by jphilo | Jun 16, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
This week is a trip down memory lane. I’m at a writers’ conference housed on the grounds where I attended church camp as a kid. Other than the buildings and grounds being much smaller than they did 45 years ago, everything looks pretty much the same. That’s a good thing because:
- Deeply buried directional memories are keeping me from getting lost.
- This place feels like home which leads to a good night’s sleep.
- Internet access is severely limited, so conference attenders are interacting face to face. How strange is that?
This morning I facilitated a workshop called To Thine Own Self Be True. After a brief introduction of the three basic learning styles – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic – attenders used a learning styles inventory to determine their dominant styles. In small groups, they shared what they’d learned and how to apply it to their writing time and spaces. (Teacher friends, is this making your hearts go pitter-pat?) Then, they did the same thing with Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences. And guess what?
The workshop was a huge hit.
Several writers had “aha” moments about why they react the way they do. They talked about it all through lunch. And they extended what they’d learned about themselves to fictional writing. How could information about learning styles and multiple intelligences to add dimension and depth to the characters they create? How could word choice appeal to visual, auditory, and kinesthetic readers?
I had a ball applying my teacher training and experience to writing.
So, here we are half a day into the conference, and I’ve already walked down both my church camp and teacher days memory lane. Now, I’m getting a little nervous about what’s next on this path down the past:
- Summer with cousins at their farms?
- College romance?
- Wilds of South Dakota days?
- Swapping pregnancy stories?
- Children’s hospital hauntings?
Hmm. Maybe it’s time to quit while I’m ahead, get in the car, and head home. Or maybe I should suck it up and boldly face the past. Which one will win out? It all depends on how much I miss the internet.
by jphilo | May 30, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
The peonies are late this year. Only one bush has flowers on this late Memorial Day, and just a few of it’s pink buds braved the morning’s unaccustomed heat and this spring’s too familiar fierce wind.
But those blushing blossoms were enough to spark memories of Memorial Day city band concerts and my high school friends. We donned our white shirts and black pants, dug our instruments out from under the pile of three-ring binders and notebooks dumped in bedroom corners after the last day of school, and made our way to the red stone courthouse where the concerts were held.
I walked the four blocks, greeted now and then by peonies waving in the wind, their lovely faces bathed in perfume and ants. Some homes had only bush or two, while others sported long rows bending under the weight of red, white, or pink flowers.
The peonies were my favorite part of the concert, outside of seeing my friends. I was not much of a musician, but oboists are a scarce breed, and the band needed someone to warm the second chair seat. Oboe scores of patriotic music consist mostly of rests.
So I had plenty of time to make faces at friends making music….
Kim and her trilling flute,
Bill and Ann hitting the after beats on their French horns,
Chris standing in the back plinking on the string bass,
Bill, Jacki, and Steve sounding smooth in the saxophone section,
Jane and John playing alto and bass clarinet,
Mary Ann’s bassoon towering above us all.
And more faces at the friends who came to listen…
Cherie,
Roxie,
Katie,
Dean,
Richard,
Lowell,
sitting together on a blanket, swaying with music, along with the peonies, to John Phillip Sousa marches, Aaron Copeland’s swelling numbers, George M. Cohan patriotic show tunes, and the National Anthem.
I haven’t touched an oboe or played in a band for over twenty years. But this Memorial Day, when the first bright pink blossom waved in the wind, I heard the music again. The Washington Post March, Appalachian Spring, I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy, The National Anthem.
I missed the music.
I missed counting rests.
I missed making faces.
I missed those dear, old friends.
Wherever they are this Memorial Day, whatever they are doing, I hope they remember the music. And I hope the peonies are blooming.
by jphilo | May 9, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
The red tulip in our flowerbed this Mother’s Day unearthed a memory of my third grade teacher. She was an old maid, thin and tall, her face creased from decades of smoking, her clothes dark and musty, her face a perpetual frown.
