A Gift to Me

Every year around this time, I spend a morning at our Festival on the Common, a favorite holiday event I've written about previously,  here and here.  I don’t know why this unassuming gathering gets to me so much, but once I arrive, I wander about with a huge lump in my throat, thinking how glad I am to be a part of it one more time.   

It's the same now as it was before we starting bringing our daughter, and she's in college now. Three churches come together to kick off the season and trust me,  there is nothing high tech about it.  In fair weather, Santa sits on a sleigh on the common and kids hop on his lap for a photo opportunity.  Occasionally, like Saturday, he’s forced to commandeer a back room at one of the common churches when snow makes outdoor photographs impossible. 

This year, fat flakes dropped in a swirl that made me dizzy as I walked to my first stop, the Congregational Church, home of the silent auction, a raffle for a steak and shrimp dinner and a bake sale.  But as always, I was in it for the clam chowder, a hot, thick bowl of it that warmed me to the core.  Now that I work for the town, I know ever so many more folks, and as I sat at a plastic covered table in a church office blowing on my steaming broth, I received friendly waves and greetings. 

 

Once I scrapped the bottom of my bowl, it was time for my main event.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, a local minister was inspired to form a town band.  Folks who used to play came together in a kind of rag-tag group long on enthusiasm and short on practice.  I remember laughing the first time I saw them, at a Memorial Day Parade…not in a mean way…they laughed at themselves too.  Then, one of the town music teachers stepped in and began leading them.  Now they offer credible performances during local events around town and by far, their concert on festival day is my favorite.  Musicians range from recent high school graduates to folks approaching 80, and they gather to play inspirational pieces as well as traditional carols and popular holiday songs.  Donations from those in attendance go to the local food pantry. 

The church in which the concert is held was built in 1714 and resides as the centerpiece of our town common.  As always, I climbed to the balcony ringing the church on three sides, sat on a velvet-cushioned bench and leaned forward as the music rose up. Overlooking the players, I could see their joy as they performed, a happiness that transferred itself to me when half way through the concert the conductor launched into traditional carols, and we were all invited to sing.   

Afterwords I stepped down the steps humming, then crossed the street to the Unitarian Church Jumble sale.  Like every year, I  fingered gently used table linens, pottery and books but didn't buy a thing. 

The day had already given me everything I needed.

 

Oh How I Miss You

Here's my post for the Oh How I Miss You Blogfest.  The instructions are as follows:  "Do you have a couple blogger buddies who aren’t posting as often? Those who’ve pulled back and seem absent from the blogging world? Do you have blogger buddies for which you grateful and would miss if they vanished? Now is your chance to show your appreciation and spotlight them!"  To find more participants in this blogfest, click here:

For many folks, including me lately, blogging feels like the ebb and flow of a full moon tide.  Sometimes my posts spew out in a head-on rush to shore and sometimes other factors tug my sea of words in another direction.

 

In this regard, I elect Suzy Hayes/Palmieri, as my first nominee in the Oh How I Miss You Blogfest.   These days, Suzy is focused on her two books, both scheduled for release in 2013.  I’m delighted for her, and am drumming my fingers as I look forward to two wonderful reads in the spring.  But I’d be a liar if I didn’t admit to wishing I could still read Suzy's evocative writing on a regular schedule.  Her words reached in and held me. They forced me to sit while they filtered through and fingered soft places.  So often, I'd read her posts mesmerized, until I exhaled in a soft and committed “Yes.”  To read Suzy’s old posts, click here.   These days, you can find her here. 

When it comes down to communicating with gut-wrenching honesty, I have to give it to Carolina Valdez-Miller.  Oh my word, this woman can write.  She has brought me to tears on more than one occasion, and it’s clear that which has moved me comes with an incredible thoughtfulness.  In my mind, Carol lives as purposefully as anyone I “know,” and every word she commits to cyberspace rings pure.  You can read Carol here.

I know I’m only supposed to feature two or three bloggers, but there are a few more I want to recognize.  Yvonne at the Organic Writer constructs stunning poems that sometimes leave me exultant, and other times leave me shattered.  Kudos to a writer who can prompt such emotion.  Tricia, at Tailspinning  may be my soul sister on the other side of the country, writing beautiful haiku’s to reflect the gorgeous photos she takes of her lovely coast.  Another blogger/writer  I treasure, Jan Morrison, lives on the east coast of Canada, and, finds joy and pleasure in the nature that surrounds her. You can find her here, and here.

