Meadowlark Story Society assignment: "What my desk thinks about at night"

It's warm in here. These people don't air-condition my home base, and the computer keeps things toasty. A tad too warm, for my taste. I can just make out the moon through the blinds, and it illuminates a possum crossing the yard. This particular possum always crosses around 11:30 pm, waddling past the wild ginger in search of ticks to eat.

Around 4:00 am, the birds start up. Singing away the cobwebs of the night, ready for another day.

Ah, nature. I haven't really touched on the life inside the window, mostly because it scares the hell out of me. Next to the wastebasket is a little hole in the wood. Unbeknownst to these people, a mouse sneaks in and roots around a bit before heading back outside. Come winter, though, he'll be here for good, possibly chewing on the computer and light cords. Yikes. If only these people had a cat.

Meadowlark Story assignment: choose a phrase to write about

"The Grunt of a Pig"

Audra loved sleepovers at her friend Brittany’s house. Not only were they best friends, but Brittany’s mom made the best lasagna, and Audra and Brittany could find things to do on the farm that couldn’t be found elsewhere.

Brittany and her family lived in the country, and her father owned pigs. Not just a small barnyard-full of pink pigs, but a building that housed 1,000 hogs. Because that’s what you called them, in that mile-long building…hogs. Not pigs.

“Would you like to go along to the hog barn this morning?” asked Brittany’s dad as the girls sat at the breakfast table, slurping milk and cheerios.

“Mmm…hmmm!” Brittany perked up, knowing this was a rare occurrence. Seldom were the children allowed to go along to the industrial barns that bordered the property. They were allowed to gather eggs and other chores in the small barn close to the garage, but the goings-on in the factory barns were typically off-limits.

Audra didn’t know what to think. If Brittany was excited, she probably should be, too. However, those long barns were intimidating from the road. One couldn’t see inside, to know what was housed there. It seemed mysterious.

Following breakfast they piled into the pickup and headed to the hog barn. Once inside the barn, the girls were instructed to put on knee-high boots and rain slickers. The tiny room hummed with a low level white noise, as if what was on the other side of the big door held a secret that might burst forth with a pull of the doorknob.

And it was true! The secret was: One thousand hogs contained in a barn was deafening, smelly, and scary. Instead of the soft oink that Audra learned pigs make from her childhood books, these 700 pound hogs squealed and snorted so loudly the girls couldn’t talk. Audra couldn’t think. She had an overwhelming urge to escape this chaos. 

“Can we leave now?” she shouted to Brittany. Brittany couldn’t hear her, she was too intent on following her father as he checked gauges and leaned into pens. Audra felt claustrophobic, if one could feel that way in a building the size of two football fields.

She ran back to the door where they had pulled on boots not 10 minutes ago. As she threw open the door and it slammed shut, she dissolved on the floor to relative silence. 

Brittany and Audra drifted apart and by high school were just classmates.

"A Bench" 

Julie found a bench in the park and plopped down. She was tired...too tired to continue to search for pine cones. Who thought of this stupid idea, anyway? Using nature in craft projects wasn't fun, in her opinion.

This bench was warmed by the sun, and comfortable. Thank goodness it was recently painted, no dangerous splinters to worry about. Julie felt she could even lay down on it, if necessary. It was just out of view of her classmates, and, for now, Julie wasn't thinking about what may happen if Mrs. Smith blows her whistle and discovers that Julie is the only 6th grader without a single pine cone gathered.

Meadowlark Story Society assignment: use at least three out of six words drawn from a hat, writing for 15-20 minutes

(the words I chose: wistful, heiress, truthful, absconded, brash)

Jane was wistful. As heiress to the St. Joseph baby aspirin fortune, she longed for the days when parents bought the stuff by the case. The company reinvented itself many times over the years, and this didn't come without lean times and heartache.

Her father had been truthful from the start: he knew that the business world was brutal, people fickle. He told Jane and her siblings that they would need to be innovative, hire smart people who knew how to change with the times. Jane's brother Tom and sister Bunny were not up for this kind of brash reality: they absconded with their piece of the aspirin pie without sticking around to see if St. Joseph could survive into the 21st century.

So Jane, the baby of the family, was left to struggle on her own. Well, not exactly on her own: her husband and son were CFO and Director of Development, respectively. She loved their optimism, but she still missed the influence that little pink bottle had in days past.

Meadowlark Story Society assignment: a dream, written in 10 minutes

A Fox at The Grapevine

She watches, spellbound, as liquid gold is poured into a glass, then served to the man at the bar. This act is repeated, except the waitress sashays around the room, delivering this luscious liquid to all who desire it, including her.


A smell is present in the air, wafting closer, then away, then closer again, until she’s sure it’s marijuana and nothing else.


Finally, when this lovely gold has been depleted for another night, the neighborhood fox guides her home. She’s thankful he knows the way, and is careful to guide her along back streets and not 27^th street, where her drunken meanderings might lead her into the busy thoroughfare. His coat smells wild, and he’s a bit scroungy, but his eyes are clear and knowing. 


