Nestle [vb] - to settle snugly or comfortably as if in a nest, to press closely or affectionately
The other day, while watching my three Dachshunds wrap themselves around each other, winding into one large ball of fur with three heads, six eyes and twelve legs, I pondered how reassuring it must be to nestle like that.
Do people nestle anymore in this digital age? With most of us living online, our addresses are punctuated with dots and forward slashes, our virtual street names all start with htpp:\ and everyone is connected, yet terribly alone, how could we nestle?
I believe we are living in a weird anthropological time in the history of humanity. Encounters of the flesh have been replaced by apps and applets, bytes and browsers, clicks and chats, firewalls and frames.
Instead of visiting Grandma’s, where dotted Swiss curtains hang helplessly in the south window of her musty nineteenth-century home, we revel over the latest text messages and Skype videos.
Remember what it was like to nestle - curling into a fetal position, resting under the protective presence of another’s reach, leaning into another’s providential shield.
I believe in nestling. In fact, I think if we all nestled more, we would feel more self-assured, more loved, more empowered.
Power [noun] - position of control, authority, influence over others
Speaking of power, there should be a universal law against using the vocabulary of freedom to gain power in both political and personal relationships.
When it comes to power, my work ethic appears to control my life. I’ve often wondered why, until recently, when it dawned on me that my parents often expressed their love for me through work.
Work [noun] - activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something
My parents worked to provide good food and plenty of it.
They worked to have a big house, to buy nice clothes, to drive me around in a new car and to pay the utilities bills. Most of all they worked to protect me.
Considering that my parents expressed their love in this way, I now realize why I experience difficulty turning off my compulsivity to work.
Like a perpetual switch, I find pleasure and satisfaction in work - scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets, washing dishes, raking leaves, sweeping sidewalks, folding clothes, organizing files, writing stories, writing more stories, and on and on.
Funny thing about work...as much as we love our jobs, we work our entire adult lives so that we can stop working and retire.
Some of us are counting the years to retirement.
Some of us are counting the months.
Someone I knew at work had been counting the days until his retirement. On December 14, he had only 160 or so to go.
When I heard that he recently was diagnosed with inoperable cancer, I slumped with sadness for him and for all of us. He died on March 6.
No matter how we measure life, we know two facts: life is way too short and goes by far too fast.
This is why we need to nestle more, love more and work less.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
You know you're getting old if...
...you take a nap after lunch.
...the point size on your computer monitor is 16 or larger.
...the books you read have enlarged print.
...residents in nursing homes look young to you.
...you walk around with your purse wide open.
...when asking for scratch paper, you get blank stares.
...you know what chicken scratch is and you cook from scratch.
...someone says, "I'll dial the number," you know what they mean.
...your 1970 sewing machine doesn't look like an antique.
...you still say, "Roll down the car window."
...at one time, you had a gas station attendant who hand-washed your windshield, checked the oil and pumped your gas for 20 cents a gallon.
...buying five-cent Hershey's Reeses's Peanut Butter Cups seems like yesterday.
...you know why people used to dropped their watches.
...your first washing machine had a ringer.
...the way you prefer to dry laundry is by hanging it out on the line, even in winter.
...you have clothespins and still use them.
...you sift your flour and grate your cheese.
...you know how to poach eggs.
...a catalog store is something you can define.
...shopping in the Montgomery Catalog Store on Main Street once was routine for you.
...the thrill of going to the Five and Dime on a Saturday afternoon is fresh in your mind.
...there is a crank pencil sharpener in your house and you still use it.
...you know what a blackboard is.
...the first lesson you had in cursive was on a blackboard.
...you know what cursive is and still use it.
...letter writing on stationary is one way you communicate
..."text" was not a verb when you were a teenager.
...you still have a set of Encyclopedia Britannica on your bookshelves.
...the encyclopedia salesman and you were on a first-name basis.
...you know what a bomb shelter is.
