Friday, February 25, 2011
The Neverending Story
Turn around
Look at what you see...
Reach the stars
fly up and you'll see
Dream a dream
and what you see will be
lives that keep their secrets
will unfold behind the clouds
And there upon the rainbow
is the answer to a neverending story
In your hands
the birth of a new day
** Those are 55 words, but not mine today. I borrowed them from Limahl, the singer behind "The Neverending Story". It is the theme song for a movie by the same name, that I loved as a kid. I watched it with my girls tonight and they enjoyed the story as much as I did back in 1984, and still do today. It is a movie about believing in yourself and your dreams. It touched my heart with its pure message, and I share with you above some of that.
If you have a Flash Fiction in 55 words, go check out the fun over at G-Man's. He is always a swell host and will make a point of coming to visit you. Happy Friday everyone!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Heart Song
golden haired angel
with gentle nature and charms
riding love's heart waves
fed by birth's memories and
the joyful sound of laughter
Happy Birthday Princess
My first baby turns six today.
Love you forever
If you are looking for a glut of poetry
you could go take a gander at the folks at One Stop.
Today is Wednesday and the poetry is, as always,
hot and ready!
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
The Glass Castle: A Memoir By Jeannette Walls
The Glass Castle: A Memoir; by Jeannette Walls (© 2005 Jeannette Walls, Publisher - Scribner, 288 pages)
I went to a friend's house for dinner not long ago. We hadn't seen each other in almost two years, so there was a lot of catching up to do. We discussed our children, our jobs, but more importantly, what we were doing with our lives to bring us a spot of joy. Both of us discovered that we had joined book clubs since we had seen each other last. Before I left, she handed me a book that she had read a few months back. She had enjoyed it and thought I might too. I got a brief synopsis, then went home with smiles on my face from dinner with good friends and the acquisition of a new book for my bedside table. The Glass Castle was that book. I think I read it in about 3 days.
The Glass Castle is a memoir from Jeannette Walls. The cover proclaims the book a New York Times Bestseller, and the back page remarks that it won a Christopher Award and a Books for a Better Life Award. While I can appreciate praise, I opened the book ready to make my own judgement of how good the book really was. I met Walls sliding down in the seat of a taxi, trying to remain unseen by her Mother, as she rifled through a dumpster. An interesting start. I read on.
From Walls' introduction in her elegant party attire and lavish apartment on Park Avenue in New York City, we are taken back in time to her youth. Her first memory is from the age of three. She begins her tale casually describing an accident where she is badly burned while cooking hot dogs in her family's small trailer in Arizona. Her Mother manages to get a neighbour to drive them to hospital, where Jeannette spends the next six weeks recovering from the burns and subsequent skin grafts that were necessary to save her life. She is strangely calm and accepting of the trauma, almost relishing her stay in hospital where she gets regular meals, clean clothes and bedding, plus much attention from the doctors and nursing staff. While her family comes to visit her, her Father comes across as brash and un-trusting of the environment. After arguing with the doctors on yet another occasion, her father materializes one day to check Jeannette out "Rex Walls-style"; he clandestinely unhooks her from her sling, picks her up in his arms and runs pell-mell down the hallway and out the emergency doors to their idling car.
"You're safe now," he proclaims, but as I read on, the truth of that seems improbable.
Jeannette was one of four children of Rex Walls and Rose Mary. As the story continues we get to know the Walls family; Dad's drunken ranting, cussing and raving, Mom's obsession with painting and little else, and the four children that seem to be pretty much left to their own devices to fend for themselves. Money is always tight and often non-existent. Food is a luxury that is wolfed down for its scarcity. In the first dozen years of Walls' life travel is frequent, but usually in the form of a "skedaddle" where most everything is left behind, as they depart in the middle of the night.
The years are tough, but Walls weaves a story that does not ask for sympathy. While her father is a self-serving alcoholic, he loves his family and tries to install his values in the children. They often wear threadbare clothes and get teased for being skin-and-bones, but all of the kids boast high intelligent and polite manners. Cleanliness might not be held in regard, but knowledge is of the utmost importance. Walls demonstrates this when she recounts a Christmas where a lack of money translates to a bleak looking holiday. With a keen sense of ingenuity and pure love, Rex gives each of his children a star for Christmas. With the gift of the star, also comes all the knowledge about its attributes, that belies the intelligence that can be found within Walls' stormy Father. You cannot help but acquiesce the materialism that surrounds the holiday and indeed of the North American culture as a whole.
