Dogs Bark & Sisters Call

De over at Ob-la-Deidre wrote a piece called "Dogs Bark Jingle Bells." This piece was inspired by my piece, "Sisters Call" and Rick Moody's "Boys." Go on over and check it out.

We would like to challenge you, too, to write a piece with a repetitive opening phrase (boys enter the house, sisters call, dogs bark, etc.). Leave a link to your post in the comments if you take the leap.

Sisters Call....

Sisters call their parents in Europe from a phone at their grandmother's farm house in Missouri. They try not to cry but the little one, only three, can't help it. Now there, calm down, it's ok. I need a red ribbon she says, her curls bobbing as she sobs. The grandmother climbs up to the musty dusty attic to find a perfect red bow.

Sisters call their grandma from California. We miss you! Come soon! Their small hearts ache for this far away grandmother. They already know that many people will not understand that you can send love across telephone wires. They learn early that distance cannot diminish affection.

Sisters call California from Missouri again, this time they are years older. It isn't really that bad, they say. Just a few stitches, Mom, really. But their mother knows that it is more than a simple scrape. She can hear the quiver in her youngest child's voice as she assures her, I'm fine, I promise.

Sisters call boys and their school friends and always want to be on the phone now that the teen years have come. They carry the giant cordless phones from room to room and their parents discuss a second line just to avoid hassles and arguments.

Sisters call each other only occasionally now since the older one has moved away to college. They are occupied with school, work, and friends, so it's only now and then they talk. In fact, the phone takes on an increasingly smaller and smaller role in both of their busy lives.

Sisters call a little more often after they become separated by an entire country. One now lives in the east and the other remains on the west coast. Still, they are busy and only talk occasionally when time allows.

Sisters call often now to discuss wedding plans. But you have to choose a color, the youngest tells her older sister as they plan for a September wedding. Ok, ok, um, blue. Just pick any blue dress. I wish Daddy could be there to walk me down the aisle. He will be, she tells her, I know it.

Sisters call constantly now that a baby is on the way. On the day of the birth the youngest calls the hospital in a worried panic about the delivery. She's ok, everyone is ok. It's a girl! Can you be her godmother? You'll be her tia, her nina, her special auntie.

Sisters call and text:

I'm on the bus and this guy I am sitting next to looks just like your husband! LOL

Are you watching the presidential debate? I mean who is this bozo?

I'm so jealous that you are at the beach again! I miss SF. xoxo

I think I'm pregnant.

Sisters call because texting about babies and pregnancies just isn't enough. I can't wait for you to be a mommy, too! I love you and I'm so happy, she says, to her no-longer-a-baby-sister. I love you so much. Forever.

Sisters call each other sobbing with worry about their mother who is in the hospital so far away. They ache with worry and love and curse the miles, because while the distance doesn't weaken the love they have for each other and their mother it does make everything so damn hard.

Sisters call and hand the phones to their toddlers and small children screaming, Say hi to your tia! Don't press the buttons! Just sing that song you learned at play group for tia and your cousins, please. They ask for advice about teething and homework and laugh and cry about how crazy and hard and wonderful it is to have these little people in their lives.

Sisters call and say, I miss you. Come back to California. Come to New York. I miss you. I love you. I miss you.

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This essay was inspired by Rick Moody's short story entitled "Boys." I was intrigued by the repetition of the phrase, "boys enter the house." I wanted to see if I could create an essay with a similar pattern to each segment. If you haven't read "Boys" yet, you really should.

Sylvia

What I remember most about my grandma, perhaps, are her hands. Many say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I tend to disagree. The hands, I believe, can tell stories of a life like nothing else can. Grandma’s hands told stories of work, love, and loss, and I will forever miss holding them in mine and feeling her soft yet firm touch.

I can see her hands now, pinching the edges of a piecrust or working a batch of cookie dough. I can see them reaching out to touch my baby daughter, for the first time, full of love and tenderness. I can feel them, too, tissue soft, caressing the back of my hand as we sit together quietly on the sofa. I can even catch a whiff of the Chantilly Lace that scented the hankies she often clutched.

Her hands were tough, gentle, and strong. They were no nonsense, midwestern, hardworking hands of a farm girl used to work. They were the hands that crafted rockets at a war plant during WWII. They were hands that guided her son through the doors of the house she worked tirelessly for when she was raising a child, alone, in the 1940s. They were the hands that crafted stories from cotton and thread and wove love and devotion into every quilt she ever made. They were the hands that held the strong hands of her loving husband, my grandpa Oscar, for forty years. They were the hands that brought meals to her neighbors and planted seeds in her garden. They were the hands that snapped hundreds and hundreds of pictures over the years in order to capture the fleeting moments of life before they were gone. They were the hands that trembled with shock and sorrow when her only son left this earth before she did.

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross said that:

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

Sylvia Mechling Joggerst was one of those beautiful people. But, like Kubler-Ross said, she did not just “happen.” She struggled and fought her way into her beauty and along the way touched the lives of everyone she met. She worked hard, played hard, and loved hard and we are all privileged to have known her light.

