It has been a month since I wrote on this blog. That’s the longest I’ve gone without writing a post during this past Covid year. Living with this pandemic has gotten so long and difficult. People are dying and we can’t even have proper funerals. I miss my family, my friends, and my church. There is only so much cooking and Zooming one can do.
This month I started watching The Man in the High Castle, which is a sci-fi, historical fiction, dystopian World War II series on Amazon Prime. My husband stopped watching after two episodes, but I can’t stop myself. Now I’m on Season 4, and I finally understand what it means to binge watch.
Tomorrow Lent starts and I am going to fast from sweets, even karak tea, which is sweet, spicy and milky tea that I love for a treat a couple of mornings a week. Today, Fat Tuesday, I ate a brownie, a cookie, a chocolate bar, and I had a whole pot of karak. I’m trying to decide if I also want to give up The Man in the High Castle, but I’ll probably finish Season 4 instead. I need more praying and being in God’s presence than watching this, though–that’s for sure!
March is coming. I’m excited to try the Slice of Life Story Challenge again. Last year was the first year I successful wrote each day in March for the SOLSC on the Two Writing Teachers blog. Maybe you would like to join us! Sign up here if you haven’t yet.
Also, poetry month is coming, and we have a month of Verse Love over at Ethical ELA. It would be great to see new people there.
We also write five poems a month. Today is the fourth day of the monthly Open Write. Here are my poems for this month:
16 February 2021
Alternate Names (A List) with David Duer
Alternate Names for My Piles
- Mightier than Mount Massive
- Everything Under the Sun
- Paper Snow Drift
- Fly Me to the Moon Pile-it
- Grim Reaper Lights a Match
- Megaphone of Distress
- Kafkaesque Quivering Castle
- Used to Be the Dining Room Table
- On Top and Now Underneath
- Just Throw Me Away Already
16 February 2021
Steps to Being (Insert Name) with Rachel Lipp
Steps to Being Denise Krebs
One: Be named Denise, not Lisa Lorraine because of that naughty Lisa in my mom’s scout troop. Wish your name would have been Lisa instead of Denise.
Two: Come to life when rock and roll was just a toddler and trouble was stirred up mostly by people like Elvis.
Three: Learn to be cute at all costs and run fast.
Four: Wear the same pair of blue jeans every day of sixth grade in honor of the first year you didn’t have to wear a dress to school.
Five: Be so angry that you see darkness when you argue with people who don’t deserve your respect.
Six: Let go of the anger and let Grace find you.
Seven: Wait too many years to realize that you and your white ancestors failed to own racism.
Eight: Own it and be better.
Now that I’ve identified these eight steps, they bring up eight or more questions, including who is Denise Krebs anyway?
15 February 2021
Out & Back with Rex Muston
Regrets
She studied geography, a college grad
Young and optimistic, though sad
A master’s in global food security
Was her sincere hope for futurity
She strayed before getting very far
Married, didn’t follow the North Star
She set off on this orbit, adulted a smidge
Now she can’t even manage food in her fridge
14 February 2021
Let’s Meet Somewhere with David Duer
Let’s Meet Somewhere
between Paullina and Orange City
where the odor of hogs occupies every pore
ubiquitous as it is noxious
and the gravel dances behind trucks
until it goes rogue and cracks your windshield
Let’s meet for burgers and fries,
where a veggie burger means
tomatoes, onions, and lettuce on your
all-beef patty with a homemade bun
at the greasy spoon that used to be called the Dug Out
Between the gas pumps out front and the toilet out back,
the one with the cracked mirror, no toilet paper,
a cloth roll for drying your hands that long ago was spent
and didn’t get replaced
and where the calcium deposits are so thick
you could chip them off with a strong fingernail
After lunch we’ll go to the ball park
pride of Granville
home of black soil and an immaculate diamond
and watch our Catholic boys beat the ego out of
the Protestants from down the road,
which has a bigger town and a richer school,
but they don’t know baseball
We’ll eat salty sunflower seeds and spit the shells under the bleachers
We’ll drink lemonade and eat watermelon
and stay for the second game of the double header
We’ll laugh and swear,
spit and eat,
talk and enjoy each other’s company
13 February 2021
Sonnets (Don’t Run Away) with Allison Berryhill
Elizabeth the Integral
Without you, we would be
Less than the whole
Your colleagues and kids
Respect and adore you
Reliable, gentle,
Relentlessly helpful
Consistent, responsive
Instinctively attentive
Keen
Adept
Perceptive
Delightful
Industrious
Compassionate
You’re loyal and sunny
To know you is to love you
And today is your day!
So we say,
“Thank you, God, for Elizabeth!”