Is it Spring yet? by Nancy M Bell

 

To explore more of Nancy's work please click on the cover above.

This is the cover for my next novel which is releasing in April of 2025. Night at the Legislature is the first book in the new collection of paranormal novels being released by BWL Publishing Inc. This collection joins the Canadian Historical Brides and the Canadian Historical Mysteries collections already available.

But now to my point. Is it spring yet? I know, I know,  you're all thinking 'what else could she expect? she lives in central Alberta'. This is the time of year when I get antsy, wanting to buy flowers, bedding plants, bulbs for the garden. Only problem is there is about three feet of snow over my gardens right now and the temperature is in the -20 degrees Celsius. Yup, no digging in the dirt for me for  awhile. Somehow, I always manage to make it through the dark days when the sun is sinking further and further to the south, the hours of daylight shortening with each passing day. It's not Christmas that I look forward to (although that is of course part of it) but the winter solstice. The moment when the Holly King at the height of his reign gives over to the Oak King. 

Slowly, the light returns, the days getting longer and the sun strengthening. Gradually, the sun will make its journey into the northern skies, the sunsets will slant shadows in different directions. Winter will release her strangle hold and the snow will begin to melt, dripping in diamond tears from the trees and the eaves of houses. Creeks and streams will find their voices again as snow melt swells their ranks. The bright chatter and music of running water will fill the air...and finally...the earth will warm enough that snow drops and prairie crocus will push toward the light , followed by daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. The brilliant gold of forsythia will wave beside the pearly grey pussy willows.

But for now, I'm stuck in the middle of February with its frosty nights silvered with moonlight  and starlight. While I watch Orion stalk across the eastern skies headed toward the west as the dawn light approaches. And the jewels of the planets burning in the cold winter skies, somehow more sparkling than in the warmth of summer. Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus and if I'm lucky enough to see it before he slips beneath the horizon, Mercury. 

Winter can be spectacular with motes of fairy dust floating in the sunlight as the moisture in the air freezes in the breeze. Snow reflecting the moonlight and starlight. Tall evergreens mantled in heavy frost like hoary giants guarding us.

But, oh spring...spring...the renewal of life, the return of the light...young animals starting their lives, the song of birds growing ever stronger. The return of the hawks and geese and that harbinger of spring the robin. My heart years for spring in the midst of February. So...is it spring yet?

Until next month, be happy, be wise, be healthy 

    

Spring Has Sprung

 

Or so they say. You couldn't prove it by Ohioans. We've had the craziest weather. Up and down, up and down, snow, rain, and sunshine. Typical weather for April, with promises of warm weather to come.

It seems like Mother Nature likes to tease us. She'll give us temps and sunshine in the 70s for a few days, then drop us back down to the 30s. Last week we had two days in the 80s, absolutely beautiful weather. Even the 40s and 50s feel cold after those days. Dropping us into the 30s was just downright cruel. 

Fortunately, Ohioans are resilient and we roll with the flow, for the most part. That doesn't mean we don't complain. Ha, far from it. And in a couple of months, we're going to complain it's too hot. Seems like we're not happy unless we complain. 

All in all, we haven't had that bad of a winter, at least not to my memory (which isn't what it used to be). A few bitterly cold days in January - to be expected, and not that much snow. Okay, we had two good snowstorms of six inches or more, and they came one right after the other. But that was about it for snow, at least shovable snow. To me, that's a pretty mild winter. 

Anytime I'm not afraid to drive is good for me. I'm not a big fan of driving, don't like driving in the rain, hate driving in the snow or ice and driving at night in either or is the pitts. Nope, I don't like to drive. Now, don't get me wrong, there are days I'm fine with it. Sunny warm days with no traffic like early Sunday morning on the way to church, or after morning rush hour on the way to Bible Study. Not crazy about driving at night at all, so these longer days work great for me. Wintertime, I won't drive at night, the headlights on other cars are horrible, especially those new headlights. I discovered a long time ago, if you wear sunglasses while driving at night, it does help. But I still don't like it. 

