and try them out. You can even run — it’s okay to run around in here.”

I stood slowly and began taking very deliberate, cautious steps. It was hard to walk and look at my feet at the same time, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of them. The toe was perfectly white and the sneaker was bright bright red. On the back of the sneaker was the special blue dot with the words Red. Ball. Jets. I could hear the slogan in my head: “Run faster. Jump Higher. In your Red Ball Jets!”

I stared at them wondering — “Will I have a hard time controlling them? Will it be scary to run so fast and jump so high? I’ll have to really practice.”

I thought to myself —“Maybe start with jumping over small things, like the dog and my bike. And then work up gradually to bigger things — the hedge along the driveway, my sister, and then Mrs. McCarthy’s house.”

I moved around the store slowly, carefully. I wasn’t at all convinced that this nice man understood the power he had just tied onto my feet. After one lap around the store, and feeling slightly more confident, I began to move a little bit faster. Slowly I worked up to a jog. “Still good.” I thought. “I can control these.”

“Do they feel okay honey?” my mother asked as I jogged past her.  "They don’t hurt your feet do they?”

I came out of my concentration just long enough to tell her that they felt great and then I returned to my initiation.

“Ready for Phase 2,” I said out loud to no one, and with that I broke into a run. My feet felt light. My legs felt powerful. I was moving faster than I ever could have imagined.

In mere seconds I was flying out of the children’s section and whipping through women’s shoes. My speed was incredible. “I’m just getting warmed up!” I thought to myself as I took the first tight turn to the right. Out of women’s and into men’s shoes, then boots, socks, and . . . well, I don’t remember the rest of the store. I was moving so fast it was all just a blur.

Two more right turns and I stopped abruptly next to my mother. “That’s a lot of running for a 4-year-old!” she said to me as I leaned on my knees, huffing and puffing. “Should we get them?” She paused, letting me catch my breath. “It seems like you can handle them,” she commented without a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

“I can handle them,” I replied quickly between breaths. I didn’t want her to realize that I hadn’t even tried jumping yet!

"What would happen when I left the ground in these babies?!!" I wondered to myself.

Mom nodded when I asked if I could wear them home, and we went up to the cash register to pay for them.

“Are you sure you’re okay with them?” Mom asked as we walked hand in hand to the car. “I’m sure,” I said. “But just to be safe, I better sit in the back seat.”

Hello Up There, by Nina Miller

Not for a millisecond do I deceive myself
that you are listening, yet I speak to you
as if you were just out of the shower, shaving,
or stirring milk into your morning coffee
while you frown over foreign affairs
as reported by Frank Rich.

Hello up there. I say it
In the morning, in the midst of day,
But especially at night,
Patting the empty place where
I used to brush my fingers on your belly
To be certain that it was moving up and down, up and down.
I tell you all the latest:
my aches and pains, who’s getting a divorce, who’s dying,
but most of all, the children,
whose lives link ours with the future.

Hello up there, I say again.
Someday I will join you in oblivion,
and we will share the ease of nothingness
as once we shared a bite of succulent lobster
or the zany laughter of early Woody Allen,
or handed back and forth our favorite sections of the Sunday Times.


 

NOTE: The title comes from a poem by Marge Piercy
 

Ferris Wheel, by Kimberly A. Zajac

We are night time travelers you and I 

Star struck from an early age

Hoping the Ferris Wheel would get stuck at the top

So we could sway above the kaleidoscopic carnival below

Above the games that couldn’t be won

But were played anyway

Reaching to touch the moon with cotton candied fingers

A pinky promise to stay stuck together forever

And we did

Few words between us

None needed in the awe of how we fit 

So perfectly in the milky way

Don’t let go we giggled

Our laughter mingling with the twinkling stars

Let’s stay here forever we sighed in time

And we do

I Remember, by Caroline Gates-Lupton

I remember the dogwood tree in the corner of the side yard. I remember the color of the flowers - white, maybe pink. I remember how this tree was my favorite, my special space, my changing room. I remember I didn't understand that anyone driving down the street could see me. I remember hanging my clothes on the branches and believing I had utter privacy. I remember when Mom told me I couldn't do that anymore.

I remember the rocks at Taughannock Falls State Park, the wet, sometimes slimy ones that we weren't supposed to walk across. I remember going there purposely to walk on them, all five of us. I remember how we weren't the only ones - there were young kids, adults, teenagers, people in bikinis, shirtless guys, sandaled and bare feet. I remember wading into the deeper pockets of water and floating on my back. I remember the heat that the dry rocks held, the heat that the shallow pools kept. I remember the paths we took to get down there - both were steep and well-worn by travelers. I remember standing on the rocks and looking up to see a park ranger walking down the trail. I remember him glancing down at all of us. I remember how he kept on walking.

I remember building witches' towers at the edge of the ocean with my dad. I remember his fingers dripping with sandy mud, the tower rising up where the drops landed. I remember copying him, our towers gaining height and strength beside each other. I remember how the sunset colored the sky and darkened the ocean. I remember, when it was time to leave, asking him if the towers would be there when we came back, still standing so close to the ocean. I remember him saying he didn't know.
   
