In Honor of Memorial Week

In honor of Memorial Day week, I would like to make a few remarks on memory. I don’t remember why this is significant so I am going to try and jog something loose.

It Is All In The Perspective

Perspective. How many writers, artists and filmmakers have contemplated this? I can’t personally speak for filmmakers, but as an artist and a writer I have contemplated it many times. As an artist I look at everything based on placement or line of sight. Those mountains and trees in the background appear smaller, those telephone poles down the road look more like toothpicks, the road diminishes into a narrow thread. A rear facing mule looks decidedly bottom broad compared to the head. You get my drift.

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Haitus

Merriam-Webster dictionary defines haitus as “a: an interruption in time or continuity: break; especially: a period when something (such as a program or activity) is suspended or interrupted.”

An example of word usage is: I am taking a hiatus from all things writing for an undetermined length of time.  

Often times, one may discover challenges seem insurmountable, the course convoluted, doubts and confusion overwhelming and the way forward unclear. Such is my juncture. Therefore I am taking a writing hiatus.

Susan

 

Writers Gonna Write

That’s what we do. Even when we are frustrated or discouraged or feeling very much inadequate … we write.

Even when we don’t feel like it, we write.

Even when we don’t put it down on paper, we write.

Christmas Greetings

The Korich Family Christmas Letter. I am sending this greeting to you because I caught the flu on Christmas Eve. On Christmas day I spent the day huddled under blankets on the couch watching movies as I alternately shivered and roasted. Needless to say I haven’t any brain power to come up with a witty blog post so I am sending our annual Christmas letter as a substitute:

Warning! Blog Post Due

On schedule, my phone began beeping at 8 this morning. “Blog post due.” I groan and do a mental check. I groan again. Not one gear jerks into motion. Not one synapse fires. English runs up the white flag and throws up its hands in surrender. Language-less and feeling empty-headed, I begin my day by dragging a circuit around my house.

Sometimes writers don’t write; they spill

I woke up this morning, just a regular Monday morning. My plan with crawling out super early was to focus on writing. If you really want to be a writer, you must (MUST) set aside time to write. Daily is preferable.

So here I was, sitting with my laptop on my lap, at 4:00 a.m. Monday morning, October 2, 2017. Ready to do the work.

Then a text came in. That is not alarming. So many of my loved ones are back east. It is not 4:00 a.m. everywhere. It was my son-in-law “Are you guys ok?” I just stared at the phone and looked around me.

My patio door was open. Silence there. My husband was asleep in the next room. Peaceful snoring there. No rumbling underfoot. No hurricane level winds. “What happened?” I asked.

Then the news was revealed to me.

The worst mass shooting in America’s history has happened a few miles from my home. Across the boulevard from where we go every Friday night to enjoy a lovely songwriter’s show.

Devastating. Such a horrid loss of life. For what? Nothing. So much heartache. For what? Not a thing.

So, no writing took place today. Just this blurb on this platform where I choose to spill my heart.

Treasure life. Embrace loved ones. Live positively. Love wildly. Speak words of kindness, not hatred. Believe the best. Be the light. Let your beam break through. To everyone with all you have in you as much as you possibly can.

Every day.

 

Patricia Meyers

 

Lost in the Weeds

Growing up, a point of pride to my parents existed in the empty lot next door to our house. It made our half acre into a whole and to us kids, provided a flat open space to play baseball. A gray boulder, about the size of a breadbox, made up home plate. We spent many summer days playing impromptu games, often with only a pitcher, batter and an infielder. I loved pitching and batting but not so much fielding.

The love of baseball carried on into my adult years and morphed into the idea I could play for our bank employee coed team.  Despite the pressure to hit and the terror of not being able to outrun a ball to first plate, I discovered a new terror on the field.  Being lost in the weeds. Yep. Our brilliant ex-marine captain took one look at me and declared left field. Left field is lonely. It also happened to be choked with thigh-high weeds. Taller people might have overcome and sprinted around like a gazelle leaping away from a pursuing lion. Not me. Those weeds were determined to tie up my feet, take my shoes and pull me down. Fly balls flew by as I landed on my face, spit weed stalks and hoped to disappear in humiliation. The catch-phrase of the game became, “Hit it her way, she can’t get it.”

Upside Downside

 

 

If there is an upside to downsizing, it is finding little treasures that you had long since forgotten you had. Thus, rummaging through a box of memories one day, I found a tiny book that had completely slipped my mind. (Not a hard thing to do nowadays!). Its has generated many laughs and much conversation.

Insults and Comebacks somehow made it into my box of cards from grandchildren and embroidered hankies from my grandmother. Don’s ask me why. I picked it up, gingerly opened the first page and didn’t stop laughing until I got to the end of the book. I normally do not like insults, and I really don’t like saying nasty things to people, but this was in the anonymity of my home and with no one personal in mind, so I figured it wasn’t hurting anyone.

Check

Question. When is it a bad time to be writing a novel? Answer. When I am supposed to be writing a blog post.

On the fourth Monday of every month my alarm goes off at 8am. It reminds me that I have a blog post due that day. Usually I head for my computer and start composing an installment. This week is turning out quite differently.