Dear Reader,

How are WR and I at the café, at the page, so much earlier than anticipated? The only reason I can give is I decided to move gym time to this afternoon, since I did a second session yesterday evening. (Don’t ask. WR is still angry with me.) 

Prior to this weekend (this will be a catch up day; so many…things…I’d love to catch up with), I stocked up on vegetables because I wanted to be sure to eat more than on a typical holiday weekend. Dear Reader, while I am a full-grown adult who tries to feed herself as if that’s the case, sometimes WR still insists on Twizzlers at the movies. I thought I had outsmarted her by loading the crisper and eating a couple of salads at restaurants this weekend. 

Thought.

Last night while putting away fresh produce, I uncovered a forgotten trove. Oh no! 

Friends, I take it personally when a vegetable perishes at my hands without having achieved its purpose. I truly admire them, enjoy picking them out, sniffing them (unless I’m doing an online order, ugh), and I am truly grateful for them. 

The colors are gorgeous, and I’ve been tempted more than once to buy vegetables I do not enjoy just because of how pretty they are. 

There’s something magical about vegetables, knowing they come from the ground, the earth. I have such a connection to nature (I was once dubbed “weird pinecone lady,” LOL), and I think watching vegetables grow in my father’s garden, keeping a daily eye on, say, a cucumber mound, watching that blossom transform into a tiny cucumber, and then grow and grow and grow, and then feeling both eager to taste it but also feeling like maybe I had betrayed it a bit by stopping its growth and consuming it, yet knowing that it would just rot if I didn’t…I think that makes the connection for me.

Having seen my dad sweat and toil over his vegetables, I know what work it takes. I don’t want to let that go to waste. 

And yet, as much as I value vegetables and fruits, I’m an “out of sight, out of mind” person, no matter how much I try to be different. If I can’t see them, do they exist? 

There’s also my dread of knives and my arthritis which makes cutting a literal pain some days. (Yes, I sometimes buy precut veggies, and they’re better than nothing, but come on, they don’t taste even close to the fresh thing.)

So yesterday, I cleared the crisper, regretfully. I’m glad I had some new items to add.

I am going to attempt to embrace Clutterbug’s trick to saving the veggies: put them in your fridge door. Great idea! But will it help WR? 

Should I embrace a “chop ahead” policy? Maybe. But WR glares at me when I propose that. One, some produce is not meant to be cut ahead of time. Two, would it make a real difference? 

Maybe I should keep a running list of produce we have on hand and cross items off when they’re gone, so it will serve as both a reminder of what’s in the fridge and a shopping list, although I prefer to buy what looks and sounds good in the moment. 

Summer produce purchasing is wildly different from buying in other seasons, of course. That’s a whole other topic. 

WR bought a quart of peaches yesterday and ate a particularly juicy one directly over the sink while she was putting produce away. It was glorious. 

She also purchased ten perfect new potatoes. (She used to play dolls with real produce when she was a child and tiny potatoes lasted much longer than, say, tiny cucumbers.)  

I can’t let go of the truth that we truly are what we eat. These foods “become” us. That may sound obvious, but do we really consider it? 

WR snarks as she finishes up my peanut butter berry bowl: “It’s not that serious,” she says as she eats the last blueberry. 

Speak for yourself, WR. To me, it is, and to you, too, I hope.

I hope.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

I am happy to report that a decent draft of “Let Flowers Fall,” that larger Behn poem, now exists. There’s one stanza I’m still working on, and another I stripped for parts, but it’s almost there. It’s not as important as it thought it was, but it’s mostly solid and it makes Word Raccoon hum. 

Word Raccoon has been busy arranging books and making dinner plans, leaving me long stretches of quiet this afternoon. Poetry likes quiet.

I was inexplicably sad when I sliced a homemade cherry strudel today. One we bought. It was delicious, so that wasn’t the issue. I guess it’s that I’d imagined this season of my life differently – I thought I’d be doing more baking. That I’d be taking over more bread and quiches to the neighbors than I do. 

