Summer Heat

Hot August days
too hot for cool north Idaho
with temperatures reaching
ninety-four.  The sun
like a high volt radiant
light scorches flower
gardens and vegetable
beds, causing leaves to
droop, and the once
green field turn
yellow and brown
The birds and bunnies
and deer take shelter in
some secret place , then at
dusk again appear like
joyous children returning
to their favorite playground
romping and hopping
and fluttering about

My Friend's Birthday

 I think of my friend today, as I often do, but especially today because it's her birthday.

While Phyllis and I haven't known each other all of our lives, we've known each other for a long time - since 1971 when we worked together  in Display Advertising at the  Call-Enterprise, a community newspaper in Downey, California. It didn't take long for us to become close friends, and share in fun adventures and tender moments  that go along with being good friends.

In wishing Phyllis a  Happy Birthday today, it occurs to me we've been wishing each other a happy birthday  for forty years. Another testimony to our many years of friendship.   Through memory's scope,  I drift back  to 1974, and smile.  I was overseas  that summer, and for three months had been touring Europe.   August 25 was my second day in  Madrid - nearly broke, without enough funds to even make a transatlantic phone call.  But that didn't stop me from  walking  across Plaza Cibeles, with its lovely white architecture , to  Palacio de las Comunicaciones to inquire about making a birthday call to my friend.


 Considered one of the iconic images in Madrid, the central post office is  a place  visitors can go to use one of the many telephones.  Upon entering, the private booths were on the wall to the right, protected behind   richly colored  wood doors with a glass window . I remember thinking they were  totally unlike any telephone booths I had seen before - the Bell System ones  usually found on  gas station corners, and parking lots in southeast Los Angeles,  smudged and scratched with numbers and naughty words.  No, the telephones at Palacio de las Comunicaciones were  surrounded by a palatial decor of  marble floors and magnificent pillars that brought a quietness to one's attitude like being in a library, or church.

I  had to quickly decide  about  using the phone or not,  as my fellow traveler, Mary Kay (a friend from high school days) was waiting for me to tour  Museo  del   Prado, one of the world's greatest art museums. I chose to  place a collect call to Phyllis.   Even though it was only 4 a.m her time, and the cost of a collect call  from Madrid to La Habra would be expensive,  I felt pretty confident Phyl would accept the charges, if  only to hear her pal say, "Well, hello?", and   sing Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear Phyllis, Happy Birthday to you

Morning News

Every day on the morning news
Nothing but strife and turmoil
in the Middle East, mobs in
Europe riot and loot; raucous
brawls at California's Candlestick park
Angry people acting out their anger
with bombs and guns and fist a cuffs
And wars, and rumor of war; Fear of
financial meltdown, political discord,
and terrorist threats. Where is the
peace the world longs for? It comes
only when we recognize in each other
our shared humanity, that all of us
together are children of God

The Pleasure of Kayaking

Our kayak trip
was no white water river ride,
but more a leisurely  glide
along the jagged shoreline
With easy strokes, we
worked  the paddle,
cutting through water
from side to side
moving us forward
toward Arrow Point.
Fir  trees erect, and tall
line the  mountain slope like
a giant wall  of green
Overhead, an Osprey flies, and
circles about until
finally taking refuge in
her nested retreat
And nature's ceiling
- a brilliant blue, beautiful
sky  is dotted with
clouds, slowly drifting by

The Influence of a Favorite Book

In  his book, Unless It Moves the Human Heart  The Craft and Art of Writing, Roger Rosenblatt tells about asking his students , “Where was it for you ?  Every one of you has read something at an early age that made you want to become a writer. Who was it, and why ?”

The response was wide and varied, some recalled  a first book at the library, another said no specific book , but she found stories extremely one sided, and only told stories of the heroes. That after reading books she found the anti-heroes more interesting , and wanted to know more about them, and because of that was inspired to become a writer.

 Rosenblatt posed a good question, I thought,  and like his students ,  pondered  how I might  answer it.  Who was it for me? Which author, which book made me want to become a writer. The  Bobbsey Twins, The Happy Hollisters, Blaze, andToby Tyler all came to mind.  As did The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Little Women, and Nancy Drew. I recall  that  during my grade school years  some of those  early Whitman books had been birthday  gifts  from childhood friends, and how happy I was to get them.

 I don’t ever remember when books weren't  an important  part of my life.  Authors like Victoria Holt, Taylor Caldwell, Michener, and Rumer Godden filled my imagination with their stories of other places, and people. I think about the  great poets—Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley, Kipling and Longfellow , and how my mother read  me  their poems from the time I was a very little girl, and the positive  impact they still have on me.  

While  contemplating  Rosenblatt’s question, I was about to conclude  it was  impossible to name just one,  there are so many books that have held me captive  late at night,   with just a small reading light to  guide my way across the page.  However, there is one book  , “Pentimento”, and in particular the chapter titled,Julia   that still catches my breath, and causes me to say, I want to write like that.  On the opening page, Lillian Hellman immediately draws me in when she writes,

Old paint on canvas, as it ages, sometimes becomes transparent.  When that happens it is possible, in some pictures, to see the original lines: a tree will show through a woman’s dress, a child makes way for a dog, a large  boat is no longer on an open sea. That is called pentimento because the painter “repented”, changed his mind. Perhaps it would be as well to say that the old conception, replaced by a later choice, is a way of seeing and then seeing again.

That is all I mean about the people in this book. The paint has aged now and I wanted to see what was there for me once, what is there for me now.  


While set against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, and its evilness,  Julia is really the story of friendship, and what  one  is willing to do  for the other  in time of need. Without ever saying it, Hellman is writing about loyalty and trust. Her memoir ,  perfectly woven,  easily moves along between narration and dialogue, so much so that  when  Julia was made into an award winning movie in 1977, the scriptwriters job was made easy as very little was changed from Hellman's original  written word. 

When first reading Pentimento , I was only in my twenties, and  even then Hellman’s  reflection about  how ‘the paint has aged’  caused  me to think   about my  own age, and the people and events in my life,  and how I wanted to write about them.  But more so  now, when with each day, I move closer to 61, and recall with affection  those times as I remember them to be, but also,  perhaps,   with a slightly new, and different perspective; sometimes seeing them through  crystal clear eyes, other times as  through  misty sky. 

Keeping  in mind Roger Rosenblatt's theory,  every one ( especially aspiring writers)  has read  something at an early age that makes them want to become a writer, you might find it helpful, and fun in answering his  question, too , “ Where was it for you ? Who was it , and why?”


***  I  originally posted on http://writingnorthidaho.blogpsot.com