Not a glimmer of anticipation cracked her crusty exterior as she explained the week’s art project one early May morning. “You’ll each draw the outline of one tulip on the front of your Mother’s Day card.” On the chalkboard, she demonstrated how to sketch a perfectly symmetrical, three-pronged tulip with our pencils, add a slim stem and one pointy leaf on either side of it.
Several of us dug in our desks for crayons so we could color in our drawings, as we’d done for every weekly art project all year long. “You won’t need your crayons. We’ll be painting them,” the teacher announced.
We looked at one another in eight-year-old, wide-eyed wonder. Painting? Had she said painting?
Now, that was the most exciting prospect in our classroom since we’d taken our first Iowa Tests of Basic Skills in February. On that day, after teacher read the directions for the vocabulary test, she said, “You need to know one more thing before taking the test. A peninsula is a body of land surrounded on three sides with water.” She pulled down the map of the United States. “Like Florida.” She pointed to the state. “Now, open your booklets and begin.”
We did as instructed. I was pleasantly surprised by question 3 – “What is a peninsula?” Me and everybody else did a whole lot of looking around in eight-year-old, wide-eyed wonder after we filled in the oval that corresponded to the answer, “A body of land surrounded on three sides with water.”
But painting was way cooler than realizing that you and everybody else in your class knew the right answer on an ITBS question. Painting had a messiness potential that completely overshadowed filling in the correct oval with a number two pencil. We were quivering with excitement.
The teacher nipped it in the bud. “Pass your cards to the front of the row. When I call your name, come to the back table to paint your tulip. While you wait for your turn, begin your phonics seatwork.”
So much for messiness potential.
When my turn finally came, I went to the painting table. It was covered with newspapers. My card sat beside two bowls of paint, one green and one red. The teacher frowned and said to paint the tulip red, the stem and leaves green, to stay between the lines, and to not drip the paint.
I dripped paint.
I tried to stay between the lines, but a loose bristle sent tiny scrolls every which way. Until the teacher said to stop. Then she used a tissue to remove the loose bristle. She rubbed red paint off her yellowed fingers and granted permission to proceed. I finished as quickly as I could, eager to get away from her accusing eyes and the unhappiness that dripped from her face, the discontent enveloping the table where we sat.
On Mother’s Day I gave the card to my mom. She admired it, oohed and aahed, and put it on the refrigerator. But I didn’t care if I never saw the card again.
Since that Mother’s Day red tulips have never been my favorite. Until this morning, when the tulip in my flowerbed unearthed this memory, along with a realization that escaped my notice for more than forty years.
by jphilo | Jan 24, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
After a quiet weekend with absolutely no commitments, a rare occurrence, I can’t think of a subject worth blog space for today’s post.
If Hiram had worked on the bathroom remodeling, a progress report would have been in order. But he worked on taxes, and who wants a progress report on taxes? If football was a big deal at this house, it would have been a hot topic. But all I know is that the Packers beat the Bears and the Steelers beat some other team, and who wants a football analysis from a football ignoramus? If anybody around here was sick, this post could have monitored vital signs. But we’re healthy, and who wants to know the color of our mucus anyway?
Which leaves the weather, which continues cold and snowy, as the default topic of conversation. In this part of the country, it’s been darn cold, in the single digits above or below zero for a couple weeks. However, our Minnesota son phoned to report their weekly low, a frigid 30 below. Suddenly Sunday morning’s nasty sounding minus 7 appeared positively balmy.
We were cold last week, but not that cold.
Our phone conversation moved on to a discussion of the lowest temperatures we’d experienced – weather Limbo, so to speak, seeing how low we could go. Surprisingly, the 50 below Alaskan temperature Hiram recalled was not much colder than the 45 below we endured in Harding County, South Dakota during the winter of 1982.
Now that was one cold weekend.
