MissMeliss: Escribition

Please go here for a mid-month question.

Thank you.

Inspired by CafeWriting.com, option One.

* * *

I’ve never been one to set specific goals, as I don’t think that way. I have a few milestones I wish to hit - sell my book, write for a living, be the best version of myself that I can - but I’ve never believed in nickel-and-diming my resolutions. Still, over the years, I’ve had aspirations that I’ve achieved. Here are a few.

1) Dyed my hair pink. It’s been a year now. I’m a little bored with the pink, but it will remain for another 90 days at least.
2) Been to France. Still need to spend a month writing in Paris, but at least I’ve spent time in France. Others may have left their hearts in San Francisco, mine is somewhere in Languedoc.
3) Earned a living as a writer. It’s not fiction, but yes, I’m doing this now.
4) Communicating with family. I’ve been better about this, about letter writing, but I need to expand my reach a bit.
5) Household Organization: We still haven’t painted the kitchen. But we did finally decide on a color. Progress is being made.
6) Performing on Stage: I did improv for more than a year, and then my energy changed, and I started dreading it instead of enjoying it, and I’m still on semi-permanent hiatus.
7) Cooking at home more: Ask me about the killer broccoli beef I made the other night.

* * *
This entry is proof that the act of writing that you have nothing to write about creates something to write about.

A bit of what I wrote for this month’s Cafe Writing prompt:

* * *

“Race you to the jetty!” I yell and take off without checking to see if Sam is running or not. I don’t much care if I win, I just love the way the sand feels under my bare feet, warm at the surface, then colder beneath, and I love the way the blood surges in my veins as my legs move and my arms pump.

Breathless, the wind and ocean in my ears, face, and hair, I can’t really hear his footfalls, but I can feel his presence a little bit behind me, closer to the surf. Just as in the scene from Atalanta, we reach the jetty together, and sprawl in the sand near the slate blue rocks.

* * *

You can read the rest here.

Image by Carmi Levy of Written Inc.. Used with permission.

Chess is loaded with ritual, I said to a friend over IM the other night. I didn’t elaborate, ended up riffing on the subject of old men in Greek Navy caps, playing chess in parks, their thick overcoats keeping them warm, their gnarled fingers moving each piece. I’m not a chess player myself. Or rather, I’m a bad chess player, on the rare occasions when I play, but I used to love watching the little kids playing with the giant pieces on the board on the ground at Santana Row.

There’s a ritual in that too, in being a kid. Lots of rituals. Little rituals like making a plaster hand print, posing for school pictures without having front teeth, writing a letter to Santa Claus, and bigger ones: first dates, first cars - events, yes, but rituals as well - though the ritual is in the planning, the saving, the practicing until you know how to kiss, know how to park, get your license, get the guy of your dreams.

I stand out on the deck each morning, each evening, and just let the outside air sink into my skin. I listen to the birds and small animals, hear the neighborhood sounds. This grounds me, but it also lets me know the way the neighborhood should sound. For the dogs, my practice of strapping on my pink digital watch is the beginning of their Going Out ritual. First the watch, then the jacket, then their leashes. They know which jackets and shoes are for walkies, and which are not. They’re that attuned to me.

But back to chess.

There’s structure in chess, and order. And yet there’s passion, too. Of those three things (passion, structure, order) Ritual is born. Watch the chess players caress the pieces as they set up their boards, some time. They have such reverence as they go about their stylized war games, plotting strategies and planning defeats while the chessmen slide and click against the board.

Magic in numbers, magic in squares, magic in two small dogs knowing that the Reeboks mean walkies and the pink Converse All-Stars do not.

Everyday rituals.

* * *
Written for the December Project at CafeWriting, Option Two: Can You Picture That?

From the Cafe Writing December Project: List seven traditions - big or small - that you and your family observe. You don’t have to explain them, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* * * * *
As it’s December, and I’ve just strung my house with lights, and my lit tree is resting in the window, as yet bare of ornaments, I offer seven of my family’s Christmas traditions.

