Imagine the Possibilities

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

Yesterday I read this in Textbook Amy Krause Rosenthal:

I tend to have trouble with ceiling fan strings. Pull it once to stop? Twice?

             In trying to turn it off, I will just speed it up – great, now it is spinning around

             so fast that it’s wobbling almost violently.

I immediately connected! I’m never quite sure what speed the fan is on and if pulling the string will make it go faster or slower. Is there one more slow speed after this? Sometimes I can spend a full five minutes trying to get the ceiling fan speed just right. And there seems to be no learning curve. I start over every time trying to figure it out.

That got me thinking about some other things I just don’t get.

The ice maker in the freezer. Is it on or off? There is a switch inside with a straight line on one end and a circle on the other. The line means ON and the circle means OFF (or is it the other way around?) And should it be in or out for ON? Every time, every time, I have to stop and think, ask Allan, or consult the manual (which really doesn’t help much). As a result we usually have an abundance of ice or none at all.

The light switch in our family room. There is a panel of three switches just inside the sliding doors that lead to our sunroom. One operates the outlet for the table lamp, one controls the ceiling fans (let’s hope they are on the right speed!), and the other is for the outside light. The switches have been there for at least twenty-five years, but I still cannot remember which is which. Allan just laughs every time, shakes his head, and comments, “Someday you’ll learn.”

I’m not so sure about that.

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

The Assignment (from Jo Knowles in 59 Reasons to Write): Create a poem using your phone number.

The How-to: Pick a theme, then write your phone number down the length of the page. Each number represents how many words you should have on that line. A zero is a wild card so you can choose as many words as you like for that line.

The Poem:

                                Friends

6          Friends are treasures in our lives

1          Constant

0          Loyal

3          Ready to help

3          Ready to listen

1          Always

6          Friends are treasures in our lives

3          Don’t forget them

8          Time and distance can’t make memories fade away

5          True friends hold our hearts

The Reflection: I had fun with this poetry exercise. There was freedom yet structure within the constraint of number of words, and of course I got to pick my topic. Since friendship is a broad topic, I started by asking myself what I wanted to say about it. I started thinking about a couple of old friends who I don’t see often, but when we get together it’s like we were never apart.

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

Yesterday morning I walked out to feed the birds, and as I looked out over the landscape of snow and ice, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit sad. I thought about the daffodils who, fooled into thinking it was spring, nodded their heads in a good-morning salute just a few days ago. Now they were buried. Frozen. Gone.  I thought about the tulips, too. Their buds were just beginning to surface. Would they make it? It’s no wonder I was anxious to get to my volunteer post at Longwood Gardens. There I would be in the presence of pink orchids and blue poppies and red roses – a rainbow of colors and a bouquet of scents!

I wrote about cultivating curiosity in my role as a children’s garden volunteer at Longwood in a previous post. Yesterday afternoon, there were very few children visiting the garden. The adults who visit without children usually just pass through and smile, perhaps commenting on the wonderful space for children. Today, for some reason, they were curious. But instead of, “Can I show you something?” or “What’s that?” the questions were a bit different.

“Does it get hot back here?”

“You know those orchids that are hanging from the ceiling in the silver room? Can I       grow them at home?”

“What’s that blue flower in the conservatory? Not the blue poppy, but the other one.”

     “You mean this one?” I grab my phone and show a picture I had just taken before my shift started of the hybrid blue cineraria that is grown from seed at Longwood. The intense blue is a shade that is hard to explain. I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like it in the natural world.

The questions may have been a little different, but the result was the same. The garden displays had piqued the curiosity of the visitors who were hungry to learn more. And isn’t that what makes life interesting!

I am participating in the March Slice of Life Story Challenge. Thanks to the co-authors of              Two Writing Teachers for creating this  supportive community.

One of my favorite exercises from 59 Reasons to Write by Kate Messner is the “junk drawer memory” suggested by Jo Knowles. We all have those messy drawers, and the idea is to root around in one until you find an object that speaks to you in some way. Yesterday I just happened to put my fingers on my wick trimmer when I was looking for something else and I remembered…

Like me, my daughter-in-law loves candles. A few Christmases ago, while shopping for gifts, I saw wick trimmers in the candle store and picked up one for her (and one for me). I slipped it into a gift bag with a candle I thought she would like and it eventually found its way under the tree. On Christmas Eve, shortly after Brian and Jane arrived and the glow from the setting sun started to wane, I began lighting the candles in the kitchen. But first, I used my new handy-dandy wick trimmer to make sure all those wicks were just the right height!

Look, Brian, your mom has a wick trimmer! See, it’s not a crazy idea! It’s so easy to get down into the candle with a wick trimmer!

Apparently they had recently been in a candle store and Jane was interested in buying a wick trimmer. Brian felt it was a waste of money, that you could do the same thing with a scissors! But for anyone into candles, you know that’s just not true. Even though it wasn’t quite Christmas yet, I had to give her the gift right then!

I have bought many gifts for Jane – dangly earrings, soft warm sweaters, paperback books, even a snazzy modern umbrella, but I don’t think I will ever top the wick trimmer. It comes up in conversation every Christmas – part of our family lore.