Cee’s Challenge topic this week is Shadows
Fun with my Christmas Cactus a few months ago…
Summer Fun chasing a quick-footed red-hatted 2 year old, who liked to hide in the shadows…
…or beat me to the door….(whichever came first)
Tag: writing
Photo a Week – Cityscape/Townscape
Nancy Merrill is hosting a photo challenge. The theme this week – Cityscape/Townscape
IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO (OR MORE) FEATURING CITIES OR TOWNS.
I had the good fortune this past weekend to visit with my son, his girlfriend and their sweet pup. They live in the Boston area in a 4th floor walkup apartment. Lots of walking ensued…over 12,000 steps worth.
I also didn’t miss the opportunity to run into the middle of the street for photo ops along the way.
Boston and its suburbs – which often have the same look and feel of Boston proper – offer the usual old city buildings packed in amongst newer, more trendy coffee shops and ice cream stores. Apartments. Duplex homes and condos. A blend of the historical and present day.
Fortunately the snow had melted off the sidewalks and the sun was shining when we arrived at the Coolidge Corner subway stop in Brookline on Saturday.
Brookline, Massachusetts
On the way to my son’s apartment…a canopy of trees caught my eye.
However, when we turned the corner heading out of Brookline…I noticed a strange parade approaching.
One I did not expect to see in the middle of a suburb of a major city.
Waiting for no one to stop or move over, they just marched on from one corner to the next…hurrying on their way.
Part of the cityscape…no fear.
Song Lyric Sunday – School/Books/Learning
My contribution to this week’s Song Lyric Sunday (prompt: School/Books/Learning) will focus on the learning…
Beth Nielsen Chapman, an American singer/songwriter, wrote Life Holds On for her self titled album released in 1990. I discovered her music by chance – often hearing it on the radio. It remains on my list of all time favorite albums!
She plays both guitar and piano throughout this album; keyboards only on Life Holds On.
Many of her songs have been recorded by artists such as Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tanya Tucker, Trisha Yearwood and Martina McBride. She co-wrote This Kiss with Faith Hill, who recorded it as well. Elton John began performed her song Sand and Water in 1997. Her most recent album Hearts of Glass was released in 2018.
Life Holds On
by Beth Nielsen Chapman
I was swinging on the swings when I was a little girl
Trying to get a handle on the big, wide world
When I noticed all the grass in the cracks in the concrete
I said, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way around anything”
Life holds on
Given the slightest chance
For the weak and the strong
Life holds on
There was a third grade boy that we knew in school
He was found face down in a swimming pool
And as they worked on that kid every minute was an hour
And when his eyes fluttered open we could feel that power
Life holds on
Given the slightest chance
For the weak and the strong
Life holds on
Life holds on
Life holds on
Sirens screaming down my street
Fading as they go
Whining somewhere far away
To someone I don’t know
Still, I say a little prayer
There’s always hope
Life holds on.
Through the window in the kitchen I can see outside
My kids taking turns coming down the slide
I try not to worry as they grow a little every day
No, I’ve just got to believe they’re gonna find their way.
Life holds on
Given the slightest chance
For the weak and the strong
Life holds on
Life holds on
Life holds on
Life holds on
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Sunrise
This post inspired by Frank at Dutch goes the Photo
The prompt: Sunrise
I am not the morning person in the family. Never have been. Prying my eyes open before coffee for any useful purpose…not advisable. Focusing on anything that early in the day would not lead to my best work….
In search of a suitable photo for this challenge, I knew just where to look. My husband – definitely a morning person – even a cheerful morning person at that – had just what I was looking for. And graciously agreed to contribute the following photos, taken on his morning walks before work.
Ocean View
Neighborhood Land View
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Shiny
Cee’s Challenge topic this week is Shiny
My grandfather Opa left behind a large box of photographic slides. Hundreds of them encased in shiny metal slide mounts. Fitted into 1940’s and 1950’s era slide magazine cases. For viewing in a slide projector.
I inherited this box of treasured memories of the many travels he and my Oma embarked on…before advancing age and illness ended their adventures.