So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Spring has sprung and in few weeks, we'll really feel the benefits of it, at least we will if it doesn't become summer before we've had a chance to enjoy spring, which also happens a lot in Ohio. Not that I'd live any place else. Nope, I'm Ohio born, and in Ohio I shall die. Hmmm, that almost makes me sound a little like Aunt Beatrice Lulu. If you'd like to know more about her check out the Family Affair Series at BWL Publishing

Oh, and by the way, Aunt Beatrice Lulu remains in hiding, as do my other characters.  I do have a couple of ideas for the story, but the ending still eludes me, without that I can't fill in the middle. If anyone has any ideas let me know.either by email or in the comments below. If I use your idea, I'll mention you as a character in my book (with your permission, of course).  (email address is: rodow62 at yahoo dot com. 

The work in progress started out with Beatrice Lulu's sister, Ethel telling the story, Well which didn't sit too well with ABLL (that's what I call her when I talk about her). No one was going to take over her story. So, she took over and then she shut down. Probably paying me back for trying to let Ethel be the main character. I have a few ideas for things that go wrong for her because we all know everything goes wrong for ABLL, she's always getting into trouble. Nothing big of course, because that's where my problem comes in, she won't tell me what her next big adventure is and how she gets out of it. 

Easter by Barbara Baldwin

Find all my books at www.bookswelove.com

Easter

Did I miss it?

Daylight savings time has started. And the spring equinox occurred back in March. What happened to Easter?

In the United States, our holidays seem to fall in two ways. First, we have those that fall on the same numeric day every year – January 1, February 14, July 4, and December 25, among others. Then we have those holidays that fall on the same day of the month – Mother’s Day is the second Sunday in May and Father’s day is on the third Sunday of June; Indigenous People’s Day and Labor day on the first Monday of their respective months; Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November. Even USA elections are set on the first Tuesday after the first Monday of November.

But Easter can vary every year as much as a month, coming as early as March 22 or as late as April 25 because it is set according to the moon. Specifically, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday following the full Moon that occurs on or just after the spring equinox.

And if that isn’t enough to confuse you, take a look at Easter treats. Valentine’s Day is all about chocolate. Christmas is fondly highlighted not only with candy canes but with favorite baked goods. But here comes the Easter Bunny with hard boiled eggs, jelly bean eggs, speckled “bird” eggs, chocolate covered marshmallow eggs, peanut butter eggs, Cadbury™ eggs and hard shell cream eggs. EGGS, EGGS, EGGS! And bunnies don’t even lay eggs, so where did that come from? According to some sources, the Easter bunny first arrived in America in the 1700s with German immigrants who settled in Pennsylvania and transported their tradition of an egg-laying hare called “Osterhase” or “Oschter Haws.” Their children made nests in which this creature could lay its colored eggs. Baskets began to be used later in place of nests. The egg, an ancient symbol of new life, has often been associated with pagan festivals celebrating spring.

However you celebrate Easter, I hope it is joyous and full of sunshine and happiness. And in case you don’t care for all the candy that comes along with the holiday (as if), fill your Easter basket with some good books. They’re fulfilling but have no calories!

Barbara Baldwin

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

Amazon.com: Barbara Baldwin: Books, Biography, Blog, Audiobooks, Kindle

 

 

 

 

Is it Spring yet? by Nancy M Bell

 

To see more of Nancy's books click on the cover above.

Spring

I chose the cover of The Selkie's Song because it's just so pretty and reminds me that Spring is coming. Really, it is.

With that in mind I thought I'd just share some of my poetry that celebrates Spring.

May Moonlight

How many times have you heard

You can’t go back again?

It’s true you know, you can’t

You can go back to the way things are now

Never to the way things were then.

