Dear Reader,

I will do one final tweak tomorrow and move the furniture back into the room and then let us be done with the ceiling tile chronicles. I have become thoroughly bored writing about them!

Naturally, Word Raccoon wants to write about other things, too.

Such as how this gorgeous, cooler weather is so soothing. It’s almost as if summer has slowed briefly as we read on our porch between bouts of ceiling tile work. I only hope our state of dishabille did not frighten the better weather away.

WR and I were on the sunporch just after dawn, though it was chilly. We wrote two poems and a few hundred words in our novel. We knew the morning would be filled with the aforementioned unpleasantness soon enough, so we spent time fortifying ourselves with poetry.

The first poem I wrote was “I Want All of This,” and the second, perhaps the more interesting idea, is “Performing Human.” I got to thinking about how absurd it is that we pay money to sit and listen to a comedian point out the strange things humans do, and how that’s kind of messed up and maybe passive-aggressive and, of course, also funny. We all groan with recognition at hearing truths we would not dare say aloud.

I also spent some time just thinking about novel three and how the thread that carries the most plot is the most difficult to write because it’s easy to let those characters become props instead of fully realized people. I wrote a few hundred words, one complete scene and the beginning of a second.

I keep thinking about Amor Towles’ writing, listening to A Gentleman in Moscow today while working on the house, a book I’ve wanted to read for a while now. I’m about four hours in (how does that translate pagewise, I wonder?) and loving it. It makes me think about the handsome gentlemen of literature and otherwise. According to Henry Fielding, “Handsome is as handsome does,” and certainly that’s true. But there are also those graced souls who seem handsome in every possible way. The Count is one of those.

Already in the novel there is a lovely friendship between Count Alexander Ilyich Rostov and a little girl named Nina that I find unexpectedly heartwarming. She keeps drawing him into little excursions through the hotel, and somehow his life feels less confined as she shows him the hotel’s secrets and charms, though he’s previously lived in one of its finest suites, rather than the dinky room he now has. 

A book that can hold your attention while you’re trimming the same piece of ceiling tile for the third time (!) is a rare thing indeed. This one did that and also reminded me of the months I spent in a hotel in China, going through every hallway, every open door. Discovering that one of the “elevators” was not actually an elevator at all. Finding out where they stored our luggage. I understand Nina’s delight in her indoors spelunking. 

Ironically, what saves Count Alexander life is a poem. (I am giving nothing away; this all happens early.)

See? Poems are life!

Caution: if you are listening to it as an audiobook, do not do so on the porch with your windows open if there are little pitchers nearby. Generally it’s fine, but wouldn’t you know it, just as a scene I’d have preferred not to broadcast throughout the neighborhood came on, a father led his young daughter out for their nightly moped ride.

I leapt for the stop button.

A horse and buggy drove through town this evening. I heard the hooves first and thought I must be imagining them, but nope. A young woman in a mauve dress and white bonnet passed by a street over. I don’t know why the sound of horse hooves and other ambient sounds is so comforting. WR, naturally, wanted to climb aboard the first conveyance she saw today and drive away from the ceiling tiles.

Stand down, raccoon! 

She’s not even listening; she’s just standing in the street.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Will someone have a talking-to with my Word Raccoon? She seems to think that now that the dining room ceiling is this close to being finished, we need a new, colorful project.

I beg her pardon.

Remember how I mentioned the kitchen ceiling? I agree with her that if we do something with it, we should paint it.

“Exactly!” she said. “How hard could it…”

I clamped my hand over her mouth, but she licked it, and when I removed it with disgust and wiped my hand on my pants, she finished with, “…be.”

She followed that with a reminder that we have over half a can of the hallway paint left and, well, yellow would be perfect for a kitchen.

Oh, WR.

I just said the other day that I am done painting rooms yellow. You have to paint so many coats, and there is always one spot where…

I do wish she’d let me finish my list in the order I prioritized the house instead of following her own ideas.

That being said…

How hard could it be?

Compared to the dining room ceiling, it would be nothing: clear out some furniture, spread out drop cloths and newspaper, stir the paint, grab a roller, and climb the ladder.

We should prime it first.

We’re not going to.

Anyway, as you can see, we’re very much still in the thinking stage. (Eye roll.)

