Once in grade school, I had a bloody nose. And although there wasn't anything monumental about that...the air was dry...it was winter...the fact that I didn't pay attention to all things evident in my life that shown like a picture window to my life to others, my thumb must have caught blood and held it there and attached itself to my paper where others saw it, said ewe and moved a little farther back on their chairs.
In old age, I am trying to pay attention to those things that might need more attention than others: my driving, after the accident last year and my insurance rates went up, not really my fault; my winter sweaters I find at Goodwill one bag for five dollars I am so proud but they don't last long, when I'm not careful.
In Catholic grade school, where the bloodied thumb print sent people scurrying, we spent eight years there and really didn't have a choice of friends. With eight or nine girls in a class, you brought everyone home to your house for birthdays and pre-holiday parties, new what their houses looked like as well, what kind of car they drove, how we all fit in the backseat going to church.
Two particular friends lived on a rented farm in a small house on a slope leading down to the pasture and drawers in their rooms so organized and color coordinated I was stunned upon seeing them at twelve. I still remember socks in one drawer, sorted by colors and all matching pairs, lined up one by one next to them like children on a playground where the nuns hovered round. Their sweaters, three on top of each other, and folded like they do in good stores in the Cities.
My sweaters drawers were like the sales counter in a second hand store: arms entwined arms and there was no pattern for colors.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Friday, December 7, 2012
Relativity, simple
A discussion with my daughter who writes as well, who is writing more now than she ever did in twenty years, even with a degree in English twenty years ago from MSU, when she kept a nineteen month blog on the journey of her husband's second round with cancer, and now that she's an MFA candidate at Hamline in creative writing non-fiction.
Do we sometimes create events in our life just to make our lives more interesting or have something to write about? At first it seems like an easy way to justify short-comings or moments or years of insanity or wild moments in ones life: that you had control of it and it was your choice.
I think when you write, there may be a case for that line of thinking. Whatever comes down the course of a day, it is an interesting journey, some days more interesting than others. And it's a change in thought process that makes it so, not just happenstance.
Traffic can be boring. Sitting in traffic is twice as boring. But watching the people around you makes it a little more intersting: the three kids in the back of the car that at first seem subdued but as the time ticks past free themselves from restraints and become moving active time bombs throughout the car. When the mother's hands fly up, when she reaches for the paper towels you know her Starbucks has just hit the floor. And if it was one of those seven dollar Christmastime extravagant purchases they have going on right now at Starbucks, the children are lucky if they're not smacked.
Fifteen years ago I lived in California for five years, and on those occasions when I was stuck on the San Mateo bridge, every time I was on the bridge it seemed unless I was coming home on the red eye, the idea of observant in traffic became important and food for thought. That San Francisco was right over there, an arm reach away, was delightful. That small sail boats set sail on the bay every second and people lived water inspired lives there.
You get to know taxi drivers on the San Mateo bridge. They get to know you.
Do we sometimes create events in our life just to make our lives more interesting or have something to write about? At first it seems like an easy way to justify short-comings or moments or years of insanity or wild moments in ones life: that you had control of it and it was your choice.
I think when you write, there may be a case for that line of thinking. Whatever comes down the course of a day, it is an interesting journey, some days more interesting than others. And it's a change in thought process that makes it so, not just happenstance.
Traffic can be boring. Sitting in traffic is twice as boring. But watching the people around you makes it a little more intersting: the three kids in the back of the car that at first seem subdued but as the time ticks past free themselves from restraints and become moving active time bombs throughout the car. When the mother's hands fly up, when she reaches for the paper towels you know her Starbucks has just hit the floor. And if it was one of those seven dollar Christmastime extravagant purchases they have going on right now at Starbucks, the children are lucky if they're not smacked.
Fifteen years ago I lived in California for five years, and on those occasions when I was stuck on the San Mateo bridge, every time I was on the bridge it seemed unless I was coming home on the red eye, the idea of observant in traffic became important and food for thought. That San Francisco was right over there, an arm reach away, was delightful. That small sail boats set sail on the bay every second and people lived water inspired lives there.
You get to know taxi drivers on the San Mateo bridge. They get to know you.
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