...air raid drills in school are vivid in your memory
...your doctor is younger than you are.
...the mayor's name is Katrina.
...your senator's name is Sean.
...the governor's name is Chris.
...you're the oldest person on the block.
...you're all alone with no one to share family news.
...you don't mind growing old because you're tired.
...you finally realize that having grandchildren is the one good thing about growing old.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
...the point size on your computer monitor is 16 or larger.
...the books you read have enlarged print.
...residents in nursing homes look young to you.
...you walk around with your purse wide open.
...when asking for scratch paper, you get blank stares.
...you know what chicken scratch is and you cook from scratch.
...someone says, "I'll dial the number," you know what they mean.
...your 1970 sewing machine doesn't look like an antique.
...you still say, "Roll down the car window."
...at one time, you had a gas station attendant who hand-washed your windshield, checked the oil and pumped your gas for 20 cents a gallon.
...buying five-cent Hershey's Reeses's Peanut Butter Cups seems like yesterday.
...you know why people used to dropped their watches.
...your first washing machine had a ringer.
...the way you prefer to dry laundry is by hanging it out on the line, even in winter.
...you have clothespins and still use them.
...you sift your flour and grate your cheese.
...you know how to poach eggs.
...a catalog store is something you can define.
...shopping in the Montgomery Catalog Store on Main Street once was routine for you.
...the thrill of going to the Five and Dime on a Saturday afternoon is fresh in your mind.
...there is a crank pencil sharpener in your house and you still use it.
...you know what a blackboard is.
...the first lesson you had in cursive was on a blackboard.
...you know what cursive is and still use it.
...letter writing on stationary is one way you communicate
..."text" was not a verb when you were a teenager.
...you still have a set of Encyclopedia Britannica on your bookshelves.
...the encyclopedia salesman and you were on a first-name basis.
...you know what a bomb shelter is.
...air raid drills in school are vivid in your memory
...your doctor is younger than you are.
...the mayor's name is Katrina.
...your senator's name is Sean.
...the governor's name is Chris.
...you're the oldest person on the block.
...you're all alone with no one to share family news.
...you don't mind growing old because you're tired.
...you finally realize that having grandchildren is the one good thing about growing old.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Encountering Oliver...
"I was there to hear your borning cry, I'll be there when you are old...I'll be there to make your verses rhyme from dusk 'till rising sun." Lyrics from "I Was There to Hear Your Borning Cry" by John Ylvisaker
A letter to my grandson...
Dear Oliver,
Early Saturday morning, Feb. 19, 2011, you were getting restless to make a grand entrance.
Although you really didn't know me, you probably had heard my voice many times as your mommy, daddy and I marveled over the thought of you.
Driving to Sioux Falls, the formations of birds, floating effortlessly north, decorated the overcast sky with the sign of new life. Watching them, I pondered how this day has changed.
It started as any old Saturday - sleeping in, rousing to let the dogs out,
brewing tea and eating breakfast at the kitchen table.
After receiving the phone call from your daddy, the day quickly transformed to a magical holiday, a crimson Christmas, an illuminating Easter, a spectacular birthday.
Entering the hospital and ascending to the third floor, I quickly became Visitor 3545.
Here is what I wrote in my journal before your arrival.
Today is the day you will be born and every step I take, I inch closer to you.
Every action leading to your birth seems like slow motion: packing my bags, calling the dog sitter, leaving the house, loading the car, driving 75 miles north across wintry rolling fields.
Everything carries me in a glad cadence to your new life.
As a drum beat, the pace of your heart on the monitor is a rhythmic melody
leading to the sweet sound of your borning cry.
Yes, the day quickly transformed to a magical holiday, a crimson Christmas, an illuminating Easter, a spectacular birthday - your birthday, Oliver.
A heart full of joy and love,
Grandma
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
A letter to my grandson...
Dear Oliver,
Early Saturday morning, Feb. 19, 2011, you were getting restless to make a grand entrance.