I remember the clock in our kitchen, the one that called out the hour in birdsong. I remember being scared of it. I remember loving it. I remember falling and banging my elbow in the threshold between the hardwood dining room and the linoleum kitchen. I remember Mom rushing to me and asking if I was all right. I remember saying I was, in the moment before my elbow began throbbing. I remember that bird clock looking down at me from across the kitchen while tears streaked across my face. I remember when the clock broke.
   
I remember the lakeweed in the lake by my grandparents' cottage, and the feeling of it brushing past my feet. I remember floating out past the dock on the tube to get away from it. I remember how strong the pull of the current was, reeling me back to shore. I remember fighting it with my cousins and siblings, all of us laughing, all of us trying not to get sucked back in. I remember our grandmother, watching us from under the brim of her pink visor. I remember here calling to us not to go out too far - there's boat traffic, she said. I remember our reassurances of "We won't!" I remember how the tide helped us keep that promise.

Things a House Should Have, by Susan Lesser

A house should have —
    A door that opens wide and welcoming into the front hall where there is a bouquet of sunshining roses resting on the little rosewood table that belonged to your Great-Aunt Vera who brought it home from India in 1906, but no on knows how she managed to do that.
    Another door that opens into the kitchen where loaves of bread are baking in the oven and, on the countertop, a bowl of apples nestles in beside the chunky white candle you light each night so the flame can launch evening thoughts and prayers for thanks and hope.


A house should have —
    Windows, many windows.
    Old windows with watery panes that change the asphalt road out front into an impressionist rendering, turning straight lines into undulating curves, and the branches of the towering Norway spruce into a hidden forest filled with elves and fairies.
    New windows that are double-paned, or triple-paned (I really can’t tell you) that close tight against the frosted breath of winter while you stay snug by the wood-burning stove.


A house should have —
    A roof that shields you from both the searing afternoon rays of the summer sun and the nighttime rain that from time to time performs its tap dance along the eaves.


A house should have —
    Open spaces where family and friends collect for birthday parties with a chocolate cake decorated with M&Ms and the right number of candles; spaces for cooking and Christmas trees, for playing games with thumb-worn cards, and for just plain old sitting around and talk, talk, talking,
    Closed spaces where you can sleep and dream and plan and write and read and maybe cry, or just gaze out the window until sunset comes to say good-bye to the day.


A house should have —
    A garden with spring bulbs that surprise you with their enthusiastic blooms because over the winter, you forgot just where you buried those lacquered brown knots, but they waited all the way through the short days of winter to pop up right now and say, “Here I am!”
    A garden full of peonies and pansies, lilacs and lilies, and especially parsley and sugar snap peas. They will all be happy to have you sit on the wood-strapped bench with your cup of lukewarm coffee and admire them before you pick the yellow squash for dinner and the blue indigo for the centerpiece.


A house should have —
    At least one someone to live in it, maybe more than one, maybe not. In any case a house is meant to hold lives and lifetimes and, without a someone, it is like a book with only a cover, an eggshell without an egg. Because, after all, a house should be a home.

Two Lists and Six Haiku, by Caroline Gates-Lupton

I Miss . . . .

I miss
When ten o'clock was late at night
Star gazing in the hammock
Having no responsibilities
"Ice skating" in rain boots
The cats: Allie, D-Max, Priscilla, and Max
Cousins
Sliding down the space between the wall and my bunk bed
My dad's wild, dream-filled stories
Playing hide-and-seek
Her blonde hair and the way she called me sissy
Being the tallest
When the biggest decision I had to make was whether or not to have mac and cheese for lunch
Making up games that lasted for hours


I Don't Miss . . . .

I don't miss
Being too little
Being called "bossy"
Feeling outcast from my siblings' games
Not being allowed to stay home alone
Puberty
Not knowing how to ride a bike (and earning scraped shins and bruises in the process of learning)
Not having 24/7 access to a kitchen
Being pooped on by a bird
Having almost no independence (and wanting none)
Hanging out with a girl whom I liked, then disliked, then despised
Strangers walking through my yard
Being terrified of the unexplained noises I heard at night
The way the bathroom door stuck
My aunt
Ladybug infestations
Never having enough socks


= = =



brother and sister
mistaken for twins
i'm two years older

mother and daughter
reddish hair
different eyes

father and daughter
i looked like him
when i was born

sister and sister
best friends
we talk (she talks) nonstop

cat and girl
she likes to touch
her head to mine

me then, me now
two steps away
i'll reach back for you

List of Lists, by Rob Sullivan

top 100 rock songs
sweetest desserts
languages spoken
dances done
favorite times on clock
best temperatures by season
baseball cards I've known and loved
coolest cars of our youths
words for snow
concerts that transcended
movie scenes to cry for
countries on the bucket list
garden tools
friends down through the ages
fiends, boogeymen, and monsters
acts of random kindness
messages that come from our heart of hearts
favorite dogs of friends
moments of ecstasy
times of sorrow
foods foodies favor

Was It When, by Barbara Anger

When was the time I woke up
Without a rock in my hip
A knotty stick down my spine?

