Four years later…

~ oneletterup ~ 16 Comments

If trying to find a way when you don’t even know you can get there isn’t a small miracle; then I don’t know what is.

Rachel Joyce
Desk View
February 26, 2022

Four years ago today I held my breath and tapped the Publish button on my newly launched blog. I had no idea what to expect, but thought…why not? And Oneletterup was born. It began as a safe place for exploring & sifting through memories…flipping through musty diaries and the creased pages of letters from loved ones. And not-so-loved ones.

Then I discovered blog “challenges” which encouraged me to go deep and push through to write my truth. I had been in various writing groups over the years so it wasn’t an entirely new type of experience, but this time was better. I was inspired by VJ and Heather and Martha and Sandy and Shelley and Ellen to name just a few. Photography took off for me because of the Tuesday Photo Challenge (Frank offered excellent advice for choosing my new camera!). I was again inspired by fellow bloggers like him and Becky and Cee and Manja and John and the Lens Artists.

Of course everything went off track once the pandemic hit 2 (!) years ago, but blogging reinforced that I was not alone. It was also a place to try to make some kind of sense of what the hell was happening. I have been one of many…sharing and commenting in common disbelief at how upside down everything was/is.

I’m the type of person who diligently (and joyfully) marks anniversaries and rites of passage with photos and journal entries. Tell those stories! Birthdays (must have cake & candles!). Graduations (cake!). Weddings (cake!). First Days of School. Last Days of School. The First Year of Life in weekly photos. I am not sure how to commemorate my 4th year blogging anniversary except to be glad I’m still at it…and grateful to those who have hung in there with me. We’ve had comforting conversations and thankfully sometimes a few laughs.

When I started this blog 4 years ago, I was retired with more free time and now I’m not. Well…yes and no. My current full time volunteer “job” is running a condo board which usually chases out/squashes/silences the writer and photographer in me. Maybe someday that will be subject material for an essay (“I thought High School was over 50 years ago”) or even a memoir (“The Old and the Ornery”) but when you’re in the middle of you-know-what, it’s not the time to pick it apart and discuss.

I’m glad to be here…literally and on WP. Thanks for all your support.
Here’s to better days ahead!

Andrea

November, 2021

Oddity at the Airport

~ oneletterup ~ 24 Comments

BeckyB’s Squares Challenge: SquareOdds

I walked right by this row of pay phones (pay phones!) before realizing how odd it had become to see pay phones reminiscent of the “old days.” I then backed up and snapped this photo, complete with a portion of the Boston skyline painted on the wall above. In my hurry to reach my gate at Logan Airport I almost missed it.

Years ago, pay phones were enclosed in phone booths – with doors that closed – to give the caller some privacy and shelter from the weather when located outdoors. Even when located indoors they were usually set at a distance from each other or in a corner. There is no setup for privacy here. When you think about it, “privacy” is more of an illusion or distant memory (for some of us) in 2022 and has been that way for a while. It’s the odd (and in my opinion…unfortunate) reality of the cell phone internet age.

Logan Airport
Boston, Massachusetts

An Odd Sight

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BeckyB’s Squares Challenge for February: SquareOdds

Differing from the usual or not happening often (ie oddballs, the exceptions and follies)
Separated from its set or mate (eg odds and ends or maybe odd socks or shoes)
Not divisible exactly by two (ie odd numbers) or the number is unknown (ie 300 odd birds)

~~~

This scene struck me as odd while walking in the woods last November. It was one of those stop-and-look-twice moments. First glance at a distance…a tree suspended?…risen? My imagination enjoyed the moment.

In the middle of a Blizzard

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SixWordSaturday

January 29, 2022

The snow started falling this morning, a January Nor’easter as they call massive snowstorms here in New England. Warnings popped up earlier in the week on television, newsfeeds and on the radio. Maps with snow totals (12-20 inches!) began creeping into the Breaking News lead-in segment during the evening news. Mother Nature did it again. She preempted the pandemic, the economy, foreign conflicts, politics. She tends to do that, as if to say…Remember your priorities people! I am really in charge here!

News anchors cranked out the usual…Get your snow shovels! Batteries! Bread! Milk! When it gets down to it, survival needs can get very basic. Although, I noticed more shopping carts filled with chips, cheese balls, frozen pizza, beer and wine.

And then the term blizzard (with its definition of wind speed blah blah blah)…and then: this could rival the Blizzard of ’78! That got my attention. I spent the Blizzard of ’78 huddled in a tiny 3rd floor apartment with my then boyfriend, watching the snow fall. I don’t remember anything about bread and milk.

Fandango’s Flashback Friday: January 28th

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Fandango’s Flashback Friday: January 28th

Wouldn’t you like to expose your newer readers to some of your earlier posts that they might never have seen? Or remind your long term followers of posts that they might not remember? Each Friday I will publish a post I wrote on this exact date in a previous year. How about you? Why don’t you reach back into your own archives and highlight a post that you wrote on this very date in a previous year?

~~~

This post was published January 28th, 2019. Interesting follow-up fun fact – but perhaps more of a personal lightbulb moment…kids everywhere who passed those notes have all grown up and now use email. Anger is highlighted in red. Rumors and character assassinations run wild. Weekends and holidays are no exception. Boundaries disappear. They can still be a gut punch.

So goes a very short rant-of-the-day from my current life as a condo board member. It’s time-consuming, emotionally draining work and eerily reminiscent of times past. Bullies at 70 are just as awful as bullies at 12. On paper and in person. Which is why I have neglected my favorite place here on WP. Who knew that middle school (learning!) experiences like this would be called upon now…

********

Pass That Note

This post inspired by Ragtag Daily Prompt: Note

…I saw a note that Gail wrote
& it says she hates me…
I don’t know if you’re mad at Gail but I am…

Notes.
When did I first run headlong into notes?
At that awkward will-I-fit-in-say-the-right-thing-avoid-exclusion-at-all-cost stage that characterized my middle school years in the 1960’s.

When successfully passing notes was a prized achievement. A right of passage. If you didn’t get caught.

Notes directed the intense undercurrent of a girl’s ever shifting social hierarchy. They could make or break your day at school.

Scrawled on lined notebook paper. Ripped out of 3-ring binders. Torn into halves. Or quarters. Hastily folded as small as possible. Then..slipped to a friend. Or potential friend. Or some kid sitting at a desk on the way to the note’s intended recipient.

With one eye on the teacher, who with chalk in hand might not turn towards the blackboard as quickly as you think. Who might snatch the wrinkled piece of paper. Which held the potential key to your social future. And then, horror of horrors, read it out loud. So everyone would hear…

Are you mad at me?
Write down yes or no.
Check next to these names…
Do you like them or not?

Or worse, if the note was for you…
From the girlfriends you just had a sleepover with…

We have decided that you are not our type.
Please don’t hang around with us that much. 
You can if you want….Every time
we look at you you are reading. I know you
like to but not every second. Don’t hang around
that much anymore.

note029
Elaborate codes were devised

I’ve always wondered…why? Why did girls jostle for position in such cut throat ways? Which is probably why I saved a few notes for 50 years. Thinking I’d figure it out. I have not. I still have no clue.

Except I am grateful there was no Facebook when I was struggling to fit in. No Instagram. No social media.
Notes would have followed me everywhere.
Day and night.
I can’t imagine.

Notes on wrinkled paper were thrown away. Or stuffed in a drawer.
Only public for an agonizing minute if the teacher recited them in front of snickering classmates.

Then the bell would ring.
And out the door I’d go.

swing