Long summer nights spent under the stars

Riding in the moonlight up Spy Glass Hill

The May darkness rich with the perfume of apple blossoms

The orchard ghostly white in the gloaming

The world is dark around me where I stand alone

Once more at the apex of that steep hill

Silence gathers, deep and still

Muffling the subtle chatter of the river

I see them coming through the cedars

Rising through the pearly clouds of flowering trees

Young and confident riding sure footed horses

Too young to know how the sweetness of this moment

Will linger in memory long years after this enchanted night

Celebrate

The banners of Spring are flying on the blue of morning

Yellow catkins dance in the sunlit air over the ice-skim puddle

Purple crocus carpet the brown and grey prairie

Bright butter yellow jonquils nestle close to the house foundation

Sheltered from the ever present Alberta winds

Spring comes riding the coat tails of the mighty Chinook

The earth breathes in misty tendrils above the rough ploughed field

 

Winter’s back is broken, melt water runs like blood

Warm sun shyly promises the glory of June to come

Alberta blue sky and flowering prairie flowing forever

The long cold months are gone, come celebrate Spring  

But Spring doesn't always come gently, does it?

Spring Snow

The storm demons are howling rabidly across the sky

Dragging their icy talons against the window glass

Screeching their defiance through the hydro wires

Buffeting the house with their fists of wind

Shrieking they the fall upon the exposed prairie

Vomiting great gouts of snow to cover the earth

They hurl handfuls of icy pellets in my face

As I struggle to let the stock into the barn

Mean spiritedly they snatch the door from my frozen fingers

Slamming it open and popping one of the hinges

I bare my teeth at them and wrestle the door from their grasp

Hold it steady as the horses troop in out of the angry storm

The bale of hay spills its summer scent in the frigid air

A sunlit meadow song to battle the storm raging outside

The storm demons grab me in their teeth and shake me

As I blindly make my way back to the house

Power and fury personified; they scream their defiance

Their voices howling through the wind in my ears

Reluctant to exchange the winds of winter

For the thunderheads of summer 

Seasonal Sestina

Why is it that the first flowers of Spring

Are so special and the green of new leaves

Wakes a wild joy in my heart

Is it because they signal the end of Winter

Filled with the promise of long summer days

And the lazy hum of honey bees among the flowers

The tiny white snowdrops are among the first flowers

Along with the purple crocus of Spring

Courageously piercing the snow with their leaves

Small purple clusters to gladden my heart

Throwing a gauntlet in the face of Winter

Shining brightly through the short Spring days

The snow retreats with the lengthening of days

The garden paths are strewn with clots of flowers

The sweet bouquet of flower scented Spring

Bright daffodils dance above their pointed leaves

The tulips glowing red as the sun’s heart

They chase from the path the last of snowy Winter

Now only under the brambles lies the evidence of Winter

Soon that too will retreat from the sunny days

The lilacs burst into a froth of fragrant purple flowers

The scent mingling with the sun warmed air of Spring

Slow awakening summer flowers break the soil with their leaves

Heralding the coming of Summer’s heart

Spring passes softly into summer; the pulsing green heart

That rules the year opposite the white of Winter

The long halcyon green and gold days

Forged by the fire of the sun and the glory of flowers

There is just the faintest memory now of Spring

The full heady bounty of Summer canopied by trees of leaves

In due course fiery autumn will colour the leaves

And the flames of October will quicken the heart

The winds of snow will welcome the Winter

The frosty silver and blue of early winter days

Will make us forget the summer of flowers

Too new and beautiful yet to make us wish for Spring

By January we will be wishing for green leaves and Spring

Our heart will have hardened against the silver beauty of Winter

And we will hunger after the days of Summer and flowers 

Thanks for sticking with me this far, and here's hoping Spring is right around the corner.

Until next month, stay well, stay safe

Spring Cleaning by Helen Henderson

Windmaster Legacy
by Helen Henderson
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The weather is warming. The birds are returning from their winter migrations and the first ladybug of the season has been spotted. It is time for another traditional herald of the season, spring cleaning. Today spring cleaning is a time to open the windows and give the house a thorough sprucing up. But it once was a real necessity and continued to be so until well into the 20th century. After months of cold weather during which the house was closed up and heated with wood or coal and lighted with kerosene or whale oil, furnishings were laden with soot and reeking of stale air.  

Homemade cleaning products included such diverse ingredients as salt and vinegar. Before the advent of indoor plumbing, water was hauled into the house and had to be heated before it could be used. That might mean numerous trips to the creek, the hand pump in the yard, or if you were lucky enough, the fire hydrant just outside the house.  

