Prompt: new chapters

Today is the ides of December and for me, in six days, the beginning of a new year will have arrived. New year, new light, new chapters, new ideas, new beginnings, new life. This past year has been a time of rumination, chewing over my old ideas, wondering if they've served me well and if they haven't, it's out with the old, but not necessarily in with the new. And there's been quite a bit of out with the old: old clothes, old ideas, old odds and ends. I'm not ready yet for new chapters, I'm still editing the old ones. I'm so surprised to find my self doing this kind of editing at all, but it's strangely freeing to let things go I've never before even questioned. For example, it never occurred to me that I would not want to make art. I must have just assumed it was part of my DNA. How strange to find it isn't. Last year, this would have made me sad, but this year, it feels so liberating. So much less baggage to carry with me. Literally. Instead of seeing everything as something to be captured on paper, on canvas, in clay, the world is now more of a place for gallivanting, not for pinning something down for later reference.

Prompt: things to keep

caveat: even in writing, it's difficult to decide what can remain and what will be relegated to the backspace button

Someone recently said to me that the first forty years of your life you spend collecting things and the next forty years of your life, you spend giving it all away. And that's how it's been for me, although I've lagged maybe a decade behind.

Is it living in a dreamworld to believe there is an abundance of beauty and beautiful things in this world? To listen to the radio or read any news outlet, one would be hard pressed to imagine there is anything lovely to dream about. But look around, it is there, always there, waiting to be noticed.

Sometimes, lately, I think if instead of collecting or harvesting or hoarding, or even making things for someone to buy, what if instead, we created and curated and tended what is already around us, without price tags, without "exclusive" or "limited time" offers? Lives could change. When did generosity become a radical idea?

Wouldn't it be incredible to see everyone, regardless of their ability to afford it, living in beauty, bounty, surrounded by lush gardens, picking fruit from lovingly tended trees? But what would you or I have to give up to make this happen? What things would we keep and what would we give away?

Prompt: Magic

Caveat: random and silly

If you just cannot believe something that your eyes are seeing, does that make it magic? If you have to suspend disbelief to continue to accept that same something, is that something possibly magical? What is magic anyway? In this short moment of considering what magic may be, what does define magic? Rainbows seem magical, but then again so does Siri, who has no actual substance yet can grant wishes much as any genie from a bottle. Mushrooms that suddenly appear after a rain, especially a "fairy ring", seem to have sprung up as if by magic. Of course there are magical mushrooms but those are for another prompt.

Prompt: Traditional Japanese Rules of Food Preparation

(fragments)

Many years ago when I was just beginning my life, I lived in a city of mysteries, shrouded often in fog, or alternately bathed in a golden light. I walked constantly there, intent on enrobing myself in its velvety essence, because I must somehow have known how fleeting my stay would be.

The city's streets were a tangle of exquisite treasure boxes balancing upon spectacularly steep hills, all set against the scumble of a blue gray sea. Every day and then again in the night, I wandered, entranced, bewitched, rapt. It wasn't that I wanted to unravel mysteries or have them yielded or revealed to me in any way. Instead, it was that I found myself, suddenly, the recipient of a gorgeous new existence. Things I hadn't even known I'd been dreaming of previously appeared to me now, as gifts, beautifully wrapped, waiting just for me to stumble upon them. I felt, for the first time in my life, as if I were the beloved, and the feeling was intoxicating to me.

Prompt: The sound of a garden hose

The sound of a garden hose can be hissing, gurgling, gushing, drip drip dripping, trickling, bubbling, fountainous. But the sound of the sprinklers starts with the timer. First, there's the sudden clank, that generally puts one on guard. Then, a dull quickening pulse, as if the walls themselves have started and the heart of the house is now beating fast. Around its perimeter, various stations get in line. A is at the back, where the windows must be closed lest the spray from the pop-ups enters through the screens. Following A is B, two minutes later. You can hear the roses sigh, as the bubblers cool their thorny trunks. Station C is more remote, but does its duty for an allotted pair of moments, rejuvenating and plumping, keeping brittleness at bay. By the time D has its say, the clanking pulse has dimmed a bit, the house now remembering what all this fuss is about and settling back into its verdant nest. E is more patient, but just as relentless as the cohort before it. Tasked with the final responsibility of ending the cycle, it finishes with a sigh near where the hose lies coiled, quietly watching with its one dry eye.

Prompt: The smell of fresh mint

I walked along the deer path, the smell of fresh mint enveloping me. It was early spring and early morning, crisp, clean, cold. Where was I headed? Into the world after a long winter's hibernation. As I walked, trying so hard to feel each breath with every one of my senses and each and every deliberate step on the pebbled path, I thought about these random things: the oil that had to be changed, the vacuuming to be done, hairs to be coiffed, lawns badly in need of a mow and the endless rows of candies that would not crush themselves. And then, just at the brink of being overwhelmed with thoughts of ceaseless responsibility, the mint, always the smell of fresh mint, tugged me back to the present with its sharp, pungent call.

Prompt: My life as a pretender

(from 11/3/15)

Pretender: fake, faux, phony (I wonder if phony is the diminutive for faux), inauthentic, liar, fibber. Fake it till you make it. Let's play pretend. Make Believe Land. Fantasy Island, The Love Boat. Which of these things doesn't belong? Is it the pretender or everyone else? Or is everyone pretending to some extent, or less? Shakespeare famously claimed that all the world's a stage and that we are merely players, actors, pretenders.

Why do we pretend? What if we don't pretend, what then? Are we too boring or scared or sad or angry or lonely?

Just today on the radio, Sandra Cisneros said stories are like medicine and the stories we go to again and again are the ones that have the ability to heal us. In storytelling we pretend. We make up exotic characters, fantastical beasts, catapulting them into wondrous worlds, to clamber over obstacles unknown. Might victory be hidden in pretending?

Prompt: (incompleted) ode-like essay-ette to the apron

What is an apron? I have heard the word applied in countless ways, including as if it were synonymous with skirt, as in the description of the concrete margin between a pool's edge and that of the lawn surrounding it. Historically, the word itself has been a victim of fraudulent division, and, were it restored to its rightful state, would be pronounced it "a napron" instead of "an apron".