When did my neck reach like a horse
Or my hair trail in the wind
While my nostrils reached for breath?

Was it when I rolled out of bed
Leapt barefoot to the light
And crowed with a chicken?

It was between then and now
Galloping on without fear
Feet kicking louder than life.

It was in tomorrow’s dreams
Left on the breakfast table
For me to take a big bite.

My Snapshot Life, by Patti Witten

1. I was born in a house full of music made or silenced, and several big secrets

2. Three sisters, me in the middle, bickering or absorbed in play; summers at the beach where the art of rowing and the power of storms was learned

3. Adolescence spent in defiance and alliance, fighting for permission to wear jeans for god's sake, and breaking other rules

4. Forcing myself to experience sex, drugs, and risk but finding no joy in it, feeling betrayed by false promises of becoming a normal woman, a pretty girl, of being accepted by the cool kids

5. Drinking my disappointment

6. More of this, for years

7. First short marriage ending in separation, then his sudden death and my guilt

8. Second short marriage ending in self-doubt and fury

9. Four abortions; three without remorse

10. My father's death, such a blow, followed by a decade of courage marked by a brief music career that was incredibly hard and at times incredibly rewarding

11. A bunch of part-time jobs

12. Caretaker for my elderly aunt who taught me that care is not the same as love

13. Suddenly I am the oldest in many social and work situations

14. The inner life swells as the active life diminishes, but there is always Netflix and Facebook to distract me. Memory and mental agility decrease along with increase in arthritis and insomnia

15. What next? I am a little scared to find out

==

NOTE: This piece was inspired by the poem "Curriculum Vitae," by Lisel Meuller

A Collective Happiness List, by 39 contributors

Happiness is having multiple unabridged dictionaries in my room

Happiness is playing a song without missing a note, and maybe playing some new notes that are just right

Happiness is walking through the woods, grateful for my feet, my eyes, ears, and breath

Happiness is removing stones from a garden plot and readying soil for spring planting

Happiness is when my children are happy, when they do not fear, when they honor my advice, when they do not live in my house, when they do live just down the block

Happiness is eating a succulent mango, and avocado-on-toast

Happiness is seeing a smile on your face, what a gift that is

Happiness is staying home when I feel like it and going to work when I want to

Happiness is a slight change in the day that I notice but don't cling to

Happiness is tossing a blue Frisbee

Happiness is finding just the right size box for sending a small pile of gifts out in the mail

Happiness is knowing that I have enough time to really enjoy what I am doing

Happiness is getting words on the page that reflect how I feel and what I think

Happiness is setting a boundary that doesn't harm another person

Happiness is knowing that my mother loved me

Happiness is the moment I realize that I have given everything I have to give

Happiness is going to the edge and a little bit over, losing balance just enough to fall but not crash and burn

Happiness is the moment when I see the line of your back, from neck to waist, and it undoes me

Happiness is when I see you at the top of the stairs, pulling on your socks and boots, and just after that instant of intoxication I find myself relinquishing . . . dissolving

Happiness is when chaos is nullified and order takes its place

Happiness is when dust and dirt are removed and cleanliness reigns

Happiness is accepting what is, and what might be

Happiness is  looking out the window the same second a woodpecker appears

Happiness is having no particular place to go but still going anyway

Happiness is watching a muted football game while listening to a Verdi opera

Happiness is a new haiku — yours or mine

Happiness is rain, just enough, followed by sun

Happiness is when the primrose decides — finally — to re-bloom

Happiness is knowing there is enough yummy leftover casserole for tonight's supper

Happiness is finding a parking spot right where I need it

Happiness is feeling arms around my legs — a surprise hug from my five-year-old grandson

Happiness is beating my youngest sister in a game of Words With Friends

Happiness is riding my bike downtown, no parking worries

Happiness is opening the computer and finding an e-mail from a young friend in Vietnam

Happiness is discovering I think I can do better — and then doing better

Happiness is plowing through dozens of cookbooks, food magazines, and recipe cards and stumbling upon something unexpected

Happiness is finding the last two scoops of coffee — enough for one morning cup

Happiness is going to the mailbox and seeing a handwritten letter from my sister

Happiness is seeing the tulip buds in the garden and knowing I'll be there tomorrow to see them bloom

Happiness is seeing deer hopping over a fallen log

Happiness is spending time with a good friend, in a quiet restaurant booth

Happiness is having a breakthrough in my thoughts and then sharing that with someone who really understands

Happiness is realizing that it doesn't matter why something makes me happy, it's enough that it just does

Happiness is being woken up by my granddaughter and her huge stuffed Easter bunny

