No Foam

So, I was sitting in Border's bookstore cafe trying to think of something to write about. A prompt, if you will. Just then, from across the cafe, a certain phrase was uttered by a customer ordering a latte or something and suddenly... inspiration hits. Here it is. The phrase was "no foam".

No foam. No one home.
Who's to say what's right or wrong.
Seeking, seeking here.

Now, a little insight. I finished the work at the word "seeking" and then thought "maybe it could be a hiaku". Well, as it turns out I was one syllable away from a proper haiku! So I added the word "here" at the end. Count the syllables! The meter is 5 syllables for the first line, 7 for the second and 5 for the third.

To use a seventh-grade phrase that happens to fit here... I was a poet and I didn't know it*.

Heh heh.

*I must give credit to Christopher because he was instrumental in placing the concept of the haiku in the forefront of my subconscious when he sent me haikus in our courtship. Many thanks for enriching my life, my love! :)

Prompt 3: There are days when...

There are days when I feel good and days when I don't. There are days when I play my violin and days when I don't. There are days when things are clear and the path is known. There are days when I have no idea where I'm going.

There are days that are warm and days that are cold. Days that are long and days that are short.

Days like daisies, growing as they should.
Days like days like days like days.

There are days when I know things and days when I don't know the same things.

There are dark days with clouds and no thunder to make them exciting. Days in which the weight of the work of day-to-day is too much to bear. Days that cause doubt and days that drag on.

There is To-day but never tomorrow.

Why days and not hours? Days mirror each other so well. Repetition, repeat, boring but necessary.

I can remember days that were better and cold ones that were worse.

Days...

Prompt 2: describe a familiar action

How to drive to school

The first step for a successful drive to school is to do everything perfectly in the morning and don't forget anything. It's the pits to be in the car, garage door open and shut and realize that you forgot X or Y. The second step for a successful drive to school is to bring activities so the drive won't be boring. Twenty minutes is a long time and you'll want choices. Make sure the iphone is full of the latest "Fresh Air" podcasts and you also have a good variety of CD's to choose form. For that matter, make sure the iphone has lots of charge. You want to have the option of calling Mom and/or checking Facebook (at the lights only, of course). The third step for a successful drive to school is to have snacks. Hunger can strike anytime- even on a twenty minute ride.

The last step for a successful ride to school is to relax and enjoy. You've earned it if you completed steps 1-3.

Writing Prompt: personify an emotion

Dear Joy,

How are you? Have any new songs been written about you lately? I bet people always expect you at their holidays. It's a lot to live up to. Why don't you always show up when expected? I guess I understand how hard it must be to be invited to everybody's party on the same day... but no invitations on that random Tuesday in February. Are you still hanging out on those college campuses most of the year? Are those other emotions still there... like intensity, immaturity and depression? With so many emotions there I'm sure you don't feel very special.

Anyway, I have some questions I'd love for you to answer. Please write back if you can. How does it make you feel when you show up somewhere unannounced and the people don't recognize you, let alone appreciate you? What emotions do you hold, Joy? Sometimes people lose touch with you- how can they get back in contact? And, most importantly to me, what is your relationship to God?

Okay, got to go now. Write or stop by anytime. I'll keep my eye out for you.

Your friend,
Kate

Day After Writing Group

As is the case with new obsessions, my writing career started yesterday and I am keeping up the two-day trend by writing today. I'm sure my zeal will not waver.

I re-read my posts from yesterday and think "wow, that was heavy" and "whoa, I was so full of myself when I was writing that". A myriad of other self-admonishments rise and fall away. "i need comedy today to balance all that heavy stuff". "I need to stop being lazy with capitalizing my I's". "is what i'm writing readable at all"? It's like the day after heavy drinking. Not that I ever drank heavily, Mom, I'm just guessing about how THAT feels.

Anyway, I'm writing today about writing. Maybe tomorrow I'll write about how writing about writing felt.

Writing Group III

Her mother had always stressed the importance of good posture. Lessons like that survive. They survive childhood years when you experience an uprooting from your native country due to politics involving your father. They survive the years when you live in a new place, forced to work at sixteen instead of finishing school. They survive your marriage to an alcoholic and your raising of ten children with him as your spouse. They survive the loss of a nine year old daughter to drowning. They survive the loss of your third child to cancer during his fifty-fifth year. Yes, good posture is very important, because when you have it no one suspects.

