FIVE FOR FRIDAY

1. Early this morning when I was driving the kids to school, I spied a beautiful hot air balloon hovering just above the tree line. Talk about a great way to start the day!

2. For those of you who have been so sweet about my father: he is at Mayo Clinic in surgery as we speak. Keep those prayers and good thoughts coming.

3. Just in time for Halloween, I have a new favorite candy: vanilla yogurt creme Hershey kisses. Yum!

4. I am super excited about talking with the Girl Scouts about writing on Sunday. It's gonna be fun!

5. My back yard is now the home of a bunch of new oak leaf hydrangeas, Christmas cheer azaleas, Lenten roses, and a wide variety of ferns. The centerpiece is a Milky Way Kousa dogwood. Now all that's left is to empty the truck of its four giant scoops of mulch. Shovels, anyone?

"The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer."

- Fridtjof Nansen (Nobel Prize for Peace, 1922)

WHAT IS IT ABOUT RABBITS?

So I've just read a really sweet book: THE MIRACULOUS JOURNEY OF EDWARD TULANE by Kate DiCamillo. It about a china rabbit who goes on a very long trip and along the way discovers how to love.

Remember THE VELVETEEN RABBIT and WATERSHIP DOWN? Well, add this title to the list of great rabbit books. Oh, and let's not forget Peter Rabbit! (I still have the itty bitty Nutshell Library set I got for Christmas when I was a kid.) And RUNAWAY BUNNY. What am I forgetting?

I'll leave you with my favorite quote from the book about Edward Tulane:

"It was a singular sensation to be held so gently and yet so fiercely, to be stared down at with so much love."

- Kate DiCamillo

TELLING THE TRUTH

One of the questions I get most often about my poetry is, "Did that really happen to you?"

Or, people make the assumption that everything is true and ask me a question related to the poem, like "How old were you when your mother died?"

Do I have to tell you how awkward it is when I have to say, "Actually, my mother is alive and well feeding horses in Florida."

See, here's the thing: writers use first person to draw the reader closer to the poem. We use fictional circumstances to convey our thoughts/feelings about an actual emotion. So for the aforementioned mother poem, the feeling of loss is real. The fictional death is just the vehicle. (Actually it was written after hearing someone else's story about their mother's death... and it put me in touch with my own grief issues.)

For me, the emotion is always real. Poetry demands it. Truly it is not the genre for faking anything. But the details? Come on, folks.

Here's what a Newbery winning poet/novelist/playwright has to say about it:

"It's fiction. Meaning autobiography seen through weird, wavy glasses."

-Paul Fleischman, BREAKOUT

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Haunted

We didn’t carve pumpkins
that year – we were too young
or too old, stuck somewhere
in the gutter-line of growing up.
Instead we all piled in a pick-up,
headed north on Highway 11,
bumped and jerked our way
across potholes and through 4-ways
until we spotted signs
for Springville Haunted House.

It turned out to be nothing
more than a trail stalking its way
between whistling pines and shivering oaks,
path marked by signs slashed
with red paint and kids in masks
popping from behind bushes.
At the end, someone’s father
chased us with a chainsaw,
and by that time most of us
were coupled-up, arms over shoulders,
screams shrill but edged
with laughter.

You hung back alone,
hands tucked in tattered denim,
bare arms screaming against the cold.
In the parking lot I grabbed
your hand – to warm you, I said.
You didn’t even blink, just ran
with me back to the truck,
perfect fit of our fingers a sign

we might have noticed
if not for the ghost
gripping my other hand.

- Irene Latham

So here's a teen-angst remember-when poem just in time for Halloween... I love this time of year, ghosts and all.

"That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."

- Emily Dickinson

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Many things to Michelle for allowing me to share this pic she calls "Hanging by a Thread." Oh boy, are there days I can SO relate to that! And I love how the leaf looks like a misshapen heart. The misshapen ones are the best ones, I'm thinking.

"I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman's life."

- Beatrix Potter

RED AND RIPE AND READY

So here's the last of the tomatoes. Aren't they gorgeous? And extra-special, as it's the last the garden will give, at least this season. It makes me think of words like red and ripe and ready. Savor and succulent and sweet. Vine and fine and climb.

Delicious. And oh so poem-worthy. (I myself have written two poems in the past week that include tomatoes.)

"We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses."

- Abraham Lincoln

THINGS THAT ARE ORANGE

How 'bout them pumpkins?! I was so excited when my friend Lori invited me to hang out with The Girls Who Not Only Carve Pumpkins Together But Also Read Great Books. And it did not disappoint! To Phyllis, Vonda, Randee, Lisa, Martha, Michelle, Carol, Trina and of course Lori, many thanks, and I can't wait for our Twilight movie date. :)

Also, this weekend I had the opportunity to meet in the flesh one of my fellow Tenners, Lindsey Leavitt, who is just as adorable as she seems online. Don't you love when that happens?

So here I am feeling all glow-y just like the inside of one of those candle-lit pumpkins. And I'm sending it out to each and every one of you.

"Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows."

- Thoreau

FIVE FOR FRIDAY

1. It's raining! This is cause for much joy, as we here in Birmingham can't quite seem to pull ourselves out of last year's drought. Maybe I'll get brave and put in those new plants in the back yard??

2. My editor says we are down to line edits on THE WITCHES OF GEE'S BEND. Guess that means all the heavy lifting is done. Whew. Talk about relief. And it frees my mind for my latest project: a coffee table photo/poetry book project with those awesome photographers who so graciously contribute to Thousand Word Thursday. I am eight poems in with oh about forty-two more to go. :)

3. Read an amazing book this week: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Suzanne is also the author of the Gregor the Underlander Series, and we share the same agent! Anyhow, my fourteen year old and I agree: this book rocks. Told in first person, it has just the right amount of life/death struggle, impossible romance, and relevance to our current society. Now my almost-twelve year old is reading it. (While I dig into Alabama Moon by Watt Key.)