Before the day of vacuum cleaners, all the cleaning was done by hand with a carpet brush. In good weather the rugs were cleaned more thoroughly by hanging them on the washing line to let the sun and wind get at them. And while on the line they were beaten with woven cane, rattan, or twisted wire carpet beaters sold specially for the purpose. It not only exercised the body, but calmed the mind as you took out all your aggression. If you didn't have a real carpet beater, an old broom stick or a tennis racket did the job.

Image by AnnaliseArt from Pixabay

Even in the 1950s, every home needed at least one big clean a year; and spring is often considered the best time. It was a major task with the removal of all contents and a thorough clean of all kitchen units and cupboards inside and out. The washing of all painted and commonly-touched surfaces such as doors, window frames, and baseboards. Curtains were taken off the rods, then washed or cleaned, then after the whole room was cleaned including washing of walls, windows, and woodwork , the same curtains were rehung or swapped out for the lighter spring ones. Just this one item took a lot of effort and energy. And don't forget any blinds or shades. 

Then there was the lugging of the wooden trunks of seasonal clothes out of the attic or the back of closets. Once the summer clothes were washed and aired out, the winter clothes were cleaned, mended and moth-proofed before going into storage. Repeat the same steps with the blankets, quilts, and bed coverings. 

Image by Jazella from Pixabay

We didn't have an modern automatic clothes washer but an old wringer washer with a large metal washtub set beside it. Clothes were put in the washer, and the agitator swirled them for however long we wanted. Then we fed the clothes through the wringer and into the clean water of the washtub. Dunking took out the suds and dirty water, then the clean items were fed back through the wringer before being carted up the stars and outside to be hung on the line. But at least I had indoor plumbing and the washer was slightly newer than the one pictured. Both the wringer and the agitator were electrified.

 Another part of spring cleaning I dreaded was not the beating of the rugs, but the washing of all dishes and bric-a-brack in cupboards and cabinets. 

Spring cleaning still exists, although in a modified form. A modern list might include decluttering the home, cleaning out unneeded clothes, and tackling the junk drawer stuffed with odds and ends. While Covid-19 might have us cleaning our phones and keyboards more often, screens both big and small can be overlooked and need to be added to the cleaning list.

I hope you enjoyed this somewhat nostalgic look at spring. I’m off to hang a rug on the porch rail and beat it. Then I have to tackle the backing up and spring cleaning of my computer files.

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

 ~Until next month, stay safe and read. Helen

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.
Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter or Website

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who have adopted her as one the pack. 

SPRING! by Nancy M Bell

 

To find out more about Nancy's work please click on the cover.

Spring! It's almost here. Spring is always welcome after the long nights and drawing inward of winter. Now is the time to stretch our wings and welcome the returning warmth and light of the sun as it makes its way northward again. I can see it's progress by the changing shadows thrown by the trees across the lawn slowly emerging from beneath the sheltering drifts of snow.

Spring is a time of new beginnings and renewal, but as I have grown older and hopefully wiser, I have found it is also a time of letting go of the old and welcoming in the new. So, Spring in its own way, is also an ending, a wrapping up things that are no longer beneficial and removing them from my life.

Having deposited the unwanted baggage, both physical and emotional, where it belongs. It is now time to dance in the dappled sunlight, laugh at the gophers and smile at their cute little sentinels who whistle sharply at  me should I dare invade what they consider 'their' territory. Time to seek out the first nubs of rhubarb, ruby red in the dark wet soil seeking the sun, the first prairie crocus, the greening of the withered grasses.

Birds are reappearing, I wait each Spring for the return of the hawks who will hover just over my head and somehow it seems we have a conversation without words. And the wind that holds their wings, ever present in Alberta, sweeps back the clouds in a wide Chinook Arch that embraces the western skies.

Welcome Spring, the Equinox, Alban Eiler, Easter.

