Just Write {149}

August 19, 2014

They were wiped out, and so was their mother (that’s me!) but we were keepin’ on keepin’ on. That’s how we roll. And it is in the midst of all of the busy-ness and ugh and whining and arguing and trying and failing and keepin’ on, that we find the most moments of joy. No, not in the times when we try to make it arise, like planning a special trip or event. I mean, that’s fun too, but joy seems to prefer the daily grind and sometimes it is hiding behind the ordinary and can only be found if you keep going around the next bend. For us it was popping up in the middle of this: I came home from work. I had been at the Middle Fork Cafe, with the entire place full and just one me, until serving help came. Phew. The kids had a sitter and had so […]

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Just Write {132}

April 22, 2014

Just Write, revisited. Just Write {1} We are driving along, just the two of us. I channel surf for tunes as Elsie Jane kicks and coos from her backwards position behind me. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is where I land and I sing it at the top of my lungs, windows down. Somehow she loves it when I sing. The working day is never done, but girls, they wanna have fuhunn. I pass by a house with much recycling out front. Cans and cans and bottles and bottles and cardboard boxes. All from alcohol. I think about how that used to be my end of the driveway and how it didn’t take long to add up and so I’d try to hide parts of it under cola types of things. I think about how, with the boys, I had to pump and dump a lot and worry because it is very simple: I was […]

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Just Write {115}

December 17, 2013

Its leaves were an orange I’ve never seen, changing late for autumn. Procrastinator. It was gorgeous, this orange from the tippy top to about halfway down the tree. I looked in the rear view mirror and saw that not one leaf had changed on the other side of the three. Sneaky. If a person didn’t think to look, they’d never know, coming from the other way. The boys were quiet, on this drive to school. That pretty much never happens. But they loved the song on the radio and listened intently to lyrics. Lyrics being lyrical and all, have a tendency to confuse these young boys. Everything is still so literal to them. Poetic rhymes and illogical metaphors just make no sense to them at all. Sometimes I wish it were that simple for me, to just take the orange side as the only one. Never wandering around in curiosity, making sense of […]

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Just Write {106}

October 14, 2013

I have no idea what the date is, and I’ve had too much caffeine. So I’m dropping things and I’m craving protein. I’m on a plane and to get  here I took a cab. The driver went too fast and talked on his phone and we were zooming past the goldens and greens and rubies and oranges of the Minnesota autumn. Hold on. Slow down. The security line can wait. My Dad turned 65 during my visit home. I remember clearly when he turned 50. My nephew Zach was a toddler and on that birthday, he sat with Dad in the front of my parent’s split level home, in the sun. Dad had on a blue Harley Davidson shirt and he was working on the bottom of something, I can’t remember, with one tool or another in his hand. Zach sat next to him repeating, “I help you fick it, Papa.” I have […]

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Just Write {91}

July 1, 2013

In the night, rain had finally come. I know for sure because Tia, our dog, is so afraid of thunder and had come to our bed, panting hard like she does when she’s scared. There’s a certain sound to the breaths of fear. In the morning, rain was still dripping from the trees and off the side of the roof, landing in little puddles along the back porch, making that blip blip blip sound. The air was cooler than it has been since we moved here, where people talk about the weather as much as Minnesotans and that’s a lot. I sat at the table and sipped coffee, watched the scaredy cat dog pretend to be super brave while huntin’ for squirrels. Everything is brighter after a rain. Water is magic. Before the storm and bed and the panting next to the bed, I had cried and I couldn’t stop. I don’t remember […]

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Just Write ~ The First

September 13, 2011

We are driving along, just the two of us. I channel surf for tunes as Elsie Jane kicks and coos from her backwards position behind me. Girls Just Wanna Have Fun is where I land and I sing it at the top of my lungs, windows down. Somehow she loves it when I sing. The working day is never done, but girls, they wanna have fuhunn. I pass by a house with much recycling out front. Cans and cans and bottles and bottles and cardboard boxes. All from alcohol. I think about how that used to be my end of the driveway and how it didn’t take long to add up and so I’d try to hide parts of it under cola types of things. I think about how, with the boys, I had to pump and dump a lot and worry because it is very simple: I was drinking too much. Maybe […]

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Just Write

September 10, 2011

Do you want to write with me? I would love it if you would. {Edited to let you know: The current Just Write, complete with a linky for you, can be found HERE. Read on to learn how it works} I had this idea because I love both reading and writing things that are freely written in the moment, things that are descriptive of experience. Whether that be in the actual moment or within a day or two of living something, I don’t care. I just think the details need to be fresh for the writer and then typed without over-thinking in an effort to clarify. What ends up revealing itself when free-writing is that everything has meaning. That is a magnificent gift of writing. If we write from a free heart-gut place, our souls start speaking. So here’s my idea! Every Tuesday, here at The EO, we can link up our freely written […]

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