The abject poverty leads one to assume that the Walls children are all doomed to abysmal lives. The funny thing about it is, that the morals and strict adherence to a decent education, often found while wandering through the desert or tinkering with broken objects, does exactly the opposite. I remind myself that the story starts with Walls obviously being well off, and this is due in large part to her strength of character and perseverance. She paints a bleak history, but cannot truly lay anger on the table at almost any point. While her struggles are more than most could bear, she offers us glittering jewels of life in amongst the dreariness that threatens to wash away the whole family. There is much pain in the telling of the story, but when I turned the last page in the book, I also found much love that touched my heart. Again, I don't think that Walls is trying to hold up her life as an example of what not to do or what to do, but she manages to find life along the broken path. She makes you want to look at your own path and find your own inner beauty amongst the scar tissues that we all have. I finished the book, sad that it was over, but warmed by this woman who was honest and true to herself and her life, refusing to let any little thing get her down. She made me want to be a better person and then reminded me, that I am.
So yes, I think the book was worthy of being on the New York Times Bestseller list for over three years and would recommend it to anyone who isn't afraid to get dirty, throw rocks and have rocks thrown right back at you. The Glass Castle is a dream that we all reach for and Walls is generous in letting us see hers.
The Glass Castle is a memoir from Jeannette Walls. The cover proclaims the book a New York Times Bestseller, and the back page remarks that it won a Christopher Award and a Books for a Better Life Award. While I can appreciate praise, I opened the book ready to make my own judgement of how good the book really was. I met Walls sliding down in the seat of a taxi, trying to remain unseen by her Mother, as she rifled through a dumpster. An interesting start. I read on.
From Walls' introduction in her elegant party attire and lavish apartment on Park Avenue in New York City, we are taken back in time to her youth. Her first memory is from the age of three. She begins her tale casually describing an accident where she is badly burned while cooking hot dogs in her family's small trailer in Arizona. Her Mother manages to get a neighbour to drive them to hospital, where Jeannette spends the next six weeks recovering from the burns and subsequent skin grafts that were necessary to save her life. She is strangely calm and accepting of the trauma, almost relishing her stay in hospital where she gets regular meals, clean clothes and bedding, plus much attention from the doctors and nursing staff. While her family comes to visit her, her Father comes across as brash and un-trusting of the environment. After arguing with the doctors on yet another occasion, her father materializes one day to check Jeannette out "Rex Walls-style"; he clandestinely unhooks her from her sling, picks her up in his arms and runs pell-mell down the hallway and out the emergency doors to their idling car.
"You're safe now," he proclaims, but as I read on, the truth of that seems improbable.
Jeannette was one of four children of Rex Walls and Rose Mary. As the story continues we get to know the Walls family; Dad's drunken ranting, cussing and raving, Mom's obsession with painting and little else, and the four children that seem to be pretty much left to their own devices to fend for themselves. Money is always tight and often non-existent. Food is a luxury that is wolfed down for its scarcity. In the first dozen years of Walls' life travel is frequent, but usually in the form of a "skedaddle" where most everything is left behind, as they depart in the middle of the night.
The years are tough, but Walls weaves a story that does not ask for sympathy. While her father is a self-serving alcoholic, he loves his family and tries to install his values in the children. They often wear threadbare clothes and get teased for being skin-and-bones, but all of the kids boast high intelligent and polite manners. Cleanliness might not be held in regard, but knowledge is of the utmost importance. Walls demonstrates this when she recounts a Christmas where a lack of money translates to a bleak looking holiday. With a keen sense of ingenuity and pure love, Rex gives each of his children a star for Christmas. With the gift of the star, also comes all the knowledge about its attributes, that belies the intelligence that can be found within Walls' stormy Father. You cannot help but acquiesce the materialism that surrounds the holiday and indeed of the North American culture as a whole.