Although you really didn't know me, you probably had heard my voice many times as your mommy, daddy and I marveled over the thought of you.
Driving to Sioux Falls, the formations of birds, floating effortlessly north, decorated the overcast sky with the sign of new life. Watching them, I pondered how this day has changed.
It started as any old Saturday - sleeping in, rousing to let the dogs out,
brewing tea and eating breakfast at the kitchen table.
After receiving the phone call from your daddy, the day quickly transformed to a magical holiday, a crimson Christmas, an illuminating Easter, a spectacular birthday.
Entering the hospital and ascending to the third floor, I quickly became Visitor 3545.
Here is what I wrote in my journal before your arrival.
Today is the day you will be born and every step I take, I inch closer to you.
Every action leading to your birth seems like slow motion: packing my bags, calling the dog sitter, leaving the house, loading the car, driving 75 miles north across wintry rolling fields.
Everything carries me in a glad cadence to your new life.
As a drum beat, the pace of your heart on the monitor is a rhythmic melody
leading to the sweet sound of your borning cry.
Yes, the day quickly transformed to a magical holiday, a crimson Christmas, an illuminating Easter, a spectacular birthday - your birthday, Oliver.
A heart full of joy and love,
Grandma
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Cooking canon cans convenience
Have you ever noticed how many food commercials there are on prime time TV? One right after another, they just don't let up: images of sumptuously steaming hot meals for insatiable ever-ready appetites.
I suppose advertisers count on the assumption that all of us are hungry. If not, they are bound and determined to make our mouths water while we sit perched in our Lazy Boys, cravenly glued to our giant flat-screened TVs.
My problem is that when I actually do order a meal at a fast food restaurant, which is seldom, the food never looks as plump and deliciously juicy as the larger-than-life images portrayed on the tube.
Most fast food I’ve consumed is either slimy, dried out, wilted, served at room temperature or all of the above.
Besides, I'm really not much of a hurry up and eat person. The bottom line is that preconfigured food, ready to cook in minutes is plainly not natural to me. Whatever innate goodness it may have possessed originally has been processed right out of it.
As you may have guessed, there's really nothing speedy in my canon of cooking. I don’t serve Minute Rice or dinners from cans or boxes. I believe meals need to be slowly loved on and nurtured into a heavenly soup, a heartwarming stew or a sleep-on-it pie.
In my cookbook of life, any recipe short of spending several hours poring over a hot stove, mixing, measuring and fussing with fixings is not the kind of meal I really want.
Besides, home-cooking makes the house smell so – how would you say – homey. What could be better than cohabiting with aromas of pot roast or pasta sauce pleasantly invading olfactory glands and seeping throughout every room in the house?
You see, I believe that nothing is ever lost on down-home cooking. Inconvenient at times, it has the potential to transform a bad day into, perhaps, the one and only good thing that happens. It’s a powerful saving grace worth defending.
When was the last time you had French fries or a Whopper at a funeral lunch? Probably never. Even after funerals, when we wish we could run back to our on-the-go lifestyle, we meticulously prepare and gracefully serve a nice sit-down meal. Slowly and thoughtfully made, it’s not just any meal; it’s a calculating device to soothe forlorn hearts, mingling with hushed and sometimes uncomfortable conversations over ham salad sandwiches, pickled cucumbers and lemon meringue pie.
My father used to say, "If you want it all, you have to give up something."
I say, if you want a quick meal, you have to give up all kinds of good stuff through which kindness and love are indissoluble.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
I suppose advertisers count on the assumption that all of us are hungry. If not, they are bound and determined to make our mouths water while we sit perched in our Lazy Boys, cravenly glued to our giant flat-screened TVs.
My problem is that when I actually do order a meal at a fast food restaurant, which is seldom, the food never looks as plump and deliciously juicy as the larger-than-life images portrayed on the tube.