4. Southern Breeze's Writing and Illustrating for Kids conference is this weekend right here in Birmingham, so I'll be catching up with author-friends and meeting new ones and learning more about this whole writing biz. Southern Breeze has been instrumental in helping me get where I am today, so I am pleased and proud to once again be attending.

5. Fingers crossed I can make it to Birmingham Museum of Art's Leonardo da Vinci exhibit. They've got eleven drawings on display as well as Leo's Codex on the Flight of Birds. We're not talking reproductions here. It's the actual parchment and red chalk, all they way from Italy! And Birmingham is one of only two US cities who get to see this. (Exhibit moves to San Francisco in November.) I am so there.

Happy weekend everyone!

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."

- Barry Goldwater

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

How sweet is this? Thanks, Lynn! And thanks Anna, for always sending me recommendations. Did I tell you how much I enjoyed Edgar Sawtelle? There was one chapter in the dog Almondine's voice that absolutely killed me. When she is grieving for lost Edgar? A thing of beauty, I tell you. And you knew that even before Oprah did. :)

"You can be cured in fourteen days [of depression] if you follow this prescription. Try to think every day how you can please someone."

- Alfred Adler

A LESSON FROM THE VIKINGS

It has been said that "the North Wind made the Vikings." In other words, they were so tough because of the hardships they had endured. They survived because they had been tested. They survived because they learned to survive.

Which means, of course, that we need the tough times to determine our own strength. To build that strength. To learn.

So to all of you out there experiencing a North Wind, just remember: it will pass and you will be stronger for it.

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes part of us."

- Helen Keller

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

What I Thought As I Watched Hurricane Ivan
Take Down the Silver Maple in Our Back Yard

about the black walnut tree my brother
rode through a thunderstorm,
Mama hollering if that lightning don’t
kill you your daddy will

the row of redbuds along the path we once walked,
always the first to purple each spring
eager arms linked in revolution

the sprawling live oak we named
Nephertiri after the Egyptian queen
its branches a womb my sister
and I would escape into,
innocence still supple and green

the tall poplar yellow and exploding
wind stealing its leaves
blustery kisses a shot of whiskey down my spine

the orange grove thick
with sweet rot and creatures feasting
fruit white in the bright light
Grandma calling me home

ancient Moroccan tree alone on a hillside
three or was it five? white goats perched in its branches
eyes stark as the darkening sky

- Irene Latham

Weather provides such great inspiration... great metaphors too! This poem can be found in my book WHAT CAME BEFORE.

Currently it's still hurricane season, but truly our biggest problem in these parts has been drought. I've got plans to put in some new plants, but I keep putting it off because of the lack of rain. (When would I water?! Just the thought stresses me out.)

Speaking of metaphors....

"What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well."

~Antoine de Saint-Exupery

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

This pic is courtesy of my friend Kim who currently lives in Alaska but will soon be moving back to Washington DC. She said she captured this sunset one night at about 11 pm. Crazy, huh? And somehow more beautiful for that detail.

"Caress the divine details."

- Vladimir Nabokov

AT THE POETRY CAFE

Big thanks to Cheryl Moyer and all the poets at the UUC Poetry Cafe in Montgomery for the warm welcome and inspiring night of poetry! I enjoyed meeting all of you and appreciate so much your support of my work. Now send me submissions for BAJ! I will be so disappointed if you don't.

Meanwhile I am still searching for just the right word to replace "mad" in a poem not about a dog ( but ones that uses a dog as a metaphor) that I workshopped yesterday at the Big Table. I'm thinking maybe "half-starved"??

"Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary."

~Kahlil Gibran

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

If Not For Starlings

We walk the trail
shaded by oak and cypress

watch as the combined
weight of a hundred birds

splits a common cedar
the way a knife sinks

into a loaf of bread,
bending but not breaking.

You've got to admire
their decisiveness,

the way the starlings lift
and turn,

choose again
the cedar,

its strength and flexibility
a certainty to them,

unknown to us
until this moment.

- Irene Latham

This poem was inspired by a video like this one . Only the one I saw was very short and showed just the part where the starlings completely rearrange a tree.

The internet is a wonderful place for inspiration. One of the poems I am taking with me to workshop this morning is straight from a news article published last week: "NASA extends Phoenix Mission." And just now I started a new poem entitled "What the Spider Sees" after visiting 3 Little Chickies. Amazing how a change of perspective can inspire all sorts of things. Thanks, Kerie!

"There are two ways of spreading the light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

- Edith Wharton

THE BEST MONTH OF THE YEAR

I love October. LOVE it. There's just something about the cooler air and leaves dancing that makes me feel really glad to be alive. And I'm not the only one.

Check out this oldie but goodie by U2. And this Dylan Thomas poem. My favorite line: "Though the town below lay leaved with October blood."
Also this one by Robert Frost: "Oh hushed October morning mild"

I've written a few October poems, but not lately. I'm thinking today's the day...

"Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets."

—Arthur Miller

BOOKMARK THIS

My brilliant brother just threw this design together, at my request, to be distributed at a program I'm doing for the Girl Scouts. Cool, huh?

Also, I've been tinkering with on my website. These are the time-eaters no one thinks of when they think "writer." For me, it's like busywork in school. Or like what grading papers must be for a teacher. Part of the job, but not the part that feeds the soul. But I've learned I actually NEED the busywork. It gives my mind some distance from those swampy emotions.

What kind of busywork do you do?


"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it."

- Henry David Thoreau

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

At the Hardware Store

A blonde in blue-jeans stands behind the counter --
she doesn't know socket-wrench from flat-head driver

but her smile spreads easy as strawberry jam
and her fingers glide over the register

like pond-skaters under a mid-summer moon.
Need a half-pound of Nichol's screw-grip nails,

I say, and she furrows her brow then brightens,
blush staining the constellation of freckles

on her chest and I never wanted to be
a freckle so much in my fifty-year life

then that smile again like a flash of lightning
on a black-cloud day, and I suck in my gut,

smile right back, not sure what I'll do with those nails
but ready to erect a steel skyscraper

and empty my accounts, if that's what it takes.