Some of these bloggers still post regularly.  Others not so much.  But I owe all of them a debt of gratitude for the ways in which their singular words and encouragement have touched my life and helped me grow.

A Matter of Degree

When our most recent Nor’easter, “Athena” arrived last week (Who knew “winter” storms get labeled now, too?), I choked when I heard her name.  Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and “Just” Wars, pounded our coast eight days after Sandy. For a while Wednesday and Thursday, I wondered what wisdom irate Mother Nature sought to impart as she launched her second offensive in less than two weeks. Patience, perhaps? Maybe fortitude?  Or perhaps, it was something else. 

 

We get these Nor’easters, and we get through them, but during Athena, following so closely on the heels of Sandy’s devastation, something occurred that brought to mind how fate factors into our lives.

   

The coast south of Boston is littered with sharp rocks.  The area’s past is colored with tragic shipwrecks—including a horrible story of Irish of immigrants who died within sight of our unforgiving shores.  Only a fool pilots the waters anywhere near us without up-to-date navigational charts.  Once, my husband watched a man throttle his powerboat outside a marked channel at the mouth of our harbor.  Before he could finish saying, “That guy is nuts” that “guy” hit ledge and began to sink. 

Keeping that in mind, tell me how this happens? With the wind blasting and massive swells pounding on shore and off shore ledges this week, an empty fishing boat from Gloucester, a city north of Boston, (13.5 nautical miles away, or about 60 miles by car— an interminable time through traffic should you choose to drive), pulls its mooring and travels across Massachusetts Bay to the South Shore.  It makes it from one coast to another, without capsizing and without hitting rock.  It rides Athena’s mountainous waves and washes up, relatively unscathed in front of a house, which happens to sit on the brink of one of the few small stretches of ledge-free coast in our town. 

I’m sure the owner of that boat is cursing the mooring that didn’t hold, but I hope, also, he is counting his blessings.  I think of folks in New York and New Jersey, who’ve lost everything—scrabbling for scraps of their lives—chasing family photos as they blow across debris littered lots.  Then I imagine that fishing boat, twirling and spinning across miles of dangerous water, missing the Grampus Ledges, the Black Rocks, Minot’s Ledge, Harding Ledge, Thieves Ledge, and so many other obstacles, to land, battered but whole, on the other side of Massachusetts Bay. 

I caught a photo of the boat during the height of the storm.  The next day, the sky was scrubbed clean and blue.  I stepped out with the camera, chasing a picture of the still ferocious sea crashing over our lighthouse, and as I made my way down the coast, I passed the stranded boat again.  Seeing it there, safe and whole, I understood Athena's lesson. 

There’s a mighty fine line between awesome and awful.

IWSG: A Resource for You

This is my post for November’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group.  To read other contributors click here.

In 2011, I participated in a Grubb Street fiction workshop taught by author Lynne Griffin via a grant through our local library.  At the time, I’d written a first attempt at a novel, a mess I’d consigned to a folder on my flash drive.  During the six week workshop, I learned much about POV, voice, and setting, but the lesson that resonated for me focused on conflict.  Through Lynne's classes, I realized my first novel was a disaster because I had been afraid to raise the stakes.  A confessed coward, I refrained from forcing hardship on the characters I created, and whom I’d come to love.  As a result?  Ho hum...

During the spring before the class, I’d started a second novel, and though I had to take several breaks at critical junctures before I could bear to force my protagonists into overwhelming and sometimes tragic circumstances, the lessons I absorbed from Lynne allowed me to do so.  Now, on my tenth revision, I still have a long way to go, but when I think about the impact that class had on me, I know I’d never have my second, improved story without it. 

Aside from the bla, bla, bla backstory above, I gained one more thing from Lynne’s class. From 2006-2009, she and three of her partners took turns writing for their blog, called  the Writer’s Group.  There, they shared experiences in regard to all things writing, and though they no longer contribute to it, the blog remains public.  Their engaging essays impart truths and reassurances related to the technical and emotional considerations associated with writing and publishing.  When I need practical help or feel most insecure about my journey, I peruse the subjects they covered back then and it always helps to keep me going. 

Check out the Writer’s Group.   Maybe it will help you too.

What resources do you turn to when the writing journey overwhelms you?