Jaye Marie's Blog, page 1898
December 24, 2015
CAPRICORN, BEGINNING WITH SOLSTICE BESIDE THE WOOD-BURNING STOVE
we cut an evergreen
bring it indoors
and decorate
we’re old-fashioned that way
look out and see
the ubiquitous squirrel
balancing with difficulty on the power lines
a dove, with its tiny head and pointy tail
resembling a turtle
and laugh, connecting “turtle-dove”
of English folksong
I have emotions
I have my own mind
all the stacked seed catalogs
or Conservation District flier
await review and ordering
the bitter deep cold itself
at our pipes, finally breaks
with or without damage
poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
Filed under: life as an author
Pedaling & Writing: Similar states, similar fears
On a bicycle again: For the first timeWhite knuckled with fear and with a death grip on the handle bars my instructor coached me from the sidelines. This is long before my feet are on the pedals.
Gone are the days of running beside a bicycle holding onto whatever worked. These days it’s heel to toe push until you can balance the bike or start at the top of a small incline and let gravity help. Then the pedals come into play one at a time.
Instructor? What! Yes, well my next door neighbour is a competitive cyclist and kindly offered to help. She’s taught people of all ages to ride a bike. She walks beside her students providing encouragement and verbal support. I’ve tried before to ride a bike, the last time was a number of years ago. Maybe this time I will succeed.
Writing can be like that…
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The Angels on my Tree Hugh’s Charity Christmas Tree Topper Photo Challenge
My Christmas tree, slightly unfinished, as decorated by the boys. An improvement on last year. I slightly (ahem) rearranged after they’d gone to bed. They never noticed!
My tree does not have an angel on top. No, what it has is a rather plain, very slightly sparkly silver star.
But it does have angels on it. Four of them. These smiley faces belong to the angels on my tree.
Their names are Craig, Jacob, Brody and Charlie. They had the same syndrome that my Carys has, and in just over a year, they all earned their angel wings. I got to know them through their lovely, brave mothers on facebook. Their lives were short and bittersweet, but full of love, and in that time they taught us so much. I can’t believe they’re gone. RIP little lovelies. Gone, but NOT forgotten.
This post is part of Hugh’s Charity Christmas Topper…
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The Fastest Post Ever About Christmas Decorations
very entertaining blog, Bun…
[This post first appeared last week on my main blog.]
It’s almost magical. The sun disappears behind the mountains and slowly the ugly grey city that fills the valley disappears to become a sparkling array of red, white and orange jewels strewn across a velvet cloth. Snow has a similar power to transform. The cracked concrete and twisted steel disappear under a sheet of glittering white. Even Christmas decorations, gaudy and shamelessly tacky though they may sometimes be, take the drab surroundings of daily life and splash color and cheer across them.
It’s easy to be cynical about such beauty. The reason the city is stunning at night is because you can’t actually see the city. Snow makes an industrial landscape beautiful only because it hides the landscape. And yet, somehow I don’t care. I enjoy hiding my rather grim desk under tinsel and Christmas lights every year, and today was my day…
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Technophobia
Photo: Holger.Ellgaard CC BY-SA 3.0
“I’ll just add it to my shopping list.” I took the all-singing, all-dancing smartphone out of my pocket. There are very few times when the phrase ‘horrified fascination’ is justified, but it seemed to fit his expression as I reached for the pen.
“It’s a smartphone!” Well, yes, I am aware of that. He had dragged me, kicking and screaming, into the twenty-first century some time ago. “You’re supposed to write your notes on it…”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“But that’s a post-it note!”
“And?”
“You have sticky-note software… ” I simply waited. He was laughing too much to have a sensible conversation. “….you don’t have to stick one to the phone!”
Now, my shopping lists are brief and to the point. They are not masterpieces of cursive script or convoluted prose, but more of a curt and almost indecipherable scrawl… that ‘almost’ is critical…
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December 23, 2015
Two White Mice…
A Christmas story…
A cold wind rattled the window frame and whistled through the cracks, lifting the faded cotton curtains like a summer skirt. It was dark outside, but Ruth hadn’t noticed, so intent on keeping warm.
The last of the coal was gone, nothing but ebony dust in the scuttle. The embers were nearly cold. Time to go to bed, she thought, at least it would be warmer there.
A loud knock on the front door made her jump, but she made no move to see who was there. It was probably those rotten kids from the Council estate again. They were always knocking on her door and running away.
