Sounding Off

Nights can never be real and enjoyable without the croaking of frogs and the chirping of crickets.
― Michael Bassey Johnson

The crickets usher in a softness that smooths the harsh edges of a day now passing. And if their song does not somehow lull us to a softer sleep, then we have become deaf to things that matter in the process of listening to all that does not.
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

One day many years ago a man walked along and stood in the sound of the ocean on a cold sunless shore and said, "We need a voice to call across the water, to warn ships; I'll make one. I'll make a voice like all of time and all of the fog that ever was; I'll make a voice that is like an empty bed beside you all night long, and like an empty house when you open the door, and like trees in autumn with no leaves. A sound like the birds flying south, crying, and a sound like November wind and the sea on the hard, cold shore. I'll make a sound that's so alone that no one can miss it, that whoever hears it will weep in their souls, and hearths will seem warmer, and being inside will seem better to all who hear it in the distant towns. I'll make me a sound and an apparatus and they'll call it a Fog Horn and whoever hears it will know the sadness of eternity and the briefness of life.
― Ray Bradbury

When I was at a writing retreat last fall, I woke up one morning to the sound of a fog horn. Such a lonely sound, but it made me nostalgic. I tried to remember the last time I heard a fog horn, but I couldn’t. With all the advances in technology, ships no long need the fog horn to warn them that they’re getting too close to the shore.

Another lonely sound I miss are train whistles. We don’t live close to the tracks, but when I was little we could still hear the train whistles as they sped by to destinations unknown. Since that time there’s been a lot of development in our town, with houses filling in all the spare land right up to the tracks. Then the people who moved into these houses complained about the train whistles until the trains were silenced.

When I was a kid, we owned a big chunk of property behind our house, and where this property abutted onto our back yard was a low spot that filled with water every spring. And where there’s swampy water, there are bullfrogs, who are rather vocal when it comes to trying to attract a mate.

This time of early is a little early for the frogs and crickets, but the dawn chorus has been going on for a few weeks now, getting earlier every day. The dawn chorus starts when the first glow of sunrise appears on the horizon, and continues until the sun is fully up.

Of course the birds don’t magically stop chirping and singing once the sun is up, but the noise is greatly reduced in volume. Mind you, I’m just guessing it’s the sun being fully up that quiets them down. All I know is that it starts with the first hint of light, and then about an hour later it doesn’t seem as intense.

I didn’t grow up with air conditioning, so I’d fall asleep with my window open, being serenaded by the frogs and the crickets, the train whistles and the fog horn when the day started out foggy.

Now, we have central air, which means we sleep with the windows shut and there’s no lullaby save for the hum of the fan. If I sit outside at night I can hear the crickets, and if I’m really lucky a frog might have made its way to the pond in our back yard. And during a hot summer day I might hear the long, whining violin note of a cicada.

But things change, towns grow. These nostalgic sounds of summer have been replaced by revving motors, loud TVs and radios, and the sounds of construction. Just one more reason to miss the good ‘ole days.

Sentimental Journey

They say not to look back, but if you’re not sure what lies ahead, what else is there but looking back?
― Laurell K. Hamilton

Looking back through life, you will find the pleasure of achieving your dreams is always greater than the pain you met while achieving them.
― Moffat Machingura

The years go by. The time, it does fly. Every single second is a moment in time that passes. And it seems like nothing–but when you’re looking back… well, it amounts to everything
— Ray Bradbury

For Christmas, one of the things I shared with my sisters was a series of home movies made when we were kids that I’d had converted to DVD format. I wish I’d done it years ago, because they were pretty degraded in quality.

Still, it was kind of fun to take that walk down memory lane with what the company that did the conversion was able to salvage. And now I can take that sentimental journey any time I’m feeling nostalgic without having to worry about further corrupting those old, Super 8 film reels.

But a couple of weeks ago I took a sentimental journey of another kind. I can’t remember exactly what prompted it, other than a big attack of writerly angst, but I started going back over some of my early blog posts. I was curious to see what, if anything, had changed in the last 15 years.

While naturally a lot has changed in that time, I was more focused on my blog posting. What I discovered was that in the beginning my posts were shorter but more frequent, and I had no structure as to what and when I was posting.

But then I went down this dark rabbit hole when I realized how little other things had changed. It was a little depressing really, and I sure don’t need any help in that department.

When things aren’t going well, sometimes it can be really hard not to dwell in the past, but I have to agree with Henry Ward Beecher, who said: Too much looking backward… is bad for progress.

How about you, do you often take a sentimental journey? And do you enjoy the trip?

Magazine Nostalgia

Most women’s magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.
— Gloria Steinem

Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the prudent as the heavy petting of literature.
— Fran Lebowitz

A magazine or a newspaper is a shop. Each is an experiment and represents a new focus, a new ratio between commerce and intellect. — John Jay Chapman

I started thinking about magazines recently and it was a real trip down memory lane.

When I was a kid, I have a vague recollection of my mother picking up the occasional women’s magazine, like Family Circle, Woman’s Day, and Good Housekeeping. When I was a young teen I’d read about my favorite pop stars in magazines like Tiger Beat, and Teen Beat, and Sixteen Magazine.

My favorite magazine over all at that time, which you could only subscribe to through school, was one called Co-Ed Magazine. It was filled with wonderful articles, not glossy pictures. It also featured at least one or two fictional stories, which was another big selling point for me.