The abject poverty leads one to assume that the Walls children are all doomed to abysmal lives. The funny thing about it is, that the morals and strict adherence to a decent education, often found while wandering through the desert or tinkering with broken objects, does exactly the opposite. I remind myself that the story starts with Walls obviously being well off, and this is due in large part to her strength of character and perseverance. She paints a bleak history, but cannot truly lay anger on the table at almost any point. While her struggles are more than most could bear, she offers us glittering jewels of life in amongst the dreariness that threatens to wash away the whole family. There is much pain in the telling of the story, but when I turned the last page in the book, I also found much love that touched my heart. Again, I don't think that Walls is trying to hold up her life as an example of what not to do or what to do, but she manages to find life along the broken path. She makes you want to look at your own path and find your own inner beauty amongst the scar tissues that we all have. I finished the book, sad that it was over, but warmed by this woman who was honest and true to herself and her life, refusing to let any little thing get her down. She made me want to be a better person and then reminded me, that I am.
So yes, I think the book was worthy of being on the New York Times Bestseller list for over three years and would recommend it to anyone who isn't afraid to get dirty, throw rocks and have rocks thrown right back at you. The Glass Castle is a dream that we all reach for and Walls is generous in letting us see hers.
Monday, February 21, 2011
A Stolen Heart
“Sheets,” I exclaimed. “Look, there is actual sheets on the beds!”
“And mosquito nets too,” I added, fingering the delicate gauze material that hung from the roof of the thatch hut.
“Pretty sweet mate,” Brett nodded as he dropped his back pack onto the matching twin bed on his side of the hut.
A man materialized at the door with the lemonade we had requested.
“Thanks Joey,” I said as he placed the tray on the sturdy wooden table and set the two tall glasses down.
“Can I get you anything else?” he asked yet again. We had been here a handful of minutes, yet Joey had already taken our dinner orders, retrieved pillows for our luxurious looking beds and shown us every courtesy he could. I could tell that our 50 kwacha a night was going to be the best money I had ever spent.
After double checking that we had everything we needed yet again, Joey bowed, then quietly walked back in the direction of the kitchen. I caught sight of the swish of a colourful sarong disappearing around a corner, then turned back to our room.
“This is going to be awesome,” Brett declared as he bounced on the bed with a laugh. “What should we do first?”
“I need to jump in the lake,” I declared.
The sparkling lake beckoned just a stone’s throw from our hut. Brett stepped onto the porch to give me a minute to change, then we headed down to the beach. Dropping my towel, sunglasses, journal and pen, I ran to the lake’s edge and splashed in to my thighs, before diving head long into the warm waters of Lake Malawi.
I burst through the water’s surface and smiled my face up to the sun. In a pure moment of joy, I kicked out and drifted on my back gazing at the Malawian sky that surrounded me. The sandy beach lay behind me, with its cluster of neat little huts tucked amongst green palm trees. Looking further out into the lake, I saw men in mokoros fishing for the myriad of fish that called this place home. I idly drifted my legs back and forth to gently propel myself along and luxuriated in the moment.
There was no place I had to go. There was nothing pressing that I had to do. I did not even have to worry about what to scrounge up for dinner, as Joey was presenting us with seafood crepes that evening. Later, he would trek across the sandy expanse from the kitchen to our hut, with delightful home-made cuisine on a covered silver platter, but right now there was just me and a serenity that I cherished with all my heart. The warm heart of Africa had stolen mine.
Joey’s Seafood Crepes (for one)
· 2 small eggs
· ¾ cup flour
· Pinch of salt
· ¾ cup milk
· 1 tsp baking powder
· 1 Tbsp oil
*Beat the eggs until smooth, then add flour and salt stirring
*Add milk and oil until smooth
*cook crepes and set aside
Filling:
· Cut-up pieces of kampango or chambo (fish)
· 1 clove of Garlic
· 1 cup of milk
· 1 Tbsp of cheese (white sauce)
· 1 ½ Tbsp butter
· 1 medium onion
*Fry fish and set aside(can substitute chicken or meat)
*Cook remaining ingredients, then add fish back in and simmer for 10-15 min
*pour filling onto crepe, wrap it up and serve
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Reworked Dreams
Starving
Drunken Corpses
Wandering shadows of men
I see you staring at yesterday
Streaks of obsession mold you
Leave you old - dead words
Your belonging is gone
Now imagined
A past dream
Today, a gray face
Slashed fingers grasping
The coin has rolled away
Scabbed hearts
And flaccid minds
Are all that caress you now
Tomorrow
What means Tomorrow
-Heaven in a grave cold.