Happiness is drawing stick figures on the sidewalk with egg-shaped chalk

Happiness is having at least four murder mysteries sitting on my shelf, waiting for me

Happiness is greeting strangers with a smile and a few friendly words, and realizing that this is a good trait I've inherited from my father

Happiness is knowing I won't have to wear heavy wool socks again for at least six months

Happiness is a good hair day

Happiness is rain on the roof, a cat in your lap, a new notebook, and a working pen

Happiness is knowing the maidenhair fern will soon re-emerge

Happiness is sloshing through mud and not caring that my shoes are getting dirty

Happiness is walking across the grass and realizing that I'm no longer sinking in mud

Happiness is listening to Brazilian music and watching children dancing

Happiness is not something I take for granted

Happiness is finishing a project I've been working on for months and discovering that I like the way it turned out

Happiness is eating a wonderful piece of Swiss chocolate that has a surprise filling of raspberry jelly

Happiness is finding that someone else has done the laundry, and left it  — clean and folded — on top of the dryer

Happiness is the sight of buds opening on the maple, and the unexpected appearance of tulips

Happiness is being the favorite uncle

Happiness is seeing my lover's smiles after a month of frowns

Happiness is knowing that everyone who should be home, and asleep in bed, is

Happiness is the smell of lemons

Happiness is sitting on the porch in the sunshine, drinking bubble tea

Happiness is when a friend recommends an author and I read the first book in a series, like it, and discover that there are eight more books I can now read

Happiness is when a postcard arrives in the mail and at first I can't decipher the signature so I have no idea who sent it, but then I look again and it all becomes clear and I re-read the message and like it even more the second time around

Happiness is when the oatmeal turns out just right and I find a ripe banana in the fruit bowl

Happiness is sitting on the beach, watching the sunset, on a glorious Florida beach . . . in February

Happiness is finding the orange and grey striped socks that match my sweater perfectly

Happiness is seeing how the radish sprouts on my window sill stand up tall, to greet the sun

Happiness is my dog, always at my feet wanting a treat, but I believe it's really love she wants; she can't fool me

Happiness is when my students are rowdy and appreciate my humor and we all laugh together

Happiness is when my brother calls on the telephone and we laugh all the way to our childhood

Happiness is seeing a chipmunk and a sparrow drinking together at the bird bath

Happiness is receiving a last minute invitation to join a friend at the movie theatre

Happiness is finding my car in the parking lot at Wegmans

Happiness is the slightly downhill part of a path toward the end of my seven-mile run, where I feel fast and invincible

Happiness is when I have the house (and a whole day) to myself, to do whatever it is I need to do

Happiness is a 10-year-old boy who thinks he is too old to do so, forget himself and grab my hand and pull me across the room

Happiness is laughing with friends over shared mistakes

Happiness is found in the little ritual of making coffee in the morning with my one-cup French press

Happiness is looking forward to going camping again this summer with dear friends

Happiness is spending time with my energetic young granddaughter when she comes to visit

Happiness is going for a morning walk without feeling any back pain

Happiness is seeing a smile on a stranger's face

Happiness is pulling up to the drive-through window at Burger King

Happiness is the purple hyacinths in full bloom outside my window

Happiness is watching a mother robin bring long blades of grass to add to the nest she's building

Happiness is hearing my vet say "she's doing great" when I bring my 15-year-old cat in for her annual check-up

Happiness is feeling a sneeze coming on but before it arrives it goes away

Happiness is making a to-do list for the day and everything on it is something I am looking forward to doing

Happiness is waking up in the middle of the night with a big worry and figuring out a solution right away, and the worry disappears

Happiness is making people laugh, especially when I mean to

Happiness is the feel of a pen in my hand as it moves along the page

Happiness is sitting downstairs reading while my darling takes a nap upstairs

Happiness is watching and listening to a thunderstorm from indoors where it's safe and dry

Happiness is matching a sock in the laundry, or finding a missing glove

Happiness is my solitude, broken only by birds

Happiness is sharing my great joys and discoveries in writing with other writers

Happiness is being understood, despite our differences

Happiness is when my 85-year-old mother makes a great joke

Happiness is when I stop to listen to my heart beat and I know I'm not just dreaming

Happiness is when the stars line up and I can count them forever

Happiness is when I feel my inner demons disappearing

Happiness is when I make soup and my grandmother smiles upon me

Happiness is when I am aching for the words just before they arrive, when they could be anything . . . just the right thing to sweep me off my feet

Happiness is when the sun sets on my lashes and the warmth stays on just a smidgen longer than the light before it

Happiness is when I am dreaming of something new, or attending to something ancient — 865th to touch the wood of this bassinet

Happiness is forgetting hard times while in a snuggle with my pig, with his warm breathy snout against my face, and his happy grunts

Happiness is people-watching in a new spot

Happiness is learning what I have in common with those I love

Happiness is finally completing a long lost project

Happiness is seeing an enormous green snake on the street and thinking "oh no," but as I get closer I realize it's my neighbor's garden hose and I think "phew"

