The Christmas Flood of Books!

Merry Christmas!

Hubby is carving the turkey and kitty is holding the wine. Dinner is almost ready to be served. Feeling blessed. Hugs and love to all.

Christmas Bells

By 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play, 

And wild and sweet 

The words repeat 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

And thought how, as the day had come, 

The belfries of all Christendom 

Had rolled along 

The unbroken song 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

Till ringing, singing on its way, 

The world revolved from night to day, 

A voice, a chime, 

A chant sublime 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

Then from each black, accursed mouth 

The cannon thundered in the South, 

And with the sound 

The carols drowned 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

It was as if an earthquake rent 

The hearth-stones of a continent, 

And made forlorn 

The households born 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men! 

And in despair I bowed my head; 

"There is no peace on earth," I said; 

For hate is strong, 

And mocks the song 

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!" 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 

"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; 

The Wrong shall fail, 

The Right prevail, 

With peace on earth, good-will to men."

Merry Christmas Eve

We  had a lovely time with John's family celebrating his dad's birthday and Christmas Saturday evening in a quaint Italian restaurant.  Always enjoy staying at Dinah's Garden Hotel in one of their rooms on the lagoon.  We were fortunate with traffic being light in our direction on the way there and home.

Nonfiction Friday: Silenced

Have you ever been silenced?   

They don't want to hear what you think.  They only want to express what they believe. What they feel. What they know.  They don't want to be questioned or have to explain.  They don't want to hear opposing views or even the truth.

You try to speak and noise fills the air, wails of censorship zooms through the square. No, you cannot. No you should not. You should be ashamed.  They can't bear to hear and stick their fingers in their ears.  Let's not confuse the issue with facts.  They will not listen. They do not care. Emotion rules the day.  They slice and dice and tear you to pieces.   They interpret your words, change and mold them to their point of view and lead their sheep to think that what they think you said is true.

You choose silence. You choose not to explain.  You think those who know the truth will remain.  Your words, your thoughts, your ideas shred and cease to exist. Assumptions are made, seeds are planted deep in your glade. Roots spread and weeds bloom, tall and sharp, casting shadows and leaving you in the gloom. You no longer speak and they think it is fair. The only voices they hear are their own.

Shadows, shadows everywhere, steal your light without a care as weeds grow in the dark.  Such insidious things, seeds planted due to their need,  grow more toxic by the day with their speed.  Banishing the shadows is easier said than done, especially when you have let it go on too long. 

You claim your garden and discover that those you thought had been true had been false all along. Do you feel sorrow or more like a fool for not recognizing how toxic things had become?  You dig deep into the soil as you tug and pull and tear out the roots.  The shadows scatter and weeds rot like bad fruit.  

You step out of the shadows into the truth. Heat warms your face, the sun reveals the soil to grow on. No need to explain.  No need to deny.  No more silence. No more lies. You choose respect.   You choose truth.  You are entitled to have your say without being dismissed by those who don't feel the same way.   You raise your voice in praise, no longer constrained.  

Happy Birthday to me!

A to Z Poetry: Knots

Knotted Roots - Courtesy of Reannadale

Knots

We tie ourselves in knots

from the silly to the fraught.

How dare he! How dare she!

Is it all for naught?

He said, she said, they said.

Does it really matter when blood is shed?

They divide and sway and are blind to the truth.

We sing, they yell, we cry, they take up the call,

Then use it as an excuse to get rid of the uncouth.

Frayed nerves and shattered limbs,

gray hairs and lights are dimmed.

Scattered among are those with just causes.

Fearful of those who don't obey laws

and tangled up believers whose thinking has flaws.

We are raw, they are to blame.

We are free, they have no shame.

His story, her story, which one is right?

There is so much wrong when they think with might.

They mash, they wail, they flee out of sight.

They distract, they dissemble

They argue semantics and fail to assemble.

They break apart words and leads people to tremble.

and causes nothing except breakdown of symbols.

They think to hide it away.

But no matter what you say,

While reason is rephrased and displaced,

We'll never forget upon which our stories are based. 

My truth, your truth, their truth

Will never be the same

If they work hard to defame and 

all go down in flames. 

. 

We tie ourselves in knots

from the silly to the fraught.

How dare he! How dare she!

Is it all for naught?

~R.L. McCormack~

Happy 20th Anniversary to Us

The stained glass windows of the little red brick church glistened in the morning sun.  Rain clouds started to gather in the sky and cast shadows across the fields surrounding the building.  I was hidden in the church hall, dressed in my wedding gown, surrounded by my sisters.  The photographer put us through our poses and disappeared back into the church.  