April Earth

 

I saw the Earth breathe today

A pale pearl vapour rising from the plowed field

She exhaled as the east wind billowed

Her flowing breath across the raw mud

 

Shimmering in the April afternoon sun

Her breath shed diamonds as it hung

Above the snowy prairie

 

The Earth’s cold wintry breath

Mating with the warm spring sun

Birthing the moist mist dancing

In the strength of the moving air

 

The Raven’s shadow flashes across the snow

As he flies over head borne on April’s breath  

     

Spring and Saint Patrick's Day!

 

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Click here to visit Eileen O'Finlan's website

Winters in New England are cold, snowy, and long. So when spring shows signs of arriving some of us New Englanders get positively giddy. I am one such New Englander. While the Vernal Equinox isn't until March 20th, meteorologica spring started on March 1st and that's good enough for me. On March 1st anything in my house that has the feel of winter has been put away and the spring decor appears.

Because New England likes to start winter early and hang on to it as long as it can, I was rather confused as a child about certain holidays. My family went to my maternal grandparents' home in Bennington, Vermont for Thanksgiving. It was cold and there was usually snow on the ground. According to the calendar it was still autumn, but it sure looked and felt like winter. We went to my paternal grandparents' home in Vergennes, Vermont every Easter. It was spring, but it was cold and there was snow on the ground. Yup, to this little kid, both of those holidays occured in the winter.

However, in between came something even more confusing - Saint Patrick's Day. We didn't go anywhere, but my half-Irish mother, who decorated the house for every holiday (and I mean EVERY holiday), was sure to have plenty of images of the green fields of Ireland, lads and lasses in traditional dress dancing jigs, and shamrocks all over the house. It may not have looked like spring outside, but it certainly looked like it inside.

To this day, I think of Saint Patrick's Day as being in the spring. According to the calendar it's at the very end of the winter, but I'm going with meteoroligical spring. All that green can't be winter!

If you're in the mood for something Irish check out my books: Kelegeen is set in Ireland in the 1840s during the Great Hunger (aka Irish Potato Famine). The sequel, Erin's Children, set in the 1850s follows the lives of Irish immigrants who settled in Worcester, Massachusetts.

         Erin Go Bragh and happy Saint Patrick's Day! 

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Prognostication and Prediction

Windmaster Golem
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After a year of isolation, thoughts turn to spring. Writing this as a major snow storm works its way across the country, there is the question of when will spring come. Before the days of widespread, instantaneous communications via radio, television, and the internet, people still needed advance information on the weather. The first thing that comes to mind regarding predictions of what the weather will be or the severity of a winter is The Old Farmer’s Almanac. 

However, people are not the only ones who can prognosticate. Animals can see and hear things that people can’t, a fact that’s been known for essentially all of human history. From a groundhog and woolly bear caterpillar, to geese, cows, hornets, and other animals, we still look to many animals to predict the weather.

Image by LiveLaughLove from Pixabay

If the groundhog sees its shadow on February 2, six more weeks of winter remain. If it does not see its shadow, spring has arrived. Perhaps the most well-known is Punxsutawney Phil. However, the National Climatic Data Center estimates Punxsutawney Phil’s accuracy at 39%. The Pennsylvania groundhog is not the only weather oracle. Among them are Staten Island Chuck who lives at the Staten Island Zoo. Chuck, more formally referred to as Charles G. Hogg, did better. He had a ten-year span of correct predictions. However, the ceremonies weren't always smooth sailing. During one event, he bit the Mayor of New York City. Across the river, New Jersey resident Essex Ed makes his own determination of spring’s return. He has since diversified and now also prophesizes on who will win the Super Bowl.

More than just American groundhogs issue a prophecy about the return of spring. Shubenacadie Sam, who lives in Shubenacadie Wildlife Park in Nova Scotia, is typically the first groundhog in North America to make his prediction on Feb. 2, since it gets the earliest sun and is an hour ahead of Eastern Standard Time on Atlantic Time.

A point to remember is that a forecast based on only one saying is rarely accurate. When several phenomena pointing toward the same forecast are observed, however, many an old farmer will tell you the folk sayings can be extremely reliable.

Weather is not the only thing animal oracles can predict. Sports-predicting animals include a rhinoceros, a miniature pig, a kangaroo, several sharks, a goat, a panda, and an elephant. Each has their own method from eating a treat decorated with the desired team’s logo to using a paint brush to mark the team’s shirt draped over an easel.

