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~ for Shelly & Diane

It’s that time of the month again.

Today, I’m meeting up with my fabulous poetry pals at our favorite gathering place, The Mercantile, just outside a bustling new agricommunity, in the rural wonderland of central Iowa, chowing down pita chips and their amazing dip – we can never decide between the garlic herb or the Merlot so now we just get one of each.

We’ll each savor a cool drink – I love their Honey Fire cinnamon whisky concoction – as we’re doted on by Robert and / or Rick (most agreeable young fellows!) inside a renovated country schoolhouse, with its charming brick walls and ceiling beams. Prairie grasses and field flowers sway in Iowa’s ubiquitous breezes, a pleasant view outside the tall north-facing windows, snug – just the three of us – in our preferred, cozy little corner, reading and sharing each other’s poetry.

It is a marvelous way to spend one’s afternoon.

I always, always eagerly look forward to spending this time with Shelly and Diane. I’m very grateful to have been invited to join this tiny but perfect little group. We discuss poetry, of course, and family and books, gardening and cooking, travel and film. And sometimes – sadly, often angrily – the dreadful, tumultuous state of our country. It’s best though, to not spoil the mood of our little get-together so once we’ve vented our frustrations with the current regime, we quietly and simply move on to other, more optimistic passions!

Our personalities, such a fine mesh. Our poetry styles, obviously unique and quite different from one another’s. Our accumulated life’s experiences, vast and varied.

For today’s Brew, I’ve prepared two poems birthed from the pages of my daily journal, each one written in the last few weeks. This morning, I tweaked them a bit – and then a bit more. Poems are, as you may know, never quite finished.

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So, yeah. I want to write.

So, WRITE, already. The thing is, I don’t know what to write about. Does anyone, really? I’ve been told I have ‘some kind of imagination’, or words to that effect, based on some of my quirkier poems. But I haven’t written for quite a while, at least not consistently, which could well be part of the problem.

I think, sometimes, I do have it in me to tell one helluva tale. I just need to sit myself down, focus and start writing. And then, just keep at it.

Who (or what) shall I write about? Who are my characters? What is their history, their back story? What do they want? What dilemma(s) are they facing?

In what genre do I want to frame my story? Let’s consider a few options.

There’s drama, maybe something based on my own life, a memoir of sorts. A mystery, maybe? I’d love to pull off a good thriller. Something quirky really appeals to me. A classy horror story would be pretty awesome. Fantasy, perhaps? Science fiction — doubtful but I won’t rule it out. Speculative also interests me though I don’t know that I’m crystal clear just what that would entail.

Two categories that don’t really trip my trigger are comedy and romance. Shrug. Who knows? Maybe I would really excel in writing humorous stories or the so-called ‘bodice rippers’. There’s also the chick lit genre but then again, not at all the type of books I myself enjoy reading.

I’ve identified some areas of interest as well as some that I’d rather avoid.

But, how to actually BEGIN? That’s what has me stumped.

Do I just START somewhere, anywhere, even if all I have is a vague idea? Here’s the biggie: Do I need to KNOW where the story will go, where and how it will end up before I write a single word of it? Maybe I should take a writing class, try to find someone to guide me, to point me in the right direction? I think that’s what I’m trying to accomplish with this blog post, come to think of it. Anyone, anyone?

I believe I have it in me to DO the thing; I just don’t know HOW. I enjoy reading the books I’ve accumulated over the years ABOUT writing. Loads of good information but am I simply postponing the work of it, the actual DOING of this thing called writing in favor of just thinking about it, of just talking about it? Maybe I’m lazy or just procrastinating? I’ve started several pieces but then get caught up in the am-I-doing-this-correctly merry-go-round and I set them aside, never (or rarely) to return.

Or do I simply not (yet) have a story in me to write?

So many questions but I’d like to believe that by articulating these concerns, I’m taking those proverbial baby steps. Maybe I’m already pointed in the right direction?

Can anyone help me? Or is this something I just have to figure out by myself? Inquiring minds want to know…

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My Kindle overfloweth.

The upper cabinets of my computer desk are neatly adorned with books – lovingly sorted by collection, color and genre – but my lifelong compulsion to continue in the acquisition of these cherished avenues of escape have required that I stack books horizontally atop the vertical alignments. Floor space in our sunroom, relaxing reading haven where I sit next to bright, open views of birch, Chanticleer pear and a hodgepodge of bird feeders, serves as a display vehicle for books in baskets beneath a funky woven bench I bought at auction some forty years ago. They serve as solitary sentinels guarding the small, seldom-used television in the corner. They hover alongside the swivel rocker where I sit on cozy chilly mornings, a hot cup of chai close at hand.

Bookshelves reside in nearly every room of our house.

I’m susceptible to enthusiastic book reviews and recommendations. My Amazon cart almost always contains a new selection (or two or three) to serve as buffer the next time something really ‘necessary’ requires purchase, a means to scoot our total amount adequately higher in order to bestow free shipping.

I hesitate ever so slightly, shrug as if to say ‘what the heck’ and click the Buy Now button.

Have I gone mad? Certainly, I’ll never read all these books, these journals, these poetry collections. Will I? Is that even possible?

Sigh.

My baby sister chides me for my book purchases, preferring to check out her books from a library. I get it. Books are expensive. You finish reading one and then what? With so many books in my queue, it’s doubtful a re-read hovers as even a remote possibility.