Poetry is not to everyone’s taste. Then again, cherry strudel isn’t, either, I suppose. 

Poems are nourishment, too, though, right? 

I hope so.

WR has just returned from petting our tomato plant and she says poems taste just as good as cherry strudel.

Well, okay then. 

Drema

Dear Reader,

“Too many books to choose from,” Word Raccoon said this morning before the gym. It wasn’t too difficult to get her to go because she earned her badge for her 50th rowing session yesterday. Silly raccoon doesn’t get that it’s just a virtual badge. (She just hissed and said she’s “just” an on-the-page creature and is that all the more I think of her, too?)

Books. We were talking about books. 

Friday we went to the library to see if the museum pass was available for checking out. It was not, but WR left with an armload of books that were. Pile number one.

The next day, the son asked if we’d like to meet up for dinner. Obviously! So beforehand we went to a used bookstore in the town where he lives and WR found three books she would not leave without. Pile number two. (Is it just me or does “pile” sound suspect when referencing something belonging to a raccoon?)

After the movie (fine, I’ll tell you, we saw Minions & Monsters and while WR chortled a couple of times, we prefer the ones with Gru), we had half an hour before dinner time, so we went to a discount store we hadn’t been to before. And they had a book section! 

While there were the expected gift books, the religious novels, and bagged comics clearly no one wanted, there were also classics, and a few books I didn’t know existed but had WR wild with curiosity. 

Finally, I had to tell WR that even though the books were less than $5 each and even though we were getting a 15% discount, we had to set a cap. I gave her a modest one, reminding her that these books were not library books, but by buying them, we were inviting them to live with us or we’d have to find them a new home. She groaned and retracted her arm after she counted the books she was holding. 

Thus was born pile number three. 

On this too-busy weekend, that is nevertheless full of good things, we have only been able to read a few pages. Here’s our dilemma: now we don’t know whether to go back to the book we were reading from the library, or turn to the other two stacks of new friends. 

Library books have a deadline. But aha, if we return them, we can check them out at a more convenient time. (We never do read all of the books we check out anyway. Our eyes are bigger than our clock.) But what if they reshelve them and we forget they exist? What if a poem was hiding in one waiting for us to write it? 

Then there are the other books I bought. My mind is blocked by the buffet. It doesn’t make sense to sample them all at once. Or does it? 

I like my new books to stay close so I can get to know them better. I like to gaze at them, maybe brush my hands across their jackets. I like to thumb through them and consider the possibilities. Because until I read a book, I don’t know if it’s going to be a member of the family or not. 

One thing I am noticing is that I’m getting better about choosing the books I care most about, releasing those I don’t. My shelves are becoming more curated.

But these purgatory books, WR, what are we supposed to do with them? (That’s too harsh a word for them because they are so welcome to audition for shelf space.)

Normally, when I get more than two new books, I put them on the table beside me and choose one and read for a few minutes. If it captures my attention, there we go, it’s first. If not, I pick up the second. Simple enough. But what to do when I have a table full? 

Maybe I should just put the titles in an online randomizer and let it choose for me.

Word Raccoon is always curious as to how her readers choose. Perhaps you will share how?

Avaunt, threat of rain.

Drema 

Dear Reader,

What a beautiful day in the neighborhood! (With apologies to Mr. Rogers, LOL.) While it’s still mighty hot out, I’m beginning to see a few of the feathered species return to the block. 

Like yesterday felt, today’s post will necessarily be brief. Because holiday! (I think I may be over that sentence construction. It’s giving 2018 or before, isn’t it?)

Word Raccoon and I were reminded by a friend of an exhibit about to close at the FMOA on Art Deco and Jazz Age fashion. They had us at fashion. 

But what really stood out to us were a couple of newly acquired paintings. We bent close and examined the brush strokes. There is something captivating about that, something that captures our brain in a way that even lovely colors (and we live for color) do not do. 

