Author: creek2river

I long ago figured out that my mind doesn’t always work the same way as other people. Some people, like my husband, are organized, logical, and technically oriented. Other people, like my writer and theater friends, are creative, whimsical, and artistic. Personally, I tend to be extremely organized with whatever is in the forefront of my focus at the time, but will totally disregard the towering, teetering stack of books to my right, and the open paint can to my left. My husband, I’ve decided, must be extremely patient, because when we work together, I can be a logical problem-solver, but then I’ll also have a leap of artistry and decide to throw in a roller coaster into the middle of building steps. I know he’s not following my train of thought, when he smiles and calls me sweetheart and then explains steps 1, 2, and 3 in our project. Other times, he gets it.

This morning, however, I confused even myself.

I don’t keep a calendar on my phone, because my calendar is linked to my email, and in my attempt at work-life balance, I refuse to carry ‘work’ around with me all the time. To deal with this, I often send myself reminders of things to put on my calendar or things to put on my to-do list. They’re short, to the point, just enough to prompt my memory. Things like Kris 12-12, 1 pm, which reminds me to put a meeting on my calendar for the 12th of December at 1 pm.

              This morning, the text reminder read, Stapler Memorial. It might be easy to assume that my first thought was that this text was a reminder of someone’s funeral service. But no, my first thought was that it was a rather dark idea for a children’s book – as all the office supplies, the scissors, the pens and markers, and reams of paper got together to say goodbye to the stapler. My mind then chased down a path as to why the stapler had died, and how I could handle this in a meaningful way for children.

Keep in mind that these thoughts go through my head in almost an instant. Then, I glanced at the next reminder on the list, and it reads, push pins. And then I remember. I’m part of a theater program that works out of the Memorial Building, and for the work coming up, I need to remember to take pushpins and a stapler. The sad part of this is that I had sent the text to myself less than half an hour before.

But don’t think I didn’t scribble down that children’s book idea.

This month is the annual NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. Twenty or so years ago, a group of people decided to try to write a novel (a goal of 50,000 words) in 30 days in the month of November. (www.nanowrimo.org). Since then, it’s become a global event and I’ve attempted it quite a few times (once successfully).

And every time that I tackle this challenge, I find that I become extremely productive. Not at writing – but at finding all kinds of ways to avoid sitting at my desk and writing the words.

I sit down at my designated time, and then I think, let me just put the laundry in the washer. It’s a 30-second job. Wow, those dishes are stacking up, let me wash those before I start or I’ll never be able to concentrate.  Let me pay the bills, build the prop for the theater performance, practice some dance steps, write the menu for the weekly meals, and help my daughter with her homework. All these things need to be done, but they could wait half an hour or more. Even now, here I am writing this blog piece rather than working on my novel.

I love to write. I love coming up with ideas for short stories. I love crafting an ending that keeps you, the reader, wanting more. But for some reason, the depth and creation of an entire world and a full-length novel gives me grief. Am I writing cliches? Am I writing a character that no one is going to love (or hate)? If I mention that the character loves spicy food in chapter 2, will I remember it in chapter 22?

I’m an extremely organized person (not counting my craft room) so I like having everything laid out and plotted – which is great for a short piece of writing. But when I try to do it for a novel-length piece, I find myself getting bored with knowing what’s going to happen in advance. And if I’m bored, I know the reader will be as well. I thought, meh, if it isn’t working for me to be a plotter, maybe I try being a pantser. I have a general idea of where the characters need to go, and Day 3 of NanNoWriMo, it seems to be working.

I sent a text to a writer friend expressing my self-doubts and he repeated the advice that he’s given to my writers’ group on multiple occasions. “Get it on paper. Doesn’t have to be correct or even in order. Whatever scene comes, let it flow. You can edit it later.”

It was such great advice that I decided to share. Hope it helps some fellow writers as well. And now that my typing fingers are warmed up, let me get back to chapter 3 of my novel.

It’s the first week of September. Technically, still hotter than most months, and yet, as I drove off the mountain, I noticed a tinge of yellow along some of the trees. Even though autumn is my favorite season, I had a moment when my brain said, oh no.

A stump along the road to my house.

I work in education, but my job is still year-round, so summer is not a vacation. But the evenings are longer, the weather is consistently warm, and I can go for long walks that clear my brain and prepare me for the next day.

September is beautiful, but it is also the ending of one season as we slide quickly into the chilly, bitter days of winter. I get more books read in winter, and I love watching it snow. But let’s face it, it’s dreary, it’s cold, and all plant life is brown, leafless, or straight-up dead.

