Writing group was great last night. Everyone loved my prompts, especially the picture prompts. I cut out great images from magazines. Each person got three of the pictures (randomly chosen) and had to weave a story out of them. And some were really weird, i.e. a ghostly man with a derby reading "From Here to Eternity"; a woman dressed a la Marie Antoinette; an evening picture of Venice. Catherine, a Northwestern student studying organic chemistry or something like that, got those three images that I taped into a mini collage. She wrote a very compelling piece. The eerie man longed for the beautiful woman who spoke alluring French in the softest of voices. She asked him haltingly to come away with her to Venice (Si'l vous plait, Monseiur). With great sadness and out of duty he declined her offer - it was his job to sit on a perch in the clouds and record the comings and goings of humans. His job - the recorder of human deeds. I felt so sad for him - sitting there for eternity, watching but not participating.
Later we wrote pieces inspired by the New York Times top e-mailed stories of the day. We are a creative group indeed to derive inspiration from titles like "Debt Collector is Faulted for Tough Tactics in Hospitals", or "A Surprising Risk for Toddlers on Playground Slides", etc. James wrote a hysterical piece about slides. It was astonishingly good and as soon as he posts it to his blog, I'll provide a link. You will hoot with amazement when you read it, especially if you keep in mind that he conceived it, wrote it and wrapped it up in 15 minutes.
I chose the NYT headline, "A Place for Old Chickens, Outside the Pot". Here is what I wrote. People were very touched.
Her name was Bernadette and she was a Rockette or something like that - something with the word rock in it - maybe Rock Island Red. Like a Rockette, she just didn't know when to call it quits. And like a Rockette, she strutted her stuff all around the barnyard, her overly plump breasts, now a little saggy with age, thrust out before her. I swear she even clucked "tits to the sky!" - probably heard it from Ma who was always on our case about our posture.
Bernadette had beautiful legs, at one time they probably would have been delectable, but her feet were hideous. Have you ever seen chicken feet? They are the stuff of nightmares. Unaware of her unattractive digits, she kicked her shapely chicken legs like she was in a chorus line. One, two, three, cluck, kick. One, two, three, cluck, kick! The other chickens had long since given up trying to figure her out.
I never figured Ma for a softy. She could hang and slash the throat of a pig as well as Pa and she made short work of thwacking a goose or chicken against the side of the barn to break its neck. She preferred that method over twisting it.
Turns out Ma had a soft spot in her heart for Bernadette. It was before I was born that Bernadette finally got to be a mother. True, she had to steal the eggs - on top of everything else weird about her, turns out she was infertile. Bernadette devoted herself to her pilfered orbs, never left the nest even for water. She languished - her feathers fell out as Ma tells it, and still she waited with devotion. When the babies came, Bernadette brought them to Ma for her approval. She was so weak she shuffled behind them, nudging them forward with her beak, staggering a little. Her joy was infectious and the barnyard rejoiced with her.
Then the hawk came. Bernadette was uncharacteristically half the barnyard away from the chicks. She felt the shadow before she saw it. In a flash, Bernadette beat the hawk to her little ones, spreading her wings over them protectively. The hawk lifted Bernadette, who was holding the six babies, into the sky. She held them as long as she could but she was too weak - she swooned to see them fall a hundred feet to the ground. Somehow Bernadette survived. There was no way Ma could put her in the soup pot. From that day forth, she was part of the family.Shay is back from Florida (remember him? Madeleine's old boyfriend who is like a son to me). It's great to have a man about the place. He's here at the office helping me get things in order for the impending sale. We just surveyed all the stuff that either has to be thrown out or moved to the house. He grew wide eyed when he surveyed my pandemic flu preparedness supplies, especially the medical supplies. I had to explain why it would be necessary to have a portable commode in the event of a pandemic. Duh! I'll bet you have one, right? That and Tamiflu and a case of hospital gowns and cases of MREs, and bushels of dehydrated fruits and vegetables, and 25 pounds of dried kidney beans and gallons of maple syrup and pounds of instant potatoes and, and....the list goes on - think I spent about $10,000 back then!
Life is about to get crazy and confusing. My birthday party in just over a week, then the move of the office. Good news is that I'm on my last three loads of laundry at the house. I'm winning the organization challenge. When I'm done with all of this downsizing, my life will be manageable for the first time in a very long time. The stuff was winning there for a while - it just about swallowed me up. Stuff=suffocation.
Your challenge today is thinking about stuff. Are you, like me, overwhelmed with stuff? My friend Judy said it well this week. "I'm old - I've accumulated lots of stuff!" Her daughter is spending a week with her going through everything in her house. Like me, she will breathe easier when there is less. Maybe you too can do stuff battle. Be ruthless. When it doubt, ditch it!
Peace,
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment