Category: Writing

Writing

A Writing Journey

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painting of bright yellow chalice with red flame on dark blue background

I created this blog because I needed a creative outlet during the long days of pandemic quarantine.  It was my hesitant exploration into journaling while hoping to capture brief glimpses into our daily life in words and photos.  I never imagined that four years later I would be concluding my first year, in my first ever writers’ group. 

When I attended an organizational meeting last spring, I went armed with intent and not the intent to write but, rather, the intent to walk if there was any mention of constructive criticism.  While my rational mind knew such advice could improve my craft, my heart was too tender.  Luckily, our group is nothing like English Composition 101.  Our time together is never punctuated with critiques or grades and, depending on the writer’s whim, the rules of grammar may not pertain. 

Our writers’ group is part of a diverse adult curriculum focused on spiritual growth.  I appreciate our small nod to “churchiness” as we consider each month’s Soul Matters theme as a possible prompt.  But, I also relish knowing our compositions may flow in different directions since the theme is a suggestion, only a starting point without strict requirements.  

Every month as I ponder what I will write, I see the faces and hear the voices of my fellow writers in my mind.  Their talent and creativity serve as benchmarks, spurring me on to work harder, pay closer attention to word selection and phrasing, editing and then re-editing before our third Saturday gathering.  I am often humbled by the words they choose to share and, if sometimes there are tears, they are tears of heartfelt support.  They may also be tears sprung from such deep laughter as I wonder how I am sitting with someone who should be writing for late night TV.

In a recent sermon, Rev. Victoria Safford shared the phrase, “we are young on our journey.”  My foray into writing still feels very new and sometimes scary.  I am definitely young on this writing journey, but during this past year I have enjoyed traveling hand-in-hand or better described as keystroke-for-keystroke with my fellow writers on this literary path. 

Writing

Remembering Elizabeth Klein

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I have never thought of myself as a writer.  The practical skills needed to earn undergraduate and postgraduate degrees cemented basic composition skills.  These accompanied me through decades of professional obligations as I prepared copious amounts of monthly board materials, drafted legislative platforms, and crafted strategic plans.  Clear and concise never mingled with creativity.  Writing was an obligation and often a chore that I certainly was not going to perform in my limited free time.  Plus, with more than 45 years in libraries, the opportunities to meet published authors abounded and I knew those visiting poets and novelists were “real” writers.

Even though it has been decades since I chauffeured Elizabeth Klein through a packed schedule of author-in-residence workshops and poetry readings, she serves as my benchmark defining what makes a writer.  With funding from a state arts grant, we crisscrossed central Illinois visiting schools, libraries, and art museums.  She shared her poetry and then helped individuals write their own verse.  She described character development, using her recently published, award-winning novel, Reconciliations.  She declared that for her “writing is like breathing.”  Writing was so deeply ingrained in her conscious and subconscious that she could not imagine even a day without writing.  Her dedication to her craft was completely contradictory to my sentiments since I was happy to avoid writing whenever possible.

writing is like breathing

I surprised myself in May 2020 when I launched this blog.  At the time, I was simply seeking a creative outlet amidst our Covid quarantined days; a place to record, in words and images, tidbits of our life.  That decision led eventually to joining a writing group which has expanded my perspective. I now feel emboldened to self-identify as a micro-writer.  Micro as in – only a little.  Micro as in – needing small topics. 

This blog serves as my knitting journal.  A place where I showcase recent projects, reveal a complicated stitch, or share the origins of a pattern.  Infrequently, I will offer a few sidebars about the books I am reading or descriptions of our garden produce.  And now, with the gentle nudges of my fellow writers, I may bravely foray into more substantial topics as I sharpen the skills in my writer’s toolbox. 

Writing

A Valentine Twist

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white and blue stamped and sealed envelopes framed by pick roses

The simple Christmas letter. A theme for stand-up comics and it has probably been the subject of an SNL skit or two. It is received with excitement as the chance to catch up but may elicit unintentional groans as it is withdrawn from the envelope, depending upon the letter’s length.

Certainly not of sociological merit to warrant research, but what do we know of its demise? Is it simply the victim of postage rate increases? Or, no longer needed in these TikTok days? A quick comparison of two of my personal lists – the 80-plus addresses comprising the mailing labels in the top drawer of my desk and my social media “friends” (air quotes appropriate) reveals few crossovers.