For many years, Ozzy, a 680-pound grizzly bear at ZooMontana expressed his choice to win the Super Bowl by eating a treat with the team’s symbol on it. He retired from his position as Super Bowl prognosticator to be replaced by Sid the Wolverine.

Paul the Octopus at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, Germany, specialized in predicting the results of international football (or soccer to some of us) matches His 85.7% correct rate in the 2010 World Cup brought him worldwide attention as an animal oracle.

By the time this post goes live, Punxsutawney Phil, Staten Island Chuck and their kin will have made their predictions. Super Bowl 55 will be over and the champions crowned. What prediction remains to be seen is whether spring will come early or not.

Winter/Spring photos by the author.

 

To purchase the Windmaster Novels: BWL

~Until next month, stay safe and read. Helen

Find out more about me and my novels at Journey to Worlds of Imagination.
Follow me online at Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter or Website

Helen Henderson lives in western Tennessee with her husband. While she doesn’t have any pets in residence at the moment, she often visits a husky who has adopted her as one the pack. 

Writing the Weather by Priscilla Brown

Men are off Cristina's essentials list during her working holiday at a luxury Caribbean resort. 

But can the resort's zany charmer of a pilot break through her defences?

https://books2read.com/Where-the-Heart-Is

 Today, 31 August, is the last official day of winter in Australia. As I write this a few days prior, here in temperate New South Wales the blustery wind seemingly straight from Antarctica makes us long for spring. However, signs of the season change began to appear mid-August; fruit trees, ornamental and productive, display blossoms white or shades of pink - until the wind catches them. The yellows of daffodils and jonquils are such optimistic colours, and deciduous trees are starting to show lots of buds.

The weather may be the most widespread topic of conversation in areas where the weather is changeable. On a chilly wet day, we may exchange comments with strangers under umbrellas at the bus stop; or start a conversation about the heat as we drop onto a shared seat after jogging around the park.

One of my personal writing-related files contains sections in which I jot down words or phrases which interest me. I use the three hand-written pages of weather-associated words for ideas, to edit and re-write as necessary for the weather to fit or augment the plot and the characters, and to help me avoid cliches such as lashing rain, howling gale.

Those weather conditions in which we situate our people are usually there for a crucial reason: have them enjoy, or struggle against, to stop them from doing something, to put them in danger, to act as a source of tension between them, and ultimately to move the story along. Such circumstances create atmosphere, physical and/or emotional, affecting characters' moods, influencing the plot. For several of the weather episodes in my novels, I've needed to do considerable research, which for me is always an enjoyable task. I do some on line from weather and news reports, and from reading and viewing local information, and where possible from visiting the area.

During a trip some years ago to the Eastern Caribbean, I had no thought of setting a novel in a location entirely exotic for me; the contemporary romance Where the Heart Is emerged later. While I gave Cristina a dreamy Caribbean beach (plus a dreamy man) in gorgeous weather, I also involved her in a hurricane with a perilous wet and windy mountain rescue by motorbike. I didn't experience the extreme weather event I put her and the motorbike rider through, but I did gain background knowledge valuable for future use. And in this story, the sub-tropical climate contrasts with the temperate spring of her rural Australian home.

As I sign off on this post, the wind is still strong enough to blow a dog off a chain, and tonight will be a two or three dog night. Maybe these are Australian expressions? The number of dogs theoretically (perhaps practically!) to keep you warm in bed.






Hoping your weather is kind to you, Priscilla

https://bwlpublishing.ca

  

https://bookswelove.net/brown-priscilla 

https://priscillabrownauthor.com

 

Writing Life Self Care

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"...watching the wheels go round and round..."

 The quote is from a post-Beatles John Lennon song, because I'm in a similar dropped out, meditative State. The New Englander inside my head keeps yelling that I "ought" and "should" do lots of things, like mow and mop and scoop cat poop and write and call my repugnant congressman, so maybe what I've got currently is simply Sloth.  Who knows? I'm not a Spring time Optimist--especially this spring, where Ragnarok--at least--apparently just around the corner for our poor old 21st Century world.

