Almost Home

Jenny Matlock’s Saturday Centus is my favorite meme. Each week, Jenny posts a “prompt” around which we are to write a story using only 100 extra words. You can always find her button my my sideboard. This week’s prompt was longer than usual, sixty words, so there was already a style embedded in it. I tried to write in that style, really get outside myself. Did I do it? Can’t tell. You will see the prompt in bold italics.


Almost Home

I organized and packed my things. Did Thomas Wolfe have it right when he wrote, “you can’t go home again?” Twenty years had passed since my high school class graduated and fled Medford for college or jobs in the city. Would many of them attend the reunion?

I tried to make the best of the trip, but driving six hours is a long time on the road. Six hours spent singing car-aoke and taking in the picturesque scenery, but mostly reminiscing about the good times. But those days were long gone and my mind was in a different place now. Or was it? My pulse quickened as I passed the road sign which read "Medford 27 miles."

Good times, really? What about bad times, being labeled a nerd? I sighed to myself. “It’s here, the day you have been dreading, the day you travel back in time.........”

I turn around in a driveway and wasted six more hours on the road.


This post is linked to Saturday Centus

Runaway Words

SWF - A Day Late
As most of you know, Six Word Friday is a writing exercise that grew out of the ample brain of Melissa over at Making Things Up. Each week, she give us a word to ponder and write six words about it or, more often, poems with six words per line. Come join us. It's lots of fun and often inspiring.

Here's my pitiful entry for this week's word, together:


Together, all my words ran away.
Where they are I cannot say
and without them I am blank
stuck searching for them in my
brain so often so filled with
them that they spill theselves out
of my head and travel to
my fingertips on this MacBook keyboard
and speak loudly for themselves. (Sigh).

This post is linked to Making Things Up . Please click on the link in my intro and pay Melissa a visit!

Under My Bed

Is it Monday ALREADY? Java has posted our “Meet Me On Monday” questionnaire, so it must be! Curious about her blog hop? Just click on the “Meet Me On Monday” button in my sidebar............

Questions:

1. What is your favorite sandwich?

Give me a good ole BLT with home grown tomatoes and crispy bacon, lots of mayo, and put it on untoasted white bread. Maybe I’ll have one for lunch.

2. What is stashed under your bed/mattress?

You’ll find a few pieces of luggage (LV duffles that I bought years ago when it was still affordable - in Paris) and maybe a dust bunny or two. I chase them out every week, but they keep coming back!


3. What is your favorite flower?

Hydrangeas in any color and the camellia called “Betty Sheffield Supreme.” It’s white with pink edges on the blossoms, and it’s oh-so-beautiful. Oh, and I also adore alstroemeria...........any color.

4. What is your favorite magazine?

The New Yorker and sometimes “O.”

5. How often do you weigh yourself?

Every morning. It keeps me on my toes, as I weigh in at the top of the normal range for me. Diet? Try to eat whole foods and stay away from the white stuff - sugar, white flour, salt. (This time of year, when tomatoes are so fresh and juicy, I give myself dispensation for eating some white bread and bacon)!

This Post is linked to "Meet Me On Monday."

Somewhere Under the Rainbow

Here we are with another prompt from Saturday Centus: "Somewhere over the rainbow..." Don't know about "Saturday Centus"? To find out more, please click on the "Saturday Centus" on my sideboard. You'll want to check out "Alphabe-Thursday," another of Jenny Matlock's ingenious memes.

This prompt is a challenge because it evokes so many memories in me. It's difficult be creative when awash with sweet memories. So, here is my little story, not a made up one, a real one. You will see the prompt in bold type. (I promise to do better next week)!



SOMEWHERE UNDER THE RAINBOW

Afternoons on Martinique, rainbows appear, crystalline arches fill sun streaked skies,
colors splash across a blue canvas, glowing and fading each in turn, neon fire flies as dusk descends.

They sit on the balcony of their hotel, condensation droplets lace their martini glasses, and they revel in the quiet. The sun retreats and there are only dark blue skies twinkling with a web of tiny stars.

In his half-step flat tone, he hums “Somewhere over the rainbow...” Their fingers entwine, and she hums along. They move inside, still humming, knowing that what’s under the rainbow that really matters.