Everyone had arrived, except for John’s grandmother and his great aunts.  Evidently his uncle had gotten lost with the matriarch of the family.  We had to wait, didn’t we?  I paced, as more clouds bloomed.  Five minutes turned to fifteen, then twenty. This was before we all carried cellphones. John’s older brother finally came out and said I didn’t have to wait anymore as his poor brother was getting more nervous by the minute.  Let’s get the show on the road.

 Just as I exited the hall, it started to sprinkle.  My sisters gathered up my train and we dashed for the church foyer.  Fortunately I’d worn flats.  I took a couple minutes to settle, then placed my hand in the crook of dad’s arm and nodded at my brother in laws.  They reached out and pulled open the double doors.  My heart flip flopped as I took in the pews full of friends and family.  

I hadn’t thought I known enough people to fill up a church, even a small one.   One of those horrible fantasies you get during the stress filled days of planning.  What if no one shows up?  Dad walked me up the aisle, kissed me and guided me to my hubby to be.  I gave John a quick kiss and in his nervousness, he asked “are you supposed to do that yet?”  I giggled, relaxed and stepped up to begin our new life as husband and wife. 

John’s cousin, a catholic priest and Father Dan, the very Irish pastor of our church performed the mass and the ceremony.  Old friends, the two riffed off each other telling jokes, putting us all at ease.   John’s relatives arrived midway, much to everyone’s delight and their embarrassment.    My sister forgot to hand me John’s ring during the blessings of the rings.   

Once I realized what had happened, I said ‘wait you forgot John’s ring.’  

Father Dan waved his hand with a smile and said “Oh, it’ll take.”   And it did! 

Flash Friday: Jacob and Abby

Abby glanced at the sleek, burgundy Spider Ferrari and tried not to drool.  “Honey, why don’t you ever buy me anything like that?”

“Come on Abby. Seriously?”  

“Don’t you love me?”

Jacob took her hand and pressed it to his heart. “Every day, babe and then some.  For what it’s worth, if I could afford it, I’d buy you a dozen.  But you know, it’s a good thing I don’t have to show how much I love you by buying expensive things.”

“How about little things?” Abby kissed him softly on the lips.

“That goes without saying. Why just this morning I bought you this.” Jacob pulled a small box out of his pocket. “Last night at Parker’s, I came across this small trinket I thought you’d like.”

“Maniac. No doubt it’s something for you to enjoy as well.  Only a guy would buy his woman a trinket from the hardware store.”

“Parker’s happens to have some very fine items.  Stop your complaining and open it.”

On the verge of whining for no good reason, she shut up, opened the lid and laughed.

“See I knew you’d like it.”

“Oh thank you darling.  Just what I always wanted. A drill bit.”  Abby pulled it out to find a note and a little red square with a silver button on top.  She unfolded the note which read ‘very clever and very dear, the answer is oh so near.”

“What does it mean, near?” She looked around, then back at the note. X’s and O’s lined the edges of the paper along with a compass rose in the middle of the page, pointing north.  “You and your puzzles.”

“You’ve missed zero so far and the answer is right in front of you.” Jacob grinned and planted his hands in his pockets.

Thursday First Lines: The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed?  Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts?  Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms?  Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their majesty and power?  What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered?  Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love?  We still and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long lines like tribesman and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we watch television and miss the show.  (pg 73) 

Wednesday hmmm! Not quite granite, not quite mud

A friend mentioned Ursula LeGuin's essay, Being Taken for Granite, which is included in her book - The Wave in the Mind. It struck a chord as we've been having minimal success lately with our building project.  I'm not quite granite, but don't think I'm quite mud either. Thinking about what that means.

Being Taken for Granite 

by 

Ursula Le Guin

Sometimes I am taken for granite. Everybody is taken for granite sometimes but I am not in a mood for being fair to everybody. I am in a mood for being fair to me. I am taken for granite quite often, and this troubles and distresses me, because I am not granite. I am not sure what I am but I know it isn't granite. I have known some granite types, we all do: characters of stone, upright, immovable, unchangeable, opinions the general size shape and pliability of the Rocky Mountains, you have to quarry five years to chip out one little stony smile. That's fine, that's admirable, but it has nothing to do with me. Upright is fine, but downright is where I am, or down wrong. I am not granite and should not be taken for it. I am not flint or diamond or any of that great hard stuff. If I am stone, I am some kind of shoddy crumbly stuff like sandstone or serpentine, or maybe schist. Or not even stone but clay, or not even clay but mud. And I wish that those who take me for granite would once in a while treat me like mud.

