A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to watch my words come to life. Ironically, I find that words are inept to tell you how it felt.

The City of Highland Park is celebrating its sesquicentennial this year. The local poetry group sought out submissions of persona poems – those written in first person – of people from the city’s rich history.

I submitted three poems based on members of the Sheahen family. They traced their arrival to circa 1840 when Dan McAdams brought his family from Limerick. Nearing 20 years later, Patrick Sheahen arrived from the same area, and worked the McAdams’ farm. He then promptly married the eldest daughter and became the keeper of 215 acres with jersey cows providing a profitable dairy service and sparkling water from the well to those in town without one.

All three were accepted and along with about 18 more, became a performance by the ARTicuLIT Readers’ Theater. The performance was about an hour long and I hope to upload it to this site shortly.

This gives me validation – that despite the challenge to fins the right words at times, I have been developing my craft towards publication. Small ones, but I can say I’m a published poet and writer.

To look at the book further, or purchase (it’s only $8.00) just click on the link:

I have these moments – okay, really days, when I find that my brain is not residing within my body.

For instance, today I left the house without a coat recalling I saw 70’s somewhere in the 7-day forecast. Since it was almost summer-like outside when I let Princess Wrigley Marie Marshmallow out for her morning bladder call. When I got in the car, I heard the temperature would be dropping and there was a possibility of showers. I looked down at my cardigan and blouse and said, “Oops!” Thank goodness for seat warmers, right?”

I would recount (or regale you with) other such brainless incidents, but alas, they occurred more than 24 hours ago, and therefore archived somewhere so safe, I’ll never find them. Yes, I realize this is a run on sentence, but I claim a lack of thought processes at the moment.

Another thing I seem to keep challenging my brain with is organizing multiple events at once. Easter dinner, the Rotary Gala and poetry workshops or open mics.  Thankfully, I just walked past the refrigerator last night and realized I needed to reserve a hotel room for a wedding this summer. Add that to my many ‘to-do’ lists. Currently there is a work to-do, a home to-do, a personal goals to-do and a writing goals to-do.

Let’s recap –

Signs of a brain on vacation are:  1) forgetfulness, 2) overloading said brain and 3) resorting to lists as reminders.

Before I forget – have a wonderful Easter or Passover!

– Photo by Pixabay

Last night I yelled, shouted my aggravation, even coming close to swearing at a poor unsuspecting customer service representative.

In my defense, it’s not my fault.

It’s AT&T’s. For those of you unaware, AT&T owns DirecTV and now requires an AT&T ID to access your DirecTV account for streaming. I created the account, went to log back in (with the new account ID and password) and was told, “It looks like you’re not a DirecTV customer!”

They couldn’t leave well enough alone, they had to f**k up my DirecTV access.  How else am I supposed to keep up on things? Kill time or indulge in a mystery? When I called about the issue, they wouldn’t help me because my name isn’t on the account. So, I pushed back my initial irritation and made another call when my husband was with me.

This time the woman on the phone asked to repeat my story THREE TIMES! She, of course, asked me my phone number in case we were disconnected. It isn’t Richard’s number, which is connected to the account. We were using mine because of the speaker feature. They had to be sure the account holder was on the phone.

She looks up the account asks us a couple questions, there’s a screech and the line goes dead. Now I’m waiting for her to call me back because she has my number. Richard’s phone was also silent.

No call. Nada. Zilch.

So here is my response. I’m not waiting for you call me like a teenage girl waiting for a boy to call her. I’m breaking it off with you, AT&T – for my phones, for my DirecTV!

It will be a swift and clean severing.

Photo by Skitterphoto from Pexels

There is something about finding a childhood treasure once again to tickle your happy bone.

Last weekend, I went to a couple resale shops looking for sheet music for a project, and coming up empty, I knew I needed to change my tactics. I went just a level better and went to a nearby antique market. You know, the kind of place that might have much of the same stuff, but they charge more for them because now they are antiques and not dumped off as the local thrift store.