Aprons, as we have known them through the ages, have provided much to our lives: a fringe, an extra layer, a protective coating. Inherent in aprons are responsibility. They shield, they combat, they preserve, defend, hedge, shelter, screen, fortify, secure, guard, insulate. In a sense, they are akin to the doormat, yet more demure, and perhaps more free than their stationery kin, in that they are not tethered by gravity to a singular place.

Many are those who utilize the humble article: the horseshoer, the welder, the chef, the preschool teacher, the butcher, the baker, and if they have survived the present economy, the elusive candlestick maker. Each wearer expects so much and yet so little from their simple garment. This halter, this frockish enclosure, light outer shell, frontispiece, stained with the residue of an honest day's work, this piece of throwaway clothing is so much more than a catch all for wayward dirt.

Prompt: who is your coven?

Every time I see the word, coven, I think of this spoof movie my husband A and I saw with the same title.  The characters were from somewhere near the Canadian border, so they pronounced it, "cooven", which A and I thought was hilarious.  Whenever we're in the midst of any situation fraught with tension, we look at each other and one of us can just quietly utter the word, "cooven" and we both start laughing.

I suppose having seen that movie together when it premiered is a kind of shorthand for how long we've known each other, but the truth is, we met in high school about a dozen years before cooven entered our lexicon.

Who are my oldest friends?  I was thinking about this the other day, about how chance has so much to do with circumstance.  How we meet other people and whether or not they become our friends is such a random equation.

On the last day of July in 1981, A's friend Allistair invited him to go to a party and, because A was at loose ends that night, he said yes, he'd go, even though he didn't know the guy throwing the thing or anyone who might be there.  Oren, whose party it was, had told me it was in honor of my moving away to the other side of the country later that summer.  Much later I found out he also told Allistair it was for him because Allister was headed to Switzerland in a few weeks.  If I had not been going west and A had not been at loose ends and Allistair wasn't expected overseas, we'd never have met that night.  It's the chance of confluence, this life. Who you meet, when and where you meet. And if the "heady" mixing of the minds is that perfect recipe for staying power, for forging that mysterious tenuous bond of friendship it can last a lifetime or a summer or just one night.

Post Script: If I hadn't met Denise by chance in line at the Delta of Venus over a decade ago on a break from the chaos of the Whole Earth Festival, I wouldn't be with you writing, right here, right now.

Prompt: Before that exact moment

caveat: another "aak!"

Before that exact moment I don't believe I had given much thought to the future. When you're twelve, you're just about hanging on that apex of the limbo between the living-in-the-momentness of childhood and the long, slow slope of growing up, where the future is always looming ahead of you. Just this morning I was thinking about the business of having all those years to advance in a career, of working hard to move up, get ahead, exercise ambition.

I don't completely understand that concept, ambition. It could be because it's so all-or-nothing. If you don't have it you will never amount to anything, I've been told. But there can be so much more to life, you know?

When I was twelve, the world started to become more sharply focused. In school, everyone began to be divided into categories: slow, average, gifted. We all knew who was who. I felt like I was watching the beginnings of so many stories and if I were on Facebook, I would know how they've unfolded. I imagine I might even be surprised in a few cases.

Well you won't be surprised to learn, I haven't been that ambitious, but I don't know I would have seen that coming at twelve, when I still felt I had so many years ahead of me. But then that was an entirely different world, a far more forgiving world.

Prompt: "It was so clear to me it was almost invisible"

Disclaimer: ugh.

I don't know that I've ever been unable to face a blank page, but here I am, facing it at this very moment and I am drawing nothing but a blank. This phrase, today's prompt, is, ironically proving quite evocative to me. Yet, here I am failing to describe it in any terms that might cause one to visualize a thing, a scenario, an atmosphere.

What is clear to me, now, is that it is not that I have nothing to say, per se, but that I want to say so much. I don't quite know where to begin. Within the last week, since we met here, in this room, so much of life has elapsed. And yet, I feel that words on this blank page could never describe any of it in a way that would be meaningful. To you.

It could be that a certain event, an unexpected and tragic event that began here in this room and then unfolded, sadly, rather quickly, over the next days to come, has temporarily muted our world. And yet, in its sharpness of effect, its unanticipatedness, its consequences have inspired a burst of heartfelt emotion in those who were directly affected.

I'm again drawing a blank. I feel so inadequate in my ability to write about this if only because my own life has been so even-keeled these past few years and at this very moment it's becoming clear to me that I've worked very hard to make it that way. It's been a seamless process, this gradual invisibility. This isn't making much sense, but having written it down, seeing it on a page that now is no longer blank, I feel a sudden revelation has taken place without my even having realized it, until this very sentence, this word, and it is so clear to me, right now, that it is no longer invisible.

Prompt: at the pool's edge

At the pool's edge, a frill of opalescent tiles catches the last rays of the late summer sun. I watch as a line of ants marches along this glowing margin, hastily avoiding occasional rivulets, so intent are they on their far off destination. I press my back further into my lounge chair. I am determined to wring these precious few moments of the season from my tiny paradise.

Let this be a character study of a place, a time, so I will remember always.

I arrived after almost a day of continuous travel that began with a long train ride through the night. As we disembarked in the wan light of dawn, our ferry awaited, like a barely visible ghost, floating upon the still water of an unknown sea. I followed the line of passengers before me and found myself seated upon a worn wooden deck. Within an hour, the fogs of that early morning had lifted and once again I disembarked to find myself at the next leg of this journey: a bus ride that brought me here, over cobbled and unpaved roads, overhung with the canopy of a thousand trees and festooned with the heavy foliage of strange vines for which I had no name.

I came here to disappear, and disappear I did. I lost myself in long fecund days filled with the deafening song of creatures unseen, air almost too perfumed to breathe and sights only imaginable in the dreams of one intoxicated with life.

When I first arrived, I was greeted by a woman who introduced herself only as "Duke". She spoke fluently, but slowly, with a voice too deep for her diminutive stature and a soft accent of indeterminate origin. Duke led me past walled gardens both wild and manicured. She must have read my thoughts as we walked because she assured me, "there will be plenty of opportunity to enjoy the grounds".