So here’ s a quick recap of the outing, via photos. The American Regionalism exhibit features lithographs and photographs (look closely at the bottom Grant Wood one if you go. Pretty sure a house will look familiar!) 

And the Chuck Sperry exhibit was outstanding. It felt all of a piece, and WR said she would’ve chosen from pretty much any of them for album covers. 

Then, as ever, there is the startling glass exhibit. A few pieces had been swapped out since we’d been last. 

(WR is tugging at me to tell you that we went to see Toy Story 5 afterwards, and loved it. Joan Cusack as Jessie for the win! What, she’s not allowed to like art and animation, LOL?) 

As to that crazy Woolf/Behn poem situation, while the main poem is still brewing, WR found a way to get the second poem to detach from the first: she turned it into a punny poem. Problem solved. This is probably just notes for the first, after all, but here she is. 

Its main function is to separate one series of thoughts from another, to free the first idea from the second. It doesn’t matter how bad the poem is, although, truth be told, WR kinda finds it amusing. 

(Please note this is not meant to be historically accurate, although a quick search says yes, brown hair could be dyed blonde during Behn’s time. Or a wig could be worn.)

Anyway. 

Aphra Behn, Dyed

From brunette to blonde

In one broad stroke,

Our Lady of Words, apparently

craved a new ‘do.

*history whispers in my ear*

Never mind, folks.

I’ve been told the marker 

actually means 

she’s buried here.

Sorry, Mrs. Behn. 

Not telling what movie I’m going to see today, lest I sound super silly. I might confess tomorrow. Maybe. 

And I’m definitely going to blame WR. 🥰

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon found this poem in a notebook from last year and it seemed to want some fresh air, so I thought I’d oblige it.

If You Please, Sir

If you please, Sir,

don’t be angry that I

stole your

poetic energy.

It crouched in a cold hedge

on a lonely road 

just outside of town.

I called to it and wrapped it 

in my blue sweater when it

stumbled towards me.

I fed it donut holes in my car

and we stayed up 

till dawn writing.

It said it used to do that with you.

We drank coffee,

and I showed it how

to use my Freewrite until

at the sound of the trash truck, 

I 

released it from my sweater and

told it to

go on home.

See, we wrote you a poem.

The happiest of upcoming holidays! Fireworks for all! 

Drema 

Now Listening to: Brill Building Pop Essentials: The Boy from New York City

Dear Reader,

This is going to be a mash-up of yesterday and today. Today, Thursday, Word Raccoon and I went out to water the flowers and came face to face with a raccoon! A literal, honest-to-goodness raccoon.

“WR, did you invite a relative to come stay?” I asked.

She whispered that she hadn’t, and I paused, mesmerized, wanting to take a picture, but not wanting to move. The wee one and I stared at one another, and then the adorable animal waddled away. 

I thought that meant we’d have a good writing day. Auspicious. Eh…not so much.

I’m working on a poem that has been coming to me in fits and starts. It might be two poems. (Started it yesterday.)

It quotes Virginia Woolf talking about Aphra Behn, whose work I haven’t read since my early college days. But she’s quite the character. 

Now I’m intrigued about her, and though the poem I was writing was Woolf talking about Behn, this second poem is trying to beat up the first and take its place. Rude.

The title is “Let Flowers Fall,” and I LOVE the title (it’s part of the Woolf quote) but the poem is anemic in comparison to what Woolf says. I am inspired every time I think of those words, but they aren’t sprouting yet.

The poem won’t let me work at it steadily; it tells me I know what this particular process is, and that the same thing happened with my poem about the Grecian urn and that I just have to mull.

I hate mulling.

No, I like it, just not for too long, but Word Raccoon and I are not privileged to see this type of poem birthed, usually. They gestate somewhere in whichever brain hemisphere is responsible for poetry and then they say, “Give me a pen, or a piece of charcoal, or whatever,” and then bada boom, baby, there it is.

Or, that’s the hope.

I want to see this poem. I’ve already named it. I’m excited for it. (I know I’m mixing metaphors or something but I’d rather mix a metaphor in a poem and get a poem right than vice versa. I only have so much brain power at one time, LOL.)