Antiquing requires a constant roving eye. Books and knickknacks are cleverly displayed in bookcases, crates and baskets. Jewelry hanging from every glass surface, flags, banners paintings and prints cover every wall space and if you don’t leave breadcrumbs you may not find the exit for weeks.

While I was on the task of “antiquing”, my eye caught a group of familiar red books. My heart raced and excitement overtook my caution around breakable objects. (That’s never a good sign for me.) Once my mind and body are locked in, my feet took over. A dozen! Even more of them with their dust jackets! I am now in book nerdy heaven. Soon I was fingering the spines, reading aloud the titles:

“The Happy Hollisters and the Indian Treasure”…yes I have that one,

“The Happy Hollisters and Skyscraper City” … yes, I own this one as well.

And so it went.

My mind grew foggy of my collection at home. Didn’t I write down my titles once and keep them in my purse for just an occasion? That was about twenty purses ago.

I scrolled through my phone to see if I updated the list from handwritten to digital. No, I didn’t. But I used my phone to take a picture of the titles and moved on. A few turns deeper into the maze of “antiques” I caught another grouping of books. There were only five on this shelf, but one stood out – “The Happy Hollisters and the Whistle Pig Mystery”.

But I had to be certain. To do that, I had to make sure I didn’t already have it in my possession. So, I made a mental note of which corner of the labyrinth I discovered this little gem, snapped a pic of the titles and went to the checkout a purchase for my dad – the sheet music forgotten.

Once I returned home, I ran downstairs to the basement and snapped pictures of my Happy Hollisters Books. I created a list of the titles I own on my phone and confirmed I did in fact need “The Whistle Pig Mystery”. I owned 28 of 33 of these books.

At one time, I looked up these books on e-Bay, but before I pushed the purchase button, I thought about how it felt to find a title I didn’t won in a used bookstore or resale shop. It was like my birthday and Christmas wrapped up in one. Clicking a button for instant gratification couldn’t give me that. Today, that elation I felt at the find told me I made the right decision back then.

I am now the proud owner of that book. All the way home from the store, I reflected on how I felt as a preteen when two of these books would arrive in the mail for us every month. I don’t think my brothers read them, but my friends and I did. We would recreate the escapades of the Hollister brood in the expanse of our back yards until the next delivery.

This series helped steer me toward Nancy Drew and throw the rest of the reading world at me feet. Sharing books with friends, talking about books with strangers, falling into the skin of the characters whose story I was reading – it’s even what inspired me to write.

When I hold these books, I am transported back in time. That ten or eleven-year old hadn’t fallen in ‘crush’ with Davy Jones or Donny Osmond yet. I was lying in bed with a flashlight under the blanket trying to get the through one more chapter (okay, now one more).

You’ll have to excuse me – I’m headed off to bed to start reading “The Whistle Pig Mystery”. I hope to find the answer to the first mystery – just what is a whistle pig?

Twenty nine down, four more to go…

We talked every day for years

Of books and food we enjoyed

Of places on our bucket list

Of projects in the pipes

Of conferences we were preparing for

When things began to change

You needed me in ways you didn’t before

Our roles transformed minutely –

The gradual shifting of sand

Times of easy friendship turned

From friends and colleagues

To I thought was you’re being lazy

Wanting a constant assistant

At first, it was help on your computer

A simple fix or data entry question

But it was how to spell a word –

You’d point to an object

Ask how to spell it

I would have to write it for you

Days you would forget to eat

You’d conduct open door interviews

So I could help out with your notes

It was the day you forgot

How to use the microwave

I began to suspect

Some misfiring, or slippage

Of your brain, to your essence

I could visualize the loss in your voice

Those words dropped

Between your brain and your lips –

Those lips that now tremble in panic

When you look at me and no name

Springs to your eroding mind

My prior irritation wells inside me

Filling me with guilt at my impatience

My lack of intuition to notice your failings

‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’

They say –

But can the heart grow fonder when

The brain doesn’t know the heart exists?

