Month: August 2020

The Sixth Month

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silhouttes of mountains

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With each day’s light

comes the reckoning.

Lids closed, just rising from dream,

the heart lifts like a helium balloon

before eyes reveal

the empty morning,

unchanged,

the same color as yesterday

and the day before.

 

With each day’s counting,

hours wait like cups

to be filled.

But the liquid is mostly

salted tears

or bleach water,

for what is there to do

except weep or clean?

 

With each night’s closing,

calculate on fingers

the patches patched,

the words repeated,

the beans steamed,

the pots scoured.

Thus do the beads of days,

collected on time’s thin strand,

hang heavy as shackled steps

toward the inexorable tomorrow.

 

 

Greetings to new followers, and thank you to loyal readers. —K.

 

My Father’s Wisdom

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selective focus photography of child hand

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My father had a few pithy sayings that he liked to repeat. Some of these merely justified his personal preferences, such as, “Fruit juice is for sick people and babies.” But other aphorisms made sense. One of these came to me the other day.

“Address the behavior, not the child.”

My father was a child psychologist. He may not have applied all of his theories to raising me, but this idea, at least, I remember, and still find valid. Not only in relation to children, but to adults as well.

For parents, it’s tough raising children in today’s culture. They have a lot to contend with. So many labels in social media are out there, waiting to stick to a child: bad, fat, stupid, ugly, or smart, talented, etc. We even have a president who throws labels around, calling people “bad” or “nasty.”

Bad behavior or choices, okay, but just “bad people?” We can do better.

To say, “That’s good,” or “You’re a good _______” doesn’t help a child much. It’s more useful to be specific. “I like the way you _______ .” Arranged the pillows on your bed. Cleaned up all the Legos. Helped your friend who fell down. Used the yellow paint in your picture.

We let the child know specifically what was done well.

Adults also respond positively to hearing what they do well.

In my writing group, structured according to the Amherst Writers and Artists method, we give positive feedback to first drafts. We point out what was strong or memorable, what “stays with us.” Writers use that information to improve.

It works the same way with kids.

Until

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shallow focus of clear hourglass

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Until she had nothing,

she thought she could go anywhere.

Kyoto beckoned on cobbled streets,

maiko hurrying to a party at twilight.

Lisbon unlocked the old quarter,

where Portuguese whistled on pursed lips.

Morocco, flat roofs under the stars,

sent the call of the muezzin on the desert wind.

 

Until she had nothing,

she thought she had the breath

to plan for a workshop in Italy,

to find a quaint B & B,

to choose which class,

collage or linocut?

 

Until she had nothing,

she imagined a villa on the Costa de la Luz,

a piso in Cadiz,

a condo in Las Colones

for a month, a season, a year.

 

Until she had nothing,

Until the doors closed,

Until the work of going

was greater than staying,

Until masks weren’t enough,

Until the asymptomatic were contagious,

Until the Ides of March turned viral,

she thought she had the time.

 

 

K.E.

The Fan Quilt

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Several months ago, I embarked on a Big Project: a king sized pieced quilt for our bed.  I was tired of the quilt I’d made over ten years ago, and I had a stack of Asian fabric to start with.  I knew I’d need to buy more, but that is the quilter’s best excuse.  I love fabric.  Sometimes a beautiful pattern or texture of cloth can elicit a visceral reaction.

For this quilt, round edges were my new challenge.  I cut the fan blades and slowly, over weeks, sewed ninety-four fans.

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Once I had cut the white squares, I laid out the center pieces on the design wall (see above).  But the quilt was too big for the wall, so I moved to the floor.  The only space large enough proved to be our bedroom, and even then, I had the corners under the dresser and the bed.

With the top done, I took all the extra fabric, plus some new yardage, and stitched it together to make a back.  The quilt top measured 107″ square.  In the end, I was wrangling a huge amount of fabric in and out of the sewing machine.

When front and back were done, I sent it off to a local long-arm quilter, who did a magnificent job sewing the “quilt sandwich” together.  Then I put on the binding, and VOILA!  A very big finished project.

 

I won’t say, “Never again!” But it will be a long time before I take on anything as big as that fan quilt.