In my later teens I subscribed to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, which I believe is still around today. It’s a digest sized magazine filled with stories. I used to dream about being the youngest person to be published by IASFM, but I knew very little about writing back then, so I also subscribed to Writer’s Digest.

I remember picking up the occasional glossy fashion magazine like Vogue, or Harper’s Bazaar. I rarely found anything worth reading in them, for me it was all about the fashion. I couldn’t afford to follow the fashion trends, but I could sure look at them in the magazines.

Magazines are an amazing thing. They come in all shapes and sizes, from glossy fashion magazines to digest sized periodicals that are easy to carry with you. They inform, they entertain, and they can open up the world to you. In today’s electronic world I’m actually surprised to see so many of them still on the shelves.

What started me thinking about this is that I couldn’t help but notice a special issue of National Geographic, the king of magazines, on the stands recently. It concerned ancient cities, which has always been an interest of mine (the hubby’s too). I was very tempted to get it, but the price put me off. I mentioned it to the hubby and he said I should go ahead and buy it, so I did. And then I told him a subscription to National Geographic would make a good Christmas present.

I used to get magazines passed down to me from an aunt – Chatelaine, Better Homes and Gardens, Country Living – and I’d go through them and merrily cut them up. I have file folders full of pictures I’ve cut from magazines, all neatly organized of course, to inspire me in my writing. I rarely consult them, mind you, but they’re there. I have fewer folders of articles I’ve found interesting enough to save, and of course I have a few folders of recipes that I have given up trying to keep organized.

The only glossy magazine that was safe from my scissors was National Geographic. My uncle subscribed to it, and he’d pass his old issues on to me. There was so much information in them that it was like having a set of reference books, and I certainly wouldn’t cut up reference books. However, sometimes I’d find National Geographics at a church book sale, and if they were duplicates of ones I had, then I felt free to cut away.

I buy two magazines on a regular basis when I grocery shop, First For Women, that comes out every two or three weeks, and Woman’s World, that comes out weekly. The first one I get for the recipes mostly, and the second features a short, romantic story as well as a mini mystery. And let’s not forget the horoscopes. ;-)

My only subscription at this time is to Fairy Magazine, which comes out quarterly and is now called Enchanted Living. It’s another magazine that’s safe from my scissors, although I’m running out of shelf space for the back issues.

Do you subscribe to any magazines? Buy them when you grocery shop? Inquiring minds want to know. . .

High School High Jinks

You know, just because I haven’t been posting recently written poems in my passion for poetry posts doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing anything new. I’ve been writing a least a poem a week for the Brazen Snake Books prompts and I somehow think it’s cheating to use them here as well. That’s not to say the poetry muse doesn’t strike at other times as well, but these poems are either too personal or too unfinished to use.

Which means once again I dipped into the poetry vault, this time coming up with a couple of poems I wrote in high school. Oh, the memories . . .


Between Classes

I’m sitting alone
on the stairs
basking in the silence.
Sweet
Dreamy
Solitude.
Suddenly, the sharp
ring of a bell
and the thunder begins.
Doors open and
people begin to pour out.
Lockers bang and
feet assault the floors.
Voices chatter and
people jostle on another
on their way
to heaven-knows-where.
Less than ten minutes
have passed.
Then once again,
Sweet
Dreamy
Solitude.
As I sit alone
on the stairs
basking in the silence.


Goodbye Teens

Slips of paper
with parts of poems
tear stained pillows
fights on the phone
pictures of people
whose names have been lost
drawings of summer
or winter’s bright frost
what’s left of the tickets
of movies you seen
sad secret smiles
for the dreams you once dreamed
old faded blue jeans
hung up for good
saddened goodbyes
to your lost teen-hood.

Muriform Monday

muriform ~ resembling a mouse or rat

Well folks, you dodged a bullet and don’t even realize it. LOL

When I started writing this post I was fresh from the news about the new doctor on the TV show Doctor Who. I’m not happy about their choice - I’m a die hard fan but they’ve changed the show so much I’m done with it. I was three rather lengthy paragraphs into a rant about it when I realized that in the grand scheme of things, who cares? It’s just a TV show.

So ... I deleted my rant and I’m ready to carry on. You’re welcome. :-)

After an unintended hiatus, my thrift store buddy and I were back shopping on Saturday. I bought things, she bought things, and we both agreed that if we didn’t stop bringing home so much “stuff” (it’s only junk when you’re getting rid of it) our hubbies might stop letting us play together. LOL

One of the things I bought on impulse was an incomplete set of dishes:

This is the Barratts Delphatic White Ironstone Blue Roses dinnerware. I got 33 pieces for $10, including enough dinner plates with cups and saucers to use for my immediate family. It also included a platter and two serving bowls, and a set of fruit nappies.

What makes it so special is pure nostalgia. Back in the sixties, my mother began collecting these dishes. I have a vague memory of her getting them as a free gift whenever she filled up her gas tank, not sure which gas station, but she also might have got them using green stamps. Anyone remember green stamps? Yeah, me neither. ;-)

Anywho, my mother collected these dishes piece by piece until she had a whole set. They weren’t her “good” dishes, but they weren’t every day dishes either. We would use them for Sunday dinner.

After mom died my oldest sister ended up with the entire set. I’m not sure how they’ve fared over the years or even if she uses them. I suspect her set is also incomplete at this point, if it still exists at all.

But I do know that going forward I’ll be using mine on Sundays, keeping the tradition alive.