So today, in honor of my grandmother’s memory, reach out and hold the hand of someone you love. Memorize its feel, its scent, and its strength. When you touch that hand infuse it with love and peace and warmth and think fondly of Sylvia.

the feel of color part 2

There is nothing as wonderful as a brand new box of crayons. I bought the big ninety-six pack last summer, and it came complete with a built-in sharpener.

"They are for the kids," I told myself.

Yet I couldn't help but feel a little excited as I brought them home. I longed to open them, breathe in their scent, and make that first waxy mark on a blank sheet of paper.

My son was fascinated by the sharpener. We had to dig around in the junk drawer and the back of the craft box for some old worn down nubs of crayons to test out the new contraption. We soon had several very tiny, perfectly sharp and paperless little bits of color in front of us.

Next it was time to look over the new crayons themselves. "Mauvelous" was his favorite. I searched to make sure "Burnt Umber" was still there like when I was a child. It was.

When our examination was complete, we moved on to the coloring books. Once empty spaces of black and white began to burst with color. My daughter came in and joined us, and we spent the next few hours working on our pages.

When everyone finished I dove into a new task: color organizing. As a child I would arrange all the crayons, markers, and drawing pencils by color. I spent an inordinate amount of time sorting, categorizing, and subcategorizing by hue. Of course it didn't last. Within a week the organization I so meticulously created would crumble, almost literally. Crayons would break and their wrappers tear. The pencils would be out of order and the tips of the markers would fray and dry out. So of course, it wasn't long before the new box of crayons I had purchased for the kids became a mess of broken pieces scattered at the bottom of the craft box.

I was bothered to no end by this disarray, so a few weeks ago I purchased a set of colored pencils to use in my mandala coloring books. I guarded them carefully from the little fingers who would, I knew, beg to use them the minute they got wind of a new art supply in their midst.

I think the perfectly sharpened tips and organized color scheme lasted about one week.

"Please, please let me use them! I'll be careful I swear."

And so the seal was broken and now my lovely, colored pencils are scattered all over the dinning room table next to a stack of construction paper and a roll (my last) of Scotch tape. At first I felt angry.

"Those are mine! Can't I have ONE thing in this house that no one else touches?"

I felt like I needed to snatch them away, hide them, and protect them from those little people grasping at everything I have.

But the feeling passed quickly, because, really, who can horde color? How selfish would it be to keep "Cerulean" hidden away from those I love? What right do I really have to shove"Lime Green" or "Orchid" in drawer for no one to experience but myself?

After all, color is a shared joy. No one should be allowed to smother a rainbow.

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You can read the original "feel of color" here.

Copyright Brockport

I'm featured at the Democrat & Chronicle's Brockport blog today. Please go check it out. And thanks to all of my friends for your loving support. I'd especially like to thank Caurie Putnam for writing such a sweet, thoughtful piece.

xoxo

Winner!

Trisha Johnson won a handmade book!!!! Thanks for reading everyone.

Blank Page

Recently, I took a sewn book making class with two friends at a local art gallery. I was very excited, but even more than that I was scared. Of what? It was just a three hour introduction to a basic craft. What was so intimidating about that?

The class got going, and I felt so damn jittery. What was wrong with me? What was I so afraid of? But I dove in (over?) eager to learn everything and to absorb as much as possible.

As the class progressed I thought, "I am good at this," and I suddenly decided to make one for practically everyone I know. In my head I began picking out colored papers and delicate jewels for the spines. I mentally budgeted for beeswax and colored linen thread.

A few weeks goes by, and the three of us gather again to make more books, share supplies, and chat. My friends talk about their teaching jobs--one is a creative writing professor and the other an artist and instructor at the art museum. I listen to them talk about classes, about the pieces they are working on.

I push the needle and thread through the paper--stab, pull, tighten.

The scissors make a zip, sip, zip, sip sound as I try desperately to keep my lines straight. I don't want to waste the pretty and expensive paper we are using.

I look at my girlfriends, and they are so beautiful sitting there sipping their wine while I munch snacks, and I am grateful to have their warmth and beauty gracing my life.

It is late, well past midnight, so we close up shop and clean up scraps of paper and bits of thread. We examine what we have made and feel proud, good. I set the wine glasses in the sink, and put away the leftover snacks. My artist friend hands me an unopened bag of chips as she goes to leave.

"Nine pounds to lose, still, I say," as I decline the offer.

I brush food crumbs off of my baggy sweatshirt as we say goodbye.

I've made books non-stop since that evening. Some I've already given away, and a few I am saving for Valentine's Day presents. They sit in a colorful stack on my shelf waiting to be presented to their new owners. Their pages are blank and empty, begging for a story to be written.

*Leave a comment on this post, and I'll enter your name in a drawing for a hand sewn book. Drawing will be held February 14th.