Finally, we reached the gates of the main house. I feel can only relate a pale shadow of the palace in front of which I found myself. Not because it does not deserve to be described but because it truly defies words in any known language, or at least in the tongues with which I am familiar.

Prompt: the road

A friend just came back from a trip and I can feel the waves of euphoria coming off her. They're palpable, they're rocking the air around us.

Travel changes you. My friend, I can see is starting to separate from us. She's looking to another future, away from here. "Here" is just a reminder that you are not "there", wherever "there" is.

Even if you're not aware of it, while you are away from here, from home, being away will make you see things differently. In fact, I was just thinking about this very thing as I walked from home to our meeting place.

What I was thinking on my walk were a few related things that may or may not become a philosophical rant, so bear with me. In a sense, I thought, walking could be a metaphor for living. Because, while walking, the pedestrian is uncovered, open to the environment to the extent that they are not encased in a metal and glass and plastic moving object. The typical walking stride is relatively slow, a human pace, when compared to wheeled or winged forms of comportment. At this speed, it is possible to observe one's surroundings using the senses, making the experience a sensual one, and, it is preferred, a pleasurable one.

Being unencased, and thus, unencumbered, a walker is free to meet other walkers, exchange pleasantries, go about their daily lives unhurried because to arrive at point B from point A by perambulation one must be able to do so at just the pace that they are able. The scale of daily routines would allow for this limitation and would be built accordingly to accommodate. Grocery stores, hardware supplies, bakeries, cafes, etc., would all be a short stroll from one's home and place of employment. This is how a neighborhood would look, and it would be close to other similar neighborhoods, all connected and and easily traversed on foot.

Does this sound familiar? It should. It's a description of what was, in the not so distant past, commonly referred to as a town, or a city.

I believe this is what many people, in their hearts, still want. They want to feel part of something bigger than themselves. They want to feel safe. They want to feel like they belong. They want to enjoy and experience joy in their lives.

I know this is what my friend wants and her trip revealed that all this may be possible for her, just not "here", in this town we have both called home for over a decade now. My friend will scoff when I mention my own recent trip abroad. Yes, I am aware that it is a privilege to go to another country. I feel so very thankful that in my lifetime I have been able to do this. Not long ago, I would not have believed I would get to see how other people lived.

It's no secret that people live differently than we do here. It's just not as well advertised, as, say, the latest version of a popular mobile device. In the places I went, walking was like breathing. No one there questioned the air. Even the most perfunctory of strolls was revelatory. Within a two block radius of where we stayed, I was presented with groceries, bakeries, countless cafes with their tables clustered under the shade of the corner plane trees, and restaurants, restaurants, restaurants. There were alleyways, hidden stairs, pocket gardens, carved out doorways. But this was just an ordinary port town. In fact, many times we were asked why we chose to visit there as it is not a tourist destination but rather a typical working city for this country.

I came home asking myself what happened to us here in the "New World"? What is it that keeps us from living lives open to the possibilities that just a simple walk can offer?

I've gotten a few different explanations, one a Marxist critique citing capitalism and post industrialism as the main culprits. And I can see how these mindsets play a huge part in what we are living with now. Another well meaning friend offered the bootstrap theory to illustrate why even now we can't see past making sure we get ours at the expense of everyone else. A Buddhist might say that if one were to be fully alive one must make oneself more vulnerable, have an open heart. But we here are not about to make ourselves vulnerable. That would just be plain unAmerican.

All of this makes sense. But at what expense? Is our only consolation the sidewalks that are included in our subdivisions?

I'm going to conclude by reiterating that I still believe most people want life to be better, kinder, more beautiful. Just for fun, observe what happens when artists or artisans re-imagine this kind of human scale space, and rebuild an area previously neglected or abandoned, a place where one can walk to whatever one desires. Portland and Oakland are good examples. These cities flew under the radar, ignored or even maligned for years. Slowly, over a couple of decades, groups of artists quietly carved out new possibilities, resuscitating infrastructures, making these places not just inhabitable, but livable. The unfortunate thing is once these re-imagined cities were "discovered", people flocked there hoping to be part of this better life, and suddenly they are affordable only to the wealthy.

So, what's the solution, you ask? My friend is talking about a trailer park close to amenities. But what about the rest of us? Move to Kingston, NY or Albuquerque, NM or some far flung corner and start rebuilding? I'm getting too old for that, but maybe you can. And if you do, maybe some day when you are putting on the finishing touches, I'll relocate there and drive the prices up.

I apologize for the rant. There's so much more to say but that would require a book.

Prompt: The Moral of the Story

(editorial comment that I just can't resist: ugh)

The moral of the story always seems so appropos, but after some consideration, it occurred to this writer, to wonder, what came first, the tale or its moral?

Aesop, to use as an example one of your better known works, did you observe an ant and a grasshopper conversing and, if so, did you overhear the greener of the two lament his days of leisure as his companion dryly replied, "I told you so"? I'm further pondering if these characters may have been stand-ins for a pair of offspring -- yours, perhaps? Or possibly a duo in your employ? Either way, the ant always comes out rosier than that philandering grasshopper of a companion.

Personally, I see the ant in a more anhedonic light. To what kind of existence does this fellow subscribe? A twenty four seven contract, carrying ten, twenty times his weight over distances immeasurable. If he's lucky, he may encounter a picnic on his route. I can envision a bright red checked cloth being traversed, a potato salad freshly peppered with which he most likely will abscond. But even in the midst of this lovely fodder for the senses, I see him slavishly trudging, thorax swayed by his load, back to that hive teeming with identical drones who most likely will never even as much as sample the fruits of their labor.

But the grasshopper, he can go hither and yon, wherever holds the most promise. Is that music in the distance? A pinkish light in which to bask? And don't forget, he's built for nimbly leaping tall obstacles in a single bound not hoisting a load or trudging through the back of beyond with aforementioned load securely balanced upon his graceful shoulders. Considering his anatomical geometry, I think it's safe to say it would be downright fantasy to see a line of his cohort hauling a basket full of drumsticks across a lawn.

