Category: Writing

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 It is received with excitement as the chance to catch up but may elicit unintentional groans as it is withdrawn from the envelope, depending upon the letter’s length.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.

Knitting · Writing

YoP – A Year of Projects

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I consider myself a fastidious Ravelry user.  I have taken pictures and recorded new yarn in my motel room within hours of visiting a yarn store and project pages are a must.  Maybe there is a secret cataloger lurking in me that desires to keep an orderly record or it could be that with 154 projects (to date) my memory can get a bit fuzzy about what I have knit when and with what yarn. 

Not surprising with over 13,000 Ravelry groups some so small they only include 2-4 people and others with memberships well into five figures there is a discussion forum for bloggers.  A Year of Projects blog-a-long offers a framework to keep track of what can be a chaotic mix of actual works-in-progress (WIP) and those that are only dreams; while encouraging writers to write all with the added bonus of a built in audience among the participating bloggers.

Having just re-joined the blogging sphere in May, I have yet to suffer from prolonged writer’s block and who knows if Knit+ Librarian will continue beyond this pandemic sequester but A Year of Projects could be useful as an online writers’ group.  As I am joining the group mid-year, my list of projects yet to be tackled (with or without an accompanying blog post) includes:

  • Hortensia Mitts and Hortensia Hat from Solène Le Roux – WIP
  • Project Peace 2020 KAL with Christina Campbell – awaiting yarn
  • River of Dreams Bedrunner – WIP
  • Selwyn a Knit Camp KAL with Marie Greene – WIP
  • New Knit Camp patterns as they are released monthly by Marie Greene (specific details to follow)

Other items of interest · Writing

Migrating

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I have resurrected my long dormant WordPress skills to recreate this new personal website. While I have never been a real writer (unlike someone such as Elizabeth Klein who said that for her “writing is like breathing”), I tend to periodically dabble. In the immediate pre- and post- retirement days, I wrote to capture the swing of emotions as I left my professional days behind. And, since I preceeded a good friend into this next chapter of our working lives by six months, she had requested I share any insights. She claimed my musing were useful although I am still skeptical.

At the onset of our Covid-19 confinement as days merged totally undistinguishable into one another and spurred on by The Isolation Journals, I thought to capture some of the emotions of these unprecedented times. And it worked – sort of. But, never having taken a creative writing class, the daily exercises felt artificial. So another nonstarter.

But nagging at the back of my brain was the fact that my Raverly profile included a link to my long-abandoned Tumblr account, The Bead Working Librarian. This site was initially created in December 2013 as Thing 1 at the launch of 23 Mobile Things (the mobile edition of 23 Things on a Stick). As the title suggests, my artistic focus at the time was still on beads but the individual posts reflect my switch to fiber. My first thought was to simply migrate all the content to its own page within this new site so as to not loose the thread of my early knitting experiences. But, having gone through the painstaking work of migrating content several times for the SELCO website, my earlier writing simply did not merit that amount of time and work. Hence the content will stay at The Bead Working Librarian until Tumbr or this link disappears into cyberspace. What I will migrate from Tumblr is the crisp formatting that fits my writing style – – lots of pictures with short descriptive phrases to describe the current events in my life.