Saturday, July 12, 2014

Coffeeshop Writers Group - My short story The Reunion - Poems: Cataract Surgery and Morning Meditation

Say hello to Andre Hester of Philadelphia at his Willow Grove office in the Giant Coffeeshop. Andre, a retailer, is also a writer and may join us some time.

Debbie Dix made great improvements on her sci-fi novel for middle-graders. Very visual and creative. Martha in the blue blouse took a copy and will share it with Brianna, her 14-yo g'daugher.

Martha brought in a very visual poem - The First Picnic of Summer - we were there! - as she and her husband had a backyard picnic all by themselves.

Living in a big house, daughter Emily and her daughter, Brianna, have flown the coop.

Imagine the silence!

Okay, Linda, what dyou have for us?

Mother of Society is also science-fiction and takes place 500 yrs in the future. Our main character Dr Eve has been cryogenically frozen for 500 yrs. Wonder if she met Walt Disney or Ted Williams, No. 9.

Carly wrote a first person essay The Gift about an unusual b'day present she got from her husband. He did tell her he had ordered it online for $200 or $250, lots cheaper than what audiologists charge.



She can hear! She can hear!


Here's Ruthie in her new short "do," sipping on her dee-licious hazelnut iced coffee. BTW, our man Andre Hester is a sworn Starbuster man. Oops, cute slip of the pen.

Paid all of $17 plus $5 tip for this great cut at Abington Hair Cuttery. Thank you Nicole. She gave me tips about my hair.

Do not shampoo it frequently. Not good for the texture. Also, use conditioner. She liked the color very much. 

Carly's second essay was about a trip she, her husband Charlie and son Jason took to Camelback Mountain Resort in the Pococos.

Carly told of her terror in being zipped up tight in one of these Zip Line contrivances. Not only did she overcome her fear, but she thoroughly enjoyed the ride.

Modern woman that I ain't, I'd never heard of it before. Very popular in Costa Rica to view the jungle flora and fauna below. 

Told Carly I just watched a terrific movie on YouTube featuring a forerunner of a Zip Line. Night Train to Munich was a Nazi-thriller starring Rex Harrison, Rosemary Lockwood and Paul Henreid
Night Train to Munich Poster.jpg

When Scott n I visited Ocean City NJ a couple yrs ago, I went on a Ferris Wheel all by myself.

  Everything was fine until I got to the top and could see nothing but the sky. The little cage was rocking back n forth and I could not wait to get off.

The ticket man gave me my ticket back. Scott said my lips were white.

The group liked my story The Reunion. Got the idea about a week ago. It's about a man I used to know when my family lived in Englewood Cliffs NJ and I was a secretary in Manhattan.

Read about him here.

I made up a new story about him. Made him into a sociopath, which I do believe he is. I didn't want the protagonist to be me, so I picked a shopkeeper in Hatboro.

Let's get that short story published, by gum!


Remember when ans. machines first came out?

My friend Ed Quinn had this message on his:

If you know who you're callin'
Then you know who this be.
Moderin technology give us this capacity. 
This is straight up
It ain't no fib
It ain't nobody to the crib.
Don't cop no 'tut' 'cause it ain't no thing. 
Just tell us who you is
And we'll give you a ring. 


*

Sarah, Dan and I had a message where the three of us were arguing about who would talk.

*

I invited Carly over for dinner after the Writers Group. She needed to find my house by herself since she'll take me to the New Directions meeting next Tuesday. That morning I'm having cataract surgery.

Her lovely top once belonged to her late sister Joan. 

I was so happy Carly Brown loved my onion soup, made with

big fat white onions sauteed in butter and olive oil
garden-fresh herbs
unsweetened almond milk
water

When everything is nice n soft, beat up an egg and drizzle it into the hot soup.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

And there's still one bowl left over for dessert.

Carly and I couldn't believe how long we talked on the front lawn. We sat on lawn chairs and appreciated every breeze that flitted by, as well as the swooping birds....





Carly and I talked about the difficulty of making new friends at our age. We're so grateful that all of us in our writers' group have become friends.

There's nothing better in the world than having a girlfriend who you can talk to about anything, and I do mean anything.

Gotta tell u something interesting about my meditating daily for 20 minutes. I'm often overcome, in the evening, by a sense of unearned joy, like the Christian concept of Grace.

Carly understood this.

Where'd I get the idea of the Chilean copper mine? Read a fantastic article about the survivors of the mine disaster in The New Yorker.

At the writers' group we all agreed how important it is to keep reading!

The two poems I wrote this morning are about me but written in the third person.

Why'd I do dat?

Don't ask me, I only wrote the thing.



MORNING MEDITATION

A dove throws himself against
the screen as the girl sits
feet propped on the white
wicker table
deep in meditation

her eyes pop open
violence
in her own back yard
she, doing the most
peaceful thing she knows
loosing mantras through
her mind
love peace gratitude

what thoughts will break
free today? flaking off like
ore in a Chilean copper mine
she waits, patient as
her back yard maple,
the last of three sisters

off to the right a sudden
scissor-like rasping sound
gains ascendancy for those
who hear it, the sound of
the locusts, the girl, certainly,
the deer, the rabbits and
perfumed skunks
the trees, too, their leaves fluttering
like shy ballerinas

love peace gratitude
love peace gratitude      





CATARACT SURGERY

On Tuesday they will
position her on the table
the surgeon is a handsome
man with chewing-gum breath
she will not imagine lying down
with him in a Motel 6 and reading
love songs from the Gideon Bible

As a child they marveled over
her long black eyelashes
which flutter now looking
at her savior’s dark eyes
trying not to think of the
violence that will be done
to eyes that have watched
the birth of two children
her handsome father
eaten alive by cancer
her mean grandmother who
beat her with a yardstick as
a child, going down with dementia
and taken for a fool
and the hummingbird she
watches for every day by the red daisies

Driving home from Doylestown
in the inky black night the lights
were a blur, beautiful, really, like
Venus and Saturn landing on the
highway, all Christmas-tree
sparkles and Fourth of July fireworks
she was dazzled as she braked
on and off
on and off
thinking “vision impaired vision impaired”

They were like little white puffs
pillows, growing behind her eyes
she was no Navajo, couldn’t do a
thing to stop them
head immobilized now
under bright hospital lights
unable to move in her
twilight sleep
she sees the clean sheets on
her bed, covered with books
she has yet to finish.



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