It’s the kind of poem I know better than to interfere with; I have to let it become. Which, on the one hand is immensely satisfying, but on the other, wouldn’t it be cool if our heads had a transparent section that we could watch our brains work from? 

Maybe not.

I feel a little left out.

I know, I know, both types of poems are me, are WR, but it would be nice to watch it all come together. 

Who knows? If I get stuck (I won’t; it’s already growing, I can feel it), I could pull it apart and play with it.

Nope. Nopeity nope, it says. 

It’s an Important Poem.

Oh, jeez…that seems a bit self-important. 

I wrote the above yesterday, and the poem has not deigned to let me near it today, either. Instead, after the gym this morning and finishing my ‘must-do’ list, I went back to reading that beach read and ended up finishing it today—which meant blissfully reading for hours. That seems very on-theme for a holiday weekend, even if it will be spent at home.

P.S. The board with the line from Behn to Woolf pictured is something I picked up at the thrift shop. For displaying poems. 🎉 Displayed here with more of my artsy lovies in the nest I made for them. Including Woolf!

No writing yet today, unless we count this. I think that wild raccoon made off with the words. Which is fine, as long as it brings some back to me. WR says she’d like a raccoon as a pet. I don’t think so!

Gosh, stay cool, those in the heat belt! 

Drema

Dear Reader, 

One of Word Raccoon’s favorite poems has been published by Hare’s Paw Literary Journal. You can read “Stephen King at Midnight” here. (And if Mr. King ever reads it, I hope he will see it’s written with affection.) This poem was on our list to find a good home for this year. Mission accomplished. 

(I feel like I say all of my poems are my favorite. They’re not, but I have many, which is a nice feeling.) 

Interestingly, I added a line and changed the spacing just a bit on the poem recently. I was happier with it, and maybe that’s what it needed because presto publisho! (It was accepted and published the same day, which made WR beam.) 

What I’d like to understand about my revision process is how come sometimes I can look at a poem and know I need to take a necklace off it, or add a belt, but at other times I think it’s perfect just the way it is until I re-read it (usually right after having submitted it), and then I want to take away WR’s poetry writing privileges. I know I’ve talked about this recently, but I just don’t understand it. Same eyes, same mind, different mood produces different results? Sigh. 

Maybe it’s the heat. I tried to beat it by getting outdoors early to water the flowers this morning, and as I was turning on the hose, a beautiful birb said hello. Maybe that’s where the sensible birds have been. I haven’t even seen a squirrel today, so I think everyone’s gotten the weather report: it’s hot out, friends!

In other news, Word Raccoon says down with steamer cleaners! This is the second one she’s had recalled, two different brands. Then when she sent in the required photo with the cord of the item cut off to get her refund yesterday, they asked for a better photo. She sent another and finally received word that it was accepted and that the refund is on its way. 

She’s grateful to have her wheels back, to be writing on the café porch today. But what will she write? She doesn’t know. Probably poetry. Where she is sitting she can see the window of what used to be her bedroom for a brief time when she was a teen in a house cattycorner to the spot where we’re writing.

It was a basement apartment, so even that small window was a welcome glimpse of light. She can also see the porch where she’d read sometimes, though I don’t think she wrote much on it. 

Currently, WR and I are reading a book we picked up a month ago at our favorite thrift shop near the dunes. We assumed it would be a beach read, but now it’s a heatwave read, I suppose. For a minute we thought it might be something more, since it’s translated from French, but no, no. It’s truly a beach read and we’re on the fence about finishing it. We’d skim, but it’s a mystery, and you don’t want to skim a mystery. Still, this thing is over 500 pages! 

WR says she is ready to write something, if I’d just finish up already. Fine, fine, you impatient creature. Let’s find a draft to drink.

Stay cool, dear reader. 