In WR’s mind it’s already a done deal, even though I told her I’m taking a two-week break from household projects, with the exception of painting the outdoor trim if the weather cooperates. And when there aren’t professional painters nearby.

Speaking of, I wrote this today.

On a Fall Thursday Morning in July

On a Thursday in July,
you don’t expect
to get to wear your

blue sweater.

Or to see the neighborhood calico
wearing a collar with a tag.

The animal is someone’s,
but somehoww yours, too.

The seasons have shuffled the playlist and
a Fall day has been

fully dropped

into the mix.

The cherry tomatoes

from the
farmers market

at least still taste like
July.

The house next door is

slowly

turning
purple,

one glorious side

at a time.

I turn my chair away

from the scene.

Nope, not gonna write with

painter butt
in my face

all day.

AND, earlier WR patiently let me work on my third novel today, Deaccessioned. Before I knew it, we’d written 1,000 words. They were words the story needed, and I felt myself crouching beside them, listening, watching.

WR did the most remarkable thing while I wrote. She stopped me and told me to back up when I explained where I should have shown. She tells me that when it comes to poetry all the time, but this time I felt it.

It was challenging to translate movement I could see perfectly in my head into language without sounding as though I were trying to write beat poetry.

I also argued with an online dictionary because I used the word “bade,” and I looked it up to be sure I was using it correctly. I was told it’s an archaic word.

Excuse me?

I queried further and yes, it’s still in use, but not commonly used, which I already knew and also already knew. I don’t think I would have cared if it were considered archaic; if I want to use a word, I’m going to use it. #WriterPrivilege

Doesn’t that just mean people don’t care to use a word anyway, not that they can’t?

I mean sure, I guess if you want to be understood then you really ought to use words that are stocked on the middle shelves, but also, I’m not a fan of the language police.

Rant over, Babe.

Here it is, not ten a.m., and the writing says, “You’re done writing for the day.”

I agree.

Still waiting on the tin snips, so no tile work yet. I think it’s time to hit the gym. (And why do we say that when it feels more like the gym hits us?)

No disrespect meant to the housepainters in my poem. In fact, I rather suspect they like the attention their work is receiving from surprised townsfolk.

Gotta love it. Just gotta.

Drema

Dear Reader,

It did not start out an auspicious morning. Nothing dramatic, nothing tragic, anyway, but Word Raccoon had already informed me yesterday that there was NO WAY, with the shape our hands were in after multiple days of cutting ceiling tile, that we were cutting any more today.

So I gathered my café things last night and, even though I had just reminded that scamp August was going to be all novel, all month, somehow A Primer for Poets and Readers of Poetry by Gregory Orr found its way into the basket because “It’s not August yet.”

I didn’t argue. It does no good.

This morning, the forecast admitted that it was going to be too chilly to write on the café porch. Ordinarily that wouldn’t matter much, except the porch is covered. Wonderful when the sun is blazing, but on a cool morning it can stay cold.

So I made an executive decision.

Jeans.

WR protested.

Then I reached for a comfortable black long-sleeved shirt with white lettering.

“It’s too big,” she complained. “And it’s ugly.”

Poor thing nearly expired altogether when I announced we weren’t wearing earrings.

“But…”

“No. We’re wearing our hair down because it’s cold.”

She looked genuinely wounded.

(For the record, normally wearing long hair down in July is rather like wearing a fur coat, which is why she usually spends the summer snapping, “Why is my hair touching me?“)

She rummaged hopefully through the jewelry drawer anyway.

“Studs?”

“They’ll be hidden by the hair.”

“But…”

“WR,” I said, “If someone compliments the earrings, they’ll want to talk and normally I’d love that, but I don’t think we’ve got it in us today. Let’s just get in, claim a table, and stick our AirPods in, shall we? We won’t be rude, we’ll just mind our business.”

She sighed.

She understood.

She tried instead to be grateful that we were writing rather than wrestling ceiling tiles and that I wasn’t dragging her to the gym.

She was right: my hands were furious after yesterday’s combination of tile work and typing, and it was taking forever for my arthritis medicine to kick in. 

Oh, and before we left the house one leg fell right off the dining room table while I was moving furniture around, leaving the poor thing in a position no respectable table should ever find itself. That is not ideal for eating off it!