I was pregnant with Allen that winter, and we were going a little stir crazy in our small house. So when good friends called and asked if we wanted to go to Spearfish and eat out, we said yes without batting an eye. Our friend drove 115 miles one way – prudently taking the longer paved road rather than risk the gravel trail which would have cut the trip to 90 miles – to The Sluice, our favorite Black Hills restaurant. We chatted the whole way down, all through supper, and the entire trip back, not one bit concerned about potential engine issues, flat tires, or freezing to death by the side of the road.
The story is proof of the old adage, “With age comes wisdom.” We wouldn’t think of doing such a thing now-a-days, even with a cell phone for emergencies and no unborn baby along for the ride. Such behavior is risky and stupid. Even on days like this one, when the blog post topic makes me wonder if my acquisition of wisdom has kept pace with my age, one thing’s for certain.
We may still be stupid on occasion, but we’re not that stupid.
by jphilo | Jan 18, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
One look at the title of the blog entry originally posted in January of 2008, and I knew it would be this week’s recycled post. For the past three weeks, death has been on my mind. Not because someone is dying. Because I’m writing the section of Different Dream Parenting about death. Not just death, but the death and children. Not fun.
I feel like a hypocrite tackling the subject since both my children are living. But often while writing, and again today while reading through this old post, I find reassurance in my father’s life and my son’s early years. Those experiences taught me to think about death, and those thoughts are the foundation of what I’m writing now, as this recycled post shows.
Do You Ever Think About Death? – Recycled
“Do you ever think about death?” A friend asked the question in an email this morning. He thinks his son, who has been ill for a very long time, may be dying.
Yes, I told my friend, I think about death every day. It started when I was a kid, and I looked at pictures of my dad in his younger days – showing cattle, playing football, goofing around with his friends. That young man didn’t look like my dad. My dad sat in a wheelchair, weakened by multiple sclerosis. He grew weaker for thirty-eight years before his body died, but even as a kid, I knew that little bits of him died every single day.
When my son was born, my husband and I confronted death often. It almost tore me apart until God showed me the depths of His love for our baby, and I learned to hope in His promises.
Sure, I think of death every day. But I think a lot more about life when I face choices about what I believe and what I do based on my beliefs. Will I concentrate on the little bits of me that die every day or will I focus on the new life I receive? Will I fear death or love life? Will I ignore evidence of God at work in or will I acknowledge and submit to it?
As I think about death and life, the truth becomes clear. I can’t stop death. But I can choose to live in a way that honors the gift of life, the life God gave my father, the life he’s given my son, and the life of my friend’s child.
Every day, I think about death. But I choose hope.
by jphilo | Jan 10, 2011 | Reflections on the Past
Sometimes, I’m amazed by how much my perspective has changed since childhood. Way back then, when my sister and I made this magnificent snowman (with the help of a college student who rented a room in our basement), snow was the best thing about winter.
Snow meant a day off from school and from Mom’s eagle eye. Back in those days, teachers had to go to school on snow days, so we had eight hours of free reign in front of the television. Dad was our willing conspirator in TV gluttony, joining our worship of Captain Kangaroo, I Love Lucy reruns, Password, and Concentration, interrupting the frenzy just long enough to catch the market reports on the noon news broadcast. All the talk of pork bellies and hog futures was nauseating, but quickly forgotten when the Dating Game came on.
Fifty years later, snow’s the worst thing about winter, not counting the cold, the dark, ice, mittens, snow boots, coats, and hats. But I’m not counting them, so pretend I didn’t say anything. Snow’s really, really the worst thing during a week like this one, with four speaking engagements, which means I have to be on the road. Or decide not to travel, which means an event has to be cancelled, which means disappointing people. And I hate disappointing people, which is why snow is my least favorite thing about winter.
Which means this week will be either an adventure in driving or a series of disappointed people. So far, I’m ahead of the snow because I drove to Independence, which isn’t supposed to get as much snow as back home, a day early. We’ll see how long it takes for Old Man Winter to get ahead of me.
Oh, to be five again, loving snow, watching TV with Dad, playing outside with my sister, building the best snowman ever. Oh, to make everyone happy. Oh, to feel completely safe.
