This poem was originally published as part of a poetry challenge on Vocal Media, January 2024 – Patchwork Love Story
The quilt in her lap, she sits by the light, Working her fingers to the bone. It’s 2 am in the deep of the night, Each stitch a memory, each patch a milestone.
The patchwork, a tapestry of their love, Stories woven in fabric and thread. A square for their first kiss under the moon, Another for sunny days, picnics, and when they wed.
She works her fingers to the bone, Mending the dandelions and the dove. In the quiet, her heart hums their song, Each thread a testament to their love.
The Babushka dolls sit, lined on the shelf, Guardians of a memory so dear. Inside the smallest, a ring once hid, His proposal, whispered, still she hears.
Her fingers hold the needle tight, Sewing the quilt that cradled their dreams. Bullet holes, a stark reminder of fate, Yet in the threads, their love still gleams.
She opens her eyes, now filled with tears, As she hums and sews, her heartache unfolds. The Russian dolls, the quilt, their love, Each stitch a tale of warmth is told.
I wrote this poem in response to an unofficial challenge on a different platform suggested by a writer named Poppy.
The poetry challenge was to write a poem that includes the following five words highlighted in my poem: patchwork, dandelions, Babushka dolls, bullet holes, 2 am.
One of my most cherished possessions, and the oldest thing I use daily, is my Nana’s desk. This beloved relic of my daily existence is a testament to the enduring legacy of my Nana—an exquisite dark walnut secretary, which I lovingly still referred to as her desk. This little desk is filled with nooks and crannies, thoughtfully crafted slots to secure one’s belongings, and a pair of drawers discreetly concealing treasures. Whoever made this desk expected its owner to be able to keep it closed when not in use. I have stacks of papers and books and magazines, bowls of paper clips, and God Knows what else in front of all these carefully crafted spaces. My things are assuredly secured behind the clutter.
Author’s photo of her Nana’s desk – used daily to write
Childhood Memories
Throughout my childhood, the desk occupied a place of prominence just outside her kitchen, nestled comfortably in the living room of her modest abode. Such proximity ensured that my interactions with Nana were abundant and profound, shaping the very core of my being.
I remember her sitting at this similarly cluttered desk – her stacks are just the foothills to my mountainous heaps. She would write to her mother in sunny Florida and her two sisters—one down in Virginia, the other out in Arizona. She was the oldest among the three sisters; they all bore the distinction of being born and raised in Macon, Georgia. Her recollections often painted vivid pictures of her eager escape from the clutches of her father’s chicken farm, an existence she deemed suffocating. New York City was the place for her, and despite decades of living there, it did nothing to cut that thick Southern accent.
Part of the Morning Routine
These days before the sun shows its first light, I start my daily rituals, assuming my rightful place at this ancestral desk, carrying on the torch of creative expression. With pen in hand, I turn to my journal, its pages yearning to be filled with my soul’s reflections, musings, and whispers. Good Lord! She would exclaim if she ever caught sight of the clutter that had come to rest upon this once clean surface. I can see her shaking her head. Regrettably, the disarray is such that the drop-down leaf, where my writing takes flight, can only be closed with much rearranging and piling of papers elsewhere. An unfamiliar sight, indeed, to witness the dark wood peeking through the gaps in my journal’s sprawl. Controlled chaos – I do know where everything is, despite appearances.
This beloved desk, a venerable witness to the passage of time, has graced our family for no fewer than eight decades. Maybe it’s seven. But as I sit here I realize that near stands another heirloom—an ancestral chest belonging to my Great-Nana. It now serves as a foundation for my television, while within its protective confines reside cherished remnants of our lineage: old family photographs. Fashioned from the wood of my great-grandparents’ farm, this chest bears witness to its origin through a modest silver plaque that silently proclaims, “This is made of cedar from Knightwood by Jessie H. Moore for Edna E. Knight, August 4, 1933.” This chest will mark ninety years since its creation in a few short months—ninety years of preserving our collective memories.
The presence of these relics, infused with the essence of my Nana and Great-Nana, fills my life with an indescribable sense of connection. They symbolize the strength and resilience that coursed through the veins of these formidable women, who weathered the tempestuous storms of their existence with unyielding resolve. Recently, through the meticulous exploration of our ancestry and the fortuitous acquisition of family archives following my mother’s untimely death a couple of years ago, I have gleaned newfound insights into their remarkable journeys. Oh, how I wish I knew the right questions to ask while they walked among us! Hindsight is bittersweet indeed.