I have a few more weeks before it is officially fall, but that first flash of yellow was the start. The mourning period will soon begin. We all must wait patiently while Persephone returns to the underworld, and we all must wait for the return of spring.

Thump, thump, thump. Claire’s aggravation was clear, and she was taking it out on me, her favorite human.

For the past week, we had been on a family beach vacation.  Mom had generously stopped by our house every day to water the plants, and feed the dogs, the chickens, and of course, Claire.

Because of a rampant coyote problem, I had decided to leave Claire in the house, rather than putting her outside with the other critters. I would go on vacation and not worry about her being eaten by a pack of wild animals. I’m sure if I had asked her, she would have agreed to this arrangement.

Claire received her daily visits, and I’m sure that Mom gave her some loving attention during her visits.

But there’s 24 hours in a day and for the rest of the time, Claire was alone.

In retrospect, I wonder what she thought of it. Cats are used to being part of a group, part of the pack, part of the family, or as I just looked up, part of a clowder (Yep, I just learned that a group of cats is called a clowder).  Did she wonder what had happened to us? Did she walk around the house and meow? Did she even look for my husband, who likes to tease her? Did she mourn for us?

When we returned from vacation and had mostly unpacked, my husband sat down in his recliner to relax after the long drive. Claire promptly settled in beside him, much to his surprise. “Look who’s sitting with me!” he told me. I was still walking around, putting stuff away, so I assumed that Claire had picked the first human available to make contact with. But now, I wonder.

Once I made it to my own chair and had pulled up a book to read, Claire ventured over.  She did not sit beside me as she usually does (she will sit beside but never on a lap – she’s too independent for that). She jumped to the back of the chair and lay down. Soon, a very heavy tail thwapped me on the head. Strange, I thought, but soon returned to the book in front of me. Thump. Thump. Thump. It took a few times, but finally, I got it. Claire was mad. And she was letting me know it.

I made nice with her. Everyone petted her. A few hours later, we went to bed. Claire claimed her usual spot at the end of the bed near my feet. She had proven her point. As I gave her a final stroke before laying down, I told her that I understood. No one likes to be alone.

I am happy that all is now forgiven. Until the next vacation.

I thought they had disappeared completely. When I was little, July would roll around and so would the stumbling flight of the June bug. They were easy to catch, and the pinching crawl as they wandered over the palm of your hand was slightly unsettling.

They flew in an up and sideways kind of rolling gait, like a drunk on a boat. I was never quite sure which direction they would go, but eventually, they’d land in the grass and I could scoop them up. Every now and again, I’d even find one impaled onto the barb of the barbed wire along the top of the yard fence, because evidently, they couldn’t steer even an inch to the right to avoid the danger. And why were they called June bugs, when they showed up in July?

Mom told me that when she was little, they would tie a string to the June bug’s leg and keep them for a while as a pet. This seemed like a great idea in theory, but then, seeing them struggling to fly away and escape was more than my poor heart could handle, and I would always set them free, even though there would be more than 50 lazily flying over the clover in our yard.

But twenty-some years later, when I moved back home, I no longer saw them. The yard seemed empty and quiet every July, and I wondered if they were one more casualty in Mother Nature’s fight against humanity.

Then, this week, I walked out to feed the chickens, and this huge green beetle tried to run into my forehead. No one will ever call them graceful. Suddenly, I was 5 again and I raced behind the three or four that I could easily see and waited for one of them to take a header into the tall grass. In no time, one of them nose-bombed and I captured it in between both hands.

I let it crawl for a moment, scratchy feet against my skin, the buzz of locusts and twitter of a bird in my ears, and the sun warming me into an easy sweat.        I lifted my head and opened up my hands. The June bug took off, drifting down toward the grass, then around me in a lazy circle. For a moment, I was back in the childhood perfection of summer.

As members of my family get older and as I scoot past middle age (assuming I live to be 100 like Granny), I’ve started focusing on habits that will improve my health and work parts of my brain to keep dementia, or as Granny used to call it the “old-timers,” at bay.

Of the same mindset, my husband works a crossword puzzle almost daily.  I love crossword puzzles, and I like to sneak attack and fill in a few answers when he’s left one unattended. I’ve also recently picked up Sudoku as an app on my phone, and I’m about halfway through the intermediate level. I’m not sure what to do when I get to the “hard” level.  Does it help to try to do something when you are older that you probably weren’t capable of doing when you were younger?