Being mud is really different from being granite and should be treated differently. Mud lies around being wet and heavy and oozy and generative. Mud is underfoot. People make footprints in mud. As mud I accept feet. I accept weight. I try to be supportive, I like to be obliging. Those who take me for granite say this is not so but they haven't been looking where they put their feet. That's why the house is all dirty and tracked up.

Granite does not accept footprints. It refuses them. Granite makes pinnacles, and then people rope themselves together and put pins on their shoes and climb the pinnacles at great trouble, expense, and risk, and maybe they experience a great thrill, but the granite does not. Nothing whatever results and nothing whatever is changed.

Huge heavy things come and stand on granite and the granite just stays there and doesn't react and doesn't give way and doesn't adapt and doesn't oblige and when the huge heavy things walk away the granite is there just the same as it was before, just exactly the same, admirably. To change granite you have to blow it up. But when people walk on me you can see exactly where they put their feet, and when huge heavy things come and stand on me I yield and react and respond and give way and adapt and accept. No explosives are called for. No admiration is called for. I have my own nature and am true to it just as much as granite or even diamond is, but it is not a hard nature, or upstanding, or gemlike. You can't chip it. It's deeply impressionable. It's squashy.

Maybe the people who rope themselves together and the huge heavy things resent such adaptable and uncertain footing because it makes them feel insecure. Maybe they fear they might be sucked in and swallowed. But I am not interested in sucking and am not hungry. I am just mud. I yield. I do try to oblige. And so when the people and the huge heavy things walk away they are not changed, except their feet are muddy, but I am changed. I am still here and still mud, but all full of footprints and deep, deep holes and tracks and traces and changes. I have been changed. You change me. Do not take me for granite.

Monday Meander: Gratitude

Gratitude

Whatever be the depth of woe

Along the path that I must go,

I'll sing my song—

My song of joy for all the love

That's lavished on us from above,

And count no loss of treasure-trove

When things go wrong.

I'll sing the sunlight, and the bright

Soft smiling stars that gem the night;

For gifts of good

That God hath spread along my way,

The lilt of birds in tuneful play,

The harvests full and flowers gay,

The whole day long

I'll sing my song

Of gratitude!

~John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922), "My Song" (October Twenty-sixth), The Cheery Way: A Bit of Verse For Every Day, 1920

Sunday Salon Chit Chat

Yikes! There are only two week and a half weeks left to our summer break and we haven't accomplished 1/4 of our to do list, nor did we manage to take off somewhere and explore.  I need one of those - stop the world, I want to get time off buttons. A Tardis would actually do quite nicely.   Yes, I've been watching way too much Doctor Who.

Another sleepless night since my body has now decided it doesn't like Bel Air's Chipotle Panini's. Maybe it's the Chipotle sauce?   I've been dragging all day and managed to get out to the grocery store. Otherwise, have lazed around, reading.  I'm almost finished spelling out Sardonyx and have X left. I ordered Jeff Vandemeer's Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy which will arrive in a couple days.  Meanwhile I'm reading Seanan McGuire's first book - Discount Armageddon in her InCryptid series.  Delightful light paranormal read which is just what I needed right now.

It's book week 33 in our 52 Books Quest and this week I highlighted a new to me American Poet - Alfred Corn.

This next week's goal is to do an all court press to finish outlining curriculum for 12 grade.   Writing goals are to continue posting every day and begin the 30 day writing challenge on the 15th.

~Cheers~

A to Z Poetry: Just

I'm back to playing with Oulipo's. The constraint:  Book must have a J in the title.  Not very original, but let's see how it works out. 

Jessica's Guide to Dating on the Dark Side

A Jerk, A Jihad and a Virus

Just One Damned Thing After Another 

Just So Happen

Just Listen

Journey from the Land of No

Just a Little Lie

Jealousy

A Kind of Justice

Just Between Us

Just One Golden Kiss

Just Say Yes

Is it Just me. 

Just Friends

Just a Cowboy

Just my Type

Just Like That 

Juliet Immortal 

Jumping Through Fire 

Journey to the Center of the Earth 

Jump the Cracks

Jeweled Fire 

Joy of Life

Jewels of the Sun

Just One Look

Just Like  A Man

Just Me in the Tube

Just Take My Heart 

Friday Flash Fiction: The Piano

Ten years.  It had been ten years since you’ve  come back to your hometown. You finish breakfast and glance at your watch.  You still have a couple hours before you need to be at the train station. You’ve been here a whole week and managed to avoid thinking about your old home.  It doesn't hold a lot of good memories, but the pull is there all the same. Why not drive by?  You’ve heard stories about the area. It’s become a blight on the town and is about to be demolished for a new housing development.