Drema 

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon has learned that she is getting her horseless carriage back today! She is thrilled! This heat has grounded her, and while she has access to a vehicle in the afternoon, she prefers to go to the gym in the morning, especially on overheated mornings like this!

However, she has managed to water the flowers and question the tomato. Shh…there are two, possibly three, blooms on the plant. I think the plant is going to require a support, and soon. We are not convinced that it will actually grow tomatoes, but we had to try. 

WR also watered the sunporch because she forgot the window was open. Thank goodness her treasures are in lidded jars, especially her pinecones! 

Her nose is a bit out of joint today because she submitted a packet of what she thought was targeted poetry, but it was rejected after just a couple of days, which makes WR go “But did you read it?” (She is not normally offended.)

I am encouraging her to stay with the writing this morning, but she keeps pointing to that list that if only we finished it, she knows the writing would be better.

As if those tasks are going to disappear, WR! Do them later, darling gorl! 

WR is incredibly frustrated by the weather, btw. Not clear enough to paint the trim, too hot to walk to the cafe, even the fauna have taken cover. Not that we blame them. But our poor eyes have had to make do with crimson and clover. 

While researching whether or not a certain story of mine from the archives had been published (we still believe it was but alas, the publication is now defunct, so we are still hunting), we discovered another story that was published by them and a poem we had forgotten about. 

A poem, circa 2012. Not an assignment, but a wherever-did-you-come-from poem. Guess I was occasionally writing poems back then. It has an interesting line or two although it sounds way too earnest. It’s ornamented like a late 80’s jean jacket. But I might let WR gnaw at it, if she promises to leave something of the original.

We also rediscovered our first published poem (if you don’t count poems published in a youth church newsletter when WR was a teen), and we still like it. It was published in Manchester University’s Spectrum in 2012. 

As rights have reverted long since, here it is. (I did not edit it now except change the spacing slightly and add a semicolon, though if I were revising it, I would fidget with it a bit. I would add what river that bridge spans. And I would make clear that I was watching so intently because I wanted to be sure it wasn’t my son on one of those skateboards instead of being where he was supposed to be, LOL.) 

Yes, this poem comes from real-life events. (Is the title too on the nose?)

WR says she wants a skateboard. Absolutely not, young lady. (Young raccoon?)

The Skateboarders

A bald eagle crouches on an electric line

that spans the bridge. 

The bird looks cold and cranky,

not at all majestic, and I feel cheated. 

I try to write about my sighting,

albeit unenthusiastically,

until I encounter our local birds:

they lope along Main, to Market,

two young men, owning sidewalks with ollies,

plaid boxers peeking five inches above waistbands

of stove pipe pants whose knees are frayed by griptape;

the two force away the pavement with their feet.

The one with the blond hair milks the strings of his knit cap,

soars into a kickflip, terrorizing a toddler on a red bicycle.

They are board-borne birds,

all speed and arrogance, and I am captivated

in the cafe across the street.

The dark-haired one attempts a heelflip,

doesn’t make it, sees me staring, waves. 

That is the first autumn he takes my order

at the DQ drive-through.   

He leans out of the window to hand me my change,

and I know he remembers the wave. 

He looks cold and cranky.

They never do skate again 

after they start working,

do they?   

I think that poem is all the ending this post needs, wouldn’t you say, Dear Reader? I feel this one in my back teeth.

Drema 

P.S. Shouldn’t it be drive-thru? LOL.

Dear Reader,

Word Raccoon doesn’t know what to do with a “normal” day after so many not.

We’re listening to the Book Review podcast. They’re (finally) discussing Yesteryear. I have a few thoughts to add since I wrote about it last. I’d love a comedic version of the premise. Send a tradwife back to the past, however (dream, concussion, curse, I don’t care how), and let history refuse to cooperate with nostalgia. That WR and I would read the hell out of.

WR and I are irritated that it’s going to be so hot today. We have so many writing aspirations but right now we are trying to outsmart the sun. (Where is my little sunscreen to put around my computer?) At least we watered the flowers plenty early.