Is there still a corner of your mind

Crying with fear and loss?

I know you don’t know

My name or even my face

But do you remember your own?

Is the face you look at every morning

One you can recall?

Do you carry a memory of you?

Of your husband and sons?

Of what your life’s passions were?

Do you miss your essence

What made you you

As the illness eats away at it?

I know for me, your erosion

Has wounded my spirit –

Chipped away at my rose-colored glasses

At my Pollyanna existence

It is no longer buoyant –

Its weight bears down on me

Because I fear the same could happen

To me – and I will lose my essence

                                                           photo by me!

Hi there.

I’ve been watching you lately, and it’s time I call you out for your deceptive practices. Truth be told, you aren’t fooling anybody.

For the past few weeks, you’ve blatantly ignored the calendar, our sacred groundhog Phil, and swept across our homes with ferocious winds, blinding snow and your favorite tool of torture – ice. Sometimes you would sneak in from the north, making Canada look like the culprit. Again, we saw through your plans to over extend your stay.

Just look at all the destruction you’ve caused!  Floods, hundred car pile ups where people were injured and even died. You are an omnipresent weapon of mass destruction.

But no more!

Congress decided this weekend is ‘spring back’ time. With this decree, they are compelling you to leave and let your sister Spring take over. You’re no longer welcome. In fact, if I could banish you for a few years because of the cruelty you’ve shown us this season, I would. However, that position is above my pay grade.

This expulsion needs to be a clean break – no waving at us this month or the next three months. Every time you do, snow falls from your fingertips.

You, dear Winter, should take this Congressional decree and RUN! They don’t mess around – well okay they do, but since they complete so little in the course of their tenure, you should know this decree stands and has stood for some time – whenever it was they decided they should mess with our sleep cycles.

After all you did this season, you’re probably burned out. I see a three month stay in Florida would be good for you about now.

So, good-bye, farewell, adios, adieu Winter, it’s time for you to go.

– me

Authors Angela Ackerman & Becca Puglisi are celebrating their newest Thesaurus book! If you’d like a chance to go to a workshop, course, conference, etc worth $500, make sure to enter: https://writershelpingwriters.net/2019/02/new-release-the-emotion-thesaurus-second-edition/ #writing #ontheporch

For you fellow writers, if you haven’t heard of the Thesaurus Series by these two fabulous ladies, you need to listen up and check out their website!

The Emotion Thesaurus is now expanded! This was the first brainchild of Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. They have since expanded the realm – The Emotional Wound, The Urban Settings, The Rural Settings, The Positive Trait and Negative Trait Thesauruses are a must have for any writer.

The depth of the content is extensive and is designed to give depth to story in all its facets. Their website, Writers Helping Writers has tools and resources to empower the writer.

I love these books and can’t wait to purchase the second edition in print – I prefer to have these resources on my shelf when I need them.

Right now, if you click on the link at the very top, you can enter to win prizes and check out the book!

Happy writing!

mb

Gusts rattled the windows

Nature’s alarm clock at 3 a.m.

I lay there listening to the wind

As it howled over and around the house

A moan different from its own I heard

Was someone hurt?

How far away?

So many times, the mischievous wind

Has taken my words

Sailed them across the land

Sliced it way through forests

Rippled the waters

Perhaps this moan started hundreds of miles away

I waited with eyes closed

To hear words stolen

Would those words be of love?

Or anguish?

All I know is they wouldn’t stay in place

Long enough for me to hear

This Wind, this thief of words.

Photo by Vikas Sawant from Pexels

This poem is a tri-cube poem. Each line has 3 syllables, each stanza has three lines and is completed in 3 three stanzas.  Here’s my shot at it:

Our first song

Melody

Transcends time

Photo by Ylanite Koppens from Pexels

Our first song

Melody

Transcends time

Our next song

Marks our love

Together

Our last song

Sings of life –

Life with you

Our next song

Marks our love

Together

Our last song

Sings of life –

 – Life with you