In conclusion, I would like to offer you the opportunity to craft a new tale of the grasshopper and his friend the ant, one built backwards, from its moral, a moral with which I hope to inspire your yarn-spinning muse:

Wouldn't you rather be a jumper for joy than a shlepper of shlock?

Prompt: Sherry Sherrie Sheri

...eyes the color of sherry that's left at the bottom of the glass long after the guests have left...

Sherry: she'd be your best friend and then make out with the crush you confessed to her at a slumber party after everyone else had fallen asleep. Did I learn the art of brow plucking at the vanity mirror in her parent's bedroom? Or were we both too busy flipping through the Penthouses she dug out from under their matching California King on the other side of that shag carpeted room?

Whatever happened to Sherry? I remember roller coaster rides, skinny dipping, noticing how slivers of blue florescent light seemed to hold the under sides of the boardwalk slats together while I kept lookout.

She called me once while I was away at college. I don't know how she found me. I'd buckled back down by then, well on my way to becoming an upright citizen.

Do you remember me?

I wanted so badly to say yes! Yes of course I do. How could I forget you? My life before we met and now since we lost touch has been so stultifying, so numbingly dull.

You alone were some kind of conduit, a diviner, a genie, a wizard, a witch, a channeller of electricity. You wielded some sort of magic power that was capable of turning the ordinary day into the most sublime of adventures. A mere phone call was a portal into other worlds, other lives, to people we never would have met, conversations that never would have taken place if you hadn't opened a phone book, blindfolded, run your finger down a random page and dialed. You were Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth, a suburban housewife.

And because you'd heard that skinny dipping was better than just swimming but best only at night, I was hippened to the fact that fences existed simply to be climbed over...

Prompt: random or collaboration

I've been waiting all week to be here again. Now that I'm not at a regular job job, a place where I was forced by circumstance to work on things that sometimes produced results of various natures (but mostly things I found frustratingly pointless, now that I'm not there anymore, I realize how much I miss the collaboration.

For a long time I considered myself creative, but now I see that my inventiveness only goes so far and then it requires some sort of context.

And isn't that like life in general? What a facile insight, I know. But somehow it's taken me this many years and almost as many employers to come to this realization. I wish I could say something poetic about it but mostly I'm thinking now about all the "strategic plans" and "top down decisions" and "total quality management" forums I'm so relieved to miss. But at what expense? Is it ever thus -- one extreme or the other? You are either on that team or you're on your own.

So, now I find myself at this juncture, this crossroads, some might even say an intersection (and you know who you are), missing a certain aspect of that tired old road. The metaphors are abundant: I'm all fired up ready to go on a new excursion, so thanks for taking the first steps with me on this road of a thousand miles ahead of us.

Prompt: Up in the trees

We walked in the park yesterday and sat down on the berm separating the street from the playground and the rest of the green. It was so hot. My brother and I plunked ourselves on the grass and I examined the fallen leaves while he and I caught up on so much we never got to talk about. The shade from the sycamores was sublime. It was well over 100 degrees and under the canopy the earth was cool to the touch. I don't now how long we were there. The air was so still, the passage of time seemed slowed down. Everything seemed slower. Except the movement I noticed among the foliage, up there, in one of the trees. It was too big to be a squirrel and the wrong color for a cat. And then, it barked.

"It's his babysitter," a woman said as she sauntered towards us.

I guess she meant the tree. I looked at my brother, his eyes fixed on the dog that had emerged a little from his camouflaged perch.

Prompt: You had it coming

Whenever someone says, "you had it coming", it means you got what you deserved, just deserts, all that. I'd venture to guess the speaker would be feeling a bit smug. You might even witness a little nod of satisfaction to punctuate their verdict.

I don't remember ever consciously saying that kind of thing out loud. Maybe I've thought it. I try not to. It's so...punitive. I want to believe I can move past these terminal stops, find a juncture, not just "it" and its predictable arrival. I'd like to think that when "it" gets here it will bring with it some new possibilities.

Prompt: Memories from the Edge of the Universe

It has been determined that we are more non-matter than we are matter, that the space between our own particles, possibly at the atomic level, makes up more of us than the solid particles themselves if they were to be compacted into a solid mass, if that were even possible. And, on top of that, we have been told that we are 75% water. So, at best, only a quarter of who we think we are is "us".

Our very "us-ness", my "me-ness", your "you-ness" seems almost vaporous, like humidity. We are like tiny infinite universes, microcosmos. We are not there, yet we are everywhere, nothing and everything, simultaneously.

Yet, I can see where my arm ends at the fingertips and his dark lashes curl against the crisp white pillow case.

Now I have to ask, have you ever looked at a painting, really looked closely? When you have a moment, study one more than you might otherwise have done previously. Look at a Vermeer, Girl with Pearl Earring, for instance. There are no lines separating the cloth she wears at the nape of her neck from the air surrounding her, her lips from her skin. Look closely, you'll see how "she" dissolves into her space. Her "she-ness" is like a magic trick.

We also, in our own way, dissolve into the worlds in which we live. Little bits of us float off and mingle with the very air we breathe. Dust mites, as I write this, are devouring the invisible specks you left behind unknowingly at the library, where you sat and contemplated a magazine.

Memories, fragments, histories blur the edges of our very own selves. At the minutest level we mingle and collide and have no knowledge of these tiny interactions, these infinitesimal romances, wars, novels written, dreams destroyed. You and I, we are making memories at the edge of a universe we have yet to discover.

Prompt: Who are they?