It is You or I?

Six Word Fridays - A Day Late

Well, Melissa has given us another word for “Six Word Fridays.”
................and the word is.........”YOU”

Hmmmm, let me see what I can do this this.


It’s about you, or do you
mean I when say, simply, you?
You could mean you, of course
but it’s I who’s the star
of this silly verse about you.

Worthy Quotations

Cheap Therapy - July 14, 2010

Like Jennee at Cheap Therapy, I think quotations can be a big part of our lives. Here are three of my favorites:

1. “If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.” - Edith Wharton

Edith Wharton hit the nail on the head with this one. Although I have traveled widely, I have lived in Georgia all my life. Here in the South, we make too much work out of trying to be happy, searching for happiness, pretending to be happy when we are not. Happiness is not something that we can find and faking it just doesn't work.

We make our own happiness. I recognize that to be an over used and worn out cliché, but it works here. We are the only source of our own personal happiness, and we, in many cases, choose whether or not to be happy.

Exception: After profound loss, such as I have known, it is very difficult to conjure up much happiness. We must grieve, and grieve well, before the happiness is us is accessible.

So, in most instances, happiness is a choice, and yes, we can be happy when our lives are in chaos and change. We are the only ones responsible for the way we react to our life circumstances. Nobody else can make us happy!

So, I am learning to stop trying to be happy, but instead, opening my heart and mind to it, so that there is room for it in my soul.


2. “Never submit to the will on anyone for whom you are merely an option.” - Unknown

Have you ever found yourself saying “yes” to an invitation, even though you are relatively certain that you were second, or even third choice? Ever say “yes” just so that someone’s dining table will be balanced out by our presence? Clutch the pearls! Heaven forbid that there be a odd number at the table.

Ever dated a man who you know is dating someone else and who only calls you if she says “no?” I haven’t, thank God, but I have friends who do.

To allow ourselves to be merely an option is to denigrate ourselves and diminish our sense of self worth. It is a form of self torture, I think.

So, I don’t do it! My life is complicated enough without me making matters worse for myself.



3. “Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.” - Janis Joplin

This almost speaks for itself, and it ties in with the quotation above. By settling for second best, we cheat ourselves out of the potential for real growth and honest self-assessment. I am worth more than that, and so are you. We should love ourselves enough to muster the strength to avoid compromising our beliefs, our talents, our strengths.

Ever turn your head the other way when someone utters a bigoted remark? I must confess, that in the past, I did that, convincing myself that to speak up might cause an argument or even a scene. Not any more! These days, I speak up, and not one person has gotten nasty with me. Often they apologize.

We are powerful enough to be our true selves, no matter the circumstances. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that fact, but a fact it is.

This post is linked to Cheap Therapy. You will find its button on my sidebar, so click away and join in this discussion!

Meet Me on Monday, July 13, 2010

It’s Monday again, so we have another set of questions from Java at Never Growing Old. Meet Me on Monday is a way for us to get to know a little more about one another, the things that might not be reflected in our blogs.

So...............Here is my Q&A for July 13!


1. What do your normally eat for breakfast?

Coffee is my breakfast. I don’t wake up hungry, and
I just can’t eat first thing in the morning!

2.  What kind of vehicle do you drive?

I drive my late husband’s 1997 Lincoln Town Car. It only
has 60,000 miles on it, and I couldn’t get rid of
the Honda Odyssey fast enough. It was a cruel
reminder of our need for it because of Clint’s
wheelchair. I love driving the land yacht, just love it.
Its in great condition, and I feel kind of cool tooling
around in it!

3.  Have you ever met a famous person(s)?

Clint an I met Harvey Keitel in a bookstore in Paris. I
also met Ellen Gilchrist and Shelby Foote in New Orleans.
I consider them literary celebrities!

4.  What is your favorite ice cream flavor?

Baskin Robbins Jamocha Almond Fudge. Tasteeeeee.

5.  Which TV Channel do you watch the most?
I rarely turn on my TV, but I DVR several programs.
I always watch The Closer and Law and Order, Criminal
Intent. Ahhhhhhhhh, Jeff Goldblum.