The house is still upside down from the ongoing ceiling tile saga, and I hate that.

My desk is in the living room.

The dining room chairs are sleeping in the kitchen.

My beautifully staged bookshelves are dismantled, my pretties scattered throughout the house as if they are in time out. That’s perhaps the biggest insult.

At a little after seven, I somehow found myself sitting in the café parking lot. Nine o’clock is supposed to be writing time. Apparently WR cannot tell time. She neglected to have caffeine before going, which did not help her mood. I sat in the car for ten minutes trying to decide whether to go inside at all.

If I did, should I brave the chilly indoors or gamble on the porch? The decision seemed too huge and I almost flipped a coin. 

I mentally reviewed the usual cast of regulars. Normally, as I mentioned, I’m happy to see them and enjoy chatting. 

This morning, though, WR was very close to tears at just the idea of going in and I wasn’t terribly far behind. How would I explain if I just started weeping for what seemed no good reason? 

I’ve seen people cry in cafés. I’ve cried along with them when they needed it, not thinking any less of them. Being a writer means, maybe, having access to a wide range of emotions and learning to be comfortable with them.

But today, even breakfast felt impossibly, unnecessarily complicated. Stupid freaking breakfast.

Hot tea or Coke Zero?

Banana berry bowl or bacon, egg, and cheese bagel?

Simple decisions rarely feel simple on mornings like this.

So we took a breath and went inside, hoping for the quiet, steady barista.

It was her.

The manager called hello from the kitchen while we admitted we weren’t fully operational until caffeine.

The barista smiled and said everyone has mornings like that.

It was exactly the right thing to say.

None of the regulars had arrived yet, and if they wandered in later I never noticed.

By then we were reading with AirPods conspicuously on display. (Which caused WR to say, See, our ears are showing after all, and they’re naked!) 

Breakfast came and I permitted us a decluttering video, followed by classical music to replace the café playlist (lovely people, questionable taste in music), and gradually we felt more like ourselves.

Then, gasp…we began reading and writing poetry.

Later the porch finally warmed enough for us to claim a spot. I finished reading the second chapter in the Orr book, scribbled notes with one of the tiny comment card pencils the cafe had because neither I nor WR had grabbed a pen on our way out the door, being too busy mourning the fall of our table. 

“Now don’t get angry,” I told WR after the chapter reading, “But when we get home, we’re demoing the remaining tiles. I’m not making you cut anything. We’re just pulling them down and disposing of them.”

So we climbed the ladder over and over.

Made another glorious mess. 

Were showered by bits of plaster.

Swept.

Vacuumed.

Coughed.

Turned on the air purifier. 

We received an assist on one defiant tile. 

Tomorrow the tin snips should arrive, and if all goes according to plan we’ll finally finish this project. (Friday at the latest; depends on the delivery time.) It has not been my favorite DIY adventure. But I have to admit that I’m rather proud that I learned how to do it.

And it looks awesome! 

(I’ve also officially forbidden WR from attempting anything involving water or electricity, so yesterday I arranged for someone recommended to us to install the new ceiling fan and replace the upstairs bathroom faucet next month. YouTube University has its limits.)

WR, meanwhile, has begun lobbying to paint the kitchen ceiling tiles instead of replacing them. This was, you might recall, not on the original list at all. I think I’m going to make her wait a couple of months at least before we even discuss it.

As for today’s writing? We wrote the pert yet sympathetic “Lord Help a Man,” “Three Strange Angels (after D. H. Lawrence),” and “From This Side.” (That first really wants to be a song; we’ll see.) 

There are also a couple of half-poems lurking. One line especially lingers: “I will never stop inviting you to the party.”  

And I won’t. 

Drema 

Dear Reader,

The neighbors are painting their house purple! This is not a drill! Word Raccoon is so excited! While she’d like a purple house (maybe), the next best thing, or perhaps even better, is getting to gaze at one while she writes.

Tile update, damnable tiles: six more finished today. Only eight more to go, and that might actually become seven if WR gets turned loose on the one beneath the light. She wants to make it a feature tile.

By our calculations, the tiles should be finished tomorrow. There might be a bit of shifting to do, and if that doesn’t work, perhaps a little caulk, but we are officially in the homestretch. Both WR and I will be absurdly relieved when they’re done.