As I sit at this venerable desk, surrounded by the echoes of generations past, I am reminded of the enduring power of lineage and the stories within these treasured artifacts. They are not mere objects but conduits through which the spirit of my Nana and Great-Nana breathes, whispering tales of strength and resilience. With each pen stroke upon the waiting pages, I pay homage to their unwavering resolve and the indomitable spirit that courses through my veins. In this eternal interplay of past and present, I am both custodian and seeker, unearthing fragments of wisdom and unlocking the secrets that bind us together across time. Through these delicate threads woven with love and memories, I honor these remarkable women’s profound impact on my journey. Their legacy lives on, an eternal flame guiding me forward gracefully and purposefully.
Oh, the days before the internet! They hold a certain charm, a nostalgic longing for a simpler way of life. In response to the writing prompt asking whether I remember life before the internet, my answer is an unequivocal yes. The world we inhabited back then was one where imagination thrived, friendships blossomed through outdoor play, and entertainment relied not on screens but on the power of our minds.
During those pre-internet days, children engaged in many delightful activities that ignited their imaginations and fostered friendships. Games like Kick the Can, Capture the Flag, and Four Square filled our afternoons with laughter and camaraderie. Whether it was trading baseball cards or collecting Pokémon, kids relish the thrill of bartering and the joy of discovering new treasures. Forts became our sanctuaries, and we immersed ourselves in endless adventures that spanned entire summers, abiding by the simple rule of returning home before darkness settled in. Barbie dolls and GI Joes became our trusted companions; their stories are interwoven with our imaginative narratives.
As I grew older, Central Park became our meeting place, where we basked in the warmth of friendship and listened to the radio, played frisbee, and roller skated. Rainy days invited us to curl up with books or engage in spirited card and board games, while visits to the bowling alley with our friends added excitement to our lives.
Closeup, people playing card game
In reflecting upon those bygone days, I am reminded of the words of Henry David Thoreau, the transcendentalist philosopher who sought solace in a simpler existence. Although technology has undoubtedly made many aspects of our lives more convenient, the pace we move through the world today often leaves us breathless. In our relentless pursuit of instant gratification and boundless information, have we inadvertently sacrificed the beauty of living in the moment?
The absence of the internet meant that information was not readily available at our fingertips. Researching a topic required a trip to the library, flipping through pages of books, and carefully selecting suitable sources. It was a deliberate process, one that demanded patience and dedication. But in that process, we discovered the knowledge we sought and the joy of exploration, the thrill of finding unexpected treasures nestled within the pages.
The internet, undeniably, has revolutionized the way we access information. With a few keystrokes, we can unravel the mysteries of the universe and learn about any topic that piques our curiosity. The ease and convenience are undeniable. We can now delve into the depths of knowledge from the comfort of our own homes. Once bastions of wisdom, libraries have taken on a different role in this digital age.
opposite signs on wooden signpost with the text quote good bad engraved. Web banner format.
Yet, there is a price we pay for this convenience. The internet, with its allure, tends to make us less sociable creatures. As we navigate the vast online world, we find ourselves glued to screens, be it a computer or a cell phone. Our interactions become confined to pixels on a screen, and the art of face-to-face conversation begins to wane. The simple act of engaging with the person sitting across from us, looking them in the eye, and genuinely listening to their words is gradually eroded.
In contemplating the pros and cons of life before and after the advent of the internet, I find myself torn. There is an undeniable allure to the easy access to information that the online realm affords us. Yet, I can’t help but yearn for a time when our imaginations were the primary source of entertainment when the world beyond our screens was the canvas on which we painted our adventures.
So, do I remember life before the internet? Yes, I do. It was a time of simplicity, of connection with both nature and one another. It was a time when we were not in a perpetual rush and had the luxury of time to play and dream. As we navigate this ever-evolving technological landscape, let us remember the lessons from our past. Let us strive for balance, cherishing the digital age’s benefits while preserving the beauty of a slower, more connected existence.
What is the one thing in life that you are most excited about right now? Why?
That is Fandango’s Provocative Question for the day. Interesting that I read this right question right now since I’ve been a little sad today so it’s a good time to be looking for things to get excited about.
I have much to be excited about as I look around. I have my garden which I planted alongside my daughter who I got to spend time with for ten weeks during quarantine. Sorry for the reason, but so thankful for the time with her. The garden should provide plenty of healthy, fresh produce for me and my family if we have a good season. I need it too since having my two adult children live under the same roof again depleted our rations of canned tomato sauce and salsa a little more than twice as much if it had been just Mark and I. But it made me smile each and every time they opened a jar of our homegrown goodness and raved about how good it taste.
