Irene Latham's Blog, page 38

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: SALTWATER

<div style="font-style: normal;"><div style="font-weight: normal;">For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Hour... BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.</a></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="font-style: normal;"><div style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pbJRbgZiKH..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="231" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pbJRbgZiKH..." width="213" /></a>I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial";">For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on <a href="https://irenelatham.blogspot.com/p/th... Butterfly Hours</a> tab above.</span></span><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial";"><br /></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial";">This month's prompts are </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;">pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.</i></div></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><b>SALTWATER</b></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">I have plenty of saltwater experiences, thanks to countless visits to my grandparents' home in Port St. Joe, Florida. We loved fishing with Granddaddy off the canal banks, and sometimes in the boat in open water. My sister was often the best fisherman among us! Granddaddy would clean and fry the fish in an outdoor fryer. If we were lucky, there were also oysters (Granddaddy's favorite!).<br /><br />We also loved playing on the beach at Mexico Beach and even better, on Cape San Blas where the dunes are mountainous and the beaches often empty. One summer our visit unfortunately hit at the same time as a tide of jellyfish. Oh the agony of being repeatedly stung in neck-deep water! How long the swim to the shore! I wrote a poem about it once, called “Year of the Jellyfish.” It's kind of a dark poem, or at least menacing. While I prefer to focus on the wonderful parts of my childhood, it wasn't always sunny. Sometimes there were jellyfish.<br /><br />And sometimes there are <a href="https://irenelatham.blogspot.com/2013... skies</a>!</div><br />

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Published on September 19, 2019 04:45

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: ROAD (poem)

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

 <div style="font-style: normal;"><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;"><b>ROAD</b></i></div><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;"></i><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;">The favorite road of my childhood was Willie Road in rural Folsom, LA, where I lived for five years. Sometimes my friend Kim and I would ride our horses two and a half miles past horse farms and country homes and trailers to the R & R store at the end of the road. We had a crush on the boy who worked behind the counter. His name was Leo. </i></div><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;"><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">We chose the home where we currently live, in part, for the road it's on. It's shady, with just the right amount of hills and flat spots, and has lots of woods and few houses. Paul and I walk it at least once a day and marvel at the beautiful world.</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">A few years ago I wrote <a href="https://irenelatham.blogspot.com/2015... as a Country Road”</a> after "The Road" by Edgar Degas. Roads are definitely part of my identity... and I drive A LOT (and enjoy driving!). This past year I put 35k miles on my car. :)</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZUcic72HZ..." imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1162" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QZUcic72HZ..." width="464" /></a></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div></i>

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Published on September 17, 2019 06:31

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: RICE (poem)

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

RICE

 <div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">white rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">because it's unassuming</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">brown rice </div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">because it's bold</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">wild rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">for its peaks and valleys</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Jasmine rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">for the way it perfumes</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">the evening</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">Basmati rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">for its the way </div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">it sings of forests</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">yellow rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">because saffron</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">is a river that flows</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">both sweet and savory</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">black rice</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">because it's really purple</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">black rice because</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">it's forbidden</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">black rice </div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">because of that place </div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">on the coast</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">where I first shared</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">black-rice sushi</div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;">with you</div><i><br /></i><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial";"><i>- Irene Latham</i></span>

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Published on September 15, 2019 09:18

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: RICE

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

RICE

white ricebecause it's unassuming
brown rice because it's bold
wild ricefor its peaks and valleys
Jasmine ricefor the way it perfumesthe evening
Basmati ricefor its the way it sings of forests
yellow ricebecause saffronis a river that flowsboth sweet and savory
black ricebecause it's really purple
black rice becauseit's forbidden
black rice because of that place on the coastwhere I first sharedblack-rice sushiwith you

- Irene Latham

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Published on September 15, 2019 09:18

Learning from Dr. Seuss

Hello and Happy Poetry Friday (the 13th)! Be sure to visit Laura (who has a brand new book in the world!) at Writing the World for Kids for Roundup.