WR is no longer permitted to ask, “How hard could it be?” about anything, because the answer is always, “Much harder and much more time-consuming than you imagined.”

Oh, and above the tiles we discovered the very paint color that WR suggested for the dining room, only I decided on a lighter shade (when we do paint) because Stanley said it was too dark. He’s not wrong. The room is asking to be returned to its original state, I reckon.

Before we tackled the tiles today, we wrote a poem called “A Quiet Tuesday Morning.” Not an inspired title, but it was before 7 a.m., Herbert! WR was simply happy I let her write something.

Our doctor suggested a novel yesterday she thought we might enjoy, Clear by Carys Davies, and this morning I discovered the audiobook on Libby. We listened while we moaned and complained about ceiling tiles, resorted to pruning shears for the tougher sections, and wondered whether perhaps gloves would have been the wiser choice after all.

We actually finished the entire novel this morning.

It’s a historical novel about an impoverished Scottish minister, John Ferguson, who accepts a task he despises because he desperately needs the money: traveling to a remote island to evict its sole inhabitant, Ivar, so the landlord can replace one human being with more profitable sheep.

When Ivar saves John’s life after a terrible fall and nurses him back to health, the two men slowly form a bond despite the language barrier. 

It’s gorgeously written. Perfect for a rainy morning. Perfect for engaging the brain when you’d like, even briefly, to forget ceiling tiles exist.

And we did.

For a little while.

We’re so over the ceiling tile.

Er…I suppose we’re technically under it, but you get the idea.

I still think these House Gorgeous (not to be confused with the lesser House Beautiful, a pedestrian project title that WR refuses to endorse) improvements are in service of poetry, somehow.

As I wrote in my notebook poem this morning about the ceiling tiles,

…And I lifted my arms,

And

I lifted my arms,

And

I lifted

my

Heart.

My heart,

Drema 

P.S. I have an extra copy of TLR with “Comfort Eagle” in it if anyone wants to claim it locally; sorry, can’t ship it. 

Dear Reader,

I was minding my own business, sitting outdoors at an uptown café when the idea for my next novel came up and bit me and Word Raccoon on the nose.

Not literally, of course, but it did. I cannot wait to research it! 

This explains why my other novel is wrapping itself up, Word Raccoon, even though it doesn’t look like it. I mean, the pieces are there but so much work remains, but that’s okay because NOVEL FOUR is percolating! 

I hate to be coy about novel topics, I do, but also I need to be further into it before I share anything. And who knows, this might be a caffeine and Coke Zero fueled imagination spree? (When I arrived at the other café today – the Monday-when-I-can café –  I spied Coke Zero in the cooler and the owner walked over and smiled and I said what is this I see in the cooler? And obviously WR had to buy it and make a Dirty Coke Zero and now she’s bouncing in her seat and someone came by and sat down and talked with her and WR insisted on talking about the damned ceiling tiles she’s still working on and yes, that’s this week’s Leviathan.)

Ooh, WR says wouldn’t it be fun to co-write a novel? Strong, lyrical sentences with just the right details unspooled at exactly the right time, paired with a deluge of ideas and scenes? Stawwppp it, WR! That’s too delicious. 

And I suspect it’s obvious which writer WR would be, LOL. Witness this post! 

It would take just the right writing partner. Probably unrealistic, but nevertheless aspirational.

I just made a list of places WR and I must, must visit for this novel. 

WR also wrote a poem, “Shakespeare in the Park,” because ever since she saw The Tempest performed in the park in Nashville she thinks there is no more perfect way to spend an evening than outdoors watching theater. She has threatened to found a Shakespeare in the Park organization herself locally but WR says too many irons and all that and we really need to focus but we do like projects rather than ongoing obligations. Obligations make us fuss and want to foment just a little. 

There is a light breeze outside at the café, some shade for writing, poems, novel ideas…and then home to tackle five more tiles.

(We managed only four, because the cutting takes so long! Measure, remeasure, be sure it’s turned the right way – we ruined two not paying attention to that; use scissors then a utility knife and then back to scissors and when you climb the ladder and try to fit it in you know it’s not going to go in on the first try and then you trim and shimmy and whew, finally! Did we get bonked on the head by falling plaster? Lightly, yes. But we weren’t hurt, so there’s that.)