They say life is short
They say you can't avoid death or taxes
They say you can't take it with you
They say diamonds are a girl's best friend
They say dog is man's best friend
They say it's a dog's life
They say it's raining cats and dogs
They say black cats are bad luck
They say walk between the raindrops
They say don't walk under a ladder
They say beauty is in the eyes of the beholden
They say "'scuse me while I kiss this guy"
They say "wrapped up like a 'douche' you know the rumor in the night"
They say the night is young
They say the young and the restless
They say your mouth will be washed out with soap if you say that again
They say cleanliness is next to godliness
They say at most there is one god
They say let go and let god
They say go with the flow
They say take me to the river
They say you can never step into the same river twice
They say once bitten twice shy
They say once upon a time
They say and they lived happily ever after
They say the end

Prompt: Inheritance

Someone said, "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the Earth." I'm certain I am not the only one who is aware of this statement, because if I have heard it, not once but numerous times, it has got to be in pretty wide circulation, if not ubiquitous. And, upon hearing it I've often thought, what does this sentence mean, exactly? Since I'm not one to read the ancient texts, I don't have much context for it and so have pondered the phrase as a stand alone idea. I'm aware that those in the know will chuckle at my ignorance, but I prefer not knowing the entire story. It gives me a chance to figure it out on my own terms. Lately, for instance, I've wondered if this statement is a prophesy. Again, there are probably multitudes who would respond with, "well, of course it is." Regardless, I still have questions, many of which can be distilled down to this: assuming we are not the meek in question, why is it that we, the non-meek, have insisted on our opposite-of-meek ways for well over two millenia when our non-meekness is so obviously counter-productive if not outright, literally, by inference, self-destructive?

Prompt: Outsider

Who hasn't at some time in their lives felt like an outsider? In the literal sense, before we're born, for approximately nine months, give or take a few weeks, we've all been insiders. Then, suddenly, we're outsiders, whether we want to be or not. Some say whole lives are spent trying to regain that insider status. Personally, I find being an outsider strangely comforting, literally liberating. With no walls to restrict movement, there is nothing but freedom.

Prompt: Among Us

This is what comes to mind immediately: Fungus, comma, there is a

and I write this as if it were indexed in back of a book entitled, "Among Us", under F, of course.

More subtly, I think of exclusion, because if it isn't among us, it is outside of us. The whole concept of inclusion, of being among us, and exclusion, being outside of us, has been on my mind lately. I don't think I'll be able to articulate my thoughts in the 15 minutes (less now that I've started writing) that we've allotted ourselves, but I will try to get down the gist of what I'm thinking.

I suppose this is my most overt confession, my most personal entry, which is a little hard for me since I've always felt like an outsider. I must've internalized this from my parents who are both awkward in social settings, but for different reasons. My mother came here from another country as an older teen where she met and then married my father who may not initially appear shy but who is a very introverted person. In addition to the fact that they were constantly at war with each other and the world around us, they managed to move our small family at least once a year, and, consequently, I attended 13 different public schools before graduating. I carried on the tradition well into my thirties. A body in motion stays in motion. And continuing in that vein, I've managed to veer far from the original prompt of "among us" vs. outside of us...which is to say what I've meant to get at is that it is difficult to feel among anyone when you are that mobile, when even your everyday thoughts include daydreams of a future home, elsewhere. And yet, I feel so happy here, writing with everyone, being part of this group, among us.

Prompt: Urban Art

There was a time I fantasized about doing graffiti. I knew of a woman where I worked who was part of a movement that worked on trains. By that I mean they tagged box cars or tankers or what have you with their paintings. Hers were small and figurative, spidery and haunting. I remember the feeling you got more than an exact image, so her work has stayed with me. She died very young, maybe in childbirth. Her story is heartrending. I hope her daughter and husband are well.

I still think about doing graffiti. I've even designed a small reproducible piece, easily copied, cut out and slapped on surfaces. What is my hesitation? Well, getting caught of course. Not because I'm an obvious choice for this kind of "crime", but because we're surrounded by cameras, constantly under surveillance. So, irony of ironies, if you ever see a small xeroxed eyeball staring out at you from a stop sign or the corner of a building, please don't let on that you know who the responsible party is.

Prompt: It's between us

This morning I looked up, online, what a local radio talk show would be featuring. Someone happened to glance over my shoulder at the computer screen and muttered dismissively, "Oh, that conservative war-mongering idiot." Wow, I thought to myself, if that is true, how could this guest have authored a book about "the road to character", about creating an authentic inner life, about developing humility? Now I had to hear this, I promised myself.

And soon enough, there he was, in a dead pan voice, droning on about authenticity, about a life-well-lived, how selfless caring for others is all there is at the end when one is eulogized. How ironic, I thought, that he is on tour, selling a book about selflessness, about moral fiber and the lack of it in contemporary society. He called out narcissists and careerists, literally tsking at them for their obtuseness, their limitations. How strange, I pondered, that the host seemed to be eating all this up, groveling at his guest's feet. I looked at the website again, hoping to find a juicy comment, of which there were a lonely one or two, but of course none of those entries was read aloud. The call-in guests were no better, only adding to the oleaginousness. Well, between you and me, I shut the radio off and hopped in the shower, if only to get ready for another day.

Prompt: Impressionistic

Word: impressionistic

Words on a page can conjure an image. For example, when I see the world "library" written, I envision a room, dim and spacious. It must contain shelves around a perimeter packed with books, of which only the spines are visible. In the center of the room are tables that may or may not have reading lamps upon them, depending.

When I see the word "impression", I have no impression, until a suffix is added. Just a few more letters, always beginning with an "i" and I travel through time and across oceans unimpeded by language. I'm writing of course about the Impressionists and Impressionism. While they are not my favorite ism as far as schools of art, they are certainly an iconic bunch or more accurately their work is. I sincerely doubt I can say anything new about this movement that hasn't be trodden to death, so I will simply ask, wouldn't it be fun to discover them for the first time, now, instead of having spent decades being assaulted with their imagery with everything from water lily cocktail napkins to haystack mouse pads? I have heard that when their paintings were first introduced to the general public many many years ago, there was an uproar, something about such tasteless garishness. Imagine that.

Prompt: the poem Grief Work by Natalie Diaz

La Llorona, the one who cries, by the river, pacing up and down its bank. Do you know why she cries? I didn't know why, but still I could see her walking and sobbing with her hair limp and dark, and long like a willow at the water's edge. La Llorona, moving slowly, always, slowly. As she brushes past the wild roses growing at the river's edge, she loosens little dabs of color where they float quietly to the ground, grief's petals.

I have to close my eyes to see. I can hear her weeping. It sounds like water traveling over stones; it sounds like leaves clinging to their branches in the wind. The high gate above her knees creaks in sympathy. This breaks my heart.

I didn't know why La Llorona cries.

Not long ago someone told me the story of La Llorona. La Llorona who cries forever at the edge of the water. I see her still, same as before even though I know now why she is there, tethered to her path and why she weeps.

