Day 1

This morning began with a first stop in the gym as I’m attending a writer’s conference near the gym, and there will be lots of sitting today I’m sure. So I’m treadmilling along, getting my exercise on to a playlist on my iPod, jogging and walking intermittently. Then a senior citizen in his bermuda shorts came in, got on the treadmill next to me, put his headphones on, and then magic happened. As he was walking, I was listening to John Mayer’s “Your Body is a Wonderland.” Bermuda shorts guy began to conduct the music he was listening to while walking. I couldn’t help but smile because to me it looked as if he was conducting “Your Body is a Wonderland.” I loved Bermuda shorts guy’s playfulness. Well, I thought I would burst open with rays of sunshine and joy when bermuda shorts guy started skipping and conducting on the treadmill while John Mayer was singing “Your body is a wonderland…Your body is a wonderland” in my ears. My soul soared so high I believe it touched the divine, and I knew this was magic.

After a rousing round of weights following cardio, the pool was waiting. I love to swim. As I swam laps, I noticed a mom teaching her young daughter, about 5, how to swim. After her lesson, the little girl in her pink goggles retrieved a giant foam noodle from the edge of the pool. She then mounted it in the pool like a horse,  and announced that it was her sea horse, that it was nice, and that it could swim underwater. For some reason, “Where the Wild Things Are” came to mind. Again, a magic moment. In the changing room I ran into mom and daughter and had to ask the little girl the name of her seahorse as she had given her horse considerable qualities. It must have a name. Today, it was Walla named after Walla Walla, Washington. Mom said it changes occasionally.

And now I wait patiently to register for my conference.

The world is full of magic in unexpected places. I feel blessed today.

Daisies, Sweet Peas, and Wild Roses

WildFlowers in Bloom

Presently the wildflowers are in a riot of bloom. There are daisies, sweet peas, wild roses, poppies, laurel, lupine, dandelion, sage, Queen Anne’s Lace, and cornflower. All very beautiful. I will be hiking and photographing them very soon. I’m planning a trip to the meadows higher up on Mt. Adams.

Monica Drake, Author of Clown Girl

In Monica’s workshop, the first writing we did was to construct a time line of significant events in our life. Okay, done that in so many ways I can do it blindfolded.

Then we were given a sentence from The New Yorker, “Of the many things I was afraid of in those days, –spiders, insomnia, fish hooks, school dances, hardball, heights, bees, urinals, puberty, music teachers, dogs, the school cafeteria, censure, older teenagers, jellyfish, locker rooms, boomerangs, popular girls, the high dive — I was probably most afraid of my parents.”

Then, select details from a point in our lives to develop a list with juxtaposed elements, and then using this sentence as a model, create our own. I chose about age 6 and here you go. They liked it.

Of the many things that I was afraid of in those days  –hurricanes and lightning, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, and monsters under my bed, spider bites and bee stings, I was most afraid of “Wait till your father gets home!”

Then change “afraid of” to “loved.”

Of the many things I loved in those days — the black and white version of The Lone Ranger, the border collie next door, my turquoise bike, and the crickets chirping on the back porch, I loved my grandfather’s stories the most.

–

First we read “Girl” by Jamaica Kincaid. And talked about it’s structure a bit. It’s mostly an interior piece of what the girl has been told over the course of her life, some of it, well, harsh, with an occasional talking back to the molding of her young life, but only inside. Then we wrote in the voice that had written on our tabula rasa with some talking back. I, of course, found my own path. Upon reading it aloud, they liked it, especially for the trying to make time to write. Note: Now I don’t mind dog walking. I actually love it, but this is writer as liar which is always okay! It was mostly an exercise in the interior voice and juxtaposition. Bear in mind that this is just writing workshop stuff written on the fly. Not all of us shared. I went first.

Rough Draft

First, go the gym. You must. If you don’t you’ll feel lousy. Then when you get home, the dog will want to go for a walk. The phone messages must be listened to no matter that it pains you to deal with the telephone. Then the kitchen needs you. There are dishes  to wash, dinner to prepare, and you’d better get them after dinner dishes clean. That kitchen had better shine. But I want to sit and write! The laundry needs doing: washing, drying, folding, and putting away. But I hate folding laundry! The mail needs checking. Hmm…bills, scams, and a waste of a tree. I’m sure I’d rather be writing. Did Poe deal with this shit?! The living room looks way too lived in. It needs de-cob webbing, shoes put away, along with last night’s dinner tray, and the blanket where I fell asleep is still molded to the curve of my body where I lay and dreamed of Bradbury, Asimov, and their contemporaries reading the stories they had found time to write.

Okay, that was play time today. More tomorrow.

-Patricia