- Irene Latham

Well, that's me channeling a fifty-year old man. :) Way back when, I worked at Sears in the hardware department... my favorite memories are of sneaking kisses with my hot-n-heavy then boyfriend/now husband. Sweet times...

"Very often we travel the world over in search of what we need and return home to find it."

- George Moore

THAT THING WITH FEATHERS

So I brought a nasty little cold back with me from North Dakota. But of course I wouldn't trade a second of time spent with my father. Even the tough moments I wouldn't part with. You know what I'm talking about.

The word for the day is HOPE, and I almost wish I had chosen it as my word for the year. It certainly pops into my head often enough, especially since my youngest son has taken a shine to a girl named Hope.

Eric smiles every time the word hope arises in conversation, and the other day when we were watching Orangutan Island on Animal Planet, he told me at a commercial break that the word hope had been said 18 times already. We found the word hope on the wall at Bismarck Cancer Center, and on the lips of cancer survivors and family members of non-survivors at AppleFest, the big fundraiser for Bismarck Cancer Center Foundation.

Could there be a more optimistic or necessary word?

I leave you with Emily Dickinson's lovely little poem:

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,
And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.


- Emily Dickinson

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Okay, I don't have to tell you how much potential this image holds. Talk about ripe with metaphor. Thanks MJ, as ever.

Thanks also to Anna for the book recommendation: The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I got it tonight while Eric had drum lessons and will carry it with me on the plane(s) to North Dakota. Yep, we're off to visit my father. It's all about time, you know? There is never enough time when you love someone.

"Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking or keeping, if it were not."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

THINGS THAT ARE SILENT

I wrote a poem once called Things That Can Only Be Whispered. But what about those things that make no noise at all?

Consider this quote from Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting:

"Winnie watched the sky slide into blackness over the wood outside her window. There was not the least hint of a breeze to soften the heavy August night. And then, over the treetops, on the faraway horizon, there was a flash of white. Heat lightning. Again and again it throbbed, without a sound. It was like pain, she thought. And suddenly she longed for a thunderstorm."

I love that. I am also loving Kate DiCamillo's The Tiger Rising. And hey, it has a poem in it! A very famous poem. Read and see!

OH THE ANTICIPATION

All day I've been a-buzz because my mother and brother (and family) are coming tomorrow. It's such a delicious feeling when you know something good is going to happen... it reminded me of this quote:

"Well, said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think. Because although eating honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called."

- A.A. Milne

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Well, I've still got music on the brain. I think Anna said it best: "Music is a necessity for me. As much as I love words, sometimes there are none." Especially on a day when we remember what happened seven years ago.

Thanks, MJ, for this pic. Wouldn't it make a great book cover? Hmmm....

"Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."

- African proverb

A REALLY EXCELLENT POEM

Her Longing
Theodore Roethke

Before this longing,
I lived serene as a fish,
At one with the plants in the pond
The mare’s tail, the floating frogbit,
Among my eight-legged friends,
Open like a pool, a lesser parsnip,
Like a leech, looping myself along,
A bug-eyed edible one,
A mouth like a stickleback,—
A thing quiescent!

But now—
The wild stream, the sea itself cannot contain me:
I dive with the black hag, the cormorant,
Or walk the pebble shore with the humpbacked heron,
Shaking out my catch in the morning sunlight,
Or rise with the gar-eagle, the great winged condor,
Floating over the mountains,
Pitting my breast against the rushing air,
A phoenix, sure of my body,
Perpetually rising out of myself,
My wings hovering over the shorebirds,
Or beating against the black clouds of the storm,
Protecting the sea-cliffs.


BIG thanks to my writer friend Doraine for finally FINALLY finding this poem for me. I have searched and searched! And I love it. LOVE it. It does make me wonder, though... what would a poem entitled HIS Longing look like?

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power."

- Abraham Lincoln

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

The Trout

When you’re gone
I put on Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet,
imagine your fingers in graceful arches
dancing across my skin.

And when in the second Movement
the piano slows, barely
hovering above the double bass’
abyss of sorrow, I sink into
your absence,
wait for what I know comes next –

the Scherzo – the breathless anticipation
just before we meet again,
the sound of the trout rushing upstream,
one glorious leap after another,
silver scales shimmering,
notes fat with desire.

- Irene Latham

The Trout is still one of my most favorite pieces of music... unfortunately this poem doesn't even come close to doing it justice. I should write another one.

"Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body."

~Oliver Wendell Holmes

WHO'S YOUR DUTCH UNCLE?

According to Randy Pausch in his book THE LAST LECTURE, a "Dutch Uncle" is someone who give you honest feedback.

I'm thinking we all need a Dutch uncle, whether writers or not. But if you DO happen to be a writer, well, it's just about essential. Which is why there is so much talk about the value critique groups.

In my experience, critique groups can be extremely helpful or not helpful at all. It really depends on the individuals involved. My poetry group The Big Table Poets is definitely a Dutch uncle for me. And I've had a number of Dutch uncles in the kid lit world. Sometimes it really hurts to hear what they have to say. But after I get done licking my wounds, I almost always realize how right they are.

"Not everything needs to be fixed."

- Randy Pausch

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Swiped this one from my brother MJ's Facebook page. (He won't mind.) I love this pic... and it's exactly how I feel today.

MUST write a poem.

"See how nature - trees, flowers, grass - grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence...we need silence to be able to touch souls.”

- Mother Teresa

TIME FLIES WHETHER YOU'RE HAVING FUN OR NOT

Is it just me, or has this been a really fast year? I mean, there's football on the tube and a few of the trees in my yard are already starting to yellow. I have this really strong urge to S L O W D O W N.....

But who am I kidding? That is so NOT going to happen. At least not anytime soon. So I might as well stop fighting it and just enjoy the ride.

On my agenda today: write. And send a few poems out into the world. (I have been lazy about that lately.) And maybe, just maybe, get a wee little nap??? Probably not, but a girl can dream...

"The supreme object of life is to live. Few people live. It is true life only to realize one's own perfection, to make one's every dream a reality."