Does it matter why she weeps? We are all La Llorona, aren't we? Is this dream we call Life not a journey that at times takes us down to our own river bank where a high gate above our knees creaks quietly, whispering we are not alone? We go where there is love, to the river, on our knees.

Prompt: I found a key, I think it's yours

It was right here in the spot where you were sitting. And, I think if I'm not mistaken, you were the last person sitting in this place. I'm imagining how you must have gotten into your house without it. Did you have to pry the screens from the windows? And now I realize I don't know if you live in a place with screens, or even windows, but for certain there must be a door, because here in my hand I hold this key, your key. I wonder what the door to your house looks like. Is it red? Is it rounded at the top? And the lock, it must be copper-colored like this key you've left behind. In my mind, I'm turning this key in the lock on the door to your house that may or may not have windows, covered or not by screens. Does the key fit? Does it click, does the knob turn? Suddenly, I'm shy. What if you're not home, or worse, if you are. It just occurred to me you may have a hidden spare, by the front steps, under a fake rock or even the mat that says, "Welcome". I hesitate. I contemplate knocking, and as my knuckles rap upon your door, which I can see now is a bright blue, I hear the sound of knocking, but more distant, more determined. I think it must be you.

Prompt: what she really wanted to say

She watched him closely as he gave her directions. He looked so much like X, she mused. His eyes had that same soft color, that same sad, haunting look. It was uncanny. He was talking but she could barely make out the words, only the song in his voice, the notes, the warmth. He even gestured in a manner that was so close to X. She could feel heavy tears threatening. She looked away, at her hands, tight on the steering wheel. When she looked back he was smiling. He asked her if she thought she could find it. Yes, I think so. What she really wanted to say was: I miss you. Thank you, she said, and drove off, slowly, watching him disappear in the rear view mirror.

Prompt: The feeling poem

smells like woodsmoke

tastes like jello without enough flavoring

feels like a bright sunny early morning summer room with diaphanous curtains billowing over a lush garden, both empty

feels like an alley cat who wants to be pet but doesn't know how

feels like that shopping cart on its side in a ditch by a country road glinting as you whiz by at 50 mph

loneliness

Prompt: things that get in the way

Barriers, obstacles, roadblocks, blocks, writers' block, painters' block, responsibilities, obligations, laundry, dishes, vacuums, sponges, towels, weather, schedules, calendars, agendas, appointments, meetings, meetings, meetings. What happens when all of this is vanished? If it disappears, what then? What is there waiting behind all that is in the way? What is it that has been obscured? Will it now finally float, ever so serenely, up, casting a shadow that too will fade as it, this thing of wonder, this fantastical beast, rises higher and higher, stopping only to levitate with the accumulated clouds? It is then we wish we had tied a very, very long string to this winged thing, to this elusive mythological creature.

Prompt: Langston Hughes: April Rain Song

A little sleep song, a little sleep song, a little sleep song, she murmured to herself and the sound of rain tapped an ambient rhythm. It was almost dawn. She'd propped herself up, bolstered with pillows, a wall of feathers against the day ahead. A day of feeding and chauffering and assisting and augmenting and adjusting and nurturing only to stop for a brief respite and then resume once again. A little sleep song, a little sleep song, a little sleep song. It's always darkest before dawn, she remembered and then was only slightly aware of experiencing a stutter, a break, a gentle wash from the falling rain.

Prompt: photo by Robert Doisenau: School Boys, 1956

Looking over, just to peek, to get an idea of someone else's thoughts, their ruminations. Is that cheating? Or is it inspiration? One time, in a gallery, in Oregon, on the coast, Astoria, I believe, I took a photo of a woman's painting and immediately the proprietor of the gallery came over and reprimanded me. Didi't I know these were copyrighted works? I was so embarrassed, I left.

This photograph caught a stolen moment of a schoolboy at his desk, pondering something, looking skyward, while his neighbor, ever so surreptitiously glances over, hoping not to be noticed, if only to glimpse a fragment, a scrap of inspiration...

Prompt: One thing I know for sure

One thing I know for sure is that it's almost impossible for me to start anything like a race, including this writing exercise which started with the bang of me pressing start on the timer portion of the alarm clock in my phone and suddenly the room became silent except for the turning of pages, the tap of a keyboard, the scratching of my pencil on the paper of this notebook. Outside a bird can be heard, maybe two backyards away. The pitcher of lemonade rests nearby, perfuming the air with a sharp sweetness. Should we have looked at the Doisenau photos for inspiration? They're all so beautiful, each worthy of at least one story, at least a thousand words. Maybe next time, I console myself. And then the dog next door barks and I am aware again that there are things to be done, writing to be written. The clock ticks off the seconds - I glance over to see 11:11 - we're not even half way through our prompt.

Today I am slow. I am racing to write this. I double back and erase again and again - it's two steps back for every one ahead. I am not cut out for racing. Erasing yes, racing, no. My mind is racing and my hand is erasing.

I'm thinking about completely irrelevant things: A yard sale from last summer, its trinkets sitting on a table in a kitchen waiting to be picked up and loved again. Anthropomorphizing is silly. I know, but I do believe things have lives of their own and these particular ones, resting for the last time in this pine wood paneled kitchen with frilly valences and cupboards surrounded by the curly-cue details of the 1950s aesthetic from whence they sprung, well, these nicknacks look confused. This is the only home they've ever known and now a stranger in an apron wielding an ipad with a cash register app is circling overhead, making deals.

So, apparently that's what I think about when under duress: lost and lonely trinkets at the mercy of an auctioneer, awaiting an unknown fate. I'll take this little elephant - that I know for sure.

Prompt: I am writing this for you

I am writing this for you under no duress, no obligation.

I am writing this for you on a day that began under cover of cloud, spring-like, silent, punctuated only by the coo of doves.

I am writing this for you as only I can do, on a day like today which is like no other.

I am writing this for you because words are so much more real on the page, than to say them out loud only to have them linger briefly in the air, suffuse, diffuse, transparent, like perfume, slowly dissipating, disappearing. Vanished.

I am writing this for you, with longing incomprehensible.