Listen

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animal animal photography barbaric big

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Listen.

When the scalp prickles.

When the child speaks.

When the gut tightens.

Listen to the heart’s whisper.

 

Listen.

To the hiss, the words, the warning,

Of the wrong step, person, choice.

When the lonely days make you desperate,

When you long for a caress,

When the body shouts loud,

Listen to the heart’s whisper.

 

Listen.

It’s so easy to get caught,

Trapped by legal fishnets,

By a house, by a promise.

Listen to that whisper,

the soft, the soul,

the voice that knows.

 

And follow.

 

 

7-31-20

The Saga of the Noisy Recliner Chair

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recliner1

My husband has arthritic knees. The right knee was the first to become painful. He got a series of Euflexa shots, which seemed to help. Then a couple of weeks ago, the left knee started hurting. Confined to the apartment because of COVID-19, he was sitting for long periods on the couch with his feet propped up on the cobbler’s bench that serves as our coffee table. Having his legs in that position put pressure on his knees and offered no support.

I had a brilliant idea: get him a recliner so he can be more comfortable.

This I did, buying a granite gray leather chair with a swivel base that fit in with the living room décor. It arrived earlier than expected, on a rainy day. The truck driver left the box in the entryway outside our door.

The chair came in two pieces. The back weighed about thirty pounds, but the base weighed one hundred pounds, give or take. We looked at each other. How to get this up the stairs?

I carried the smaller piece by myself. The big, heavy base was an awkward shape with some potentially sharp parts underneath. We decided to roll it up the staircase.

We wrapped the chair in its plastic and trundled the thing upward, a few steps at a time, like two dung beetles moving their prize. Of course, this did my husband’s knees no good.

Once upstairs, we easily fit the back into place, but there was a problem. The chair squeaked. Not a little mousy squeak, but an ear-ringing shriek. Every time my husband shifted his weight, the chair screeched.

We turned it over and squirted WD 40 on all possible junctures. No change.

I looked up the manufacturer online and emailed for help. The reply came quickly: The recliner has a 12-month warranty. Contact the vendor.

Well, the vendor was Amazon, so I didn’t think I’d get much help from that quarter. But I searched the site until I was able to send a request. Someone with a strong accent called me back. All he could do was repeat: “Do you want a refund or a replacement?”

My next effort was to call a furniture store that sells similar recliners. “Did you buy the chair from our store? If so, we’ll send out a tech to assist you.” No, I didn’t qualify.

Before I gave up and called a handyman friend, I examined the chair more carefully. First I noticed that the front was crooked on the base. Something underneath was off kilter. We turned the chair over and I studied the workings, pushing the base in and out to make it squeak.

Two wooden crescent-shaped rockers were not in the same place on each side. The edge of one rocker rested on a metal support bar. The other side’s rocker was totally off the bar. AHA! This was the source of the squeaking.

We used two hefty screwdrivers to pry the rockers upward and reset them on the bars.

My husband sat in the chair.

Silence.

Days later, we’re still congratulating ourselves.

 

 

The Real Mary Poppins

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mary poppins

 

My sister’s and my copy of Mary Poppins had a battered blue leather cover. It sat on a shelf with our other valued stories. However, it’s been years since I actually read the book.

Yesterday we had a longish drive ahead, so I borrowed the Mary Poppins audiobook from Libby (a useful app where I’ve done most of my reading since COVID March). And as I listened, I began to remember what a strange and somewhat frightening character she was.

Mary Poppins—the real Mary Poppins—is a severe, vain and mysterious personality who shows up at Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane. When she takes Jane and Michael on an outing, she denies their entire experience afterward, and acts insulted that they would ever suggest such goings on.

The real Mary Poppins seems to have superpowers and holds a lofty position in the book’s world. The animals at the zoo honor her birthday on the full moon. The reigning creature at the zoo is not the lion, but the hamadryad (king cobra) who tells the children that the trees, the animals, and the people “are all one.” Throughout the book there are similar echoes of P.L. Travers’ spiritual ideas.