I am away from my desk, but I wanted to pop in with some words of wisdom from Dr. Seuss, as I've just finished reading BECOMING DR. SEUSS: Theodor Geisel and the Making of an American Imagination by Brian Jay Jones. I learned a lot about Ted the man and Dr. Seuss the writer... and I found some valuable advice for writers and poets currently trying to get published in the children's market.

a favorite Berenstain Bears title
When Geisel and Phyllis Cerf (his editor) joined forces to create Beginner Books, who should walk into his office but the Berenstains, with what would become THE BERENSTAIN BEARS series. Here's what happened:
Ted, Helen, and Phyllis Cerf greeted the Berenstains warmly. Then Geisel immediately started asking pointed questions about the “internal workings” of the bears. “We need to know more about them,” said Geisel. “What are they about? Why do they live in a tree? What does Papa do for a living? What kind of pipe tobacco does he smoke?”... Geisel didn't necessarily want the Berenstains to include all that information in the story, but he wanted them to have an absolutely clear grasp of their characters and their world -- that “local insanity” that made Dr. Seuss books so oddly coherent. “It was slowly dawning on us that Ted took these little seventy-two-page limited vocabulary, easy-to-read books just as seriously as if he were editing the Great American Novel,” the Berenstains said later.
“Think short sentences,” Geisel instructed them as he picked apart their plot telling them it had a good beginning and ending, but no real middle. And nothing it seemed, was too small or unimportant. Even the length of the lines of text mattered; lines had to look good on the page, and to the extent possible, be of similar length.
--------On their way home, the Berenstains wondered what Ted must think of them.
“You know,” said Stan, “I don't think he thinks about us at all. I think all he things about is the work.”----
Here's Dr. Seuss on writing verse for kids:
The difficult thing about writing in verse for kids is that you can write yourself into a box. If you can't get a proper rhyme for a quatrain, you not only have to throw that quatrain out, but you also have to unravel the sock way back, probably about ten pages or so... And you also have to remember that in a children's book a paragraph is like a chapter in an adult book, and a sentence is like a paragraph.----And what were Dr. Seuss's wishes for children who read his books?
“Ultimately,” said Geisel, “I'd prefer they forgot about the educational value, and say it was a lot of fun.”-----
What, indeed, was (is) the point of it all? Why did Dr. Seuss do this work? Why do any of us do this work?

“Just to spread joy,” said Geisel, then broke into a wry smile. “How does that sound?”----
Perfect, Ted! Just perfect!

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Published on September 13, 2019 03:30

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: RIBBON

<div style="font-style: normal;"><div style="font-weight: normal;">For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Butterfly-Hour... BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.</a></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="font-style: normal;"><div style="font-weight: normal;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><br /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pbJRbgZiKH..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="346" data-original-width="231" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pbJRbgZiKH..." width="213" /></a>I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0.08in;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial";">For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on <a href="https://irenelatham.blogspot.com/p/th... Butterfly Hours</a> tab above.</span></span><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "roboto" , "arial";"><br /></span></span></div></div></div></div></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #222222; font-family: "roboto" , "arial";">This month's prompts are </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: roboto, arial;">pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.</i></div><div style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><b>RIBBON</b></div><div style="font-style: normal; font-weight: normal;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kVW9oooAsP..." imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="213" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kVW9oooAsP..." width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mama with her (many) ribbon-winning<br />Jersey cow named Penny.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">My mother was quite the 4-H ribbon queen for sewing, public speaking, dairy and beef cattle. Alas, I did not follow in her footsteps! In 4</span></span><sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">th</span></span></sup><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">grade I won a blue ribbon for my science fair project on Mendel's theories of genetics. My display board was homemade (by my father), and heavy, thanks to plywood and quality hardware. With my mother's help, I covered it in purple felt (my favorite color). A poem I wrote about a different aspect of this experience appears in the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Poetry-Friday-... Friday Anthology for Science -Fourth Grade</a> published by Janet and Sylvia of Pomelo Books. </span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></span></span><b>Science Fair</b><br /><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">The graphics </span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I created and pinned</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to the felt board</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">explain why my eyes</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">could never be brown,</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">my hair only blond.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I wonder if Mendel's </span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">theory of genetics</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">also applies to why</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">I'm shy</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">and can speak</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">to the judges</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">only in a quavery voice</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">that betrays my shaky</span></span><br /><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;">hands and knees.</span></span><br /><br /><i>- Irene Latham</i><br /><br />My senior year I earned the Social Studies ribbon, which was awarded to the student with highest grade average across the school year. I've always felt it's somewhat revealing, as I've always enjoyed learning about history and culture, and also somehow prophetic, in that I went on to earn degrees in social work and to write books about experiences around the world.<br /><br /><br /><br />