I am writing this for you, fingers gripping ever so tightly your pen. You left it here and I could not help myself. I tried to hold it the way I've seen you hold it: lightly, nonchalantly, callously, tossing off a grocery list, a note, a silly sketch.

I am writing this for you in supplication, as an offering, to give you an indication, a sign, a memento.

I am writing this for you in the hope that you may read it, some day, if you find it, hidden, sequestered, squirreled away in plain sight amongst the scraps of our lives.

I am writing this for you because I love you.

Prompt: Aimless Love (Billy Collins)

There are days that sneak up on me when everything from the wren calling outside my window to the little fluffs of dog hair congregating beneath the dining room table brings tears. On those days my tiny world, bathed in an ethereal light, sings the siren song of this one secret thing: life is short; love as much as you can, even when it seems impossible, ridiculous, counterproductive. At the sound of distant mowers suddenly muffling the birdsong, I wake from my reverie and call over to the dog, who lies waiting in a square of sunlight on the rug...

Prompt: Did you have a favorite

Did you have a favorite,
did you have a best,
did you have a loved, a beloved, a well worn, well kept, most adored, carefree, uncommon, idiosyncratic, absolutely, positively, unhesitatingly wonderful
person, place or thing?

Prompt: Give yourself permission

Give yourself permission to imagine something so lovely and amazing that for a moment you feel truly free. Give yourself permission to feel so truly free you may have to stop yourself from trying to fly. Give yourself permission to fly so high the world below looks like a quilt of paint store chips. Give yourself permission to float over the world long enough to remember how lovely and amazing it is to be right here, right now.

Prompt: From the back of a truck...

...it fell then bounced a few times before it came to rest on the gravel shoulder. What was it, you ask? I will tell you in good time, in good time. The sky that day was a marvelous cerulean, wouldn't you know. Of course a stray cloud now and again would scud its way to the horizon when you weren't paying too much attention. It would be years before anyone would even notice the contrails, let alone speculate on their true meaning, I'll let you know. Yes, it was a simpler time, much simpler. It was so simple, no one would object if you just rocked an afternoon away on your porch And whether or not you had a book in your hand or an iced drink made no difference atall to the casual passerby. And that's exactly what old Abernathy was doing that glorious afternoon, except he had both the book and the iced drink and he was rocking away when it fell. I wish I knew what he was reading that kept him so entranced that at first he didn't notice the bundle that had bounced almost to his very doorstep. Well, alright, it was a few yards, give or take away, but houses back then were further apart. Nowadays you can practically ring your neighbor's bell from your own kitchen window while you're doing your washing. But in those days it just wasn't so. And old Abernathy kept rocking and reading, putting his glass down on the rickety wicker table, careful to place it on the same ring without even looking over to see. It must've been some book because even when the squawking started, he didn't look up. I think he might've raised an eyebrow, maybe his left, then his right and then turned another page. If you ever looked closely at his forehead, you could see how the furrows neatly divided, just over his brows, the left one a little more prominent, more deeply grooved. I believe this showed how he was more amused at life than anything. Anyway, that was his first reaction to the package that would change the rest of his years on this Earth.

Prompt: It's in the blood

blood, wine, earth, metal, red, sanguine, sangre, body, bone. We all are made of the same substances, the same combinations of the elements, the same red blood and the same white bone. And yet, and yet we find ways to diverge, to demonstrate otherness. Do we not all bleed?

Prompt: a person as a food

If someone were to describe me as a food, I am certain I would not be referred to as luscious, which rules out anything containing dairy or anything capable of becoming ripe, such as a tomato or a peach or even a strawberry. These, all somewhat round, probably preclude other similarly shaped foods like Kaiser rolls or select varieties of squash. So where does that leave me? While I long to be thought of as a tender pear, the truth is I am more stalk-like though not completely devoid of soft spots which means celery and rhubarb are out, plus, my hair is a bit wider than the width of the majority of my stem. Therefore, on further consideration, even though this description may bring to mind broccoli, I believe my true food nature is closer to cotton candy, on a stick, minus the cloying sweetness, of course.

Prompt: Odd Couples

Were they ever seen in person together or was the idea of their association some sort of publicity stunt? For some reason she has a more poetic reputation, however cheesy, that has endured the ages. Yes, even when she was festooned for her public in furs and spectacular gems and hid her crows feet behind over-sized Foster Grants, she was always adored, always referred to as a "classy lady". So, it strikes one as a bit odd to be informed, through the tabloids and what not, that she, and he, at least two decades her junior, would ever have rendezvoused. And allegedly, can you imagine, he would bring his pet monkey that she was so fond of, and the three of them would spend an afternoon. Is that not outrageous? Even though recording their gallivanting here summons such wacky imagery, it all seems suspicious and really only as strange as, dare we mention it, fiction.

Prompt: cardamom

The first time I ate or rather drank something with cardamom, I didn't know I was drinking it. And that went on for many, many years. Probably because it was only one of the countless specks infusing the air invisibly, exotically, pungently, delicately. Some scents immediately on being sniffed take you somewhere, somewhere you've been before, to someone you've known. For instance, a certain clean, freshly ironed cotton will transport me to the late afternoon I met my husband. He gave me a piggyback ride and I knew as I put my head on his shoulder that the t-shirt he was wearing had been recently laundered and hung to dry in the sun of an East coast summer afternoon. But cardamom is not exactly like that. It is true that I do remember he and I drank chai for the first time, together. It was at the back of an Indian store, in Berkeley, many years after the piggy back ride.

Prompt: I remember rainy days through a window ...

...and the house was quiet except for the sound of the tv where we watched reruns of The Brady Bunch and then later Happy Days came on and by then I'd gone upstairs, to check on things but no one had come home yet and you were hungry and I was hungry and the refrigerator held maybe a cup of milk settled in the bottom of the carton, a six pack of Rolling Rock, a jar of mayonnaise with an expired date and the remains of last night's take out chicken that I put on a plate and trundled down to you and we both sat there on the couch carefully removing slivers of meat and washing them down with sips of milk and hysterical laughter.