- Oscar Wilde

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

This one is for my son who loves zoo animals, particularly the big cats. (Photo taken at the zoo portion of Hershey Park in Hershey, PA.)

What must it be like for one of these big predators to watch the world from behind a fence? Imagine being trapped inside a body with all those raging hunting/survival instincts that must constantly be denied... Sounds like a mid-life crisis waiting to happen. :)

"Fate loves the fearless."

- James Russell Lowell

GOOD IS THE ENEMY OF GREAT

I say this all the time in my poetry workshops: good is the enemy of great. Meaning, revise, dig deep, revise again, dig deeper. And I do believe it's true.

Please note by "great," I don't mean "perfect." Is there even such a thing as a perfect poem? I think we writers get way too caught up in trying to be perfect.

Think about it: how many novels/poems/whatever have you started, only to tinker and tinker with the first chapter/first line/first page/? How many of those same starts did you actually finish??

See what I mean? This whole perfectionistic business really is a waste of time. And readers, I've noticed, are generally very forgiving. I myself have hung in there with a book 500 pages or more before actually being hooked -- and been so glad I did! Readers want a story SO BAD, we'll plow through pretty much anything. And if a character has caught our fancy, we will keep on plowing just to see what happens. So I'm thinking now is the time to let go of perfect and remember there is a such thing as GOOD ENOUGH. And guess what's after that?

GREAT.

"The more you know the less you need to say."

- Jim Rohn

BOOK REPORT

According to my editor, my revisions will be back in my hands this week. Which means my reading vacation will be over, at least for a while.



I mentioned before the book The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. I really enjoyed this book -- it's told from a 6th grade girl's point of view, and details life on a working horse farm. Once upon a time I WAS that 6th grade horse-loving girl, so no wonder it spoke to me.

Also this weekend, upon the recommendation of a friend, I picked up Lance Armstrong's It's Not About the Bike. I cried and cried, and I learned a lot too. I'm putting it in the mail today to my father.


Another book I read this weekend was The Secret Life of Dust by Hannah Holmes. Talk about the interconnectedness of things... we have dust inside our bodies from dead stars. Amazing.



Today I am reading Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt, which I have never read before. So far, so good.

"If there's a book you really want to read but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it."

~Toni Morrison

WHAT WOMEN WANT

For the men out there who might be wondering: women want to be loved. It's that simple.

Now check out today's quote. It's the same thing, really...

"I love a beautiful lady, I love a beautiful piece of furniture, I love beauty... I know what women want... they want to be beautiful."

- Valentino Garavani

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Here's another MJ original taken at Port St. Joe, Florida. It is a very rare thing to see my brother without his camera, and I suppose that's one of the reasons he gets so many great shots. What good is being in the right place at the right time if one doesn't have a way to record it?

It's the same with writing. You gotta be ready to get those fleeting ideas and thoughts onto paper before they slip away again into the wild expanse of mind. Because I'm one of those writers who finds driving time = writing time, I keep a little digital recorder with me to capture those words. That way I don't have to actually stop.

"Chance favors the mind that is prepared."

- Louis Pasteur

THINK ON THIS

"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world."

- Percy Bysshe Shelley

BREAKING DAWN

So I've been meaning to post something about my experience reading Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.

I was so so excited about this book. I just couldn't wait to find out how the whole Bella-Edward-Jacob love triangle was resolved. So for about three days I just sunk myself into the novel.

And I enjoyed it. There were certainly moments of brilliance -- the whole transformation scene jumps to mind.

And then there were parts that seemed way out of place, like the section written from Jacob's perspective. The ending was nice and neat without nearly the emotional bloodshed I was craving, and I suppose ultimately that is why I am left with sort of a flat feeling about the book.

It was a good diversion. But it didn't feed me the way New Moon did (my favorite of the saga). Hats off to Stephenie Meyer, though. The whole series is quite an accomplishment, and I cannot imagine the pressure she felt when writing the conclusion. Folks are so very attached to these characters, and so full of their own ideas about how things shoulda/woulda/coulda turned out...there's just no way to make all readers happy.

Now I am ankle deep in The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle.

"The difference between false memories and true ones is the same as for jewels: it is always the false ones that look the most real, the most brilliant."

- Salvador Dali

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Dislocated
- for my brother, Forrest MicaJon Dykes

You didn’t tell me
we would have to climb
in before we could climb up.
I watched you scramble down,
a lizard on mossy rock,
and I forgot my inexperience,
how slick it was,
how late. Waterfalls

trickled down temporary paths,
our shoes squished through mud
and dying leaves on the way to the climbing site.
I joked, this must be why your wife left you.
You laughed easily,
time having worn down the sharp edges,
your hands busy finding holds
and fingering rope,
booming voice urging
hold on, reach, let go.

I’m not sure now
what made me fall.
But there I was, sprawled
across a flat rock,
mosquitoes moving in slow motion,
my arm suddenly taking a different shape.

Dislocated you said, and I held
it out for you, said fix itand turned away as you did
in one quick motion,
no hesitation, dislocation

a feeling you know
one never gets all the way used to,
the pop of bones settling back into place
reassuring but effortless
compared to the uncertain trail ahead,
the climb out of the canyon, the way
bad things happen
but the only thing to do
is keep going.

- Irene Latham

It's no mystery why I selected this poem to share today as I've been feeling a bit dislocated myself lately. I think anytime one is faced with life/death situations, it is a time for re-evaluation. And that, of course, leads to dislocation.

It helps to know that dislocation doesn't usually last... we do eventually find our way again. Just a couple of years after I wrote this poem I watched my brother fall in love, get remarried and become a father to two more gorgeous children.

I know my bones will eventually pop back into place. And once they have, I'll forget again what it's like to be here. Which is why it's important to write our way through the difficult times in life. So there's a record, and we can always remember the journey.

"One of the luckiest things that can happen to you in life is, I think, to have a happy childhood."

- Agatha Christie

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Isn't this a great pic? Those chairs look like best friends whispering to one another, waiting for the cute boys to come on over and ask them to dance.