Most fast food I’ve consumed is either slimy, dried out, wilted, served at room temperature or all of the above.
Besides, I'm really not much of a hurry up and eat person. The bottom line is that preconfigured food, ready to cook in minutes is plainly not natural to me. Whatever innate goodness it may have possessed originally has been processed right out of it.
As you may have guessed, there's really nothing speedy in my canon of cooking. I don’t serve Minute Rice or dinners from cans or boxes. I believe meals need to be slowly loved on and nurtured into a heavenly soup, a heartwarming stew or a sleep-on-it pie.
In my cookbook of life, any recipe short of spending several hours poring over a hot stove, mixing, measuring and fussing with fixings is not the kind of meal I really want.
Besides, home-cooking makes the house smell so – how would you say – homey. What could be better than cohabiting with aromas of pot roast or pasta sauce pleasantly invading olfactory glands and seeping throughout every room in the house?
You see, I believe that nothing is ever lost on down-home cooking. Inconvenient at times, it has the potential to transform a bad day into, perhaps, the one and only good thing that happens. It’s a powerful saving grace worth defending.
When was the last time you had French fries or a Whopper at a funeral lunch? Probably never. Even after funerals, when we wish we could run back to our on-the-go lifestyle, we meticulously prepare and gracefully serve a nice sit-down meal. Slowly and thoughtfully made, it’s not just any meal; it’s a calculating device to soothe forlorn hearts, mingling with hushed and sometimes uncomfortable conversations over ham salad sandwiches, pickled cucumbers and lemon meringue pie.
My father used to say, "If you want it all, you have to give up something."
I say, if you want a quick meal, you have to give up all kinds of good stuff through which kindness and love are indissoluble.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Monday, February 7, 2011
It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig
On Friday, January 21, we arrived home from work to find a basement full of water, and it wasn't from melting snow.
The washing machine's water sensor valve had malfunctioned, turning our washer into a ever-flowing Maytag fountain, spilling over its sides from morning til evening.
As you can imagine, TGIF quickly turned into OMG. We spent Friday night and the entire weekend wet-vacuuming the basement and clearing furniture. My aching back!
When moving the washer and dryer for the first time in 10 years, I discovered it had a life of its own underneath.
I will admit I do shove couches and chairs around now and then to clean under them, but never the washer and dryer, and it shows.
Down below the many years of swishing and tumbling, under spin and rinse, resided a dusty field of lint and stuff from pockets.
Among the lost was a plastic what-cha-ma-call-it that neither my husband or I could identify. It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig from a...whatever.
A balled up foil wrapper from a Hershey's kiss, bobby pins and buttons, twist-ties and toy parts. Hand-written notes whited out from a good washing. Shiny silver coins. Junk jewelry. Even jelly beans.
As I swept the collection into a sizable pile, I surveyed what had become a shriveled ecosystem of the forgotten, lost in the throes of laundering. Items that once thrived somewhere, spent years in absentia, now found.
It's been said that home is where our stories begin, and as I swept the pile into the dustpan, I felt as though I was sending any number of stories to their sure and certain deaths, closing their files forever.
This is one of the many challenges writers face. While navigating from day-to-day, making our way from here to there, we never stop writing. We do it on I-pads and scratch pad, on envelopes and napkins, on our palms and on our hearts.
Like a lovingly nagging mother, whose pursuant reminders to wash our hands, brush our teeth, eat our vegetables never end, the stories never cease.
Even as we lie down, we are pestered by thoughts and ideas for stories and then more stories.
We face the daunting responsibility of determining if they have teeth, are substantial, capable of being told? Some are, some not.
It's a circular process always leading us to the place where our memories and dreams dwell. The sight of a stranger on the corner, the smell of her perfume, his silly laugh, muffled voices in the hallway. All begging to be told, leading us to the blank page.
It's a peculiar predicament we face. Pestered by what to write, we arm-wrestle topics paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word, until a neatly constructed narrative rises sweaty and triumphant.