As I reported earlier, I am not inclined to make New Year’s resolutions but as 2023 slipped into a new January, I promised to try (emphasis on “to try”) and write more in the days ahead. I intended these written expressions to take the form of blog posts but I am now inclined to expand my medium from electronic page to printed paper. What unwritten rule prescribes that the holiday letter must be Yuletide greetings? Better timing might be a Fourth of July letter, a mid-summer missive, amid sparklers, s’mores or, as Nat King Cole croons “…[during] those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer; [to] dust off the sun and moon and sing a song [that is a letter] of cheer.” Or a crazy concoction of Christmas letter and sweet childhood valentines. Cannot you just hear James Bond sophisticated confidence: “Shaken not stirred” so as not to disturb the delicate lacy heart shaped edges?

This oddly timed February letter would be written while still in winter’s hibernating time – before pruning blueberry bushes; before green garlic shoots force themselves through the composting leaves; before lilac bouquets – all while endeavoring to blend holiday greetings and catch-up letter. And, if I start drafting such a composition now, I would still be just days from the previous year so that events of 2023 would not be old news and, paired with plans for the coming months, could update family and friends scattered across two continents. A letter composed in mid-winter stillness rather than frenzied holiday preparations; a greeting without chocolates, without perfume (I am seeing the Versace Eros fragrance commercial in my mind) and without complicating the florist’s second busiest day of the year.

Halfway through January, nearly two-dozen days from New Year’s Eve, I may have landed on an additional resolution – one that is easy to accomplish by mixing time, HP printer ink, and Forever stamps in a cocktail shaker of Valentine’s Day greetings.

Photo credit:  Nur Yilmaz from Prexels

Writing

Closer than they are

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There is that moment when muscle memory takes over and the body no longer requires a millisecond of extra thought to remember to write a new year. My already growing list of new, one-time tasks has me firmly planted in 2024 even as my mental flipbook retains vestiges of the old year and I wonder if free verse might capture the blur of my December into January days.

As never before, shopping on a rainy, dark Christmas Eve after landing
A one day Christmas with brown paper bag wrappings & shiny sticky bows
Delayed never wrapped presents in Amazon boxes
A year of thirds and seconds
  Three Tennessee trips
  Two funerals
  Two positive Covid tests
Without a holiday letter, unchronicled visitors from Wisconsin, Illinois & Arizona
Weeks of planning and a century of celebration.

Writing

A New Year’s Resolution

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number 2024 set against a white and gold background

It has been years, even decades since Richard and I made New Year’s resolutions.  We are just not that kind of couple.  If something needs changing, we don’t wait for a noteworthy date, we just do it.  And, if everything is going fine — well — no resolutions are necessary.

This New Year’s Day I feel ready to commit to more writing.  When I began this blog in May 2020 (during the early days of pandemic lockdown) I was simply seeking a creative outlet.  Surprisingly, I discovered I enjoy this artful activity and 206 blog posts later, I feel my writing skills have improved.  During the past few months, writing and posting have been irregular as life happened, Richard’s broken foot and planning Momma’s 100th birthday bash but I promised I would not apologize should posting slack off, so no self-recriminations, only a resolution to write more.

Happy New Year!

Writing

Lean into Generosity

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blue sky with clouds, prairie with trees on the horizon

Stuffing or Dressing?  When planning holiday menus at my mother’s house, we call the herby bread mixture “stuffing” even though it is usually never stuffed but baked as a side dish, which technically makes it dressing.  This is one of those times when the word I use doesn’t really matter other than to clarify or maybe create culinary confusion.  But there are times when the words I chose are important and I appreciate the generous nature of my building team members who, with gentle nudges, assist in broadening my vocabulary.

Initially, I referred to the land at the corner of Viola Road and East Circle Drive – the location of our new church home – as property.  After all, our elected board president and treasurer signed legal documents, F&M Bank holds a mortgage, and we are already making improvements to the site as we mow hiking paths and undertake buckthorn eradication – all actions associated with owning “property.”  But we are not so much the “owners” as the stewards, the caregivers, especially when we consider what the land generously offers to us – the wonder of the wetlands, the bounty of old apple trees, and the glory of an oak savannah. 

Even as I am successful in this naming or re-naming feat there are more language challenges.  There are ongoing discussions as to how we might generously allow access to the land but still be mindful in preserving the fragile ecology of the sedge meadow.  How to minimize our liability without posting No Trespassing signs, especially once we recognized the racially charged history surrounding the posting of land; how this practice only began after the Civil War to prohibit the movement of recently emancipated slaves, to make their journey to safer territory longer, as well as offer legal recourse to incarcerate those individuals of color who were caught trespassing.  How can we be generous in sharing the uniqueness of nearly 40 acres of wilderness within the context of our litigious society?

When faced with these and other niggling questions I take consolation and direction from the words Rev. Michelle Collins offers in her blessing entitled Freely Shared:

Let us be reminded of the many things that are freely shared with us
And that we freely share with others.
May we lean into generosity shared from the hearts.