Is it possible for a photograph to contain hope and loneliness at the very same time?

Indeed it is possible. Thanks, MJ, as ever.

"Dreams are necessary to life."

- Anais Nin

LEFT RIGHT LEFT

To all my fellow lefties out there, Happy International Left Handers' Day!

Despite what you righties might be thinking, it really is a very cool thing to be left handed. I've always felt kinda extraordinary to sit at the special desk and write with the "wrong" hand.

Sure spiral notebooks are agony, and the ink always smears as my hand follows behind the pen, but that's okay. I get the benefit of using my right brain more often. And I am in such good company!

Oddly, despite what I learned about genetics, none of my children are left-handed. And even though none of my siblings are left-handed, and neither are our parents, each of them has a left-handed child! So, here's to US, lefties of the world!

"Love all, trust few, and do wrong to no one."

- William Shakespeare

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Suburbia

The year it rained every day in November
she opened her front door wigless and browless
to anyone – neighbors, carpet cleaners,
little boys from down the street.

Her scalp didn’t shine the way you might expect,
instead begged touch like a baby rabbit,
fine whispers of hair falling across her temples
and just behind her ears.

She said I’m sorry about not wearing the wig
but I could tell she wasn’t sorry,
and why should she be? This woman,
this survivor, whom I’d welcomed
into the neighborhood with a note
and a box of brownies left on her front steps

and lived next to in perfect oblivious harmony –
watching her car come and go,
waving from the mailbox -
not knowing this was the third time
she’d fought this battle, in rooms
I might see into if the blinds were open

not knowing my good fortune
until that moment
when she opened the door
eyes blazing
you healthy bitch with all that hair.

- Irene Latham

I traveled to Tennessee this weekend to spend some time with my brother and his family, and while there, my lovely sister-in-law mentioned this poem. She is a home health nurse, and she said she has gotten this reaction before. It's completely understandable, of course... haven't we all felt that way before, when life deals us a hand that feels particularly unfair?

“Life is never fair, and perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”

- Oscar Wilde

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

To Carrie whose baby boy will be born today: give it about fourteen years and this is what you have to look forward to. CONGRATULATIONS!!

"What is genius?- It is the power to be a boy again at will.”

- James M. Barrie

MORE BOOKS

So when times are tough, what do you do to comfort yourself? As we've been riding the awful ups and downs of my father's cancer diagnosis, I have found myself doing one of three things:

Reading.
Writing.
Tidying.

It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out I am doing my best to feel my power or have some control during a time when ultimately I am powerless and have no control whatsoever. Whatever works, right?

Mostly I've been catching up on my son's required reading from last year. Yesterday it was The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper and The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman (whose son and Newbery Award winner Paul Fleischman is coming to Birmingham in October!).

And just today I got my hands on a copy of Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. I was sorry to miss all the big bookstore events celebrating the release last weekend, but this girl needs her sleep. I'll let you know what I think! Meanwhile I am avoiding any info. I want to experience what Bella experiences.

Thanks again to everyone who has sent me messages about my father. It really helps.

"Selling the piece is only and exclamation point, a spot of punctuation."

- Jane Yolen

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Nocturne
- after Van Gogh’s The Starry Night

That it should be
the cypress
and not the steeple
that reaches the heavens

that night should
roil electric
over the sleeping town

stars pulsing
in staccato rhythm,
billowing
across the sky
as if the breath of gods

and this is where
we find ourselves:
hidden

in blue shadows
tracing constellations
on milky skin.

- Irene Latham

In honor of the solar eclipse on the other half of the world, I give you my Nocturne. The sky is wonderfully amazing, but consider skin...

"Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering."

- Saint Augustine

IT TASTES VERY FINE

Have you heard what Phoenix found? Here's why scientists are celebrating.

Hey, there's gotta be a poem in there somewhere...

"Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood."

- as found in a recent fortune cookie (Lucky Numbers 3, 5, 11, 21, 31, 40)

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

My brother MJ is just back from a trip to Port St. Joe, FL, which is great for a whole bunch of reasons, not the least of which is this pic. Is he good, or what?

It reminds me of my editor's notes last draft... something about how I needed not to refer to light so much. That things were always "catching the light." Apparently my mind is quite fond of that image.

"Light be the earth upon you, lightly rest."

- Euripides

HOPE DIES LAST

So I just finished The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. It's about the Holocaust, and you might think with the black cloud that has settled over my 2008 that it's much too dark a subject for me right now. But here's the thing: books like these are infused with a hope so strong it actually makes me feel better.

Also, specifically in this book, there is a idea that I've really latched onto. The main character has time traveled from present day back to 1942, and she wants to warn those around her that the Germans are lying, that the "resettlement" will tear their families apart, that the ovens are not for baking, but for death. But as she watches those around her, their faces lit with hope, she realizes she can't take that away from them. She realizes her knowledge of the future will not benefit them at all. Ultimately she cannot strip them of the only thing they have left.

I'm thinking hope is quite a gift to give someone. And who knows what all a person might overcome when armed with such a powerful emotion?

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

- Oscar Wilde

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Creed

I believe if you follow
the wall far enough
you will eventually find a door
that no god is going to open for you –
just you with your gnarled fingers
curling around the knob.

I believe in dirt under fingernails,
do-it-yourself mud puddles,
the smell of fresh-cut grass.

I believe in serendipity,
coincidence, random
accidents that defy explanation
because there is no explaining pain
or the lack of it.

I believe whatever is, is;
“meant to be” is fig growing
on an imaginary tree.

I believe Adam and Eve still
inhabit our gardens, whisper
to serpents and savor apples,
make wild love one minute,
drop their eyes and cover
themselves the next.

I believe in cliffs that become canyons,
canyons that cradle rivers,
rivers that leave
and keep on leaving
every day there’s earth, air, sky.

I believe the ocean is the womb
where we begin and end,
the shore with its grit and shards of shell
the battlefield where we fight
our most natural impulses,
our tongues parched, our skin blistered
and raw, our voices crying
to be heard and understood,
for someone, anyone, to
save me, goddammit, I’m drowning here.