Happiness is taking a walk and the first two lines of a haiku find me right away, and then just as I get to my front door the last line comes to me

Happiness is when a small (but strong) inner voice reminds me to look more closely and to feel more deeply

Happiness is noticing the single red tulips growing in odd places all along my street

Happiness is when one baby sleeps through the night and the other one kicks on the inside, and they both do this quietly

Happiness is when I am chatting with some other moms at baby story-time at the library and suddenly there is my son, running at me, ready to hug me — finding me among all the other moms

Happiness is when I'm listening to music on my iPod and the best song of all comes on and it makes me sing out loud

Happiness is when the cookies that I'm baking come out perfectly, neither flattened out nor burned

Happiness is seeing the first sprouts of tomatoes, basil, morning glories, cucumbers, lettuce, musk melon, and moonflowers, all in their starter pots

Happiness is knowing all my loved ones are in good places at the moment and things are going to be okay with them

Happiness is looking around this great wonderful earth and feeling grateful to be alive

Happiness is being in a circle with other writers, everyone recounting moments of happiness

=============


The people who contributed to this collective happiness list participated in Writing Circles on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday mornings, during the 3rd week of April, 2017


Thank you for sharing your happinesses:

Annie Wexler
Ari Wunderlich
Barbara Anger
Caroline Gates-Lupton
Cheryl Gallien
Chris McNamara
Christine Sanchirico
Daniel Cooper
Daphne Solá
Fran Helmstadter
Gabrielle Vehar
Gwen Daniels
Jannie Lee Lewis
Kim Falstick
Kimberly Zajac
Larry Roberts
Linda Keeler
Liz Burns
Maimouna Phelan
Marty Blue Waters
Mary Louise Church
MaryJane Richmond
Matthew McDonald
Michelle Kornreich
Nancy Osborn
Patti Witten
Peggy Stevens
Peter Ladley
Rob Sullivan
Ross Haarstad
Saskya vanNouhuys
Spike
Stacey Murphy
Sue Crowley
Sue Norvell
Sue Perlgut
Summer Killian
Tara Kane
Zee Zahava

I Used to Imagine . . . by Liz Burns

I used to imagine the meanings of words, rather than take the time to look them up in the dictionary. 

One of these words was peripatetic. It had a slightly anxious sound to it, as if something was teetering on the edge of a table or a cliff and could suddenly fall off.  Or maybe it described someone full of hysteria who could break out into unceasing cackling laughter at any minute.

Another word was redolent. I used to think it meant someone turning red. Then that image changed to someone turning red and holding on to something for dear life, as if they didn’t want to be dragged away from it. 

The word cutlery used to evoke a picture of hundreds of pairs of scissors of all different shapes and sizes, including barbering shears and hedge trimmers. 

When it came to more technical terms, my imagination ran amok. 

When I heard the word sluice, I pictured a long sliding board with grape juice flowing down it. 

Nuts and bolts were what was in the can of Planters mixed nuts on the counter.  

A railroad trestle was a bridge with decorations on i t— a lot of gauze and ribbons that cheered up the train as it went past.  

A manhole was where the street repair guys went to eat lunch, and asphalt and concrete were interchangeable because they both meant streets and sidewalks.

2 Poems, by Caroline Gates-Lupton

Some Days


Some days
I like to walk along the bridge
the one over the river
beside the corn field.

Some days
I take an umbrella
just in case
the river is in the clouds.

Some days
the river is a roaring thing
turning pale rocks dark with wet
other days
it's nothing.


= = =

 
The Hour: a list-poem


The hour of not wanting it to happen.
The hour of the ladybugs.
The hour she came back.
The hour between dawn and sunrise.
The hour when nobody moved, not even one inch.
The hour I found you.
The hour of making bread.
The hour of inky hands and pencil-smudged cheeks.
The hour of cinnamon buns.
The hour of turning blue in the sea.
The hour of literary studies.
The hour no one prepared you for.
The hour you wish to forget.
The hour of waiting... forever.
The hour that left you behind.
The hour the clock broke.
The hour of the day of the year you were born.
The hour of evening.
The hour of sitting home with a cold on Halloween.
The hour of bright dresses and fancy hair.
The hour I missed you.
The hour after I meant to wake up.
The hour after the first time you heard that song.
The hour of silence.
The hour that lasts a month or two.
The hour of falling asleep.
The hour of waking up, slowly.
The hour of finding exactly the right kind of food.
The hour you can't do anything right.
The hour of creaky floors and old steps.
The hour the telephone didn't ring.
The hour nobody wants to remember.
The hour we'd all hate to forget.

Night Sky, by Marty Blue Waters

When I was a little girl I often snuck out of the house at night — after everyone else was asleep. I wanted the stars all around me so I lay down in the middle of our big back yard and studied the sky.