Women's Writing Group II

What did she say? She can't do it? Did she say why? Boy, that news was hard to take. The production is tomorrow. Well, what do you think we should do? My mind was racing. When I originally signed up to be the advisor for Habitat for Humanity, I never envisioned this. I thought we would do a few standard fundraisers and then build a house. I should have realized that the school talent show, being sponsored by HfH all those years, would be a responsibility I would have to take on. But I expected, or assumed really, to get some help from the theater teacher as had happened in previous years.

But alas, her personal life is now troubled and I am left holding a microphone with a stage of 40 or so performers in front of me. What would they do if they were stuck in the chemistry lab without me? No time for thoughts like that. Must act.

As I bravely held the mic and started my directing debut, I thought it would be obvious to all that I was forced into this position at the last minute against my will. I am, after all, the school's chemistry teacher. But a few minutes later and many frustrated looks later, it became clear to me that the full weight of what was going on was falling on my shoulders and anything that went wrong would be blamed on me. And it was.

The kids who ran the audio could not keep all the microphones straight as the various teacher and student acts took the stage during rehearsal. I pictured myself there the next night with the auditorium filled with 400 students anticipating the show that had been so popular in previous years. I still tried to believe that someone would realize that I was helping out under extraordinary circumstances. But in the end, if anyone did, they stayed silent. The actual production was a mediocre display with microphones not working and shotty pacing of the acts. Because I had the earpiece on, everyone was asking me questions and complaining. I was a repository for their stress, which was amazing given how much of my own stress I was carrying.

The night ended and I went to sleep. No one at school has spoken of that night since. I am changed and more cynical now. Much more careful about expending my energies. In the end, it's probably a great lesson, but for now it still smarts.

Women's Writing Group I

Sunshine has always struggled with being herself. As a little girl she was pretty, sweet, responsive, lively and a real adult pleaser. She is the first born. Of a family that ultimately, over the span of 20 years, expanded to seven siblings. When sunshine was two, her sister Moon was born. Sunshine wanted to share her whole world with Moon. Sunshine continued to dance and sing her way into the hearts of all adults, and Moon began to take on her own self-realization. Moon was serious, purposeful and lovable in a completely different way. Moon had dark hair and eyes in contrast to Sunshine's blond and blue. Moon developed a larger, more athletic frame in contrast to Sunshine's delicate frame.

Momma Earthly loved both Sunshine and Moon, but quickly developed an anxiousness about Moon and how she would fare next to Sunshine. Momma E had decided that- not that it was true. Moon had her own beauty and way that was just as endearing to adults and others. But nevertheless, Momma E projected in her mind a future in which all came easily to the joyful Sunshine and all came hard, if at all, to the more serious-minded Moon. Nearly with overt intention, Momma E began to compensate for Moon's projected future.

Momma E never took time to wonder if her perceptions of her daughters were really the projection of her own feelings of inadequacy from her relationship with her own sister growing up. Momma E was the dark-haired, dark-eyed older sister of a beautiful, joyful little blond-haired girl named Cat. Cat always got the lion's share of attention, some of which Momma E wished to share. Momma E had Her self confused with Moon's self and she made it a constant, persistent priority to spare Moon from her most certain fate.

Both Sunshine and Moon developed into beautiful adults who have deeply touched the lives of those they love.  Their beautiful and different ways have been very much appreciated and admired by those who love them.

Second Entry

This writing stuff is difficult. What to write/share? One tries to be honest and genuine but some (like me) get worried about what she says and whether it will offend someone or cause me pain in the future. That comes from family mores of course. Well, maybe it isn't a moral tradition not to share "family business", but certainly my big family has a healthy fear that things they say and do might come back to bite them in the... Well, anyway. It is also a tenent of the family mores not to use unsavory words. I'm tempted to end here but feel like there should be some kind of satisfying ending. I can't provide that. Let's see how my writing progresses.

First entry

Summer break is finally here! Time to start new projects! Time to enjoy the summer! So many ideas that it seems that there won't be enough time- even with the whole summer ahead of me! Exciting!