Hello, This seems as good a place as any to start my small contribution to Daily Kos.
Aside from the writing, I haven't a clue as to what all the little "words" really mean...rec?
But I am more than willing to learn and welcome solid feedback... one of my weakest areas is punctuation and those trciky little places where one might use a dash, but perhaps a semicolon would be bnetter...or parenthesis?
I've been putting this off for a week now... one, two, three---jump!
Probably in large part due to the fact that I was raised in a home filled with music, I frequently hear tunes playing in my head. Though I do occasionally make up a ditty whilst walking on a beautiful day with my best friend, Kobi, the Wire Haired Doxie, more likely a song from one of the old musicals will surface as we strike off around the block or along one of the bike paths we enjoy and I find myself singing, accompanied by a little two-step. If the sight of a tiny older woman singing and dancing with her dog trotting along beside creates concern—tough.
As a child, alone in my room, I sang and danced my way thru stacks of LP’s and those songs still surface from time to time-- think Falling in Love With Love, Foggy Day… I Won’t Dance. But I am getting ahead of myself.
Toodling into my 70th year on the planet, I certainly was not prepared to be divorcing a man I had been with for almost forty of them. Neither did I expect to be moving from a Victorian home into an apartment barely a quarter of its size.
As if saying goodbye to the marriage, my home and gardens wasn’t enough, my dog died. I swear Benjamin stayed with me just long enough to be certain I’d be alright and then abruptly left. (That isn’t quite fair--he was 18 and I knew it was time. It had been time for a while.)
The whole experience left me shell shocked and for a year, without road map or compass of familiarity, there was no choice but to put one foot in front of the other, follow my gut and cling to a few old patterns.
Perhaps unduly influenced by my Mother’s philosophy that cluttered closets made for cluttered minds, I was compelled to rid myself of books, papers, clothing and artifacts which contributed little to my current needs. But I tried to create the warmest, most comforting space possible to live in and got permission to put in a small, somewhat sketchy, flower bed out front.
Then Kobi found me and not only did he help to fill the enormous void left by Ben, there is no better ambassador than an adorable pup for meeting others. Although I met quite a few new and interesting people, relationships with the opposite sex proved that I was nowhere near ready to truly engage.
By the end of that first year I had managed to at least partially establish a modicum of normalcy. The warmth of spring brought a happier, fuller garden. Discovering the local dog park brought a new scene to Kobi and me as he learned the rules of doggy social life and I connected with other animal lovers.
Aside from small memory lapses (where is dear old Anna? Oh, right, she died!) my mind seemed in pretty good shape.
The body was healthy and appropriately rumpled. I know the concept is unique, but to me there is something not-quite-right about a wrinkled older woman without matching gray hair.
Now, I needed to uncover who the hell I really was and where I fit in the world.
In high school I had decided to become a journalist, then, like many of my generation, got sidetracked into marriages and motherhood. In my mid-Thirties I did start publishing and my by-line knew some small success for close to thirty years. But I had written nothing for the past fifteen, when the stars lined up to create a space in which there seemed no choice but to get back to it.
It was very hard. I had forgotten the work writing can entail and, like an out of shape athlete’s, those muscles ached and rebelled.
It took a month, but I wrote the story of how Kobi and I found each other. Once I got rolling, the words and phrases suddenly appeared almost effortlessly on my screen. A lot of them would, of course, need to be moved or replaced (even deleted), but the process…ah the process! As soon as that story was done, I couldn’t wait to make the trip again… and then again.
Reading and editing, changing a tense, moving a paragraph to clarify an image brought me back to not exactly Zippitty Do Dah, but definitely The Sunny Side of the Street.
When I opened the blinds this morning, the underbellies of dark clouds were streaked with salmon. By the time I had poured coffee, there were tiny openings of blue added to the mix. By the time I had taken a few sips it looked as tho a building in the sky had exploded and burst into flames. Just goes to show… you never know.