Once I was a bit older and had a bike to ride, I expanded my view of the night. Pedaling only three blocks from our house brought me to the Kansas countryside. My dog Princess was always game for these little adventures and loved to trot along beside me. If I rode down a dirt road about a mile, I came to the perfect spot to stand in awe and have the deep night sky drop its starry curtain 360 degrees all around me.

The town did not put out much light pollution and I didn't even know what that was yet anyway, so the pitch black was a special friend. Even without a moon in the sky, I loved the way my eyes knew how to see the world in a new way, letting starlight guide me down the road. The Milky Way stretched across the sky like the yellow brick road. I felt I was walking down its path without even moving my legs. I knew where to find the Big Dipper, the Little Dipper, the North Star, Orion, and considered them all to be my best friends. On nights when the full moon rose up just after dark, it was so incredibly enormous and often an intensely orange color. It felt as though it were so close I could actually hop right onto it. These trips were a little trickier, however, because they happened in the late evening before the cover of deep night and before everyone was asleep.

If I saw headlights approaching from miles away, I hid in a ditch. There were no trees to hide behind for many miles. Usually I could tell who drove by because I recognized the car or pickup. There was a place called "Lovers Lane" not far from my favorite spot, so some late nights had more traffic than others. Even my dog knew how to hide under a wheel of my bike and not make a sound. We would crouch in that big ditch for a long time before we came back onto the road, usually waiting for the red tail lights to turn direction.

Meteor showers in August were such an incredible gift. And with a little luck, they happened during the New Moon when the world was at its darkest. The shooting stars would put on a fireworks show so spectacular it took my breath away. The most difficult part was not to get excited during the day and try to describe these night experiences to somebody — especially within earshot of my mom. She would skip the wonder of it all and read me the riot act about ever leaving the house at night again. Ever ever again. Ever never. Never.

So it stayed my own spectacular secret. And I knew I could trust my dog not to spill the beans. There was so much about me that my mother didn't know. Sometimes she would try to get me to talk and tell her about things I liked and why. Part of her would have loved to share my night sky with me, but I knew the other part of her — the Baptist part — would be the one to take charge of the situation. She would worry that the Devil was talking to me and getting me to love the dark of night too much. An intervention in the making. And that was a very dim and depressing road I would avoid religiously throughout my entire childhood.

Round Things: short pieces on a theme (and more) . . . Thursday Circle

On April 13, 2017 the Thursday Morning Writing Circle devoted 10 minutes to writing on the theme of "Round Things." Here you will find the pieces that were written by 10 members of the group. But even before we did that, we spent 5 minutes writing small poems about our most recent sensory experiences. I've included those small poems at the end of this entry.


Annie Wexler

Ever since I could remember, my father was bald. When I was a little girl I thought he was the most handsome man in the world, though later I realized that he was quite average looking. I loved his round shiny head with the little fringe of hair circling his ears. He got dressed every day in a suit and tie. He polished his shoes. He wore a fedora, as every man did in that era. He didn't drink, except for a glass of Manischevitz on Friday nights at Shabbos dinner. He didn't smoke, except for the occasional cigar. He didn't curse or raise his voice. I idolized him. My mother, on the other hand, was truly beautiful, with her lustrous black hair and gorgeous figure. It must have been hard for my father when people said things like "This must be your daughter, she is so beautiful." One day when I was about 10 years old my father came home wearing a toupee. It was black, with a bit of a shag, and a part down the middle. He was very proud. He must have looked in the mirror and felt that finally he was attractive, maybe actually handsome. My mother started it — she just pointed at his head and laughed. Then I followed, and after me, my brother. We couldn't stop. The toupee must have gone in the garbage that day. We never saw it again and it was never talked about. My father seemed a bit down for a day or two but then he resumed being his happy bald self for the rest of his life.


Barbara Anger

In the hospital, my mother's belly was round with death, as hard as my brother's baseball. What happened to the soft button that attached her to her mother's life? When the full moon was hidden in the mist of the night, her mother lassoed her with an umbilical cord stronger than the one I had held tight in my heart. It circled her many times and pulled her beyond reach. She is now a shadow seen across time. I no longer remember her soft touch.


Fran Helmstadter

We walked along Eighth Street in Greenwich Village, one spring early evening. I wanted Tom to visit the bookstore where I spent so much time and money, and which had become the place where I felt deep contentment. But he pulled me past that place, and across the street, to the small jewelry shop. We walked through the door, under the sign "Wedding Rings." In the cool darkness we looked at trays of rings. Tom caught the attention of a sales clerk, probably the owner. I had never purchased a ring. The clerk sized my ring finger and put several trays on the counter. Tom looked, and waited. The choice was up to me, and I had never given any thought to my wedding ring. A gold, shiny band—  braided, and 1/3 of an inch wide — caught my eye. Of the multitude of rings on offer, I tried on just this one.