Two gentlemen walked by the café while I was there, one singing a silly song he made up with my name in it?? WR growled and I whispered that the man was perfectly harmless and WR’s eyes widened when he placed a tiny 3D printed squirrel on our table and asked if I would give it some water, and that we could keep the little guy. I said I could offer it Coke Zero, and WR grabbed the tiny treasure and reminded me that we are looking for a miniature curio cabinet at thrift shops. 

Anyhow, WR wants SO BADLY to spill the novel four beans but no, not yet. Not here. You can/may ask me if you see me IRL, though. 

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Today has trotted away with itself, and I’m not entirely sure how. I woke before six, so it’s not as though I slept in.

I have been catching up on writing product reviews, something that’s easy to fall behind on if you so much as blink. I received the best pair of running shoes and, while I’d never worn the brand before, I’m excited to recommend them. (I did not, admittedly, wear them for running, but they’re excellent walking shoes.)

I finished reading the second in the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. I enjoyed it, but I was also glad to reach the end, not quite feeling the same literary evangelism that had me recommending the first book to four different people. I did have to fight my way through parts of it, though that may have had more to do with all the caffeine I had this morning than the novel itself.

Part of the day was definitely consumed by accidental online paint browsing. Because of course replacing the dining room ceiling tiles means the walls need painting now, too. Alas, the lack of enough light to please (damned carport, WR says. She hates it.) means going a shade or two lighter than I’d prefer.

And while I was at it, I also chose a potential living room color. Which will mean taking down those stupid glass shelves that are too high to be of any use and were there when we moved in. The walls will also have to be partially stripped and painted. Some thick wallpaper has been gradually cracking.

Then there’s the decade-plus stain on the ceiling that landed there thanks to a child of ours who shall remain nameless. I once tried to get rid of it, but it didn’t work, and I’ve simply averted my eyes for years. My eyes refuse to be averted anymore.

I’m putting the painting on the fall sprucing list, but we’ll see if Word Raccoon can wait that long. She’s longing to be finished with the projects, already. She has poems to write!

Last night she dreamed about her novel, and pieces she’d been puzzling over arrived wanting to be written. Not yet, apparently, but it feels complete in her head, though it’s miles away from that on the page. She’s unsure if she can bear to finish it. Like any novel, she doesn’t like to give them up. Well, she doesn’t have to, does she? She just needs to transform it into something shareable.

A chapbook contest wrote to say that while we didn’t win, they found our poetry compelling. You don’t always receive a personalized rejection, so I was grateful.

Yesterday I also hustled out two poetry submissions, sending Look, I Built a Cathedral out, and submitting to a new journal looking for poems related to classical literature. I seem to have quite a backlog of those.

I’ve confined today’s House Gorgeous items to small actions, mostly opening packages and putting things away, breaking down boxes, and putting up new brackets for the upstairs bathroom curtains. (Update: I just heard it them fall. Okay, take two tomorrow. Why do I ever trust adhesive fasteners?)

I also sorted our upstairs toolkit into a wooden box because the plastic kit required so much shoving and shuffling just to put things away, and WR kept nipping at the handle out of frustration. We chucked that plastic nightmare into the trash.

I’m also slowly putting together a birthday box for our eldest. Now if everything gets here on time…

The vacuum stand is assembled, though I discovered I’d need to order a charging plate before I can actually hang the vacuum from it. Since I was already ordering attachments, that worked out fine.

I also changed the plain ivory outlet cover in the upstairs bathroom for a version covered in wildflowers. One minute’s work created a moment of lasting beauty. 

Like writing a poem. 

I think this is what you call project creep, and I’m feeling it on every front. What happened to Sunday being a day of rest? Writers don’t have those, do we? 

WR points me back to a notebook poem we wrote yesterday.

Administrivia

I deal my day out on slips of paper: 

Water the flowers

crumple, toss 

Go to the farmers market

rip, dispose

Write a poem

see above

Visit the gym

check and trash

The things only you can do,

I’ve left 

undone. 