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Published on September 12, 2019 03:30

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: RECIPES

<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">Heat oven to 415 degrees. Mix together above ingredients. Place 3 Tbsp. butter in large iron skillet. When it begins to brown, pour in cornbread mixture. Bake for 20 minutes. Remove cornbread from skillet - put on plate. Melt 1 Tbsp. butter in skillet. When it begins to brown, flip cornbread and put it back in skillet for 5 minutes.</span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div><div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;">Enjoy!</span></div><br />

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Published on September 10, 2019 03:30

Marguerite Henry Summer Reading Report #2 (books 8-16)

Earlier this summer I shared my Summer Reading Report #1, which included some favorite quotes from books 1-7 by Marguerite Henry.
Today I've got the rest of the collection which includes a Newbery winner and two Newbery honors! I really enjoyed reading these books again. However, it wasn't all wonderful: one book I didn't enjoy all that much. And in another I found some inappropriate treatment of First Nations people. Read on!

GAUDENZIA, PRIDE OF THE PALIO
"June! The hallway into summer. The season for strong happenings, the season for living."
"Gaudenzia wanted to race every moving thing – a rabbit skirting the edge of the road, a hound streaking for a bird – the bird, too. Her friskiness, her eagerness to go filled him with a pride so strong he had to whistle to let the steam of his happiness escape."

JUSTIN MORGAN HAD A HORSE (Newbery Honor book)
"To please his other, Joel tried to eat, too. But even his favorite pumpkin pie was flannel in his mouth."
“'Yeah,' then saddler agreed, 'when it comes to running, a pulling horse is slow as a hog on ice with his tail froze in.'"

“'And I'll give you a green meadow with a creek snakin' through it. And I'll give you a fine stable with a thick bed of straw. And I'll give you sweet hay, and all the corn and oats you should eat. And I”ll give you a blanket in winter. And I'll rub you proper night and morning.'”

KING OF THE WIND - Newbery Medal winner
[pretty sure this book is why I fell in love with Arabian horses!]
"As Agba stood on watch, his mind was a mill wheel, turning, turning, turning. He trembled, remembering the time he and the mare had come upon a gazelle, and he had ridden the mare alongside the gazelle, and she had outrun the wild thing. Agba could still feel the wing singing in his ears."
“When Allah created the horse, he said to the wind, 'I will that a creature proceed from thee. Condense thyself.' And the wind condensed itself, and the result was the horse."

MISTY OF CHINCOTEAGUE (Newbery Honor)
“'Facts are fine, fer as they go,' he said, 'but they're like water bugs skittering at op the water. Legends, now they go deep down and bring up the heart of a story.'”
"The Phantom broke at the start, her cold weaving along behind her like the tail of a kite."
"Maureen watched the sun slide out from behind a low cloud and make diamonds of the raindrops on the grass. She turned her back on it. How could the sun shine when things went wrong?"
"The air went wild with greeting. Deep rumbling neighs. High joyous whickers. The stallion and the mare were brushing each other with their noses, talking together in soft little grunts and snorts as animals will."

MISTY'S TWILIGHT
"A freshly raked track at sunup is almost a holy place Hoofbeats playing soft music on wet tanbark. Barn smells- harvest hay and grains – mingling with drying compost, and over all , the pine-tree fragrance of Kritter Korner. In the ring only one splashily marked pinto pony holds center stage."
“'What,' the mother asks, 'is the breeding of this spunky little ballet dancer?'Almost in concert Kathy and Sandy reply: 'She's a direct descendant of Misty of Chincoteague!'”