I believe the wind carries
our secrets like seeds,
plants them on deserted islands
where they grow into trees with coconuts,
sweet milk waiting for the washed-up,
the down-on-their-luck, the ones
whose cups are empty
but who somehow find
the strength to climb.

I believe there is nothing more real
than love you can’t see,
nothing more powerful than our minds
surging in dream,
our sleeping legs pumping like pistons
until almost, almost…
then waking in a bed with the one
you love more than anything,
aching to touch him
but not touching him
because there is such sweet
torture in waiting.

I believe in dust to dust
and grey skies and choices
that are neither right not wrong.

I believe forgiveness is the best way
to lighten a load, yet without the yoke
one never learns all he is capable of.

I believe everything will be okay,
and even when it’s not
if you follow the wall far enough,
you will find a door.

- Irene Latham

This poem is a few years old and first appeared in POEMS FROM THE BIG TABLE. I try to write a creed poem every couple of years, as I find my belief system is constantly changing and evolving. Of course, there are elements that remain the same. Like how I have always and WILL always believe in doors.

"Say little and say it well."

- Irish proverb

A BRAND NEW DAY

Okay, well much as I loved the artsy black, I decided I needed to lighten the place up. And what better day to do it than a rainy Saturday morning when I have just helped my father out the door and watched him drive toward the next leg of this new journey?

Also, there's this new award to celebrate. It's from Alison who always ALWAYS brightens my day. Thanks for being there, Alison! And I am sending it to Michelle whose attitude about life inspires me. She WILL be heard.

Thanks also for all the sweet messages about my father's illness. So nice to know I am not alone.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

THE IMPORTANT THING

Ever heard of this book by Margaret Wise Brown? It reads like music, or poetry.

Here is my favorite part: "The important thing about an apple is that it is round. It is red. You bite into it, and it is white inside, and the juice splashes in your face, and it tastes like an apple, and it falls off a tree. But the important thing about an apple is that it is round."

The important thing about today is my father is coming. It is July. The sun is blazing, and it is steamy outside, and the hands on the clock click click click, and it feels like there is not enough time. But the important thing about today is my father is coming.

“The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse, how he shall take his prey.”

- William Blake

THE "C" WORD

I have a new LEAST favorite word. Or perhaps it has always been my least favorite word, only I am just now aware of it.

Cancer.

We just found out my father has colon cancer. And there is nothing I can say about it that hasn't already been said. Anyone whose life has been touched by cancer knows it has the power to change all sorts of things. Things you can't even imagine until it happens.

Ironically my father is the Executive Director of Bismarck Cancer Center. So he is pretty much in the best place he could possibly be in terms of treatment. But I don't guess I have to tell you it's a long way from Alabama.

There has been a lot written about the experience of cancer, including this blog. My father is also writing about his experience, and I am grateful for that. I feel very very greedy for his words right now.

The graphic above appears on all the literature for Bismarck Cancer Center. I've always loved the inconquerable hope infused in those words. I guess ultimately that's what it boils down to. Hope. And courage.

"Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

- Margery Williams, THE VELVETEEN RABBIT

A SECRET LIFE

So I had a lot of fun with the high schoolers and their advisers, and the keynote went really well, EXCEPT... in my initial nervousness I forgot to include part of my speech!

The speech was titled WINDMILLS AND OTHER POTS OF GOLD, but it could have been titled EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED FROM POETRY.

One of the things I did was share poems that have guided me on this whole writing journey, and I was so annoyed when I realized I had forgotten THIS one, because it is one of my most favorites ever:

Secret Life

By Stephen Dunn

Why you need to have one
is not much more mysterious than
why you don't say what you think
at the birth of an ugly baby.
Or, you've just made love
and feel you'd rather have been
in a dark booth where your partner
was nodding, whispering yes, yes,
you're brilliant. The secret life
begins early, is kept alive
by all that's unpopular
in you, all that you know
a Baptist, say, or some other
accountant would object to.
It becomes what you'd most protect
if the government said you can protect
one thing, all else is ours.
When you write late at night
it's like a small fire
in a clearing, it's what
radiates and what can hurt
if you get too close to it.
It's why your silence is a kind of truth.
Even when you speak to your best friend,
the one who'll never betray you,
you always leave out one thing;
a secret life is that important.

For a really really long time, writing was my secret life. I wrote all sorts of stuff but I just shoved it inside a drawer. I didn't share it with anyone. Even my husband says he didn't know at the time that he married a writer. I'm thinking maybe that's a good thing? Kind of like boiling a frog? :)

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."

- Aristotle

TODAY'S THE DAY

So after a year of planning and some last-minute madness making nametags and stuffing conference folders, I am off to Tuscaloosa for a fun writing weekend courtesy of Alabama Writers Conclave.

But before I get there, I am stopping off with my sixteen-year-old niece at Alabama Scholastic Press Association's Long Weekend to deliver my keynote WINDMILLS AND OTHER POTS OF GOLD as well as teach some poetry editing tricks to some very dedicated high school literary magazine students. Sounds like fun, doesn't it?

Be back Monday with all the details... hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

"Writing has laws of perspective, of light and shade, just as painting does, or music. If you are born knowing them, fine. If not, learn them. Then rearrange the rules to suit yourself."

— Truman Capote

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Okay, this one is a few years old, but I just ran across it and had to share. None of my kids take baths anymore -- they are guys who take showers. And dear Lord, do they need 'em! Between feet and armpits, it can get pretty smelly around here. Which is why I am feeling all nostalgic for that sweet little kid smell... sigh. They grow up too fast.

"At the entrance, my bare feet on the dirt floor, Here, gusts of heat; at my back, white clouds. I stare and stare. It seems I was called for this: To glorify things just because they are."

- Czeslaw Milosz

LOST IN TRANSLATION

Have you seen this bit about the Chinese government removing signs with inaccurate translations before the Olympics? Some of them are pretty funny:

Having fun prohibited.
Dying right here is strictly prohibited.
If you are stolen, call the police at once.