Albeit short-lived until a new story taps us on the shoulder and the next deadline looms.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
The washing machine's water sensor valve had malfunctioned, turning our washer into a ever-flowing Maytag fountain, spilling over its sides from morning til evening.
As you can imagine, TGIF quickly turned into OMG. We spent Friday night and the entire weekend wet-vacuuming the basement and clearing furniture. My aching back!
When moving the washer and dryer for the first time in 10 years, I discovered it had a life of its own underneath.
I will admit I do shove couches and chairs around now and then to clean under them, but never the washer and dryer, and it shows.
Down below the many years of swishing and tumbling, under spin and rinse, resided a dusty field of lint and stuff from pockets.
Among the lost was a plastic what-cha-ma-call-it that neither my husband or I could identify. It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig from a...whatever.
A balled up foil wrapper from a Hershey's kiss, bobby pins and buttons, twist-ties and toy parts. Hand-written notes whited out from a good washing. Shiny silver coins. Junk jewelry. Even jelly beans.
As I swept the collection into a sizable pile, I surveyed what had become a shriveled ecosystem of the forgotten, lost in the throes of laundering. Items that once thrived somewhere, spent years in absentia, now found.
It's been said that home is where our stories begin, and as I swept the pile into the dustpan, I felt as though I was sending any number of stories to their sure and certain deaths, closing their files forever.
This is one of the many challenges writers face. While navigating from day-to-day, making our way from here to there, we never stop writing. We do it on I-pads and scratch pad, on envelopes and napkins, on our palms and on our hearts.
Like a lovingly nagging mother, whose pursuant reminders to wash our hands, brush our teeth, eat our vegetables never end, the stories never cease.
Even as we lie down, we are pestered by thoughts and ideas for stories and then more stories.
We face the daunting responsibility of determining if they have teeth, are substantial, capable of being told? Some are, some not.
It's a circular process always leading us to the place where our memories and dreams dwell. The sight of a stranger on the corner, the smell of her perfume, his silly laugh, muffled voices in the hallway. All begging to be told, leading us to the blank page.
It's a peculiar predicament we face. Pestered by what to write, we arm-wrestle topics paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word, until a neatly constructed narrative rises sweaty and triumphant.
Albeit short-lived until a new story taps us on the shoulder and the next deadline looms.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig
On Friday, January 21, we arrived home from work to find a basement full of water, and it wasn't from melting snow.
The washing machine's water sensor valve had malfunctioned, turning our washer into a ever-flowing Maytag fountain, spilling over its sides from morning til evening.
As you can imagine, TGIF quickly turned into OMG. We spent Friday night and the entire weekend wet-vacuuming the basement and clearing furniture. My aching back!
When moving the washer and dryer for the first time in 10 years, I discovered it had a life of its own underneath.
I will admit I do shove couches and chairs around now and then to clean under them, but never the washer and dryer, and it shows.
Down below the many years of swishing and tumbling, under spin and rinse, resided a dusty field of lint and stuff from pockets.
Among the lost was a plastic what-cha-ma-call-it that neither my husband or I could identify. It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig from a...whatever.
A balled up foil wrapper from a Hershey's kiss, bobby pins and buttons, twist-ties and toy parts. Hand-written notes whited out from a good washing. Shiny silver coins. Junk jewelry. Even jelly beans.
As I swept the collection into a sizable pile, I surveyed what had become a shriveled ecosystem of the forgotten, lost in the throes of laundering. Items that once thrived somewhere, spent years in absentia, now found.
It's been said that home is where our stories begin, and as I swept the pile into the dustpan, I felt as though I was sending any number of stories to their sure and certain deaths, closing their files forever.
This is one of the many challenges writers face. While navigating from day-to-day, making our way from here to there, we never stop writing. We do it on I-pads and scratch pad, on envelopes and napkins, on our palms and on our hearts.