MUSTANG, WILD SPIRIT OF THE WEST *– about the fight to pass the Mustang Bill to protect wild mustangs from being overhunted (This is the one that I didn't enjoy all that much, because a lot of it was about the legal process... though of course I appreciate the work done to protect the wild mustangs!)
“'Remember, Pardner,' he said with gruff tenderness, 'don't fire your gun unless its loaded.'”
"Pa always said, 'Scatter enough seeds and some are bound to sprout.'”
"Grandma always said, 'Time's got a lot of elastic to it. The way you feel inside makes all the difference. It's like one of those fat rubber bands. If you're havin' fun it's got no give at all, goes fast and light. But if you're waitin' on somethin' or somebody, it stretches till doomsday.'”
*my least favorite so far.

SAN DOMINGO: THE MEDICINE HAT STALLION - depiction of First Nations people in this book is inappropriate
“'The past is a bucket of ashes. Let us improve upon the present. What be your needs now?'”
"He had been scrubbed so clean by his mother's washcloth of a tongue that his body markings were distinct and curiously beautiful. Pure white he was, with a cluster of red-brown splatters on his rump and along his belly. It was as though some Indian paintbrush had created a mystical design on his body."

"And so the invisible tie-rope between the tightened and strengthened."

SEA STAR
"Cautiously, as a child who has lighted a firecracker comes back to see if it will explode, so the foal came a step toward them. Then another rout of wild curiousness, and another. When Paul and Maureen still did not move, he grew bold, dancing closer and closer, asking questions with his pricked ears and repeating the with his small question-mark of a tail."

STORMY, MISTY'S FOAL
"Each birth was a different kind of miracle."
"A flush of light I the northeast brought him sharply awake. He peered through the siding and he saw Misty lying down, and he saw wee forehoofs breaking through the silken birth bag, the head resting upon them; then quickly came the slender boy with the hindlegs tucked under.
He froze in wonder at the tiny filly lying there, complete and whole in the straw. It gave one gulping gasp for air, and then its sides began rising and falling as regularly as the ticking of a clock."

WHITE STALLION OF LIPIZZA
“'I don't want this morning's experience to be so beautiful it will break your heart. It may be only once in a lifetime for you.'”
"He felt all at once on the brink of something deep and wonderful. He was here, actually here, about to see the mystery!"*
“'Our school is a small candle in a troubled world, If we can send out one beam of splendor, of glory of elegance, it is worth a man's lifetime,?'”
* I totally want to see the mystery! I am now on the look out for an opportunity to see the World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions... even if I have to go all the way to Vienna to do it. :)
... and that concludes my 2019 summer reading project. Yay!

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Published on September 09, 2019 03:30

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: PRAYERS

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

PRAYERSI grew up in the Episcopal Church where the same prayers are repeated during the service each Sunday. (available in the Online Book of Common Prayer) While I no longer attend church, I can remember verbatim many of the prayers I heard so often during my childhood – and those words never fail to bring me comfort and joy. I also remember with great fondness our family's tradition of holding hands around the table and someone (usually my father) saying a prayer before the meal. This year during ARTSPEAK: Happy! I wrote an "Autumn Prayer" that reminds me of my childhood. And here is a prayer (from the Book of Common Prayer) that I remember so fondly:
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen.

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Published on September 08, 2019 03:30

The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: PLAYGROUND

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?
For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above.

This month's prompts are pipe, playground, prayers, recipes, ribbon, rice, road, saltwater, sandwich, school, sewing.

PLAYGROUND

wee me hanging from the (very old!)
swingset in my Dykes Grandparents'
side yard (Port St. Joe, FL)Most vivid in my mind: the backyard swing set and our church playground (where I brokemy arm).
Also the time in 6th grade when I was on top of the school monkey bars, and my mom walked past me unexpectedly. (She was there for something regarding my brother Ken.) This might not have been a big deal, except that day I wasn't wearing the clothes I left home in. On the bus ride to school I had changed out of the uncool homemade dress into a friend's much cool-er outfit (which I can no longer remember, but I do remember shimmying into the pants... good thing about a dress is it's easy to be a quick-change artist!). So when I saw my mom, my heart froze. I knew I was busted. She greeted me with a tight mouth, and I had the rest of the day to imagine the punishment waiting for me when I got home from school.
This was a dramatic moment in my relationship with my mother, who was hurt and disappointed in me (and wrote me a 4 page letter I still have expressing all of her feelings). But. It was essential in me becoming... me.

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Published on September 04, 2019 05:10