Others are offensive, so proceed to above link with caution.

Meanwhile, I love the Olympics, especially the swimming and diving events. Back when synchronized swimming was an official event, my sister and I worked for hours and hours perfecting routines in our backyard swimming pool. Now THAT was fun.

"All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Like Don Quixote

You must expect some disasters.
At some point

there will be a fire.
It will eat the kitchen cabinets

stretch its long tongue to the ceiling
spit black gas into the air.

At first you will stand in wonder
you will see faces in the flames

bright eyes burning. Then you will
remember the children

their cheeks flushed with fear
their voices squeals now, high-

pitched and feverish.
You will be glad

it is only a fire. You will
be glad when no one gets hurt.

And once the painters come
to white-wash the ceiling

you will forget it ever happened.
But next time you sit down to write

sparks will fly
from your fingers.

- Irene Latham

This poem was inspired by an actual fire in my kitchen. I was talking on the phone and had closed my bedroom door for just a moment to keep out the kid-noise when they started screaming even louder. I thought I heard "fire" in there, but I seriously thought they were just being rowdy. Then I smelled smoke.

Turned out I had left a skillet with grease still in it on the stove then turned on the wrong burner to boil water for macaroni and cheese. The grease caught fire, and by the time I got into the kitchen, the microwave above the stove was melting. Scary.

"If you are scared, embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances,”

- Julia Soul

MEET THE 10' ERS

Good news: a few of us who have children's books coming out in 2010 have found each other. Check us out at 2010: A Book Odyssey. And if you have a mg or ya also debuting in 2010, please join us!

And as we are going with a space theme (you know I am loving that!), check out this quote:

"In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion."

- Carl Sagan, 1987 CSICOP Keynote Address

FIVE FOR FRIDAY

1. Working on a keynote speech I am scheduled to present next weekend at the Alabama Scholastic Press Association's Long Weekend. I'm calling it "Windmills and Other Pots of Gold." It's about dreams and how to make them come true.

2. Going to see WALL-E today for the second time. My eight-year-old LOVES it. Me too, actually. What a sweet love story.

3. Been reading a book called BLUE by Joyce Moyer Hostetter. It's historical fiction, about a 13 year old North Carolina girl's experience during the polio epidemic. Good writing AND good story!

4. My newest addiction is Jiffy oatmeal muffins. You know the mix that comes in the little square box for like 88 cents at Wal-Mart? Add an egg and some milk, and voila! Seriously, these things are yummy.

5. I need a new outfit for next week's keynote. I'm thinking something red. Or blue. But not one of these maternity-looking get-ups. What has happened to the clothing industry??

"When in doubt, wear red."

- Bill Blass

TRUE LOVE?

So DeAnna picked Jesse. I would have picked the other guy, but hey, it wasn't my show. (I mean, hello! Did you see that adorable game Jason made for her?) They seem really happy, and I love what she said about choosing him because he was the one guy she couldn't live without. Oh boy, do I know that feeling! May they be happy.


“When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.”

- Oscar Wilde

GIVE ME CHOCOLATE

What's better than a fortune cookie? How 'bout a piece of Dove dark chocolate inside a red foil wrapper that is stamped with a message:

"Be mischievous. It feels good."
"Decorate your life."
"Count the stars."
"You're allowed to do nothing."

Pretty cool, eh? And tasty. Excuse me while I go have another. :)

"Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands - and then eat just one of the pieces."

- Judith Viorst

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Sunday Drive

We’re heading south on 119
while the Spirit rover is inching
its way across Mars.

I think I’m pregnant.

Spirit parks in front of a football-sized rock.
I tell no one what I think
is happening inside my body.

Spirit pauses
then sends signals back to Earth.
You’re driving too fast.

In a day or two Spirit
is supposed to reach out its arm
and examine the rock, determine minerals and elements.

If it’s true, I’ll want to keep the baby.

Spirit should then drill into the rock
to reveal its interior.

If it’s true, I’ll have to tell you.

The President says he wants to send a man to Mars.
I say, Mars is not the moon.
You will say
our lives are going backwards.

Spirit is waiting for its twin, Opportunity.

I am waiting
for pictures that show me
more than red silt and desolate rock.

- Irene Latham

I've got a little science-geek in me apparently... I'm fascinated by all things space-related. I love reading about the mysteries of the cosmos, and anytime there's a crew in space I pay attention. Fortunately we live just a hop skip and a jump from NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, so space pics and the latest exploration info always makes the newspaper. Wish I could dash over to the other side of the world for the Aug. 1 total eclipse of the sun. Sigh. Not this year...

"From my close observation of writers... they fall into two groups: 1) those who bleed copiously and visibly at any bad review, and 2) those who bleed copiously and secretly at any bad review."

= Isaac Asimov

NO DAY BUT TODAY

One of the shows we saw in New York was RENT. I don't know why exactly I wanted to see it again-- 12 years ago when we saw it the first time I wasn't sure I would survive the noise. Plus I was pregnant with Andrew, and every time those speakers would screech, he would start jumping. But when we were standing there in the TKTS line and the choices were getting slimmer (very few shows open on Monday -- would have liked to have seen WICKED, MAMMA MIA! or even PHANTOM OF THE OPERA for the billionth time), I heard myself say, "how 'bout Rent?"

So off we went. And it was better this time. Still too loud for me and seems a little outdated now, but I was moved by it and I'm glad we saw it again. According to the billboards and the graffiti covering the outside walls of the theater, the show closes for good on September 7. Check it out. And try to wrap your head around this quote:

"The opposite of war is not peace, it's creation."

- Jonathan Larson

INDEPENDENCE DAY ALREADY?!

Where oh where has this little year gone?

We are just back from a quick trip to New York City, and on a bus tour the guide informed us that we are now closer to the next New Year's Eve than we are to the last. Is that really true?

Anyhow, we had a wonderful wonderful time... but I mean it is SO good to be back in good ol' steamy wide-open Birmingham! And once we pick up the guys tonight from camp, our family will be complete again.