Now that would be something; to see it all crash down and bulldozers scoop it all away until nothing is left. God, when had you become so maudlin? You leave a tip on the table, head out and drive across town.  The place has grown with dozens of mini malls and business parks, manufacturing plant and is almost unrecognizable.  

You find the right street and there it looms, the huge tenement building with crumbled bricks and broken windows.  Memories wash through your mind, good and bad.  Grandma’s cooking, the beating from your dad in the basement, your aunt soothing your hurts, cradling you when dad died, the rage when your wife left you, grandpa teaching you how to fish, parties with the whole lot and all the laughter and tears.  You thread your way through the old building, over fallen crossbeams, around bricks and glass.  

A smile breaks through the grimness when you see your initials carved in one of the old timbers. Your first kiss.  You had a lot of firsts here too; first job, first car, first baby. You skirt several piles of salvaged bricks and iron work, step through the hole where the back door used to be and stop in shock.  Amidst the rubble, in the middle of the yard, is your grandpa’s old upright piano. You pick your way through the debris to where it’s been discarded with the rest of the junk.  

Yep, it ‘s grandpa’s. You recognize it even though the top is missing, the maple wood is all scratched and pitted, and the keys are covered in grass and dust.   You brush off the keys and run your fingers over the ivory; the black and white scarred from age and use. You plunk one of the keys and of course, it’s stuck. What’d you expect out here exposed to all the elements.  Your happiest time had been standing round the stupid piano, singing show tunes with your grandparents.  You never would admit it back then, but now with no one to share it with; yeah, it’d been fun.  

You left, after the divorce and never looked back.  Your grandparents passed, your aunt and uncle moved to Italy and all your cousins dispersed around the U.S.  You’ve lost touch with all of them.  Out of anger, spite, ignorance; who knows.  Why have you held on to the anger for so long, let that love slip through your fingers?  The words to Moon River echo through your head as you stare at the old piano.  Life had revolved, evolved, devolved, shattered, left in ruins and  discarded,  just like this old thing.  You shake your head and turn to go, then stop. You walk around to the back of the upright and crouch. Brushing off the dry, baked mud, you find it. Your name, alongside dad and grandpa’s.

You'd made a pact one night when grandma was out, something about brotherhood and manliness. Then etched your names on the back of the old piano. You pull out your pocket knife and pry off the wood.  You pat the old girl, then walk back to your car.   You turn and take one long, last look. 

You have survived, made something of yourself.  You look at the wood and trace all the letters with a fingertip.  It’s time.  Time to put the ghosts to rest, track down your cousins, forgive and make new memories.  Heck, maybe even buy a new piano.  You climb into the car and don’t look back as you drive away, leaving the sorrows of the past behind. 

Thursday First Lines - Summer Knight by Jim Butcher

It rained toads the day the White Council came to town.  I got out of the Blue Beetle, my beat up old Volkswagen bug, and squinted against the midsummer sunlight.  Lake Meadow Park lies a bit south of Chicago's Loop, a long sprint from Lake Michigan's shores.  Even in the heat like we'd had lately, the park would normally be crowded with people.  Today it was deserted but for an old lady with a shopping car and a long coat, tottering around the park.  It wasn't yet noon and my sweats and T-shirt were too hot for the weather. 

Artful Wednesday

I couldn't resist Qwertee's Last Chance Tee Sale 

Tuesday Tango: 30 Day Writing Challenge

A writing challenge I can't resist.  A friend enticed me to join in doing a 30 Day Writing Challenge designed a while back by Athena at One Word at a Time starting on August 15th. I typed up without the numbers so could start mid month.  I plan on using it to get back into Eyes in the Ashes abd stimulate those writing taste buds.  Fun!  

1. Write 5 possible first sentences
2. A main character’s biggest secret
3. The theme of this story
4. Explore the midpoint of your plot
5. A main character’s biggest regret
6. What excites you the most about this particular story?
7. A scene that would never actually appear in this story.
8. An antagonist’s pet peeves
9. A main character’s theme song
10. How do you want the reader to feel while reading this book?
11. The most important day in a main character’s life.
12. A prologue you don’t plan to publish
13. A main character’s favorite inspirational quote or motto
14. Your fears about this project.
15. A glowing 5 star review that you’d love to receive for this story.
16. Every character’s astrological sign
17. Your 200 word elevator pitch about this book
18. The antagonist’s reoccurring dream
19. A scene in which a character now has a mental health or personality disorder.
20. A letter to your inner critic from your highly successful multi published award winning future self.
21. A main character’s most cherished possession
22. A page long sentence describing in minute detail where a main character sleeps (stream of consciousness)
23. The worth thing that could happen
24. Go to a public place, find an interesting stranger, and place them in a scene with a main character
25. What the antagonist really wishes others would understand about them.
26. What do you need to do to become a more productive writer?
27. The climax of the story in one page
28. A main character’s most embarrassing moment
29. A poem about the story’s location
30. Your commitment to yourself as a writer and this project in particular.