1. Resting Tree: We generally let the lit tree sit undecorated for a few days, even though it’s plastic, just so we can get used to where it is, and get a feel for the best side and worst side, etc.
2. Ornaments: From childhood, my mother and I would take out all the ornaments and talk about each one as we hung them on the tree. Most of our ornaments are hand-made or specially chosen, and none are plain glass balls.
3. Pfefferneusse: My mother and I share a box of pfefferneusse cookies every Christmas. These spice drops are perfect with coffee, and represent a shared history.
4. Aglio Olio: It’s a garlic and olive oil sauce that you toss with fettucini, and it represents our family’s Italian heritage. For most of my life, my mother always made it on Christmas eve.
5. Stockings: As we’ve grown older, we’ve pretty much stopped with huge presents (except between Fuzzy and myself) and embraced the challenge of only buying items that can fit in a stocking. Some years, this is extremely easy, other years, rather difficult, but it’s always fun, and it limits the amount we spend, as well.
6. Brie: I am a cheese fiend, and one thing always in my stocking is a small round of brie. Yay for runny cheese!
7. Tinsel: We no longer use it on our tree, either at my own house or at my mother’s in deference to the memory of my deceased uncle Merrell. I wrote about it in 2005 for that year’s Holidailies. The entry is here.

From CafeWriting.com:

November: Option Five: Seven Things
In improvisation, one of our exercises is a game called “Seven Things,” in which we go around in a circle giving each other the challenge, “Give me seven things that [whatever]” We are not going to go around in a circle, here, but if you’re drawn to lists, this prompt is for you.

Give me seven of your favorite words. You don’t have to explain them, but it’s more fun for readers if you do.

* * * * *

• Vivacious - People who don’t know me really well sometimes think I’m bubbly. “Bubbly” implies “dingbat” to me, and I’m not a dingbat. I will claim vivacity, instead. It’s more sophisticated than perky, and more grounded than frothy, but still very much a word that goes with pink hair.
• Brilliant - I like saying this word. I like the way you can separate the i/a dipthong just a little and make it sound more grown up than when you let the last syllable be “yant”. I like the way it describes luminescence as well as intelligence. I’m not brilliant, but sometimes I can fake it well.
• Y’all - I picked up this word on the web, but never used it outside of text until moving to Texas. Most of the Texans I know aren’t from here either, but we’ve all adopted this word into our personal lexicons. Why? It’s sweet. It’s efficient. It’s cozy. And just enough southern to add regional flavor without coming off as a hick.
• Tintinnabulation - Anyone who loves Poe understands the appeal (no pun intended) of this word. In truth, I love onomatopoeic words in general, but this one is my favorite.
• Superfluous - I hear this word and I’m hanging out with my friends Devon, Michael and Karla in junior high, and we’re having fun mimicking our algebra teacher / gym coach (well, for the girls) Seena Rhine. She used this word a lot. If someone asked what it meant, she’d say, “look it up,” then tell them how to spell it. She was a truly kind person, but never coddled us. It’s funny, but I haven’t thought of her in years.
• Imagine - Fewer words have more power, more possibility, more danger, all wrapped up in their letters. If we can imagine it, we can achieve it, improve it, acquire it, appreciate it, and go to bed with satisfied smiles on our faces.
• Story - “Tell me a story.” “What’s the story, morning glory?” “That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.” “Get the story straight.” We live, breathe, act, trade parts of ourselves, share our traditions, hopes, dreams, fears, loves and losses, all through the medium of Story. We are a people of Story. Madeleine L’Engle wrote that we have a God of Story. Whether we are losing ourselves in fiction, or living vicariously through the accounts of real adventures, we are experiencing story, and creating our own stories. How can I NOT love this word?

Give me seven things you associate with October. You don’t have to explain them, but it’s more fun for readers if you do. from CafeWriting

1. Fallen leaves, strewn across the ground. I shuffle through them, or happily crunch them with my sneakered feet, while the dogs roll in them, noses all a-quiver. Ah, the smell of mulch in the morning.
2. Soups and stews, all simmering, filling the house with spicy warmth, living on the stove where one can sneak a bowl at odd hours, filling the stomach and the soul with warmth.
3. Crisp evenings, with woodsmoke in the distance and crystalline stars glittering in the heavens.
4. Chilly, mist-softened mornings that turn the grass a greener shade and allow your breath to form silly spirals when you speak into the air
5. Witches, ghosts, and goblins scampering down the street, accompanied by adults looking wistful for the days when they were the ones in costumes, and the chocolate didn’t have to be x-rayed before you could eat it.
6. Rain-slicked streets lit by lamplight, cars coming home in full darkness, glowing windows dotting the neighborhood.
7. Apples everywhere, red and green and yellow, like stoplights. Pressed into cider, baked into pies, stewed into sauce or boiled into jam - sweet, tart, crisp and redolent of fall.