Thank you for the lovely evening, fox and Grapevine. Until next time…


The relief she felt upon awakening was an invitation to stop at the Grapevine again. How many hours until 5:00 pm?

The Hiroshima teapot

The Hiroshima teapot

Pristine white

Blue and red

A found object

Its owners

deceased

Meadowlark Story Society assignment: write a story based on a photo from the book "The Chronicles of Harris Burdick", illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg

The Nun

The bruise bleeds down her forehead, alerting others to her mishap, her clumsiness. The incident occurred four days ago, while chopping onions and reaching into a cabinet. She should know better…multi-tasking is never a good idea. Headaches have become a daily occurrence. Now, almost a week later, her sisters are encouraging her to see a doctor.

The last time she saw a doctor was when she questioned her life’s path. It doesn’t happen often, Teresa usually pushes these thoughts from her mind. She can do that, she’s been trained to be introspective so she knows when to consciously detour a line of thought.

Here’s how it went:

Teresa is the only woman in the waiting room. She’s nervous, but not too nervous to notice the pink theme of the room’s design. Pink flowers, framed in wood hues that lean in that same color direction. Someone has left half a plastic cup of water on the table. On a sideboard, there’s cookies, napkins, cucumber-infused water in an attractive glass dispenser. She doesn’t understand how anyone could drink water like that, so easily, when she’s so nauseated that the thought of cucumber burps is intolerable. She envies those who don’t have bodies that betray them in many ways, least of which perhaps isn’t a breast tumor. She’s so tired of her nerves affecting her thoughts, her muscles, digestive system. She’s just tired.

Waiting in the room next to the consultation area, she’s one of several women who only sport a tiny gown. They all smile at each other, some just here for a routine mammogram, some here to find out if a growth has returned. Teresa can’t tell which women have more at stake…everyone thumbs through the waiting room’s magazines in a bland, disinterested way. She enjoys being anonymous, not a nun, just another woman at the doctor’s office.

Her devoted parents, in naming her Teresa, insured that her formal (nun) name would remain the same. This doesn’t always happen, of course, but the powers that be understood that Teresa needed to remain Teresa.

She dozes while waiting on the exam table. Teresa dreams of a parallel life. The one that would have unfolded had she not taken Father O’Connor’s advice and gone into the sisterhood.

Her life could have been this:

Teresa Goodrow’s big brown eyes are a magnet for boys. Her heavy brows, so cute in childhood, are becoming harder and harder to manage. Her mother would tell her “what’s to manage?” in admonition for her vanity, but Teresa wants desperately to fit in, to be like the other girls.

She grows to adulthood, marries. Like good Catholics, Teresa and Mike have many children. Like good Catholics, they bring them up in the faith, attending Catholic schools and participating in the church in ways other families not as reverent might skirt in favor of mainstream culture.

Teresa’s life consists of making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, carpools, bedtime.

Knowing God sees her in those moments that no one else does, all the private moments, is a comfort instead of a burden.

Teresa’s dream evolves into her current life. Sister Teresa’s life is vastly different from Teresa Goodrow’s life. Even resting thoughts are not the same. Is this surprising? Of course not. But it seems even Teresa’s core personality, who she is and was at birth, has changed.

She dreams of cardinals judging her, of nuns who came before her, of Hildegard. Hildegard, that amazing mystic from the twelfth century, has always been a heroine to Teresa. Someone she aspires to…perhaps even the reason she chose the sisterhood. In her dream, she sees herself in Hildegard, an impossible descendant, seated in the Santa Maria Maggiore. She sees this even as Notre Dame burns itself into oblivion, Parisians sobbing in the streets.

When the technician bursts into the room, apologizing for the wait, Teresa is grateful instead of irritated. She has welcomed this short dream, allowing her to view a life not taken. She is so happy to be returned to Teresa the nun instead of Teresa the mother of five that she feels tears forming in the corners of her eyes. Not wanting the tech to assume she’s nervous, she bares herself: “I’ve just dreamt an alternate reality of my life. I’m so glad to return to my real life.” The technician smiles, not really understanding. Perhaps finding her odd. Teresa doesn’t care. This is one of the many benefits of her life as a nun…the dismissal of others’ judgements of her. She relaxes into the routine of the exam, saying a short prayer, thankful to be Sister Teresa.

Finding the Writer Within Workshop at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon

We were instructed to find an object on the prairie. I took a photograph of this oriole nest.

Nest

gray and
tightly knit
Like a woven basket

Or a rabbit's coat
in the
thick of winter

gray and uninhabited
you don't want to stand out

And yet
You do
as the blue sky hands you over
to us

Waiting
for a new family
or last year's family
to bring you back to
Life

to illuminate your purpose

thank you
for your promise of
spring and
regeneration