Life may, indeed, be like a box of chocolates. The chocolates in this Belgian sampler were certainly full of surprises.
All that remains from Zebu’s gift to us from his travels in Belgium.
Yum, chocolate curry.
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Gump philosophy
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Friday Haiku
A banana box
becomes a cardboard playhouse
for a creative.
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Happy National Bird Day!
I live just west of Denver where it’s currently a whopping 8 degrees. There are about seven inches of snow on the deck railing and snow continues to fall.
I’m cold and grumpy.
It did, however, perk me up to discover that today is National Bird Day. Rather than scout for a bird to photograph out my window, I went to the archives. Here’s a majestic Tricolored Heron I saw in Kapok Park in Clearwater, Florida, last October.
Look closely and you’ll notice that there’s no snow and no sign of shivering. Clearly what we’re looking at here is an exceedingly intelligent little Tricolored Heron.
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Wordless Wednesday: Finch feeding frenzy
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It’s a family affair
Yesterday morning, Wildebeest woke up early to drive the six hours back home. At the same time, Zebu was on a flight out of London to Denver. Wildebeest got here an hour before Zebu landed at the airport.
Zippy and I haven’t seen either of them since mid-August and we all have lots of catching up to do. In the last 24 hours, there have been many overlapping conversations and bursts of laughter. Both sons are introducing new topics to the discussions, touching on the lives they’re now living, but we also keep to our usual “script” which includes Arrested Development references and cat jokes. And basketball. Always basketball in the script.
This morning it was a spirited debate re Michael Jordan vs LeBron James as Best Player of All Time. We’ve also discussed the way college player Grayson Allen trips other players as compared to Golden State Warrior Draymond Green’s kicking players in the crotch, and who deserves to be suspended. Right now, one of Zebu’s high school basketball teammates is here and they’re talking about basketball intramural games at their respective colleges.
Basketball. Basketball. Basketball.
A familiar song I’m happy to hear.
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Bunny Monday
I miss seeing the rabbits around the neighborhood. Don’t know where they go in the winter, but it’s not my front yard. So here’s a photo from October:
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Resolution devolution
AGNES by Tony Cochran
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Here comes 2017
I wanted to end the year with a photographic image I’d created on the last day of the year. So I grabbed my camera and in the fading daylight, captured this image of Loki:
Whoa, that’s kinda scary and weird. Slightly disconcerting. An image that overstays its welcome fairly quickly.
And then I captured this:
Ahh. Delicate beauty that evokes peace and calm. An image that grabs my attention without gimmicky extra eyes or blurred pink tongue.
And that about sums up the philosophy I want to carry into the coming year. Every day is going to have its bizarre-scary-weirdass-infuriating-heartbreaking-unjust moments, but there will always, always be moments of beauty. It’ll be up to me to notice them.
Here comes 2017.
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Friday Haiku
Easy to blame you,
smoldering wreck of a year.
But we own this mess.
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Thankful Thursday: The I-finally-freakin’-did-it edition
If you happen upon this, writer-friend Linda Salzman, you might be happy to know that yesterday I finally, finally wrote the final scenes of the YA I’ve been wrestling with since the beginning of time. Are they perfectly written scenes? Hells no. Are they fleshed-out scenes? Absolutely not. Are they even close to being what they’d need to be in a final draft? HAHAHAHAHA.
In which Linda is the pug offering encouragement (“Do it!”) to the tortoise-slow Tracy.
The scenes I wrote yesterday are, at this point, a collection of placeholder words. A roadmap for the next draft (should I ever have the inclination to wade into the manuscript that right now feels like a horrible, torturous place to spend time). I learned about the value of using placeholder words from writer-friend Laurie Schneider, and I must say it’s one of the most liberating tools in my writing kit. The pressure is off when I’m creating placeholder words; all that’s required of me is to literally hold the place in the manuscript with clues for my authorial intent. The details come later.
So after writing those scenes, I printed out a hard copy and wrote out a few notes for myself before packing everything away in an accordion file. At the soonest, I’ll read that manuscript again in a month. But I have a feeling it’ll take longer than that for me to muster enthusiasm. After finishing, I’d gone back to read the opening chapter, thinking it would fire me up by reminding me the rest of the book is stronger than the ending. *insert hysterical laughter* Turns out, I’d arrived at the THIS BOOK SUCKS MORE THAN A HOOVER stage, and it’s gonna take some time for those feelings to fade.
The good news? I’m already reacquainting myself with another project. This one has huge potential and fills me with excitement. So take that, nasty voice! (Also, I was very grateful for the distraction of this “new” project when I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about Debbie Reynolds dying the day after losing her beloved daughter.)
There are sad and horrible things happening all over the planet, but I’m grateful for the fictional worlds I create in my mind. Sometimes the pretend is the only thing keeping me from being crushed by the real.
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Wordless Wednesday: The ‘now what?’ edition
Marcel awaiting my next editorial move.
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Carrie Fisher: A mother of nature
I’ve been offline most of the day and checked in to discover Carrie Fisher has died. It’s hard to comprehend. She seemed indestructible. Tiny and fierce. A forever force of nature.
I remember reading POSTCARDS FROM THE EDGE the first time. I remember thinking that Carrie Fisher was hilarious, yes, but also incredibly insightful about what it means to be human. She was so damned smart and brave. And generous. She went to her dark places and brought that scariness out into the light as a gift to us. Her writing, tweets, and interviews were a constant reminder that none of us is alone on this spinning ball, and that since we’re in this thing together, we might as well share laughter along the way.