But books are lovely. They give me so much pleasure. They are – yes, it sounds both strange and cliche – like old friends. Even the electronic versions provide no small degree of sublime satisfaction.

This cat is unlikely to change. I’ll continue to read, to acquire, to covet more and more and more. What can I say? I do love me some books!

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When we were first engaged and began to plan and dream of owning our first house together, I became addicted to decorating magazines, books on remodeling and garden design. I drooled over décor shop windows and their stunning displays. Obsessed with making our home a cozy place to live and play, to laugh and love, I pored over photographs and journals and HGTV how-to programs, always taking note of even the most subtle of details.

We’ve lived now in our second home for fourteen years and I was surprised recently to realize, just a few months ago, that I’d let myself go in that arena, that I’d become stale and content and settled in with a more practical, useful, cluttered way of living day to day.

Annie Dillard, author of Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, commented once that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”. Well, somewhere along this Track of Life of ours, I’d apparently made the non-decision that pragmatic and uninspired was a satisfactory, if not illuminating, way to live. I don’t know what jolted me from this lack of reverie but I’m glad to have returned to the joys of making our house once more a home that I love, that we enjoy wiling away entire weekends delighting in the antics of our puppy or quietly reading or thrilling to the many enticing offerings on Netflix, cozy and relaxed with a hot cuppa or munching down on air-popped popcorn, each of us fat and happy with a huge bowl in our laps, Coco alternating begging each of us in turn for a nibble (or two or three or more) of his favorite salted, lightly buttered delight.

The ambience of our home has taken on, over the years, a distinctly textured, layered look. We’ve not ever had a messy, unstructured framework to our rooms (well, okay, maybe except for the master bedroom but we’re getting there!) But, in the past several months, I’ve become inspired again to appreciate and savor the warmth and appeal of a home well loved and well cared for.

I’ve thrilled to the excitement – yes, excitement! – of remembering the vintage-look craft-wood sign a local artisan painted shortly after my dad died in 2007. It was designed by my sister Kelly and proclaims my father’s sawmill business (thus the name of my blog, A Sawyer’s Daughter). It’s been collecting dust and spidery offshoots for years in our basement. We’d just never found a place to hang it. Husband was concerned it was too heavy to hang on the wall without locating studs to support it and there just didn’t seem to be a place to accommodate its shape and size. But! I was recently inspired. Why did it need to hang on the wall? And so, it sits on the floor and leans against a bare space in our sunroom. The background color of the sign even complements the wall color there and I love the look.

Today, I recalled an ancient crate I’d purchased from a friend thirty-five years ago. I paid five dollars for it, enamored with the mushrooms and angels and flowers delicately decoupaged on the old wood slats. Certainly I could repurpose it somehow. Our office, my sanctuary as I call it, already a bohemian space filled with art and memorabilia, photographs and collected ephemera from just years and years, afforded no space for our ever-growing assortment of camera and photographic gear so it all just lay on the floor in its own crowded space between the armoire and our bi-fold closet doors. We rarely open the closet (another space in dire need of ‘guidance’) but to do so necessitates moving some (or all) of the cameras, bags and tri-pods out of the way. Well, no more! My delightful Mishawaka Woolen Mfg. Co. crate more than adequately corrals all of it and looks pretty darn funky in the process. Excellent!

Down the road from where I live is an antique / used furniture place, near my sister Theresa’s house, where I stumbled upon additional ‘a-ha!’ moments. For a grand outlay of roughly $150, I purchased a sofa table, a gold-bronze set of rams-head bookends, a ‘tower’ shelfing unit to store craft items and a small two-shelf bookcase to help store my ever-growing collection of books, of which one can never own too many of, can one?

And then there’s the holidays. Decorating for Christmas is yet another way to snuggle into the arms of one’s home and to feel tingly-happy with color and music and the remembrance of waiting for Santa and cookies and gifts under the tree, caroling and winter whiteness and every good work of those with much to share with the world, putting aside, if only briefly, the madness and chaos that too often threatens to overwhelm us.

Yes, I am (still) so very much in love. With, of course, my husband of going on twenty-four years and our amazing, how-could-we-live-without-him puppy Coco and the life we share together but now once more – again, again! – with our home and the joys of tending to it, nurturing it, embracing it, loving it. Because to do so feeds the flame. It all circles back to us, sustaining and enveloping and cultivating the continued seeds of growth and warmth, safety and comfort, love and jubilation of life. With cold winds and swirling snows pressing upon us in the coming months, what better to way to hunker down against the elements of both the world and the harsh months of the Midwest winter than to feel comfortably ensconced in the Love and Wonder of Home.

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By far, the greatest gift my mother gave to us girls was her love of reading. On visits back home, we girls would peruse her shelves for something new to read or to reminisce with Mom about old favorites. My uncle, Roy, built these shelves for her a few years ago and they hold most – but not all! – of her collection.

I snapped this photo a few weeks ago and also captured a few shots of aerial photos of the old homestead, a cringe-worthy family photo of the six of us girls from the early 80’s and a series of incredible photos that my mother took of a summer storm. I can’t believe I never thought to photograph these things before. Now, I have my own copies to cherish for years to come. As for all these books, well, we girls will have to draw straws, I’m afraid, to divvy them all up after Mom’s gone. But hopefully, we won’t have to concern ourselves with that for some time…

Cee’s Oddball Photo Challenge: 2015 Week #9