Prompt: My petit orchid or Still Life

Set against a pale yellow wall, the orchids dissolved. I looked again and their centers, bleeding the most delicate pink, drifted slowly into focus. I cleared my throat, despite the fact no one was there to hear me reassert my presence. On the table were the flowers which were in a vase, also pink, but a solid pink, my coffee cup, my tiny white pitcher of cream in the shape of a cow in full moo, and my spoon, resting quietly on a fresh linen cloth. Dust motes hung in the air, almost motionless, glowing like stars, suspended, waiting. Dare I even breathe, lest they rouse themselves from their dreaming? I sighed against my will.

Prompt: just after midnight

Just after midnight I awoke: to pee or not to pee? I peed. As I sat there contemplating tiptoeing back across the cold tiles, I suddenly remembered something my friend Lisa had once written about peeing. She'd gone to an exclusive movie party. The movie starred Winona Ryder. It may have been the actress's first role, a vampiress, before those became all the rage. Lisa, during an intermission, went to the bathroom, to pee of course. When she got to a stall, who should traipse out but that little vixen, Winona herself. Lisa had marveled at her diminutiveness, her glowing skin, her annoying proximity to Johnny Depp, the film's love interest, and later, for a time, in real life. Winona, that bitch, Lisa recalled, had completely ignored her as she made a grand exit from the restroom. My friend shrugged it off to fleeting star power, then locked the stall door and sat down to do her business. She was at first alarmed and then thrilled to find the seat was still warm. Winona had warmed it just for her. Lisa's parting comment, I remember clearly, was, "tee hee!" I got up from my own warm seat and sprinted back to bed with visions of fangs and toilets and Johnny Depp to lull me back to sleep.

Prompt: It started as just a speck in the distance.

We'd been walking for maybe a quarter of an hour, the early morning fog softening the edges of everything including the sound of our own footsteps on the saturated gravel. It caught my eye because we'd stopped talking and I kept checking to make sure it was still there. Sure enough, as we walked, my breath mingling with the soft cool air, I could see a form taking shape, shifting a little, becoming denser, yet weightless somehow. And in that moment I felt weightless, as though I could float through the skyless air. I must have stumbled because you took my arm and then warmed my hand with your breath. As we neared the thing I had witnessed grow from a mere smudge, you awoke me from my trance. "I wonder who tied their balloon here?"

Prompt: Coasters

I have a little round wooden box. Inside there are six little dark wooden discs, carved with tropical scenes. I used to like to open and close the box and take out the coasters just to hear the click of the wood and to feel the lid fit snugly into its canister. I'd lay the circles out in lines and patterns on the coffee table, shuffling them like a magician practicing a trick.

I've since lost my little trinket. I'm guessing it's in a box, in a closet, in the house, packed away, waiting patiently to protect a surface somewhere in the future. In the meantime, I drink my tea in the mornings and before bed, placing my cup, or glass, on the naked table between sips. The faint shadow of a ring has appeared now and again, but these days I have a dish rag at the ready to wipe away any residue of a past.

Prompt: New Year's Poem

I remember my grandmother's poem about how her life was like a bubble rising in the stem of a glass of champagne.

I remember William Carlos Williams's poem about the plums in the ice box but I've forgotten if they'd been eaten.

I remember Frank O'Hara's waking up to the sun maybe writing about Billie Holiday.

I remember the sunflower who countest the steps of the sun as only William Blake could word so perfectly.

I remember The Raven, who, with one word, "nevermore" could send chills down my spine, over and over and over again. Thank you Edgar Allen Poe.

I remember Elizabeth Bishop's paintings more than her poetry, I'm afraid.

And Emily Dickinson, her eyes, the color of sherry that's left at the bottom of the glass are impossible to forget although I've never seen them myself.

I remember 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, possibly Wallace Stevens' most visual work, at least for me.

I remember so little of Billy Collins, except laughing out loud at something about a barking dog or two.

I remember Marianne Moore and H.D. and Edna St. Vincent Millay whose voice can be heard quavering on an old recording, reciting, "we were very tired, we were very merry. We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry."

I must remember, though, to confess that I stole this idea of remembering (re-embering) from Joe Brainard, whose book, "I Remember" is the most wonderful recounting of things he remembered, along with other works of his, including hilarious depictions of Nancy (of Nancy and Sluggo fame), lovely and amazing paintings and other images, all of which attest to his bravery, his genius and the absolute necessity to be remembered.

Prompt: "You Used to Make So Much of Me"

You used to make so much of me. Do you not now? What am I measuring the past against anyway? Is it not enough that you still touch my face with the tips of your fingers? You still draw my bath after a walk in the rain. Did we not fall asleep tangled last night as we have for more than half our lives? What unit of comparison has wedged its way between us, between now and then?

Prompt: Character on a Bus

Sitting beside the window, looking out at the passing landscape, he was unshaven, yet dressed in a suit of a good cut. His hair was slicked back in the style of old gangsters, dark, with a pomade that infused the air around him with the scent of oranges and cardamom. He could have been on the set of a movie except for the crate next to him, which held a live rooster. The creature, oddly calm under the circumstances, occasionally made an abbreviated cock-a-doodle-doo. At these intrusions, the young man would turn from his vigil and make soft cooing sounds that seemed to transfix the captive once more.

Prompt: "gosh it's been a while"

Dear S, Gosh, it's been a while. I've been thinking about you and meaning to get in touch, but you know what they say, road to hell and all that. Really, though, I wonder how you've been. I thought about calling but seem to have lost your number. Believe it or not, I've sent you at least two emails both of which bounced back. How does that even happen? Gosh, it really has been a while, hasn't it? My daughter, the one you gave that hand-carved doll, graduated from Columbia and moved to L.A. She's an aspiring actress. Maybe you've seen her -- she was in the crowd scene in that latest Tom Cruse thing. And J - I even tried googling him but the most recent hit I got was two years old. It can't have been that long, can it? I still remember our last conversation, the one where you confessed all that stuff just before our husbands walked in the door from wherever they'd gone. I didn't have a chance to tell you how brave I thought you were. It's only recently dawned on me that my reticence after all these years must have seemed to you like some sort of disapproval. Really, though, it's just that Life, with a capital L, has gotten in the way. I so do hope you will understand and forgive me enough to pick up our friendship where we left off. I have so much to tell you. --R