Hope tonight everyone enjoys some finger-lickin' good barbeque and some snap cracklin' fireworks!

"I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work."

- Neil Armstrong

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

I Remember the City

Not for fried eggs
and andouille sausage at Mother’s

not for the palmist at Jackson Square
who declared our life lines identical

not for our sore feet or the humidity
or the slow stride of the Mississippi.

I remember the city for The Famous Door
at the corner of Bourbon and Conti:

You were wearing a green dress
and you were dancing

with a boy you’d just met,
smiling the way a girl smiles

before she believes in hurricanes
or experiences rising water,

before she knows how completely
everything changes once levees are breached,

how a decade of friendship is not the first
thing lost, but the one

that swells after the waters recede –
the door that sticks,

the mold that makes a garden of the ceiling
and the boy not quite a memory.

- Irene Latham

Ever lost a friend to something that seemed to come out of nowhere? Sigh. It happens.

"Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

MY SISTER IS ON HER WAY!

Could I be more excited? It'll be a quick visit, but I've learned it doesn't take much sister time to totally rejuvenate me. And someday I WILL write a sisters novel. I promise. But right now I gotta go devil some eggs!

"Learn the wisdom of compromise, for it is better to bend a little than to break."

- Jane Wells

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Here's one of the guys at Gettysburg... they all thought the cannons were pretty cool. And I can vouch for that whole thing you've heard about boys and guns: you really can make a gun out of just about anything. I guess boys are just hard-wired for warfare.

"I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what
can't be done."

- Henry Ford

WELCOME TO A NEW POET-BLOGGER!

Ever heard of the word "turmotion"?

You heard it here first: check out my friend Michelle's new blog... she's a poet in Tennessee who's braving the cyber-waters and "exploring her artistic side." Let's give her some love!

"There is only one journey: going inside yourself."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

BUMPER SNICKER

Saw this on my drive downtown this morning: "Reagan 2008."

Do I detect a bit of political disenchantment? :)

Politics is so not my thing... but if it is YOUR thing, I sure hope this political season has lived up to all its promise.

"These are but wild and whirling words."

- William Shakespeare

DON'T TREAD ON ME

After watching another episode of the HBO John Adams miniseries, I've changed my mind about Ben Franklin. He's not interesting - he's a jerk! He does have some really great quotes though. But I'm through with him. My thoughts turn now to Mr. Jefferson. Now here's a man with depth. I think surviving great loss does that to a person...

"Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."

- Benjamin Franklin

SHOWCASE SUNDAY

Boy with Cello

Rescued from a pawn shop
where it stood for years
with its neck broken, body nicked
and stripped of strings

it arrives in a box
restrung, refurbished
and the boy cradles it in his arms
the way one holds a sleeping child,
fingers caressing ever so slightly,
breath the only sound.

Then the boy takes the bow,
pulls it across the strings,
and the cello begins to tell its story,
each deliberate stroke a query
the cello answers in its clear, resolute voice.

When does love begin? The first note,
or the second, in the lonely corner,
the unopened box, the Beethoven the boy
absorbed while still in the womb?

Perhaps in the merging of one’s half-
formed dream and the other’s awakening,
when one speaks without speaking
and the other begins to sing.

- Irene Latham

The movie we saw last night - Get Smart - featured Beethoven's Ode to Joy. It was a fun movie, and the big orchestra scene reminded me of this poem. I wrote it a few years ago when my son first start playing the cello.

Speaking of joy: I am off to poetry workshop in just a bit, and I've got three poems ready to workshop. This, after a sizeable drought brought on by my work on the novel. I'm so excited!

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."

- Janis Joplin

WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

Now that it's out on DVD, we have been watching the HBO miniseries John Adams. What's great about it is there's a special feature that puts these little pop-ups on the screen that provide extra historical information. I'm loving it! And I gotta tell you, these are not the men I was introduced to in school. These guys have personality, wit, attitude. Talk about making history come alive.

So far, I am most interested in Ben Franklin. What a character he was!

"I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night."

- Sarah Williams

THOUSAND WORD THURSDAY

Here's the view from the front drive of Eisenhower's Farm in Gettysburg.

I gotta tell you, me and Ike have the same vision of retirement. There is a barn nearby where they raised Angus cattle, but mostly it feels like being on an island with no other structures (besides the home!) in sight. I loved everything about it.

Plus, as part of the tour, they let kids (ages 7-12) train and then "apply" to be Junior Secret Service Agents. So now Eric is official. :)

"One look ahead is better than two looks behind."

- Irish proverb

ON SELF-PORTRAITS

My youngest son loves art. Yesterday in his drawing class he created yet another self-portrait. I asked him what new thing did he learn about drawing faces, and he launched into this whole explanation about how you place the ears. He amazes me.

And it got me thinking about Normal Rockwell's Triple Portrait that appeared on the cover of Saturday Evening Post in 1960. It's such a great piece because it says something about our human-ness, how we see what we want to see. And how sometimes what we see in ourselves is completely inaccurate. Maybe it's wishful thinking, or UN-wishful thinking.

So how does this relate to writing? One the great great things about writing is you can create characters that are as much like you or unlike as you desire. You can become what you see in the mirror without all the risk and potential heartache of ACTUALLY becoming that person. And if it doesn't turn out well in your manuscript, you can delete it. You can be absolutely anybody you want to be, including your actual self. I mean, how great is that?


"Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death."

-Anais Nin

TWILIGHT

Probably I am one of the last people on the planet to read this book by Stephanie Meyer, but better late than never, right?

Don't know why it took me so long to dive in. Wait, let me rephrase that: I am terribly sorry it took me so long to dive in, because I am loving this book! I guess it's the whole vampire hook that turned me off initially -- just not my thing.

But you know what IS my thing?

Love. Big bad ridiculous defcon 5 total all-out thermonuclear rim rocking mother of all LOVE. And turns out that's what this book is really about. And you know what else is great? The story goes on. I understand the fourth book in the series will be released very soon. VERY exciting.

"Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."

- Albert Eistein