Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following 2013 review was done by excerpting the first line or few in one post from each month last year. You can click on the name of the month for a full accounting.

January: I’m pretty sure it was a Floyd first, a Mardi Gras inspired parade from the Gardner Funeral Home into downtown Floyd to mark the passing of someone well loved … It was an unusual conclusion to a memorial service, fitting for an unusual man, who I once described as “Floyd’s version of Will Rogers meets Robin Williams, someone who rarely bites his tongue and is more often known for getting it stuck in his own cheek.”

February: It’s a pretty weird world when you open a bag of parsnips from the grocery store and it says “like us on Facebook” on the bag.

March: My grandson Bryce is growing up fast. I have to admit I was a little heartbroken when I heard him on Monday say the word “yellow” for the first time instead of his usual Yeh-yo.”

April: Spring is like a Seurat painting, a pointillistic work of art. Trees fill in with dotted buds in shades of rust and green.  Some unfold into all the colors of petals. 

May: I have a fantasy poetry shift. It lasts at least an hour every day.  I imagine that I have to stop, take pen and notebook in hand, and see if I can make something out of nothing. I do it lying on the couch, like a therapy session, because, for me, writing poetry is a form of self-analysis where I get to be both doctor and patient.

June: A lot can happen in 24 hours, as we just found out during a quick trip to Asheville to visit my son, which turned out to be a feast of artistic sights and tastes and a fulfillment of loving connections. After the 3 ½ hour drive (we arrived at 4 p.m. and left at 4 p.m the next day), we checked into the Downtown Inn before heading over to the River Arts District where we found Josh at his Clayspace studio working on a pot the size Rhode Island. “This one won’t fit in the Miata,” he said.

July: At Floydfest 12, we had three good weather days and one day of steady rain that made a lot of mud. The mud brought up stories of Woodstock and the inevitable question of whether today’s music festivals compare to that iconic festival. “If Woodstock was a president, it would be JFK,” I heard myself say in response to the argument that everyone thinks their generation is the best.

August: I was recently thinking how everything in my life comes down to pace and that the best way to pace myself is to give myself space between activities. Now I’m wondering if space is the mutant plural of pace, like slow is to low and slight is to light.

September:  We have our own West Side Story playing out at our house.  After introducing four new hens to the existing five in the hen house, we now have two rival gangs, which I call The Jets and The Sharks.

October:  Red roasted day / Breeze spreads like butter / Chimes celebrate fall’s feast of color / Steeped in Indian summer sun / shades of cinnamon honey and pumpkin /  Cardamom, cloves nutmeg and ginger / turn up the flavor of fall’s spicy simmer.

November: We headed over the river (creek) and through the woods to Zephyr Farm for Thanksgiving dinner. I had some bad thoughts while carrying the pumpkin pie about whose face I could throw it in.  “Wait for the whipped cream,” Joe said.  “I don’t really like pumpkin pie. If it was apple I wouldn’t even be thinking this,” I answered.  

December:  Every day is a wish on a lit candle / that we have to blow out in the end / Every star that flickers in a dark night  / burns on faith during the day.

______2012 Rear View Review is HERE.