Lying fallow is part of the writing life, it seems, every bit as much as the obsessed hustle of those "creative" moments, when The Spirit of Tell Me a Story takes possession. I'm still a writer, though, even if nothing is coming out, information is always coming in, whether it's just this year's peonies, lanky from over-dosing on fertilizer (I think) and the record 12 months of rain-rain-rain we've just logged here in PA, or the burst of color around the base of the Witch Hazel. Here are little moments of lovely that I'm collecting a memory of for later.

.

May into June  I always seem to be waiting for something. I'm wondering if it's because 50+ years ago, my new husband and I were living in a basement apartment in Boston. I was awaiting the birth of a first child. We were taking time off from college, having our baby and getting our feet under us a married couple. It was hot as the hinges of hell before a/c there in the city, and I, sweaty and fat, ironed my husbands shirts in a hallway which connected the three rooms in which we lived.

It was also the summer of the Boston Strangler, so being alone in a basement apartment for hours every day was--let us say--unnerving. We didn't have a television, only a radio, but enough scary news came, on the hour, via that. I'll never forget the moments of stepping out into the hall, listening for the sound of human activity in the laundry-cum-trash bin-area, and, finally, after deciding the coast was clear, turning and swiftly locking the door behind me before running as fast as a heavily pregnant 19 year old can go upstairs to the lobby. It was not a transition I looked forward to. I walked along the burning sidewalks to the Shop Rite many blocks away with my little, happily anticipating the shade of each and every ragged city tree.

I spent a lot of head time in either past or future back then--the mysterious trial of labor lay ahead of me as well as the gender surprise which, in those days, only came upon the birth of the baby. An only child and a bookworm, my education came not from female relatives or neighbors, but from Alan Guttmacher's Pregnancy & Childbirth, as well as a then revolutionary English book called Natural Childbirth, by Dick Grantly.

At the clinic, when I asked about this method, I was cautioned rather sharply that "American Women are too weak for that."  An epidural, I was informed, was the closest I could get to "natural."  I also had a well-worn copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, loaned to me by a mother of eight who my husband used to baby sit for. In the end, the anticipated drama of "going into labor," --such a standard of books and movies--never happened. One day, I rode the bus to the hospital and then was required to stay. By the time they'd given me the epidural, my son had practically arrived, so, in the end, I was glad I'd geekily studied the Grantly book with care and had learned some strategies to deal with what I was supposed to be "too weak" to endure.

Time has passed, lots of it! Those childbirth stories I can tell are part of history, fifty years past, tales that are triggered by birthdays and Call The Midwife. That hapless younger self is gone, replaced by one that is older, wiser, but doubtless just as hapless as ever. This body hurts for no discernible reason at times, but that's apparently the new normal, as entropy takes hold. We all know the jokes: "Past your sell-by date" etc. I've got several stories begun--two series books I want to complete--but it's all on hold.

Zauberkraft: Black

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(And Where oh Where is Zauberkraft: Green?)

The characters have walked away; they aren't speaking to me, not telling me their "thrilling tales of yesteryear." I used to fret when this happened, to do writing exercises and tricks to jump-start the flow. One thing I've learned over the years, though is that worrying doesn't solve a single thing. I've also learned that sometimes, sitting on the patio, watching the clouds flowing this way, and then that, while the  jet stream tries to figure out what it's trying to accomplish in this part of Pennsylvania feels sufficient. 

Here I sit, enough to eat, roof over my head, surrounded by green--the weary old trees with holes full of starlings and woodpeckers, and the spry young trees, ones "I've known from nut and acorn" like the Ent, Treebeard, in LOTR.  It's sufficient, the light and the green.

           "To see a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower
             Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour."
                ~~William Blake
                https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/william_blake

  
I've realized The Muse will come back when (and if) She/He/It feels like it. In the meantime, try on a dragon tail; lighten up, reminisce with small pieces concerning pains and pleasures past, enjoy your bright little spark of human consciousness--and scribble on!   

~~Juliet Waldron
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