There was another knock on the door, followed by another. This was unusual, she thought. They didn’t usually knock twice. But who else could it be?
Pulling the old knitted shawl closer around her shoulders, she shuffled in her shabby slippers to the front door. She peered through the peephole, but its field of vision was quite small and distorted. But even in the darkness she could see there was no one there. She turned and made her was to the kitchen, thinking a nice cup of cocoa would set her up for a good night’s sleep.
As she passed the living room doorway, her mind played the same familiar trick again and she saw Jim, her husband, sitting by a blazing fire. His snow-white hair flopping over his eyes the way it always did. As she opened her mouth to ask if he wanted any cocoa, he slowly vanished; taking the blazing fire with him and her heart sank. She missed him so much, especially at this time of year.
They had never made much of a fuss about Christmas. Something nice for dinner, and maybe some shop bought mince pies. And every year without fail he bought her two white sugar mice. She had confessed her love of them when they were courting and he always managed to find some every year since. This would be her first Christmas without him. She prayed every night that she would be allowed to go to him, but no one was listening and every morning she woke up in an empty bed.
Ruth had no family and no real friends. Days would pass when she wouldn’t see or speak to anyone. One of her neighbours would wave if she saw her at the window, but that hadn’t happened lately.
Sipping the hot milky cocoa in her chair by the dead fire, she listened intently, hoping to hear the carol singers again, but all was silent. Not even any traffic to prove she was not really so alone.
She sighed and struggled to her feet, intent on rinsing her cup in the kitchen. Just as she reached the hall, a muffled sound from outside the front door drew her attention. Two more knocks, and she moved slowly to have another look. Again, there was no one there; at least she couldn’t see anything. But someone had to be out there, for she could hear something.
Then a very small voice said, “She must be asleep,” followed by a giggle.
“Knock again, and then we’ll give up…”
From where Ruth stood, she could hear small scrabbling noises, moving up the door to the letterbox.
Up close, the door echoed with another knock, accompanied by several giggles. She looked through the peephole again and saw nothing. Convinced she was losing her mind, she turned towards the stairs. The sound of the gate swinging shut stopped her. Someone was there. What on earth did they want at this time of night? Knowing they were probably gone now, she slowly opened the door.
On the doorstep was a small boy, clutching a small pink paper bag that had reindeer on it. Another child, a girl by the looks of it, was swinging on the gate. “I told you she was in,” she said, and as she smiled, a dimple appeared on her left cheek.
“These are for you…” the boy said. “Me mum made ‘em.”
Ruth reached out and slowly touched the paper bag. It had been used before and was wrinkled and soft. He pushed the bag into her hand and let go. Ruth didn’t know what to say. What should she say? That it was far too late to be banging on her door? Or would a simple thank you be enough?
But it was no good. The emotions racing through her mind had rendered her dumb. That someone had thought of her and brought a gift, overwhelmed and saddened her in equal measure and her eyes filled with tears.
When Ruth looked up, she noticed the mother, standing just a few feet away on the other side of the hedge. She looked thin and worn out, but somehow peaceful, watching her children with a small smile on her face. “Come on now, you two,” she called. “Say good night now.”
A chorus of good nights and they were gone, leaving Ruth standing there, suddenly stupid for not saying anything. She should have said something.
As she closed the front door, she wondered what was inside the bag. In the kitchen where the light was better, she opened the crumpled paper and looked inside.
What she saw made her heart leap with unexpected joy.
Inside, lying next to each other, were two white sugar mice…
Filed under: life as an author
A Tough Old Bird For Christmas Lunch?
Ours will be a gentle one too, Jennie, age does have its compensations! See you in the New Year!
Hi
I’d like to wish all readers of this blog a Merry Christmas.
And not only that.
I’d also like to wish you peace, health, and the company – or precious memories – of loved ones.
We will be having a gentle and quiet Christmas Day. There won’t be mass excitement and the sound of ripping wrapping as dozens of gifts are exposed. As usual we can’t think of a thing to buy each other – though Richard did sneak in with red roses and a Christmas card for me last night. Sweet, but I think he was trying to regain lost ground from the weekend when we had a blazing row about precious nothing.
Many of our ‘rows’ take place in the car, usually on the way to the supermarket. Normally, he doesn’t have to suffer food shopping but since that pile of crap that sits on the drive…
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