Let’s see…impressions/happenings of the past few days:

– We met three great-nephews for the first time and they are absolute darlings. We hope we will get to see them again much sooner!

– WR noticed that on the back of the card for condolence flowers sent to us were instructions for the colors to select. Our colors. How did he know?

– WR ordered a soft drink she doesn’t normally get, and it had to be shipped. To avoid a fee, WR ordered other staples, but evidently these were not all available from the same store because it looked like we had a taxi stand happening. One car pulled up with five items, took a photo, handed them over, and as it pulled out the second car pulled up. One item, she left. Not more than five minutes later, the last and final car came with the only item WR really wanted right then. (The jury’s still out on the beverage. Well, as you can imagine, WR has rejected it out of hand, but at a third of the price of her beloved you-know-what, she may just have to deal.)

WR is not proud of her carbon footprint in this scenario and will avoid this in the future.

Perhaps the coolest thing of the week was reconnecting with a younger cousin by marriage.

He sat with me at a family lunch and asked about my writing. When I mentioned my poetry, his face lit up and he said he had something he wanted to show me, but then he wasn’t sure he should, so I offered to let him read one of my poems.

WR did not do that to show off.

She did it to let him know she’s a safe place for writing.

He read it, asked more about it, and then I shared another one to run off any lingering hesitation he might have. This one was (I hope) humorous and irreverent, which was the update of me that I assumed he needed to feel entirely comfortable letting me read his work.

“You’re funny,” he said, and then he added that he guessed he had never really known me.

Our talk deepened, and we connected over both having lost our mothers and turning to writing to process it. He let me read his poem, and it was really good, and there were a couple of lines that were tattoo-worthy, and I told him how much I liked them.

It was beautiful to be sitting side by side with this young man I’ve known since he was a kid, passing our phones back and forth, knowing one another in a much deeper way. But also, WR went home and immediately ate all the snacks.

Why is being seen both wonderful and terrifying?

While I showed him my poetry for him, I’m the one who unexpectedly gained. 

Okay, okay, enough. WR says she wants me to find that sunscreen or she wants sunglasses. She says I have written quite enough of this nonsense and she now wants a clown nose or something suitably unserious.

Hey, WR, you still have a pink boot vase on the porch. You good?

She’s good.

Drema

Dear Reader,

I am debating with my writing minion this morning. 

Word Raccoon, there is no time, there is no time today to wander the hallways of our mind, I mean writing, of years past, not just now. Not today. 

Yes, I know you want to parse that poem of yours that you forgot was published over a decade ago. 

Yes, I know you want to get your greedy paws on one or another of those short stories and first, to read them, and second, to see if you really do have enough for a collection and if they are salvageable  (maybe even better than that with some tweaking).

Obviously, you want to count how many times you changed the weirdest food story’s (Dear Reader, we are using “weird” in the current way, not in the Shakespearean way.) title. (At least three, at a casual glance) And I KNOW you want to see that story published because you have always believed in it since it was birthed in a cafe. 

I understand that you want to order a brigade of printer cartridges and print it all out and put it Someplace Safe and find even more ways of storing it so you never lose track of it again. Even those terrible stories where you were trying on someone else’s writing clothes and they do not fit. 

Those fragments, poems, stories, dear god, even whole novels. (Bad ones.)

All the essays; your mind loves chewing on ideas via essays, doesn’t it? Did you not tell me your first impulse for this third novel was to insert a g-d essay?

That was supposed to be just for the second novel, darling raccoon. 

The even older, embarrassing stories your keyboard bucked against because “There is no sanctuary” kept tugging at your hem, though you wouldn’t listen.

Then there are those where your heart battles your common sense and wins on the page again and again and again. And yet you ignored it. Worse, jousted it with a quill.

Every shade of WR is in this writing. Every person she thought she had to be. Her, leaking onto the page anyway.

Oh WR, I am looking forward to this coming week, too. The reading we have ahead of us! 

Don’t worry, Dear Reader. 

We’ll be sharing. 

Some.

Drema