Our+Writing

Post your writing here...

Can I request that Karen insert her piece, "If You Were a Writer?" (Thanks! -Crystal) I'd be honored to! :) Here it is:

You don't all have to respond to this (since we don't respond in author's chair anyway) but I wanted to share it and might use it for the anthology. It's a 15-sentence piece, but I was having some trouble fitting into that format. Thanks :)

**Rose** No one is here; I’m alone, staring hard at the check in my hand, tears brimming and threatening to cascade freely down my cheek. The faded celadon rectangle is the last gift I received from you, a check for my 25th birthday. With your fragile, trembling hand you wrote “Happy Birthday” on the memo line as you had done for over 20 years, only now the slanted, shaky writing resembles the words “Happy Berdy” instead of your meticulous cursive. I’m struck once again by how the handwriting is symbolic of your decline; once elegant, refined, and composed, you faded from us like the final rays of sunlight into dusk. There was always hope after you fell that you would make a full recovery or at least return to your solitary living, a feat for a single woman of 88. It didn’t happen. You continued to diminish, in spirit and in body, with the lines of your satin nightgown hanging loosely off your tiny frame. I wish you had lived to see me walk down the aisle wearing the veil you made for my mother and the headpiece from your wedding, clinging tightly to a bouquet of perfect pink roses for you. Instead I watched the last moments of your physical life slip away, your mouth gaping like a fish as your lungs fruitlessly tried to gasp for air. You were already gone by then; we knew that the wise, wonderful woman you once were had moved on. I try to force those imagines out of my head, try to remember instead how beautiful and vibrant you were in better days, and not the pale, lifeless shadow you left. I’m reminded of the calculated, antiseptic-tinged nurses as my husband and father carried me, hysterical with shock, down the mahogany-tinted linoleum hallway of Miller’s Merry Manor. It has gotten easier now that you have been gone almost two years; like ripping the band-aid quickly off of a fresh wound, the sting has somewhat subsided. It has gotten easier, but damn it still hurts. Standing here, grasping this limp, 6x2 ¾” piece of paper reminds me how much I miss you: my namesake, my ally, my personal chef, my cheerleader, my friend, my Granny Rose.

I don’t blame you for not wanting to read this out loud inclass. That’s not because it is a weak piece, quite the opposite actually J I had tears runningdown my face just sitting at my kitchen table reading it, and I didn’t evenknow Granny Rose! I think that is what is so special about this piece, though.Although it’s a personal narrative, it speaks to a wider audience. The majorityof us have experienced this anomaly where the once strong, well-minded rolemodel in our life begins to slip out of our grasp. You’ve captured the distanceand coldness we feel as bystanders of this this transition from life to death.No matter how long it takes, it’s not something you get used to, and it doesn’tmake the experience any easier. Congrats for being the first one to post herwriting on the wiki! (Tiffani)

Wow...if you know Kevin Henkes' Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse (I think I asked you that maybe?) you'll know the line: "Wow. That was just about all that he could say. Wow." I had the same reaction as Tiffani--tears rolling down my cheeks. More joy at your making sense? :) It's beautiful. What a tribute.

Shari, this is a lovely piece that makes good use of the colors, metaphors, sentence structures, and specific prompts of the 15-sentence portrait. It doesn't matter whether it fits exactly: that scaffolding falls away, and we see and feel those experiences. We understand something about you and your Granny Rose, and then we remember our own grandmothers (and in my case, I remember my great-grandmother, who lived to be 99, and my mother, who declined so terribly in her final decade). Your piece also shows my the 15-sentence portrait as powerful prose, rather than the 15-line poem I had always written and assumed was being called for! (Mary set me straight on that misunderstanding today.) Here is the draft of my 15-sentence portrait, and I'd love any questions or suggestions on how to make it stronger, more vivid, more precise. It's about the most influential professor I ever had, in many ways, Dr. John Jonsson, who died in late May in South Africa. Steve

Silver

You stand there in your book-lined office, in your rumpled dark-gray suit, hands speaking as eloquently as your words. The somber oak walls and bookcases fail to smother your quicksilver passion, as South Africa comes to Southern Seminary. That passion flushes your ruddy Swedish complexion. Like an ancient prophet you proclaim divine justice. But like Jeremiah or your beloved Jesus, you were gentle with your lambs, reminding us that God loves the poor and oppressed, and calling us to lives of peaceful resistance to evil.

We students knew you loved us. We loved you, and wanted to hold your coat, open your door--anything to serve and stand at your side. I wished to study with you, talk with you, be like you. I was flattered to be your grader.

Your mind raced like a panther. Yet you also moved like Baloo the bear, brotherly and bountiful and jovial. In you we found incarnated courage, compassion, and clairvoyance.

My memory of you is fragrant, like wood smoke in autumn, orange flames dancing against the clear October sky. Your influence runs like an underground river through my mind and soul. You showed me how to be teacher, scholar, activist, writer, mentor, friend: a //mensch//.

I hope your spirit shimmers through mine, silver ripples in the clear mountain stream.

One goal I've had for some time, but hoped to make a reality this summer was to start a blog. I'm excited to say today I DID! Please visit "It Makes Sense" and see what you think: []

Grey (by Crystal Meekins)

You stand there, in the field of my memories, drink in hand, turquoise watch on sun-wrinkled, construction-wielded arms, bandanna on your forehead, and tattered cut off jeans, standing in front of your mom’s old cabin in the woods as proud as a king displaying his castle.

The grey feel of inside the cabin, smokey air, dim lights, and stained yellow carpeting still shadow my mind.

The lines running an intersecting pattern across the back of your wrinkled neck, still tinted brown even in the midst of Winter, warned me that I needed to absorb all the time I had left with you.

You are as honorable and demanding, unpredictable as a mafia god-father. You were the god-father of the poor.

You wore blue jean shorts and tennis shoes to my wedding that complimented perfectly that worn leather belt you donned proudly, that spelled out your name across the back: CHARLEY. The one we fought over after you died, but ultimately decided to bury you in it.

You had changed your name, altering the spelling to a more masculine version and omitting completely the middle name that, to you, sounded too feminine. You never said so, but I think you also did it to omit some old memories of parents that shaped too much of your youth.

I wish I had made better use of the time I had with you.

How do I capture you, Dad, your essence, your horrifying qualities that juxtaposition themselves with your redeeming sense of brotherhood with every person you ever came in contact with?

What would you have me say?

Even animals loved, feared and respected you. You were like the alpha wolf, leader of the pack that will and can attack at any given time but also provides protection and security from the other dangers in the wild.

You were my fatefully fearsome father, devoted destructive dad. I am the weeping, wistful watchdog of your story - your immortality.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">You are a ghost that lingers around me on a persistent regime, forcing words and memories from my mind.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thank you. ..

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Because you shaped my life, because you destroyed my childhood innocence, because you comforted me many times in this life, because you made me cry, because you showed me how to forgive.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Thank you, Dad, for the words I can now share.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Crystal Meekins

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mary Andis - In Big, Bold, Capital Letters

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Mary Andis - Artifact