After unearthing the box in our basement during the let’s-get-ready-to-downsize years, I removed all the slides from the magazines…and mounts. Viewed them on a lighted slide sorter. And kept a sampling of my favorites (eventually inspiring one of my first blog posts…slides!)
I let go of the shiny metal….
Answers
Part of teaching is helping students learn how to tolerate ambiguity, consider possibilities, and ask questions that are unanswerable.
Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot
And what would they be…the unanswerable questions…
We ask them all the time. Naively. Believing answers are forthcoming. Nice, neat, tidy answer boxes we can check off…putting our minds at ease.
Humans need explanations. Logical reasons for behaviors…and difficult situations. Doubt disturbs the equilibrium we crave.
Children’s why questions…usually answerable…
Why do I need to wash my hands?
Why can’t I touch the stove…run into the street?
Until they’re not…
Why are those kids so mean?
How come grandpa had to die?
As time passes, the answers thin out. They don’t cut it.
We see through them. The holes. The exceptions. The weaknesses. The path to newer questions. Black and white fading to gray.
In the end…sometimes no answers. Not really. We’ve lived too long to settle. We know better. But still…not why.
Why is she sick with cancer and I’m not?
Why can’t the doctors figure out what is wrong with me?
Shifting realities pose more questions than answers.
Humans don’t fit neatly into a category of reasons why.
Too much mystery. Too many unknowns. Intangibles.
Questions expand. And filter down to the universal…
What is life?
Why am I here?
What happens when I’m not?
~~~
I took a class in college – my one and only Philosophy course – entitled “Explanation” – and was immediately lost in a sea of questions. The professor with his PhD paced back and forth in front of rows of earnest young students like myself. Trying to absorb his explanations of deep philosophical questions and answers. The existential questions of…life? To me…it might as well have been another language all together. I had no answers for him that I understood, but I offered them anyway on exams….and assigned papers. Fortunately the answers were good enough. To earn a B in the class.
I wonder how it would go if I were taking that class now….
This post inspired by V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #39: Unanswerable
Song Lyric Sunday – Animal
My contribution to this week’s Song Lyric Sunday (prompt: Animal)
Rickie Lee Jones wrote The Horses with Walter Becker (of Steely Dan). It appears on the album Flying Cowboys (1989) and was written about her daughter Charlotte Rose. The song was also featured in the 1996 movie Jerry Maguire.
A sweet song of a mother’s fierce love…it could be any mother’s…or father’s…message to a child.
The Horses
by Rickie Lee Jones
& Walter Becker
We will fly
Way up high
Where the cold wind blows
Or in the sun
Laughing having fun
With the people that she knows
And if the situation
Should keep us separated
You know the world won’t fall apart
And you will free the beautiful bird
That’s caught inside your heart
Can’t you hear her?
Oh she cries so loud
Casts her wild note
Over water and cloud
That’s the way it’s gonna be, little darlin’
We’ll be riding on the horses, yeah
Way up in the sky, little darlin’
And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up
You will grow
And until you go
I’ll be right there by your side
And even then
Whisper the wind
And she will carry up your ride
I hear all the people of the world
In one bird’s lonely cry
See them trying every way they know how
To make their spirit fly
Can’t you see him?
He’s down on the ground
He has a broken wing
Looking all around
That’s the way it’s gonna be, little darlin’
You go riding on the horses, yeah
Way up in the sky, little darlin’
And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up
That’s the way it’s gonna be, little darlin’
You go riding on the horses, yeah
Way up in the sky, little darlin’
And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up
And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up
And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up
I’ll pick you up darlin’ if you fall
Don’t worry ’bout a thing little girl
Because I was young myself not so long ago
And when I was young
When I was young
And when I was young, oh I was a wild, wild one.
Happy Birthday Papa
Chopsticks!
Papa showed me how to play the classic simple song. A waltz actually. On his piano.
Sitting right beside me. Just the 2 of us.
At his big old house in Cincinnati, Ohio. One warm day in the 1960’s during a rare family visit.
I was only 8 years old. I wish it had been the first of many lessons.
