A Lark

    Often the best bits a writer gets are gifts from strangers.  Eavesdropping has provided many ideas and themes to explore.  Yesterday's seaside brunch was no exception.  Three elegantly dressed women are celebrating Mama's birthday.  Mama excuses herself and leaves the table.  The younger sister speaks...

    "Sissy, will you watch Mama?  See where she puts that gift card, you know next week she will call me and say, Dolores, Sissy brought us all a lovely brunch, and it was lovely, Sissy. And then she'll ask me how come I forgot...

    Oh?  You're not buying my brunch? 

    Looks like with tax I'm going to have to owe you owe you $46.95.  And then she'll ask me, did I forget her birthday...because you didn't watch where she put that gift card.
   
    Oh, the tip?  Well Sissy, I did get Mama that gift card. Will you watch Mama so that she doesn't lose it and then call me...What?  Oh, yes I have that gift card you gave me last year.  I keep it in the refrigerator with all my important papers...Here's Mama..."

Photo:  The Astronomical Clock in Prague's Old Town Square by Suzanne-Claire Williams

  

( I need a mouth wash that could rinse the taste of self-pity from me once and for all.  I have a feeling this might be it.  So, here goes.)
    For the first ten years of their marriage, my mother and father survived the Marine Corps, a move to Southern California followed by  a move to a small town in Southern Missouri where my dad attended college and worked at a pharmacy and my mother having completed a four-year degree in nursing was at work in the local hospital.
    In 1951 my mother lost her  father and he was only 50 years old.  My grandmother  dove into a depression from which she never reappeared.  Polio struck the small town where my parents lived and my mother worked night and day on young children struck down by the disease.  And a life long friend of dad's, an attorney in St. Louis, called to say that an eight-month old baby boy was available for adoption.

                                          

More, much more to follow......

    The beautiful Lucy was born with the Lauderdale eyes, bottle green.  The green was not of the land though, but of the sea.  The color that comes after the bottle has been pounded into glittering emerald sea glass.   She shielded her green eyes as she searched the horizon.
    "And then what happened?" Lucy asked her dad, lips trembling but voice steady.
    "Before I tell you, Lucy, I have to believe that you understand this:  You are worthy, deserving of all the happiness in the world...can you tell me... you believe...that, Lucy?  Can you?"

       To be continued...

    Growing up, what you wanted to hear from family and friends about your new holiday attire was summed up in this one sentence, "Oh my, don't you look cute, that outfit is darling!"  Well I think these South Korean harbingers of holiday fun are worthy...aren't they cute?  Don't they look darling!
    ln this season, in the spirit of having a a green and economically sound holiday, my friends and are giving of our most precious commodity...our time to a local food bank.
    However, I am going to make the time to finish up my latest micro fiction for the annual Writer's Digest contest.  See if are up to the challenge...write a complete story this weekend about your favorite holiday ensemble, in 300 or less words!

Gail Sher, baker, poet, artist, teacher of writing, was recently named teacher of the year by the combined Education Faculties at the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford and San Francisco State University.  Her first published book, From a Baker's  Kitchen, published in 1984, was based on her work as the founding baker of the Tassajara Bread Bakery.  The book attracted national attention.
    This year Sher was elected to be listed in the ninth edition of the International Who's Who in Poetry and Poets' Encyclopedia published in Cambridge, England.
    In 1999 Sher gifted the writing world with her book, One Continuous Mistake, Four Noble Truths for Writers.  I blush when I  think how long I let this book sit on the shelf.

    I am working through the book, a chapter a day.  I sit in meditation, make tea, read a chapter and write.  Today's chapter is titled Writing Posture.  It begins with the following quote from Shunryu Suzuki-Roshi:  "The forms are not the means of obtaining the right state of mind.  To take this posture is itself to have the right state of mind.  There is no need to obtain some special state of mind."

    So I sit down with my feet flat on the floor, drop my shoulders, pull my ribs out of my belt and I am sitting erect.  Wait!  No thunder clap?  No, but there is another scene coming from the Katie-Lynn tale.  Read it here tomorrow.

    "What is the best way to write?  Each of us has to discover her own way by writing.  Writing teaches writing.  No one can tell you your own secret." -- Gail Sher