Mary Poppins takes the children to a bakery where the creepy Mrs. Corey breaks off her fingers for the infant twins to suck like peppermint candy. Along with Mrs. Cory and her giantess daughters, Mary Poppins glues stars onto the sky. She translates Andrew’s dog talk to his owner, Mrs. Lark. She elevates the tea table and the landlady at Uncle Albert’s house. When the children dare to ask her questions about the afternoon’s events, Mary Poppins becomes quite irritated and insists that her uncle is a decent man who would never go bouncing around on the ceiling.

The imagined world of Mary Poppins is not sweet and musical like the Disney movies. In fact, P.L. Travers, the author, claimed she was not a children’s author. Travers sounds like she was similar to her famous character, opinionated and ornery and maybe a bit delusional.

As I listen to Mary Poppins, I hear it both as the child I was and the adult I am now. Like my childhood self, I find the magic of the book delightful and surprising. But I remember that, as a child, I found Mary Poppins’s actions and responses to be unpredictable and therefore somewhat frightening.

For those younger than I who have grown up with the Disney version, I encourage you to read the original.

What I’m Reading: The Weight of Love

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weight of love

It’s rare that I choose to read poetry.  Even more rare that I buy a book of poems and read it all the way through.  These poems by Pat Schneider spoke to me on many levels and touched my heart.  I connect with her as a writer, a mother, a seeker and a caregiver for a spouse with dementia.

Adult Children,

how they visit

from the far-off island nations

of their lives

How they bring us shiny notions

from the future we can’t possibly surmise

How the foreign languages they speak

surprise, delight and frighten us

until we remember how we pushed them

in the swing, how they shouted, laughing,

higher! Higher!

–p. 20

About Pat Schneider (from the back cover):

Pat Schneider was born in the Ozark mountains of Missouri where she became intimate with fossils, creek bed grasshoppers and box turtles. After a search for work took her single mother to St. Louis, from age ten Pat lived in tenements and in an orphanage until she was given a scholarship to college. Those early experiences deeply influenced her writing, and fueled her passion for those who have been denied voice through poverty and other 
misfortunes.

Pat’s books, poetry, plays, and libretti have been praised by the most prestigious publications and authors in America:  The New York Times, the Library Journal, the Atlanta Journal, Small Press Magazine, St. Louis Dispatch, the North Dakota Review, Oprah Magazine, Vanity Fair, the North Dakota Quarterly, the Kentucky Monthly, the Bellingham Review, the Louisville Times, and many others.

Peter Elbow said that Pat Schneider is “the wisest teacher of writing I know.”  Julia Cameron, author of The Right to Write and The Artist’s Way, noted that Pat is “a fuse lighter. Her work is gentle, playful, brilliant, and revolutionary” and Janet Burroway, author of Writing Fiction, notes that Pat’s work is “heartening and practical, a rich variety . . . that celebrates both difference and difficulty as the gifts they are.  

I have a personal connection with Pat Schneider, as she developed the Amherst Writers and Artists (AWA) method of leading writing workshops.  Schneider’s type of  writing workshop provided a safe space for me to try out my pen in a local group. Led by Kate Hymes, herself an accomplished writer and teacher, the workshop confirmed that I was a writer.  Ultimately I saw my own novels published by Handersen Publishing. (www.handersenpublishing.com     www.amazon.com/author/ellisk

Schneider’s AWA method offers all people–those who consider themselves writers and those afraid to own the title–a safe, supportive workshop in which to explore.  In an AWA session, the writer hears what s/he has done well, what language was strong and memorable, what stayed with the listeners.  Rather than providing criticism, the AWA workshop provides encouragement.  I, among many, am proof of the success of Schneider’s approach.

So I thank Pat Schneider for her teaching, and for this gem of a book in which I found many deep and elegant expressions of our common experience.

Hush

Hush. Slow down. Say the names of those

for whom your candle burns.

Say them into the attentive ear

of memory, or of God.

Oddly, now, either one will do.

You are no longer required to believe.

Receive the gift of listening.  Belief

is as hard as a hickory nut

that cracked, holds many mansions.

The faces that you love are chalices.

Hush.  Slow down.  Tip the chalice,

sip the wine, and say it:

all whom I remember are now mine.

 

p. 3