Papa, my paternal grandfather, was born March 9, 1886 in Chicago, Illinois. The middle child of five. I don’t know much about his early life except he met Grammy when passing through her small rural Tennessee town. He often traveled by train from Cincinnati, working as a lumber inspector for his brother’s company. He rented a room in my grandmother’s childhood home during stops in Graysville. He eventually won her over…and that was that!
Papa and Grammy married and raised my father and his older sister in Cincinnati, where Papa owned and operated a lumber company. No small feat for a man with only an 8th grade education.
I probably saw Papa maybe a dozen times before he died unexpectedly at the age of 78. Cincinnati was very far away from where I lived on the east coast. Visits did not happen often. The last one was a whirlwind car trip a few weeks before he died.
What do I remember about Papa?
He was a short quiet man with kind brown eyes. Papa loved to put on his cap and go for long walks. Sometimes he asked me – just me! – to join him. During one of those walks, he stopped, plucked a wide blade of grass from a nearby patch and carefully positioned it between the sides of his thumbs. He pressed his thumbs together…held them up to his mouth, took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks…and blew out…. It whistled!
Was this magic?
He then plucked one for me. And waited calmly until I was able to make it whistle all by myself.
I’m (obviously) still impressed all these years later.
I learned how to play chopsticks on the piano during one long…patient…lesson with him. Later, in their sunny kitchen, we’d sit across from each other by the window and play double solitaire. Or a new card game he taught me called 7Up. At the metal table with the shiny sides and checkered formica top.
circa 1958-59
Sadly our connection was short lived, but fortunately he left his loving stamp on my memory…and my heart.
Happy Birthday Papa!
[ps…Papa would be thrilled to know…that coincidentally…his middle name is the same as his great great grandson’s first name…and…also coincidentally…they were both born on the 9th day of the month…]
Tuesday Photo Challenge – Round
This post inspired by Frank at Dutch goes the Photo
The prompt: Round
Have you ever heard of 3D Tic Tac Toe?
I never did until we took a family weekend trip to Boston in 1995. One of the highlights was a visit to the Boston Children’s Museum. The “Brain Games” section on the third floor included life-size chess and checkers…and 3D Tic Tac Toe. My 13 year old daughter “especially liked” that section (as noted in our travel scrapbook).
We all enjoyed it so much that my husband made a family home version…using a piece of pine board, dowels and 64 wooden beads (he painted half of them red).
Our homemade game survived downsizing.
Perhaps to entertain us in our old age.
Who says it’s just for children?
What’s in a Name
This post inspired by V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #38: What’s In a Name?
…what’s in a name? Specifically, your blog name.
So how did I come up with…oneletterup?
It was a process…a metamorphosis from one idea to another.
Quickly realizing there were many like-minded WordPress writers who had already scooped up my blog name ideas. Containing the words diaries or letters or journals…
I took that as a sign. To dig deeper. As this blog-to-be was just taking shape in my mind…and I surveyed the saved boxes of diaries, journals, stories – and old letters.
Especially the letters…hundreds of handwritten letters from as far back as when I was 7 years old. Precious pieces of everybody-has-a-story history. Letters from girlfriends, camp friends, grandparents, mother, father, sisters, brothers.
Also, just as interesting, were the letters I had written to my parents…from camp, summer jobs, college or from the privacy of my childhood bedroom.
Something…intuition I couldn’t ignore…kept me from throwing them all away.
Despite advice from well meaning loved ones…
What do you need all those letters for?
Burn them. They’re awful.
Or
Nobody cares.
It’s all in the past anyway!
However…the past – and its people – and their stories – are important.
I needed to write…and use the letters…and the diaries…
and (as I was to discover) the photographs that had piled up high.
Source material? Inspiration? Family history? Because it was fun? And perhaps cathartic at the same time?
All of the above.
I had already begun writing about my family and friends over the years. Sharing at various writing classes and groups. One short essay published online.
For the most part, though, my life had been full of responsibilities pushing the writing down low, if not completely off, the list. Until a year ago. When I was ready. And strong enough to ignore all the discouraging voices…inside and out.
Stories were swimming
Beneath the surface.
I needed to dive in
Put words on the page…
…one letter up….at a time.
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 