Books & Bookmarks

Sometimes, just to give a little order to the ongoing chaos, I like to align the colors of my books-in-progress and their bookmarks. I just finished Dear Ann, by Bobbie Ann Mason, a sort of rewriting one's personal history through the imagination kind of novel. When I took a picture of it with my phone next to the Reveal the Teal bookmark, I learned how to use QR codes. 

Now I'm reading Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan, with a hand-made bookmark from a friend who understands my relentless book-acquisition habits. Her clever bookmarks for members of our book club show what would be on our t-shirts! Mine says, "One does not stop buying books beause there is no more shelf space." So true. But at least my book buying is affordable (ongoing library used book sale) and often includes book donating at the end! 

My kids were just here, doing another round of getting rid of stuff (recycling, donating, or tossing games, puzzles, clothes, shoes, memorabilia, past school/art work), and they almost sold a loft bed contraption with bookshelves in it that would have disrupted my world! Fortunately, I have a little time...

During their stay, I stopped writing & posting my chalkboard poems. But (by getting up earlier than my kids) I kept writing a poem a day for National Poetry Month. As the poems continue to roll out, the rejections continue to dribble in. Likewise, the weather--a glorious week of warmth and sunshine while they were here, and now a return to chilly, wet weather with dribbling rain. Up so early to take our son to the airport, and now sadness will descend.

My nonfiction reading, slow going due to its devastating topic, is Still Life With Bones: Genocide, Forensics, and What Remains, by Alexa Hagerty, automatically renewed via interlibrary loan. Its bookmark is wisdom by Confucious: "Respect others and others will respect you." Hope that's true!

Being Human

Being human, I am still doing plenty of escape reading and eating lots of jelly beans. It's Good Friday. I worked, attended a medical appointment with my mom, and then our church Green Team in our new Green Team t-shirts helped the Ecology Action Center prep about 700 trees for planting. I got to tie a yellow ribbon round a lot of black walnut tree starts, orange ribbons around many hickory starts, and pink ribbons around another variety. Our little ribbons were as colorful as jelly beans! There was also mud and moss.

I loved The Humans, by Matt Haig. I read the nose cover and also enjoy the dog cover! An alien from outer space visits the icky humans on earth to thwart their mathematical advancement because of their general greed and aggression...but learns a few things. The dog helps.

Poetry keeps pouring out of me, onto a chalkboard and a computer screen and into a composition notebook. (Meanwhile, rejections.) I've been doing both poetry and prose in a Lenten workshop online that's about to end, and I provide prompts and poems for another online workshop every April. There's a great sense of camaraderie in both these workshops, for which I am grateful. Now my kids are coming home for Easter, so 1) some of the poetry may pause 2) I must not eat all the jelly beans!!