A to Z Blogging Challenge: D is for Daughter-in-law

D is for Daughter-in-law

I'm back on my diet of shorter posts. The one I fixed for yesterday was certainly more than a mouthful.

Whoever thought up the term "daughter-in-law" must not have been on good terms with one. Don't you think it sounds like someone who's just an entity in a legal contract? It's too cold and impersonal for my tastes. Thankfully, I can say that in our family's case, being on good terms with our son's wife and mother of our grandson has been delightfully easy and a real blessing.

We don't have the same heritage. We may not always agree on everything. We do share a common love and bond that's too strong for human willfulness to break. I think our differences make us stronger.

The term "daughter-in-law" in Spanish is hija politica. I don't care for it either. Politica? Yuck! An emphatic No! to that word. I've decided to give our Peruvian lady in question a much better title: nuestra Dios, la hija de. I hope it's okay, grammatically, that is. It sounds downright poetic, I think. Now we're speakin' the same language.

Cumpleanos feliz, Daughter of Our God!

See A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "D's" from Challenge sponsors and other writers.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: C is for Chiasmus

Eastern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus, seen on a Fort Braden trail near Tallahassee

C is for Chiasmus

Pattern defines Nature and Nature defines Pattern. In the chiastic nature of things, some animals' longevity derives from their ability to reflect or mimic their surroundings. If an animal doesn't blend in but stands out in its surroundings or looks out of place, like this lizard on a trail marker, it's liable to be spotted by a predator or a curiosity seeker and picked off the tree. And, of course, it would have trouble hiding itself from its prey, losing the element of surprise when looking to snatch its next meal. I know I might be taking this analogy a bit too far, but if it weren't for the orange paint, you would see that the lizard conceals itself in a tree bark's pattern, and a tree bark's pattern conceals itself in the lizard.

Writing that makes use of chiasmus gathers strength from a similar principle, especially if it explores an uncomfortable, unpopular idea. The more obvious chiasmus is, the more likely it is trying to elicit support for--or at least response to--something. Take, for example, John F. Kennedy's famous call for volunteerism: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." Humans by nature don't usually jump at the chance to help unless asked nicely or forced to do so. All it took was a little chiastic, patriotic reminder from a popular President to get people on board with him and spur them into action. Of course, that was back in the days when love of their country and its ideals came naturally to most Americans. 

Some writers prefer a subtler approach to broaching a controversial subject or two. In Ernest Hemingway's short story "Hills Like White Elephants," he takes on Prohibition and abortion with one swell foop. Both of those taboo topics eventually appear, but they don't just jump out at you. Time means everything to this story. It was written in 1927. Prohibition in America was in effect from 1919 until 1933. It's no wonder there were so many expats running around Europe then. Censors in this country were keeping close watch on anything that reeked of Prohibition criticism, and of course pregnancy was not something that people talked about in public. Abortion? Forget it. The publication of Hemingway's story would not have been possible if not for a little sneakiness on his part to get past the censorship and attract attention, the kind of attention that would sell his story and get him book deals.

You realize--if you're in the habit of looking closely at stories--that the setting here is a train station, something often associated with 20th century progressivism. (You can read what that's all about here and here.) That point is obvious in the first paragraph. What's not so apparent but stands out, if you know what to look for, is Hemingway's use of descriptive and syntactic reversal in the first two lines: "The hills across the valley of the Ebro were long and white. On this side there was no shade and no trees and the station was between two lines of rails in the sun." Not only the setting described but also the pattern of the first sentence (order of nouns, verbs, prepositional phrases) is at odds with yet somehow mirroring the next one, right off the bat.

You know how your right hand suddenly becomes your left one in a mirror image? What's natural becomes manmade, prepositional phrases are suddenly at the fore, and passive voice in both sentences parallels the "two lines of rails" which are empty at the moment. Nothing is happening in this mirror image! Or is it? The taboo topics get presented beneath the censors' radar, and the story sells. The power of chi. It's Greek to me. It's Chinese to someone else. Either way, it's a force to reckon with in storytelling as well as storyselling. 