^^^
This poem was written many years ago. Re-reading it now, I would perhaps move words around, change them up or maybe even scrap it altogether. It was actually even a re-writing of another older poem that I had written entitled Tomorrow. I don't have the date on Tomorrow (I tended to put dates on poems even then with dreams of the legacy I would leave), but I believe it was written in 1992. Reworked Dreams was written in April, 1995.
I highlight it here today, as this was the first poem I had published. For me it was so exciting at the time. I guess it still is, although I have since read that the tome that it was published in was nothing more than a sham. I was young and goggle-eyed with thoughts of seeing my name in the printed form, and bought into their "competition". The National Library of Poetry seemed to publish everything that was sent to them though (regardless of merit I have since read), but the kicker was the buying of the book that it would appear in. Of course I bought a copy of Shadows and Light. I even got a notification that I was in the top 3% of entries, therefore receiving an Editor's Choice award. Wow!
The burst bubble didn't hurt that bad though. While it is disappointing that there wasn't any teeth behind their competitions, that amounted to nothing more than book promotions, the experience stayed with me. It helped to push me and keep me writing. I have a little book that has my poems in it written since as far back as 1991. I can see progression in my writing, but even better, can see that my muse has been with me for a long time. I still might not become a big, famous poet, but I can look back with pride in my will to create. For that is the heart of writing in my books.
I want to thank One Stop Poetry for the prompt today. They suggested telling them where we began our poetry career. I suspect that the stories of the myriad of poets that are out there hold some fascinating reading in themselves. My story started in my teens, but has carried through the years with encouragement from occasional writing contests, well-received poems for friends and family in greeting cards, my own personal drive to get the words running through my head down on paper, and of course my blog. It might not wow anybody, but getting this poem published was another huge affirmation for me that this was what I wanted to do. And I am doing it.
Drunken Corpses
Wandering shadows of men
I see you staring at yesterday
Streaks of obsession mold you
Leave you old - dead words
Your belonging is gone
Now imagined
A past dream
Today, a gray face
Slashed fingers grasping
The coin has rolled away
Scabbed hearts
And flaccid minds
Are all that caress you now
Tomorrow
What means Tomorrow
-Heaven in a grave cold.
^^^
This poem was written many years ago. Re-reading it now, I would perhaps move words around, change them up or maybe even scrap it altogether. It was actually even a re-writing of another older poem that I had written entitled Tomorrow. I don't have the date on Tomorrow (I tended to put dates on poems even then with dreams of the legacy I would leave), but I believe it was written in 1992. Reworked Dreams was written in April, 1995.
I highlight it here today, as this was the first poem I had published. For me it was so exciting at the time. I guess it still is, although I have since read that the tome that it was published in was nothing more than a sham. I was young and goggle-eyed with thoughts of seeing my name in the printed form, and bought into their "competition". The National Library of Poetry seemed to publish everything that was sent to them though (regardless of merit I have since read), but the kicker was the buying of the book that it would appear in. Of course I bought a copy of Shadows and Light. I even got a notification that I was in the top 3% of entries, therefore receiving an Editor's Choice award. Wow!
The burst bubble didn't hurt that bad though. While it is disappointing that there wasn't any teeth behind their competitions, that amounted to nothing more than book promotions, the experience stayed with me. It helped to push me and keep me writing. I have a little book that has my poems in it written since as far back as 1991. I can see progression in my writing, but even better, can see that my muse has been with me for a long time. I still might not become a big, famous poet, but I can look back with pride in my will to create. For that is the heart of writing in my books.
I want to thank One Stop Poetry for the prompt today. They suggested telling them where we began our poetry career. I suspect that the stories of the myriad of poets that are out there hold some fascinating reading in themselves. My story started in my teens, but has carried through the years with encouragement from occasional writing contests, well-received poems for friends and family in greeting cards, my own personal drive to get the words running through my head down on paper, and of course my blog. It might not wow anybody, but getting this poem published was another huge affirmation for me that this was what I wanted to do. And I am doing it.
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