Like a lovingly nagging mother, whose pursuant reminders to wash our hands, brush our teeth, eat our vegetables never end, the stories never cease.
Even as we lie down, we are pestered by thoughts and ideas for stories and then more stories.
We face the daunting responsibility of determining if they have teeth, are substantial, capable of being told? Some are, some not.
It's a circular process always leading us to the place where our memories and dreams dwell. The sight of a stranger on the corner, the smell of her perfume, his silly laugh, muffled voices in the hallway. All begging to be told, leading us to the blank page.
It's a peculiar predicament we face. Pestered by what to write, we arm-wrestle topics paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word, until a neatly constructed narrative rises sweaty and triumphant.
Albeit short-lived until a new story taps us on the shoulder and the next deadline looms.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
The washing machine's water sensor valve had malfunctioned, turning our washer into a ever-flowing Maytag fountain, spilling over its sides from morning til evening.
As you can imagine, TGIF quickly turned into OMG. We spent Friday night and the entire weekend wet-vacuuming the basement and clearing furniture. My aching back!
When moving the washer and dryer for the first time in 10 years, I discovered it had a life of its own underneath.
I will admit I do shove couches and chairs around now and then to clean under them, but never the washer and dryer, and it shows.
Down below the many years of swishing and tumbling, under spin and rinse, resided a dusty field of lint and stuff from pockets.
Among the lost was a plastic what-cha-ma-call-it that neither my husband or I could identify. It looked like a thing-a-ma-jig from a...whatever.
A balled up foil wrapper from a Hershey's kiss, bobby pins and buttons, twist-ties and toy parts. Hand-written notes whited out from a good washing. Shiny silver coins. Junk jewelry. Even jelly beans.
As I swept the collection into a sizable pile, I surveyed what had become a shriveled ecosystem of the forgotten, lost in the throes of laundering. Items that once thrived somewhere, spent years in absentia, now found.
It's been said that home is where our stories begin, and as I swept the pile into the dustpan, I felt as though I was sending any number of stories to their sure and certain deaths, closing their files forever.
This is one of the many challenges writers face. While navigating from day-to-day, making our way from here to there, we never stop writing. We do it on I-pads and scratch pad, on envelopes and napkins, on our palms and on our hearts.
Like a lovingly nagging mother, whose pursuant reminders to wash our hands, brush our teeth, eat our vegetables never end, the stories never cease.
Even as we lie down, we are pestered by thoughts and ideas for stories and then more stories.
We face the daunting responsibility of determining if they have teeth, are substantial, capable of being told? Some are, some not.
It's a circular process always leading us to the place where our memories and dreams dwell. The sight of a stranger on the corner, the smell of her perfume, his silly laugh, muffled voices in the hallway. All begging to be told, leading us to the blank page.
It's a peculiar predicament we face. Pestered by what to write, we arm-wrestle topics paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word, until a neatly constructed narrative rises sweaty and triumphant.
Albeit short-lived until a new story taps us on the shoulder and the next deadline looms.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact Paula, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on FaceBook.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Did you get the memo?
Rounding the bend as I drove to work the other day, I noticed a twin mattress frozen in its tracks at the bottom of a steep hill.
This hill is off-limits to sledding, or so the large red letters on the sign state. That doesn't seem to ward off daredevils, who frequent this spot after a thick blanketing of new fallen snow.
At first, it didn't register. A mattress? Then, I quickly realized the mattress was used as a sled, and I smiled broadly with a deep sigh of contentment.
This morning, as I watch snow delicately descending from the sky, as a confetti memo, I imagine each flake bearing the same timeless message, "Let's go sledding."
This inexplicable bliss speaks in a dialect that is understood by all who know the lighter side of winter's temperamental disposition.
Seeing that mattress conjured up memories of sledding times, spanning my childhood in one fast moving rerun of some of the happiest moments in my life.