And now my darling little fuzz moppet is writing a sappy poem that has Mark Twain — Mark. Twain. in it. I can’t think of a less romantic character, but here our gorl is, writing love American style. Hee hee hee.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

The fan on the porch is gently moving the chime, causing the smallest of sounds, like the empty swings in a park on a windy day.

The chime is from last year, a keepsake, a comfort, offered.

Some would have put the chime graveside. I wanted it on the porch.

Sometimes when I open a window, my head sets it going.

I’m reminded of an old poem I wrote about another wind chime, now gone.
(The chime, not the poem. That is, I think I rediscovered the poem.)

A new friend wandered by the porch in a hat and said hello.
(The hat on the friend, not the other way around.)

She looks like Scarlett Johansson to me, and I told her so the other day.

I wrote a poem, “Saturday, Crumpled.”

It comes from something I do when Word Raccoon feels overwhelmed with the “shoulds.” I write everything I want to (or should) do on slips of paper and, as I do the tasks, I crumple the slips and throw them away.

Ok, WR rips them up and then crumples them.

Sometimes she does a task in installments, though it means not getting the coveted paper before she’s finished. I’m strict about that. Often she puts away the top rack of the dishwasher first. Later, the bottom. Today the silverware, apparently, must contemplate its existence a little longer in situ.

She has only written the one poem thus far. She could see herself “thussing” more today. WR, that does not even make sense.

She does not care.

Remaining in her stack of tasks:

Put the vacuum cleaner stand together (please let the pieces all be there)

Install the upstairs bathroom outlet cover (two minutes, tops) 

Make tomato sandwiches (clearly she went to the farmers market, which was on the list; she also bought candy from her cousin there. Our grandmother used to make the best fudge, but while his is delicious, it’s not how I remember hers, so I’m guessing it’s his own recipe.)

Write more poetry, if it visits.

Listen to the chime and wonder why humans tolerate something that only pleases us at its whim. And yet, when it does sound, it pleases us immensely.

I guess we could make it chime if we set it off deliberately, but that’s not organic enough for us. 

WR, you’re being unreasonable! Is it the chime’s fault or the lack of wind? This heat alone could run sound off, I would think.

WR says the result is the same. 

I think I may borrow Carl’s catchphrase from Dungeon Crawler Carl, with a twist:

Goddamnit, WR!

Maybe we both need a nap. 

Drema

Dear Reader,

I’ve been flipping through the “record bins” of my early writing lately and found this not-so-golden oldie.

It’s from circa 2008, written for one of my undergraduate classes. (Apparently we were asked to write “in the style of” different authors. This was my attempt at Truman Capote??)

I’m going to disappear while you read this thing calling itself a story when it’s actually a ?? And whatever you do, don’t tell Word Raccoon about it. She’ll fall off her bookshelf laughing at my early efforts. (Actually, I couldn’t make it all the way through; too embarrassing. I did get the sensation, reading it, of being crushed into a phone booth with about a dozen other people talking all at once.)

Part of me wants to apologize for every adjective.

Maybe every other adjective.

Reading it now, I alternated between hiding behind the sofa cushions and smiling. Every sentence seems determined to become the Most Important Sentence in the paragraph. Younger Drema had apparently declared war on white space.

But I also recognized myself.

I see early WR in here, struggling to emerge.

Even then I was writing about where stories come from, whether writers discover stories or invent them, and what it feels like to carry around more words than one person can reasonably hold. Evidently I’ve been preoccupied with the same questions for a very long time.

I trust readers more now. I don’t feel the need to stack metaphor upon metaphor until the sentence starts wheezing, so there’s that.

WR’s paw prints were there, even then, in:

The tomatoes. The Earl Grey. The conviction that stories are living things.

The writer I eventually became was already in there. She just hadn’t learned yet that readers don’t need twelve metaphors when one good tomato will do.

Anyway, here’s 2008 Drema. Be kind, please. She was trying very hard, and she had a long way to go. 

                 A Mother of a Story (Capote version)

         Sometimes a story shook Kate awake like a frightened child, begging immediate attention, breath coming heavy from between endearingly quivering lips, sleepy, long-lashed eyelids nearly closed, a tear licking down a sleep-greased cheek, whispering things like “There was a man.  A big, scary man.”  Just as tenderly as a mother she propped up on her pillow and “listened” into her spiral-bound notebook, Write Brothers pen moving as seriously as if she were taking notes at a board meeting.  Or they followed her into the shower where it was a bit more awkward to scribble the details, causing her to dance with her washcloth to try covering herself.  “I lived in Italy until I was 105,” an invisible man’s voice might say, or, “I loved her, but I never told her because…”  They jostled one another, stories crossing, fading in and out like stars at night, the more intriguing for their interruptions.