Monday Meanders - A little bit of glue, a little bit of hope

Willow Tree Angel of Hope

I broke Hope the other day.  I was dusting my bookshelves and while moving all the angels around, she fell, hit the fan and her hands broke off.  I tried using tacky glue, but it didn't work.  She kind of mirrored how I was feeling for a few days.  I get a bit melancholy around James birthday and all the more so since my mom passed away four years ago. Her birthday is the day after James.   The grief comes rolling in and there isn't a whole lot you can do except ride it out.  And usually when I'm riding that wave, I don't want to write. I avoid it, and read or browse the internet instead.  Yesterday I almost talked myself in taking another break from blogging. I was thinking - take a week or two off and maybe get back into it near the end of August. You have so much to do with planning 12th grade and the new building and family is coming to visit and...     

Excuses. Right!  I do that. I avoid writing when I'm stressed or sad.  Instead of working and writing through it, I avoid. It's what I do. Bury my head in the sand until I'm happy again. Don't talk, don't think, just glide.  However, I knew if I stopped this time, it would be a mistake. A misstep. A failure to acknowledge what I'm going through in life.  Writer's write. They work through the happy, sad, glad, loss, life, bad weather...whatever.  Isn't it time for me to own that, instead of disowning my writing every time I'm feeling a bit off?  Yes, I think so.   

I bought some super glue the other day and today I decided to glue Hope back together.  I almost glued  my fingers together and yes, I almost managed to glue myself to the figurine and the napkin and the table.  But today I glued Hope back together again.  And in the process, reaffirmed my decision to keep on writing and posting every single day. Through thick and thin, happiness and sorrow, joy and tears. 

A little bit of glue, a little bit of hope, goes a long way. 

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. ~Anne Lamott

Sunday Salon Chit Chat

Hubby came back from his walk yesterday morning and showed me pictures of bins of books he'd seen at a garage sale in his meanderings.  I quickly told him what authors I liked before heading off to work while he returned to pick up a few.  A few?  When I got home, he lead me into our bedroom and showed the haul.  He'd gone back with a backpack and stuffed it full.     Thanks honey. I love you too!  Gee, I won't have to buy any more books for a month, err, a week. Hmm....a while.  *grin* 

This past week I finished number eight in the Wheel of Time series - The Path of Daggers - in which Elayne and Nynaeve find the bowl of winds, Rand continues to win allies and fight enemies, Egwene proves she is capable of being the Amyrlin Seat and Perrin works to find and stop Masema Dagar, the self-proclaimed Prophet of the Dragon.   I'm still trying to wrap my head around the visual of Rand and others moving thousands of troops and all that accompany them through the gates.  The series continues to fascinate and entertain.  

I dove back into October Daye's world with Ashes of Honor written by Seanan McGuire.  October is searching for another lost child and trying to stay one step of head of those trying to stop and kill her. 

I also started reading Dorothy Dunnett's historical novel - Niccolo Rising - in her House of Niccolo series, which is set in the 15th century.  Much like Ben Kane historical novels, it is well written and one of those hard to put down, forget what time it is, and stay up way past your bedtime reads.  

Speaking of Dorothy, she is the author of the month and highlighted on 52 Books this week.  

James scored four video games, a few books, and several comic books for his birthday, plus a gift certificate from his grandpa.  Now he's contemplating what to buy next.  I advised no more video games for a while.  Then realized my books are his video games.  There are always unread books on my shelves just waiting for me to read.  Such a hard life.  

I found this adorable picture of mom and James on his 1st birthday. I missing mom today as its the anniversary of her 86th birthday. I'm sure she is having a grand party up in heaven with her folks and brothers and sister.  Love ya, mom!

Happy Sunday! 

Happy 18th Birthday James

Happy 18th Birthday James.  

In the eyes of the world today, you are an adult and with it comes all the responsibilities included with that title.  I look at the young man standing before me today with pride. No, we aren't done with you yet.   There's still much to teach and learn as well, on all our parts. We still have a ways to walk yet before you go out into the world to start your own journey.   Little did I understand what unconditional love meant until you came into our lives.  You changed how we look at the world around us and not to take anything or anyone for granted.   You have blessed our lives immeasurably. We love you to infinity and beyond!