But recently in my book group, someone mentioned a new strategy that he had picked up. He was starting to memorize poems.  And not just short, but impactful poems like William Carlos Williams’ poem, The Red Wheelbarrow. I remember studying that poem and realizing how much imagery could be packed into a few words.

My friend had started with a small challenge, Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas.  This reminded me of Granny, who in the last few years had trouble remembering pieces of the day – but she could quote poetry that she learned in fourth grade. “Come little leaves said the wind one day,” she would quote. Her voice would slow into a melodic, graceful meditation.  And I thought that’s something that I want to be able to do.  I want my children and grandchildren and the staff at whatever nursing home they may stick me into, I want them to pause and listen. And Dylan Thomas would be a great one to not just quote, but shout into the hallway, “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”  Maybe that will just make me the crazy old lady in room 8 that everyone avoids, but that’s okay by me. At least, I will be seen.

My friend had also started memorizing some of the epic poetry, like Seamus Heaney’s translation of the Aeneid. And I liked the idea of that as well. If I scared everyone away with my Dylan Thomas, I could draw comfort in the stories that I could tell and retell myself in the quiet of my room.

Or maybe, like Granny, I would just pull from what I could remember from fourth grade, from the day I stood at the front of the class to recite Robert Frost’s Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood. Maybe today is when I’m at that crossroad, and I will take the “road less traveled by” and capture some of the greats to take with me, in my memory, to comfort me in a time when I may no longer remember “me.”

My in-laws are snowbirds. Every year, they drive down to Florida soon after Christmas to spend three months and miss the worst of the snow. Which makes me think that the term should be sunbirds rather than snowbirds, but they didn’t ask me. I think my husband planned to do something similar when he retired, but he’s slowly come to realize that if he does, it’s going to be by himself. There’s no way that I’m leaving the mountain. Not on purpose.

It’s not just the changing of the seasons, although watching the leaves bud, burst, color, fall, and then sleep until it begins anew is still one of my favorite passive pastimes. I’m not personally that crazy about snow for more than a few days, but I think the need to be part of the cycle is just as important. It begins with winter. I’m less active – although I probably do more exercise programs – but the amount that I wander over and around the mountain is less. It’s a time for me to rest and recuperate. To listen to the hush of the forest.

Come spring, I hear the twitter of birds around my house, and then the annual discussion between family and friends as to when the last frost will happen. When will it be warm enough to hunt morels? When will the plant sales begin? When will you sow lettuce and plant onions? Do you plant potatoes in the dark of the moon? Personally, I like my grandfather’s response when asked that question — he planted taters in the ground. My point is that we’re aware of the subtle changes in nature, ready to get those gardens tilled, to fill up the hummingbird feeders, and to cover the fruit trees to protect them from the slightest danger of frost.

Now, we’ve moved out of spring and are sliding into summer. The end of May was strawberry season. Cherries are always ripe around a friend of mine’s birthday, June 15. Soon after are the raspberries, and then around 4th of July, it’s the blackberries. When will the squash harvest go from being a boon to a headache as we get overwhelmed from the bounty? The jars are washed, the canners are dusted off, and the empty cellar shelves go from bare to a garden rainbow of color – beans, corn, tomato, and fruit. Some out-of-towners don’t get it, why put in all that effort? But a Kroger tomato (picked too early so it looks like the right color) tastes a little bland, compared to one picked off the vine, wiped a little on your shirt, and then either eat it like an apple, or slice it onto white bread.  Smack ya’ mama, it’s so good.

Things should slow in the fall, but really, it’s the busiest time of the year. Finishing up the harvest, putting the garden beds to sleep, tidying up, and watching as some of the birds lift up and away for migration.

And then we are back into winter. Time for rest. 

What I’ve described has only really touched on gardens. But there is so much more. The animals change. I used to think that we were separate from them. But the swallow building a nest in my porch roof has made me part of her environment. If there’s a nest and babies, I’m careful to avoid it. On the flip side, we have hunting season and I’m never one to turn away some deer meat. And my life revolves around what is needed for our beehives – those little ladies will tell me when a storm is coming long before the meteorologist.

Mother Nature whispers to me every day in all seasons. There’s more out my window than just a pretty view. The mountains are calling, and I am home. A WV bird.

Since I got my first chickens a few years ago, it’s been a running joke as to how I now have “poultry therapy.”  As you do when you form an interest in something, people buy you things related to that interest. I now have shoes with chickens on them, a few “love my flock” chicken t-shirts.  Pictures and signs that declare that I am from here forward a “chicken lady.”