I am grateful for my ever-so-brief sideways glance at that crusty blue and white mattress, helplessly lying there, its guilty trail leading directly to the top where this story began.
As children, we would ride toboggans teeming with three, four, sometimes five.
Within moments of push-off, we were flying down the icy slope, polished by hundreds of other runs before us. Moving so fast, we were airborne on flatbed speedsters. No controls, except for turning shoulders, pulling ropes and shifting weight, right, then left.
Time and time again, at the mercy of glorious gravity, we boarded flying saucers, wooden fliers with iron runners, cafeteria trays and even flattened cardboard boxes.
Relinquishing our power, what little we had of it, to an invisible force that pulled us ever faster down the steep incline. A hill that in summer tickled our toes with lush blades of grass as we frolicked in June's warmth.
Now, wearing a scratchy winter overcoat, the sledding hill sent us sailing on our bottoms all the way to a sudden end.
In our landing, our previously loud guttural cries of freedom and bliss, part of a grand chorus of sledders, subsided into deep sighs of relief, interrupted by exhaustive laughter.
As we gathered our wet snowy selves, with rosy windburned cheeks, frozen toes and numb fingers, we rushed to the top again and again.
This morning, as I watch snow delicately float from the sky, I see a heavenly memo, each flake bearing the same timeless message, "Let's go sledding."
Not just any memo, it is a love note.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact her, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on Facebook.
This hill is off-limits to sledding, or so the large red letters on the sign state. That doesn't seem to ward off daredevils, who frequent this spot after a thick blanketing of new fallen snow.
At first, it didn't register. A mattress? Then, I quickly realized the mattress was used as a sled, and I smiled broadly with a deep sigh of contentment.
This morning, as I watch snow delicately descending from the sky, as a confetti memo, I imagine each flake bearing the same timeless message, "Let's go sledding."
This inexplicable bliss speaks in a dialect that is understood by all who know the lighter side of winter's temperamental disposition.
Seeing that mattress conjured up memories of sledding times, spanning my childhood in one fast moving rerun of some of the happiest moments in my life.
I am grateful for my ever-so-brief sideways glance at that crusty blue and white mattress, helplessly lying there, its guilty trail leading directly to the top where this story began.
As children, we would ride toboggans teeming with three, four, sometimes five.
Within moments of push-off, we were flying down the icy slope, polished by hundreds of other runs before us. Moving so fast, we were airborne on flatbed speedsters. No controls, except for turning shoulders, pulling ropes and shifting weight, right, then left.
Time and time again, at the mercy of glorious gravity, we boarded flying saucers, wooden fliers with iron runners, cafeteria trays and even flattened cardboard boxes.
Relinquishing our power, what little we had of it, to an invisible force that pulled us ever faster down the steep incline. A hill that in summer tickled our toes with lush blades of grass as we frolicked in June's warmth.
Now, wearing a scratchy winter overcoat, the sledding hill sent us sailing on our bottoms all the way to a sudden end.
In our landing, our previously loud guttural cries of freedom and bliss, part of a grand chorus of sledders, subsided into deep sighs of relief, interrupted by exhaustive laughter.
As we gathered our wet snowy selves, with rosy windburned cheeks, frozen toes and numb fingers, we rushed to the top again and again.
This morning, as I watch snow delicately float from the sky, I see a heavenly memo, each flake bearing the same timeless message, "Let's go sledding."
Not just any memo, it is a love note.
2011 © Copyright Paula Damon. A resident of Southeast South Dakota, Paula Bosco Damon is a national award-winning columnist. Her writing has won first-place in competitions of the National Federation of Press Women, South Dakota Press Women and Iowa Press Women. In the 2009 and 2010 South Dakota Press Women Communications Contest, Paula's columns took five first-place awards. To contact her, email pauladamon@iw.net, follow her blog at http://my-story-your-story.blogspot.com/ and find her on Facebook.
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