I’m excited to work in the garden and be outside with the sun shining and even if it’s not. After a number of months being cooped up inside because the weather was too miserable to enjoy being outside for any given time, I’m not too picky about when is a good time to spend out in the garden. Just as long as there aren’t too many bugs and it’s not too hot. My garden has fantastic sunlight so I have to pick and choose my hours which tend to be early in the morning and after 5pm.
I’m excited about the new chickens we have now! Khaleesi, Gertrude, Ethel and Lucy have joined our homestead. It’s always a thrill to walk into the hen house and see the daily deposit of freshly laid eggs. Which in turn has made us excited about breakfast and any recipe that has eggs in it. I get excited now to do the weeding since the hens love the dandelions and eat them right up, it no longer feels like weeding and more like harvesting. I know human enjoy eating dandelion leaves in salads and making tea or wine but until now they were just weeds. So I’m excited about that – it goes for all weeds pretty much too. Plus the chickens are so much fun to watch they make me excited to just come out to the yard and sit and watch.
Finally I am excited about the flowers which are beginning to bloom and I know will blooming throughout the summer and into the fall. I have a short season up here on the mountain, so I am grateful for the time we are given and excited to see it all unfold.
It can be difficult to get excited about the future when we are dealing with so many unknowns. But it’s in times like these where you need to take a deep breath, take a step back and look for the good things, they don’t have to be big things, just small positives. It’s easy to see the negative, especially when you are looking for it. When you are looking for it – that it all you will see. It’s harder to look for the positives, the good things – not matter how big or small they may be. But once you start to look for the positives, I thik they become easier to see.
About a week ago I walked through a new door to a new chapter in my life – raising chickens. So far five days in all seems to be doing well. I had four Rhode Island Red pullets which are 18 weeks old. I am told they could be laying eggs sometime in the next couple of weeks.
The first few days in their new hen house, they have spent getting to know the place. The weather has been cold for May as we have had snow and two freeze warnings in the last week and it’s been windy, blowing the dogs off the chain for days making the temperatures feel like it was mid-February. Every morning around 5am I head out to the hen house to check on the ladies and open their door to the outside run which is enclosed with chicken wire and hardware cloth.
On Tuesday, I was sitting on the blue painter’s bucket I had flipped over to use as my perch so that I could spend some time getting to know my chickens. I sat in the corner watching and photographing them as they pecked around at the food and jumped on the roost. Then there was a moment when they were all down by the food near the door to their run when two of them poked their heads out and walked down the plank to the grass. The third one quickly followed suit and then the fourth. The fourth one who is the only one to have a nickname so far of Khaleesi/White Pants. She gained the nickname Khaleesi after having been pushed on the swing and held on for dear life as my friend’s seven year old rocked the swing wildly back and forth. They had been the ones to get the pullets and were dropping off the four we wanted and they were keeping another 8.
I’ve never been around chickens but I figure like any animal they need some time to acclimate to their new environment. On the other side of the door to the hen house are our dogs. They stare through the glass door to the hen house which depending on the time of day and lighting, reflects back their own images. They can smell them though and unbelievably one curious girl came out to check the dogs out.
The morning that they all four walked out the door of the hen house and into their backyard enclosed run, I was so happy. New doors were opening up for all of us and we just have to trust our instincts about when it is the right time for to walk through those doors.
When I saw the prompt for Eugi’s Weekly Prompt “Harmony”, the first thing that came to mind was the Coke commercial from 1971. I can’t help it I was a child of the 70’s. Then I thought about how much time I have spent throughout my life striving for harmony in one way or another.
The word harmony in Dictionary.com is defined as
agreement; accord; harmonious relations. 2. a consistent, orderly, or pleasing arrangement of parts; congruity.
I made an agreement with the family 8 weeks ago when quarantine started in order to promote harmony in the house by writing a Dish Duty Calendar on our white board that makes it clear who has dish duty each day. We started it in March and Mark just updated it all the way to July which sort of freaked my daughter out a bit. Myself as well since it just sort of gives a visual of one way our life has changed. It has certainly has worked to promote harmony though which can be tough sometimes especially in such stressful times as these.
Generally, in order to achieve harmony the action of an agreement has to have taken place. In order for an agreement to take place, people have to be willing to negotiate which can happen when people communicate and listen to one another. Listen to one another. There hasn’t been enough listening to one another. Most people are thinking of what they are going to say next instead of listening to one another. A huge problem that we face in our society and government, but that’s just my opinion.
The third definition of harmony defines the word in terms of music. I love music, Mark is right this moment out in the other room strumming his guitar and singing right now filling the house with beautiful music. It does a lot to set a harmonious tone to the house. Maybe the world should be listening to more music.