         The reason the stories visited her and not someone else was they sensed her willingness to hear, saw how she cherished the seed of a pinecone, and how she thrilled to smell mimosas near Father’s Day, their peachy scent not just a luxury, but a necessity, watched how she salted and ate a ripe beefsteak tomato with a knife and fork, as if it had given its life for her and she was thankful.  The stories felt how she allowed emotions to rise to just beneath her skin like pulse beats after sex.  They came to her, these voices and tales, speaking of things that had been, were, and would be, and she did not sort them, did not reject them, and, most importantly, did not judge them.  Instead, she traced them with her pen.  These words were not her own creation, as some supposed. Something, somewhere, somehow sent her these as if she were a transcriptionist.  Or, as she suspected, they dwelt everywhere and she alone listened.

         Everyplace carried its burden of stories.  Some she did try to avoid, because they were so incredibly dark, but they looked so forlorn she’d end up inviting them into her kitchen for warm zucchini bread and a painted mug of Earl Grey.  “Sit, tell me all about it,” she’d say, and they would. 

Gradually she would realize she hadn’t spoken in days.  When people spoke, she saw words and wrote her responses, unwilling to break too long with the world she simultaneously craved and despised.  The stories became more real than people.  She ran out of paper and began writing on the walls, mumbling into the dark as more and more stories came to her, as if they were refugees from a famine-stricken country.  Frantically she began writing on her body, as if to show them how committed she was.  They demanded more.  The ones that seemed most urgent she had tattooed on, but more kept begging room, pushing and shoving like desperately ill people at a tent revival.  The tattoos felt heavier and heavier, like layers of paint on a canvas. 

Finally, she could handle no more.  “Enough!” she screamed, but it was too late.  Her skin began to shrink, bubble, and split.  It rolled down her like a too-small pair of panty hose, revealing her core: nothing but a shining column of words, like a vertical of Scrabble letters.  And the she she was was gone to find someone to share her story, if only there was someone who would. 

See? I still cringe in places. But I also feel strangely fond of the young writer who believed every sentence had to carry the weight of the world.

Thankfully, I received expert writing advice at the time, and I hope (oh, please say I have) improved since then. 

More importantly, I kept writing.

Looking back, I’m less interested in how much I’ve changed than in how much has remained the same. The seeds were already there. They’ve simply had years to grow.

To tender beginnings that grow on the vine.

Drema 

                 

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon woke me up at five o’clock this morning. I’m beginning to suspect she simply wanted a longer writing day.

The little scamp.

We spent a few hours at the café this morning, arriving just as they were opening though we hadn’t even noticed we were so early, and somewhere between Coke Zero and eavesdropping, four poems wandered onto the page. One called “I Told the Bees.” Another involved mushrooms: “Just Today.” The third featured big box store roses and receipts, which is not a sentence I expected to write when I woke up this morning. The last I called “J. Peterman-Years-Old.”  

Then, because WR apparently hadn’t caused enough trouble already, she decided she might need to write an entire chapbook inspired by clothing. Someone should probably hide my debit card before I accidentally buy a silk jacket with a backstory. (Although, would that be so wrong?)

Do you suppose the Theory of Everything can also be applied to poetry? Maybe that’s what we literary folk call Intertextuality. They’re kinda one and the same. Like my poems, the next haunted by the last. If that makes any sense. I think my biggest fear is that they will all begin to blur, all sound the same note over and over, like a fly buzzing. 

Nobody wants that. 

Side quest (it’s this damn Dungeon Crawler Carl book I’m reading):

At the café, I mentioned to the barista that I was envious because my coffee partner had ordered the peanut butter berry bowl yesterday, and I hadn’t. So naturally, I ordered one today.

“I asked (her coworker) if she knew who she was serving yesterday,” she said.

My head bowed demurely. Word Raccoon and I briefly prepared to receive our inevitable admiration with all the humility we could muster. Yes, being an author in a small town sometimes comes with recognition. 