American Red Sexlink hens

But really, I am. I am a chicken lady. I never resent the time spent carrying out feed, water, shoveling out old poop and straw, and collecting the eggs. The hens are always delighted to see me, and their needs are fairly simple. The few minutes a day give me a chance to step away from my desk and enjoy a moment outdoors.

This morning, the hens clucked at me and hung out at my feet, straining to see what I had in the bucket. They don’t mind sitting on my feet and will sometimes squat and stretch out their wings to allow me to pet down their backs and scratch into their feathers. It’s probably some kind of defense mechanism, but I’ll take it as some kind of weird affection. I studied the eggs as I walked back to the house.  They are not like the pristine white eggs that you will find in the carton at your favorite grocery store.  These eggs vary in shades of brown, one being much lighter than the other, although I can tell you from experience that once I fry it up, I can’t tell the difference.

Another one has what I call a wart at the end of it. It’s just a glob of extra eggshell that perhaps didn’t get smoothed over while still inside the chicken when it was forming. To be honest, I’m guessing as to what causes it.  But again, it causes no change to the flavor or quality of the egg inside it.

Which makes me wonder about the process of selecting those pristine eggs for the grocery store. I’m sure the quality control standards are in place to ensure we don’t get any rotten, cracked, or deformed eggs that might make us sick. Especially, since they are not going from chicken to frying pan within a few days as they do at my house.

But I can’t help it, I like that my chickens produce these unique little eggs. The eggs are as different as my hens are from one another. They do not conform; they do not sit in the carton looking just like all the others. They are warty and come in different shades. I think everyone should have a few chickens in their backyard and spend a little more time meditating with the hens.

I get lots of compliments for being a “good mom.” And man, I’ll take them, because no one can say that I don’t put in the hours and the work. But I also don’t do it alone. For the men in my life, you’ll get your moment next month, but for today, on Mother’s Day, I want to focus on the women.

For many years, as a teenager and starting into my twenties, I foolishly thought that being a strong woman meant being forceful and sometimes even rude, and that was a little true for some of the situations that I found myself in. But gradually, I lost the need to raise my voice just to be heard. I proved myself by being good at what I do, working hard, and patience.

I was 37 before my first child was born, and the great thing about being that age is having patience. Not only with your child, but with the world around you, because everyone has a bit of advice – from the cashier at Walmart to every relative that shares a drop of blood with you. It can be hard to pick and choose the good advice from the slush pile.

My husband and I began with the end in mind – we wanted our girls to grow into strong women so they could protect themselves, but we wanted them to also be kind and empathetic to those who didn’t have all of their advantages. We wanted them to be comfortable in their own skin and ready to take on the world. If there is a job to be done, let their hands be the first ones to reach out to help. Honestly, the list of what we wanted is longer than I can probably manage in one short piece.

And if you’ll forgive a moment of boasting, I think we’re getting there. But we definitely didn’t do it alone.

The women in my girls’ lives have a wide range of interests and influences. But I can easily say that they are all strong. They have experienced loss and yet keep moving forward, even if sometimes it’s with gritted teeth. They are all beautiful and show that you don’t have to wear makeup to be naturally beautiful – and sometimes, the best look is that fresh-from-the-river look where you might be a little grubby, a little fishy-smelling, with sun-kissed cheeks and a smile on your face.

They teach that the best food comes straight from the garden, and the greatest way to say I love you is with a freshly baked cake, from scratch of course. The women in the lives of our girls demonstrate the pure joy of throwing down some newspaper on a picnic table and digging into a low country boil.

Being together does not always mean spending money, or big trips, or even being away from home. It can be an afternoon at a swimming pool, or it can be curling up on a sofa with a blanket to watch a horror movie that I, as their mother, refuse to watch because I think the world is scary enough, thank you very much. It can be playing cards or board games or chess, and oh, the girls are learning some strategies for life and didn’t even realize it!

The women believe in the necessity of art – whether it be dancing, singing, playing piano, drawing, sewing, crocheting, or embroidery. Being comfortable in your own skin may mean getting up on stage and pretending to be someone else.  Or that art doesn’t have to be traditional – it can be a thought-provoking little piece that’s half driftwood and half jewelry. Pick your art for today – the important thing is to imagine and create.

The point that I am trying to make is that the girls do not learn all of these things from me alone. I do try to demonstrate all the positive qualities as well as letting them see that it is permitted to cry and have a bad day, as long as you pick yourself up and keep going. But while the world rushes in with lots of negatives, I am so extraordinarily grateful to the women in my life who guide our girls through life, sometimes just by being themselves. Happy Mother’s Day.

And to my girls, who make every day of my life something to be remembered, thank you for making me a mom.