Harmony in rel. to Music.
any simultaneous combination of tones.
the simultaneous combination of tones, especially when blended into chords pleasing to the ear; chordal structure, as distinguished from melody and rhythm.
the science of the structure, relations, and practical combination of chords.
Some of my favorite bands are known for their harmonies like the Beatles, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, CSN, the Mamas and Papas, Simon & Garfunkel, Queen…I can keep going so, instead here once again a playlist!
I’ve been part of team in many different capacities. Whether it was as a member of a sports team or as a member of a team working on a group project in school or work, I learned some of the most valuable life lessons working as a team.
In sports, I was on a team as a player and as a coach, each very different experiences which I learned valuable lessons. The most incredible part for me was watching young athletes learn and develop their skills and watch the confidence build inside them. I coached girls’ lacrosse for six years when my daughter was in elementary school and they were some of the most rewarding days of my life. I loved working with those kids and watching them grow not only in the sport but as individuals too. I think that exposing children to being on some sort of team is important. It teaches them how to work together which is a valuable life lesson. It doesn’t have to be a sports team either since there are many opportunities in school where you have to work on a group project for academic classes.
Being on a team teaches people crucial skills about cooperating, communicating, and connecting with other people. It doesn’t matter whether its a two-person team or a team with 22 people or more, members of the team have to be able to listen to one another, be willing to be open to new ideas or ways to accomplish the team’s common goal. There’s a beauty in watching people work together, whether it’s on the athletic fields or the workplace.
Washington Monument
This stands in stark contrast to the teams of politicians which is our government. That’s not pretty to watch at all. Our government should be run more like a team, all working towards one common goal. Instead they act more like they are on opposite teams rather than on the same team, failing to listen to each other, or the American people. Perhaps if they were able to cooperate better with one another, communicate better with each other and check their egos at the door (a good place to start would be to stop calling themselves leaders when they are actually our representatives); they’d be able to connect better with each other and get things done.
Currently, sports teams across the world on every level are on the sidelines quietly waiting as the world’s attention is turned towards the teams of medical professionals fighting the virus which has paralyzed our world. These are the teams that on a daily basis work together to save lives. They did before the outbreak and they will continue to afterwards.
It’s too bad it took a pandemic for the world to pay attention to these all too important teams. These are the teams that are performing acts of heroism every single day to no particular fanfare other than from those families they may have touched individually. If I was still living in New York City or Boston, I would be one the people who every night at 7pm – raise up their windows and applaud and cheer for the heroic teams of today, the teams of medical professionals who are the front lines of this battle. These are the teams that I admire the most in today’s world. These are the teams that we should all be so thankful for their tenacity in working towards accomplishing their one common goal – to save lives. To save our lives and the ones we love.
Artemis was our beautiful Brittany spaniel. She was a lot of firsts for me. She was my first female dog. The first dog I ever rescued from a shelter and the first dog I ever found on the internet. But she was not the last of any of those things. Rather, she opened the door to all of them.
She was a magnificent hunter, true to her name. On rainy days, her ideal weather for such sport, she would lay in the daisies hiding, the way a Navy Seal does on a covert mission. Her natural patience paying off.
The streets of every major city in the evenings are usually bustling with life. People filling the sidewalks on their way home, stopping for drinks with a friend or colleague, grabbing groceries on the way home to cook that night. Buses and taxis used to be filled with passengers slowly making their way through the trafficked arteries of every city. You could hear the heartbeat of the every city – loud and clear.
But now there is an invisible threat that has set upon everyone of us around the world. A virus that has separated and isolated us from one another. The rural areas are quieter than they once were. Towns and villages equally reticent now. But the most noticeable are the silent streets of cities like Athens, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. Never before and hopefully never again we will witness these eerie scenes of emptiness devoid of life.
We sat 12 feet apart having our coffee together this morning in the workshop where he’s in quarantine. I looked out the window as he fetched his phone from the music studio where I dragged a bed into last week. He wants to tell me about an article he had read earlier. Usually these conversations would be had next to each other in bed with my head on his chest and our legs entwined. We were unavoidably separated last week – he was home now – thank God.
Marley and Mark, the morning patrol earlier in the winter
The grass looked frosty, I thought as I brought the mug up for another sip. I was already on my second cup of the day and it was only 6:45am. The driveway would be slick when he and Marley head down to open the gate later. Icicles had formed overnight on the bird feeders. I thought the rain sounded more solid than liquid last night as I fell asleep listening to the tink, tink, tink on the window.