Except…

She was talking about my new friend. (I hope I’m not being presumptuous calling her that, but I feel like we really hit it off.) Apparently, she’d been on a season of a nationally televised show.

Reader, I laughed at myself so hard.

Naturally, I texted her to report what I’d overheard. She was more humble than Word Raccoon by far. 

The rest of the day was decidedly less literary: gym, running the car through the wash, buying ice, and all those little tasks that make Future Me quietly grateful to Past Me.

Oh, and thrifting, where we found a few items of clothing but alas, no poems were hiding in any of the jacket pockets. WR offered to jump into one, but I told her I didn’t think that, small as she is, she could fit. You are a raccoon, not my poetry,” I told her as I patted the empty pockets.

I also received some encouraging lab results today. Nothing terribly exciting for anyone else, perhaps, but enough to remind me that small, consistent efforts eventually begin writing their own stories. My body is tolerating the arthritis medicine. (My life is so glamorous.) 

Tonight: Dungeon Crawler Carl, book two – Carl’s Doomsday Scenario –  and the satisfaction of a day with (some) poetry in it.

Until,
Drema

P.S. Do not tell Word Raccoon that her weekend at the dunes has just been postponed due to unhealthy air conditions. I’m going to break it to her over lunch and a movie with friends tomorrow. She’s definitely going to demand Twizzlers, I just know it!

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon began working on a poem this afternoon. She was interrupted, but the core of it is there to return to. That’s how writing works some days, doesn’t it? This one is about telling the bees…Well, we wouldn’t be the first to write a poem about that, would we?

I think the bees deserve to hear about the good things that happen too, don’t you? So here are some that maybe seem commonplace and nonliterary, but are still pretty cool.

The hot day handed WR, mercifully, a wave of breeze that deeply refreshed her at just the right time.

Also, she had a fascinating conversation that ended with someone asking her, “Are we living the same life?” We just might be, given all the strange similarities we discovered.

AND this person is also reading the Dungeon Crawler Carl series!! What?? WR threatened to dance on the table when she heard that, but I yanked her down just in time. Our delight, though, was surely apparent.

Another topic discussed today: WR is plotting the launch of an online vintage clothing popup shop. Maybe. Possibly. We’ll see. She gets excited about projects and then works tirelessly until she doesn’t.

Ask me how I know.

But this idea might have legs. It involves writing, too, tangentially. Nope, WR, mum’s the word!

Then there’s the ongoing ceiling tile project that is slowly continuing. Our goal was to finish installing the first box of tile (these are the big tiles, the 2X4, btw) today. Up the ladder we went again this afternoon, expecting that now that we know how to do it, it would be faster.

Reader, it became a much bigger deal than expected. But progress is being made.

Turns out, the last row was slightly smaller. And the metal cross pieces of the grid were loose on one side. I found that out when one fell on me. I kept telling myself it was no big deal and that I could figure it out.

I did, but for a while I was convinced we’d simply have to live with a mysterious gap in the ceiling forever.

One of the tiles had to be trimmed, which is good practice since nearly all of the remaining spaces to be filled will have to (sob, sob) be trimmed to fit. We’s skeered. Very. 

We did, eventually, finish installing the first box, though gaps remain that need to be gently closed, but not when WR is in a yeeting mood. She “lowered” (threw) to the floor one of the new tiles that was being stubborn, certain it wouldn’t crack.

It cracked.

Thankfully, it can be used to fill one of the smaller spaces. But I hope she’s learned her lesson.

I’m afraid Word Raccoon is going to try to abandon this project because she adores beginnings and has a complicated relationship with middles. Which, who doesn’t, WR? Stay with it, gorl.

She has four large bruises on her legs from her tiling efforts, but she bruises easily so she is not concerned but it looks bad on her.

Imagine, dear raccoon, looking up at that ceiling with adoring admiration not many days hence. It will all be worth it.

Maybe I should tell her there will be no further popup shop discussion until she finishes that ceiling.

Oh, WR… Word Raccoon? Are you listening?

She has a finger raised while she reads, telling me to hang on. Wait, nope, it’s not that finger…

I much prefer other, softer, hand gestures, WR. Thank you very much.

Drema