Reba Dolch

"Duck, Duck, Goose" was not my favorite circle game in 1957. We had to sit on the ground in the Hope Valley Elementary School playground in Durham, North Carolina, even though all the girls wore dresses. We had to. One first grade classmate was chosen to be "it" and he went around the circle tapping everyone on the head saying "duck, duck, duck, duck, duck, duck." When he finally said "goose," you, the goose, had to stand up and run around the circle after him until he took your place and then it was your turn to be the tapper. I didn't like it because it was a popularity contest and some people never got to be goose. Once, sitting on the ground, waiting forever to be a goose, I got a chigger bite on my bum and it itched for the rest of the day.


Rob Sullivan

There was plastic wrap to contend with first. It encased the cardboard rectangle and the paper sleeve that housed the sleek, shiny, black vinyl disc. Grooves were etched into the surface, providing a sonic road map of the musician's journey. Here was lightning trapped in a bottle and unleashed through speakers and headphones. One brief moment of time captured for the ages.


Spike Schaff
The earth is round. The wind around my ears makes a circular sound. Vibrating at 440 cycles per second, like the middle A on a piano surrounded by the orchestra, all playing Tasha O's concert-o, "Wagon Wheels #2."


Stacey Murphy

Basketball manipulated magically. Spinning on top of one thick finger, falling off other smaller ones. Orange, black, gray — or red, white, and blue — the persistent thud-thud-thud down the hallway, the living room, the driveway, the street, bouncing amplified by as many boys as there are balls, a percussive din by young athletes who don't know they're also musicians. Bounce-passing, three pointers, layups, jump-balls, and fast breaks. Constant dribbling, with one hand, then the other. Dribbling while watching TV, while brushing teeth, while waiting for the bus. But NOT while showering. A basketball boy yearns to merge with his sphere, extend his arm and release the ball at only the right moment, every bounce making the ball a part of him. Or himself at one with the ball.


Sue Crowley

Jezebel has hyperthyroidism, requiring 1 pill a day, cut into 4 tiny pieces. These go into chicken- and salmon-flavored pill pockets that I carefully roll into perfect little balls, while she rubs circles impatiently around my ankles. Always, every day, twice a day, we repeat this ritual. And every time, as I begin rolling the pill pocket closed, she steps away from my feet and begins talking to me. It's only one sound really. A sound just like that demented cartoon cat made. An "ack" sound. Jezebel says "ack," and "ack" again if I lollygag while refining these little morsels into perfect balls. "Ack!" which I translate as "Stop playing with my food and just give it to me already." Yes, all that in an "ack, ack." Jezebel is a very expressive cat, to my mind's ear.


Susan Lesser

In our wedding ceremony, 41 years ago, the officiant, as we say today, explained that the round rings we were exchanging were a symbol of the unbrokenness of the marriage bond. We did not laugh, but we thought about it. When Bill and I became engaged he was resolute in his decision that he did not want a wedding ring — never, no way. Couldn't stand the thought of it. Fine, I said, okay by me. However, four days before our wedding we were doing some Christmas shopping in a nearby town. One shop window had a display of locally crafted jewelry and Bill suddenly decided he liked one of the rings he saw skewered on the pointy display prop. It was a hippie-style ring — silver with silver curlicues stuck on, and a small stone in the center. But it was too tight for his finger and there was no time to have it sized. So the proprietor/jeweler simply sliced through the band and stretched it. There was a noticeable gap. This ring was not continuous. It did not go around forever and ever. But it was Bill's wedding ring. Over time I have come to think that this ring is a worthy symbol of marriage. It is important to honor the space between partners, to embrace not just each other but the need for each to take a breath, and to be separate for a time . . . before rejoining the perfectly imperfect circle of togetherness.


Yvonne Fisher

No matzoh balls for me this Passover. I'm too busy preparing to fly around the earth. Or part way around this great globe, this blue dot. There I will be in the night time dark, trying to sleep as we hurl ourselves through the starry sky around and around across the ocean, to another place. Another place, indeed. I will try to trust that a fine good pilot will take us safely around the world in the dark. I will try not to think about it too much, us up there flying through space around the globe. I might pray a little. I might take a little pill. I might list all that I am grateful for. I only hope there are stars to guide us.


===


small poems:


gospels in French
my husband meditates —
holy week
    - Annie Wexler

matzoh half eaten
apples and walnuts
will horseradish keep until next year?
    - Annie Wexler

radio stirring my oatmeal
Russia and U.S. mixed
with blueberries and bananas
tastes like anxiety
    - Barbara Anger

message from the middle
dig deeper to unfold
space
    - Fran Helmstadter

restless limb
fixed in space
no go
    - Fran Helmstadter

skin covers and reveals
red alarm
touch the message
    - Fran Helmstadter

wet washcloth . . . cool clean sheets
dogs tucked against me like sentinels —
remembering mother's healing hands
the flu recedes
    - Rebecca Dolch

car door whooshes shut
engine revs to start
radio hums ode to Maybelline
    - Rob Sullivan

deer running into the road
new fertilizer on the grass
and on my shoes
    - Spike Schaff

breakfast in the car
coffee     banana     coffee
cinnamon   coffee
    - Stacey Murphy 

spicy laughter
sweet mellow beer bubbles
catfish sausage gumbo
    - Stacey Murphy

night air in spring
the earth opens slowly . . .
hints of scents to come
    - Sue Crowley 

gentle cat opens her eyes
and closes them —
too early      too early
    - Susan Lesser