I love that phrase “lean into generosity.”  Our principles encourage us to share from our abundance and our church mission challenges each of us to generosity.  There are times when we may plunge headlong into a fight against injustice and there are those times we can move with care “leaning” into the questions with mindful deliberation.  As our congregation continues its journey of Building Our Future – Beyond Ourselves and I participate in tough discussions, I do so with the knowledge I can lean on the kindness of others freely shared and offer my support generously from my heart.

Photo credit: Robin Taylor

Writing

The 100-Day Project

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Suleika Jaouad’s note to self for the next 100 days

A birthday post from 2020 introduced Knit+ Librarian as a new artistic outlet. In those early Covid days when we were wiping groceries before putting them on the shelves and quarantining the mail for four days before opening letters and bills, I took solace from reading Suleika Jaouad’s posts. She had just launched The Isolation Journals with a goal of kindling “creativity and connection in challenging times.” As someone who only dabbles in writing rather than breathing letters and words, then and now, I stayed on the periphery reading her weekly journaling prompts and writing only sometimes. Like a wallflower in a Julia Quinn ballroom watching the quadrille with curiosity but definitely not joining the dancers. 

As Suleika undergoes her second round of treatments for leukemia, her latest inspirational endeavor is The 100-Day Project and she invites participants to incorporate one creative act into daily life, everyday; something small that gives joy but which may also blossom. Suleika will “paint one small, simple thing and call it a day—a flower, a palm frond, or a pillowy cloud.” As I already knit and read each day (Oh the joy of retirement life!), I am still contemplating what creative act I will undertake in solidarity with this courageous artist.

Photo credit: Suleika Jaouad

Writing

Bloganuary?!?

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Today’s whim – – join a blogging challenge.  I’ve done Squares times four with BeckyB of Winchester, reading challenges with The Uncorked Librarian and this month I signed up for Bloganuary.  (There is even a badge for participants!)  With a promise of daily writing prompts from WordPress, the challenge is intended to nudge writers to write.  Now, lest you worry you will be inundated with posts, I promise only sporadic musings.

With today’s prompt:  “What does it mean to live boldly?” Mary Oliver comes to mind.  While her poems, inspired by our miraculous natural world, might not on first reading seem audacious – they are. And, her advice in Sometimes is bold indeed. 

Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.
blue and white badge graphic denoting bloganuary 2022 participation
Gardening · Writing

Blueberries after a year & a month of blogging

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First Picking – 2021

Inspired by Suleika Jaouad, I started Knit+ Librarian as a Covid survival technique early into our worldwide pandemic quarantine hoping to capture random thoughts and images.  Over the past year and a month, I never gave any thought to what might happen as topics cycled back through my life.  I knew the Knitting and Reading blog posts would stay fresh as there would always be a just-knit sweater or shawl to describe or a new favorite book to review.  But with today’s first picking of blueberries even while reveling in their dusty blue hues, I realized there may be some repetition in the Baking and Gardening categories whether I am describing the last rhubarb crisp of the summer or this season’s blueberries. 

There is a simple beauty in the natural cycles each following one after another, season by season which especially deserve our appreciation in this northern clime where we go from warm days of verdant greens to frigid, frosty whites and grays and back again.  And, I am certainly in good blogging company, as Christina Campbell on The Healthy Knitter shares monthly posts about each full moon and Solène Le Roux at Knit Pause leads meditative knitting retreats focused on nature.  As I celebrate the ebb and flow of the seasons in our garden sans any exotic varieties and filled with plants I can only describe by their common names without knowledge of scientific nomenclature, I will simply enjoy “playing in the dirt” and you may see a similar but never identical new post or photo.

Art · Knitting · Writing

Project Peace – part 2

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Chihuly: Nature of Glass – Desert Towers, 2008

Each morning a smidge of peace arrives in my mailbox; just a click away from a longer meditation.  From December 1-21, in addition to a wonderful knit-a-long pattern, Christina Campbell shares daily reflections on her 2020 theme “peace in place”.  Her creative writing, landscape photographs, and peace building challenges are inspirational.  I am writing more and reflecting on her definition of peace “…cultivating right relationships with self, others, and the Earth”.  

While Phoenix is not our stay-in-place place in these Covid times, I remember a quiet walk through the Desert Botanical Garden.  The trails wend through flora exotic to my Midwest field and forest eye.  The garden offers brilliant pops of color against the subdued desert backdrop, as well as sculpture placed so artfully so as to merge with the landscape.  Certainly what Chihuly intended with his Glass Towers.  In another era we might have asked:  Is it live or is it Memorex?

Join me on this peace filled journey at the Healthy Knitter.  Knitting not required.