Sunday Quote

Most people don't realize it, but writing doesn't come out of a maelstrom of thought. That's where the ideas come from. The actual writing is done from the calm at the center. It requires a certain mental stillness. - Frank Fradella

Fish tank at the Chinese restaurant

Thoughts on writing

Rocket Writes a Story by Tad Hills
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Each day Rocket worked on his story...When things were going well, he wagged his tail.
When he didn't know what to write, he growled.

Rocket tells it like it is. A good story about the pleasures and occasional perils of writing that children and their adults will enjoy.

View all my reviews

Sunday Quote

A soft breeze, scented with honey and cinnamon, wafted them on their way. The pirates saw hillsides of flowers that rose up fluttering in the air as the ship passed, and that turned out to be butterflies after all. They saw forests of blossoming trees darting with hummingbirds. Strange blue seaweeds washed out from the rocks as the sea breathed, and in and out of it played little schools of gold and silver fish.

"Really, Captain," said Winkle, tottering to the side and peering over with great interest. "Looking at them little fishes you'd swear Humbert Cash-Cash hisself had been emptying his money box into the sea."

"No poetry from cabin boys!" said Captain Wafer sternly, but he couldn't help being moved by the old man's imagination.

- Margaret Mahy, The Pirates' Mixed-Up Voyage.

Wilbur!

Sunday Quote

I was standing there looking up through tears.  I was standing by myself in the rubble of my life, at the bottom of every story I had ever needed to know.  I was gripping my ribs like a climber holding on to rock.  I was whispering the word over and over, and it was holding me up like a loved hand.

- Dorothy Allison, Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure.

You're pretty much set...

if you have a chicken and a boat.

Farmer's Market full out glory

They know how to do a lot of things very well in Vermont: swimming holes and impossibly fresh smelling air unless it is smelling like hay, a good smell, and cows, sometimes a good smell.  Add to that mountain views, a splendor of trees summer green and autumn blazing, maple everything, and of course, Saturday farmer's market - this one in Waitsfield, we plan our week up there around it, the hopes of a Saturday full of fun and music, dogs saying hey, art en plein air viewing, and those onions and that red red truck.  Wow.  We went to another one in the middle of the week, I think we were in Waterbury but can't swear to it, where to our surprise amid all the veggies and crafts for sale, a Greek woman had a stand where she was selling the most delicious looking Greek food (a favorite here).  A woman was loading up a cooler with her goodies, said she went every week and stocked up!  We believed her after buying what would be both lunch and dinner of spinach pies and veggie stew and grape leaved something and baklava...my son had greek lasagna too, sweeter than what we are used to but entirely delicious.  Ah, we love Vermont.

Eleven years

Holding all those who suffered, who were lost, who suffer still, who are still lost in my thoughts and heart today.

Write Love on Your Wrist

For Suicide Awareness Day. 

Sunday Quote

Small change, small wonders - these are the currency of my endurance and ultimately of my life.

- Barbara Kingsolver

Why this is my anniversary photo...

On my 28th wedding anniversary, I post this photo because it sums up why my lovely man is so dear to me...Understand the man seriously hates heights.  Understand I am not a klutz but I am not particularly graceful and I was walking across this old, no longer used, train trestle in Vermont that had wobbly boards and some interesting footing issues because I wanted to get a picture of the rust on the metal girders because I have a thing for rust especially when it is next to weathered wood, another thing I am quite mad about.  So I am in full turtle mode getting up to this and from a distance it might look like I am stuck.  Or semi-stuck.  Or just a fool on a bridge.  But I get really close and I suddenly hear a familiar voice saying - here, take my hand.  It is the husband who had not realized this is just another Susan and her camera aiming for old rusty junk moment and he has come to rescue me despite the fact that he is the one who loathes heights.  I thought that was so romantic :)
So Happy Anniversary, 28 years to my guy who I have been with for 31 years all told.  Here - take my hand.

A favorite word found on a Vermont sign

Intimate Landscapes

Open to Interpretation's latest photography and writer collaboration is coming out late Autumn and I am very pleased to be in it.  Here is the link to the site for the book, Intimate Landscapes.  The poem to be included in the book was written in mind of an old friend who died so it is especially meaningful to me.  I really love the practice of writing in response to art and especially to photography since it is such a love of mine.  The poem is not included for reading on the site but you can look at the gorgeous photographs, read the contributor's names, and see information for upcoming contests with Open Interpretation (which a number of you poets and writers out there are sure to find of interest).

Sunday Quote

 Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore...
 

-  Naomi Shihab Nye, from Kindness

J'adore Henry!

Blue moon tonight...

....but my camera couldn't capture it.  A walk up the street with the dog and husband, the moon framed by trees and then floating free in the sky, quite the sight.  Pulled the youngest off his computer game for a gander.  "It isn't blue."  However, he did find a spider web as impressive as the alarming one by a garage designed by a hunter spider the menfolk like to check on nightly.  Safely  inside, reviewing some old photo files and came across this from a few years ago and quite liked it.  A beach in Chatham, Cape Cod.  Off to sleep under a blue moon (or to finish the last chapter of the interesting Island Practice by Pam Belluck and then off to sleep).