English muffin
the toaster pops —
too hot      too hot
    - Susan Lesser

she came over this morning
her lyrical voice
we had a fight
    - Yvonne Fisher

news on NPR
turn it off
favoring silence
    - Yvonne Fisher

Round Things: short pieces on a theme . . . Wednesday Circle

On April 12, 2017 the Wednesday Morning Writing Circle began with a 10 minute warm-up on the theme "Round Things." Here are the pieces that were written by the 7 women and men who were present that day. 

 

Caroline Gates-Lupton
Planets and stars and the moon are all round, or at least they look like that from the deceptively flat surface of the earth. The wheels on Zee's and Daniel's chairs are round, with a half-circle of roundness capping each wheel. The way a person talks can be round, their pitch and volume traveling from high to low and back again. The letter o, not to be confused with the number zero, is very round, perfectly round, when written correctly. Sometimes my o's look like blobs on the page; sometimes they look like the circular mouth of a water bottle. The tip of this pen, where the ink comes out, is round. I guess that's why they call it a "ball point pen." I wonder, if I could somehow take that point out of the pen, would there be an actual inky ball that I could roll across my fingers?


Daniel Cooper

Golf ball — Grandpa's arms were tan from his golfing. Harold was Grandpa's name and he had round blonde curls as a child. When he was older all his hair fell out and he became bald. A bald eagle has round eyes.


Christine Sanchirico

The sun is round. I think. Except when there are those explosions that happen on the surface, that break through the roundness and burst, throwing little sparks everywhere. And us, we sit on our round earth, assuming the soft roundness of the warm sun. When in reality the sun is a fiery mass of energy, wishing that we would notice its intensity. We sit mulling our urbane lives, rocking in our rocking chairs, as we observe the sun slowly slipping below the horizon.

The full moon, apparently pink in April. Although at night its blue coolness sprinkles on the spruce tree — the branches, sharp, grab at the reflected light. For the moon, with no light of its own, alas, must surrender to the shadows, as it slips behind a cloud.

The earth. When you are way up on a hillside you can see the gentle curvature and you become a passenger on a round boat, riding the waves of space and time as you journey forward, little imagining that you really are going in circles.


Janie Nusser

Worms are round. Long and round. I noticed this las week during the flood watch. In my walk along Seneca Lake in the rain I noticed that worms had migrated from their homes on the asphalt trail. I worried about them as I tried to avoid stepping on them. Would they be able to go home when the water subsided? Would they survive on the asphalt? Each day, I checked. Some worms formed circles, curling into themselves. I thought that might be a bad sign. I stopped often to see if any of them moved. Some did, some didn't. If they died, would a worm family miss them? Did worms have belongings that would have been washed away in what, to them, was a flood? When the sun came out one day I looked even more closely. Obviously, some worms survived, for there were far fewer of their pink bodies standing out on the black trail. But, sadly, some, usually the ones curled into round pink balls, had not moved an inch in a couple of days. By the next day, their bodies were black orbs. I hope there is a worm heaven and that they have all joined their families on the other side.


Mary Louise Church

Babies' tummies. Eyes when the package is opened. Oranges full of refreshing juice. My great-grandmother's ring and my forget-me-not ring. Mouths that are ooohing over the sight of chocolate pie. The tires on my car that go round and round and round, mile after mile. The rings in my notebook that holds the last year of my creative thoughts. Holes dug in the Seneca County clay for the plants my husband has decided must be moved. The direction my thoughts go in when I'm puzzling out an annoying problem. The brim of my coffee cup with the aroma wafting over it. Ben's yellow eyes contrasting sharply with his ebony fur. The merry-go-round at the park. The path around the merry-go-round where the grass has been worn away by the pounding feet of people pushing pushing pushing. The perfect little snowballs that hit the windshield as I drove through the storm the other day. Lower case o but not upper case O. Black olives are much rounder than green ones. The smoke rings my grandpa used to blow for us kids to try to catch.


Ross Haarstad
What goes around come around. The sleeping infant, the dog at the hearth, the opening of the glass at my elbow, the sounds of the settling night. Gather round to round off the turning of the day.

Spring moon floats through last night's sky, calling me home.

This button, lost from its shirt. Or the shirt, lost from this button. Turn it around, again and again.

Children spinning as the world slips its balance, like young dervishes escaping gravity.

Mandalas: rose windows high in the gothic arches, and manhole covers.

Dimes, pennies, nickels, quarters. The vanishing tangibility of cash.


Saskya van Nouhuys

An ispod rolls up into a perfect ball when it gets startled. If that happens on a slope then it also rolls away.

==

Katy and I went to the beach. We searched for the roundest small pebbles, and swallowed them.