This is the copy Zippy bought for me to replace the one he accidentally dropped in a lake while on vacation.
There’s lots of gold in the book’s “postcards” written by character Suzanne Vale, but this portion from the Epilogue speaks to me now:
[…I still don’t think I feel the way I perceive other people to feel. I don’t know if the problem lies in my perception or my comfort. Either way I come out fighting, wrestling with my nature, as it were. And golly, what a mother of nature it is. Sometimes, though, I’ll be driving, listening to loud music with the day spreading out all over, and I’ll feel something so big and great—a feeling as loud as the music. It’s as though my skin is the only thing that keeps me from going everywhere all at once. …]
Happy New Year,
Suzanne
Carrie Fisher lived a life big and bold, and I’m glad her skin kept her here with us as long as it did. Wherever you are now, Carrie, I hope there’s nonstop loud music and feelings so big and great. You were one helluva writer and human being. Rest in peace.
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Hanging with Stu’s chickadees
Zippy and I are celebrating Christmas today with his siblings and mother. It’s the first Christmas without my father-in-law Stu. There will be a layer of sadness, but all his chickadees will be together.
Maybe someone will fall asleep and begin gently snoring, and we’ll put a rubber duck on their head before taking a photo. Stu would like that.
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Ting-a-ling!
A bum on a cot next to Trout’s at the shelter wished him a Merry Christmas.
Trout replied, “Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!”
~ From TIMEQUAKE by Kurt Vonnegut.
Kurt Vonnegut gets my vote for all-time best humanist, and Ting-a-ling! gets my vote for best response to these frightening and infuriating times.
Ting-a-ling!, everyone.
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No blue without yellow
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
~ Vincent Van Gogh
Injecting a splash of color and Goldfinch-y goodness into this late-December morning. We’ve got sunshine today, but are sadly lacking in vibrant color.
And oddly enough, Mr. Van Gogh, the yellow’s making me feel less blue.
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Friday Haiku
Our solar panels
soaking up free energy
sunshine is the best
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Thankful Thursday: The Encouragement Edition
Al Jolson once said, “A responsive audience is the best encouragement an actor can have.” Well, the same goes for writers. This morning I received an email from a writing friend that was not only incredibly generous, but also kind and encouraging. Her words have buoyed me all day, and I believe they’ll keep me afloat for quite some time.
I’m hoping I get the chance to do the same for someone else very soon.
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Gimme more daylight
Got a text from Zebu this morning (my time). It was already long-dark where he is in Sweden. He wrote: “Happy Solstice, Mom. This year I definitely understand your appreciation for today. We’ve bottomed out!”
Zebu has finally seen the light (sorrynotsorry!). He now fully accepts what I’ve been yammering about forever: the Winter Solstice is the best thing happening this time of year!
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Maybe I wanna do both
Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.
~ Terry Pratchett
I realize that tomorrow is the shortest day of the year, but today also feels pretty damned short.
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One hawk, two thoughts
Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.
~ Salvador Dali
Cooper’s Hawk. Photo by Zippy.
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent.
What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice,
necessity and importance of political and social rights.
~ B. R. Ambedkar
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Free drawers!
I just got back from picking up these free wooden drawers that were listed on Craigslist. I’m hoping to start a new sustainability project in my basement. Not sure of all the details, but wanted to document my start.
Needless to say, Zippy is thrilled.
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This is a first
We have about nine inches of snow on the deck railing which, in the past, would have resulted in a nine-inch muffin top on the patio table. Not this time (as Lucille Bluth might say). For whatever reason, the wrought iron surface acted as a sifter; snow fell through the holes and only piled up along the seams.
The snow looks a bit like fancy icing on a big round sheet cake. However, it’s much too cold to go outside for a taste. It’s currently 7 degrees.
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Friday Haiku
Alert to danger
this dog isn’t man’s best friend
and she will whistle
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Kidder and Fitzgerald for the assist
I just read GOOD PROSE: THE ART OF NONFICTION by Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd. As the cover says, it is “Stories and advice from a lifetime of writing and editing.” I highly recommend this wise and funny book.
There are many gems scattered throughout (and not just for nonfiction writers, but anyone who loves playing with words), and one has been in the front of my brain since reading it:
I remember in college reading F. Scott Fitzgerald’s unfinished novel The Last Tycoon and studying a note that he left in the manuscript: “Rewrite from mood. Has become stilted with rewriting. Don’t look — rewrite from mood.” I reread those lines so often, trying to understand them, that they stuck in my memory. Fitzgerald knew that there are at least two kinds of rewriting. The first is trying to fix what you’ve already written, but doing this can keep you from facing up to the second kind, from figuring out the essential thing you’re trying to do and looking for better ways to tell your story. If Fitzgerald had been advising a young writer and not himself, he might have said, “Rewrite from principle,” or “Don’t just push the same old stuff around. Throw it away and start over.”
I’m getting close to The End (of this draft) of my YA project, and very much appreciate Mr. Kidder sharing Mr. Fitzgerald’s wisdom with me. Maybe it will reach someone else who needs it now.
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Wordless Wednesday: Portrait of a Lazy
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Tracy Abell 