See A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "C's" from Challenge sponsors and other writers.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: B is for Boskydell

B is for Boskydell

Ode to Rose (Shy) of Boskydell

Farmer, preacher, poet shorn
Take your place in fields of corn--
I see you now as you were then,
Over-alled lady with a ballpoint pen

Your name was Rose and aptly so
My conscience was pricked; God's Spirit said "Go!"--
Your tractor broke down on planting day--
I offered to help and you said okay

We walked the fields with seeds in hand--
Those beans did grow and fill the land--
I hear you now as I heard you then,
Over-alled lady with a poet's yen

"Write!" you said "and write some more"
"Don't wait too long or they'll close the door"
But I'm only 15--there's plenty of time
To write some prose and make some rhyme

Thirty-five years have come and gone--
Learning was piecemeal; degree's now done
But what do I know? What I learned from you then,
Over-alled lady with a smile and a pen:

Valleys are carved from trickling streams,
From torrents, from downpours that level our dreams--
And carve them deep into dells so dark
The pen lies still, the outlook stark--

The words you write will mean the most
If they come from bosky--not fields, no boast--
Bosky? Yes. A place, not describing, a Green-Knight glen,
A "bliss by turns with blunder" sojourn with pen--

Stay not here and stay not there,
Your head's not yours when your lot's too fair--
Put the bosky in the dell, shady, carved-out fen
Beside a hill of roses--over-alled lady shares her pen.

See A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "B's" from Challenge sponsors and other writers.

A to Z Blogging Challenge: A is for Aromatherapy

A is for Aromatherapy.

Once upon a time, people were more attuned to the world through their senses than we are now. Survival dictated that touch, seeing, hearing, tasting, and smelling--the last two by design intertwined--would protect fragile human beings in a harsh wilderness world. Before there were civilized societies, a person could literally smell and capitalize on an opponent's fear. I'm guessing that it's only been in the last century or so that we've lost much of our sensory acuity and abilities.

You can follow a trail of contaminated breadcrumbs leading right to the culprit for this loss. What was the word of career advice that Dustin Hoffman's character in The Graduate received and that sums up our grandest achievement as a civilized society? Plastics! Move forward, young man, into the New Age of Synthetics. Science has managed to duplicate just about anything you can imagine in nature, and the result is anything but natural. 

Now we can have it all. Fake boobs. High-beam smiles. Perpetual any-color-but-gray hair. Stuff resembling food that you pick up on the way home so you can spend more time with those various boxes made with plastic. The ones with little people in them who tell you what to think, believe, feel, desire. Other boxes to record and store your words and send them on to other people with similar boxes. 

Craving escape from the World of Fake, I garden and walk in the woods as often as possible. It's not enough. It never is. I want convenience, and I want it in a concentrated dose. Soothing herbs and flowers and grasses and trees in bottles. One drop at a time. Not quite the elusive cure for Snores-Bores-Squeaky-Doors Syndrome but pretty close to it. It keeps the muse happy, anyway. And she can't smell the fear. What a slave driver. Back to the box I go.

See A to Z Blogging Challenge for links to more "A's" from Challenge sponsors and other writers.

Counting Chickens: Superstitious or Intuitively Cautious?

Peanut "counting" Daughter's friend's chickens

Remember when mom or someone older and wiser used to advise against counting your chickens before they were hatched? I can't count how many times while growing up that I heard the warning. Or, "don't put all of your eggs in one basket. You never know what might upset it." More often than not, when I failed to heed the warnings, something did happen to alter my plans or tip the basket, sending those eggs crashing to the ground. And it's not easy for me to just go with the flow like so many people are capable of doing when something doesn't go according to plan. I tend to kick against the goads, so to speak. Stubborn, that's what I am.

I'm wondering if I'm also becoming superstitious. Lately, those old words of caution are reverberating in my thoughts. I am keeping certain plans and dreams for the future close to the chest or vest now. What I'm hoping is that superstition isn't playing me for a fool but that intuitive caution is taking over as I get older. I don't want to be pessimistic, just not overly optimistic. It's a delicate balance. Gardening is one way I keep things in perspective. I've learned to not say anything about planting seeds but wait until the harvest. And I'm certainly not going to spill any beans about writing works in progress (WIPs). How about you? Do you lay out all of your cards on the table or keep a few facedown?

Disclosure: The author had nothing to do with this chicken incident but can verify that no chickens were harmed in the making of this post. The cat, however, may have suffered some psychological or emotional trauma. She is being monitored and will be treated appropriately.

'Three Dimensions and If Possible Four'

We walked on a mountain last Saturday. You don't believe me? I've got proof. Some of it went home with us, stuck in shoe-sole crevices and trapped in trouser creases. That fine quartz sand drawing tourists to Pensacola and other beaches along the Gulf of Mexico has washed down from the Appalachian Mountains over millions of years. Tiny grains, eroded and deposited, not just once but endlessly by wave action and sea-level changes.

We had some tense moments last week...more than what we're used to these days. SAM and I drove back home last Friday afternoon to watch Grandson while his mom and dad went to a church retreat in Destin. The date was clearly marked on my calendar. March 11. Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Wrong. On the surface, everything was smooth, for Grandson's sake. As soon as I turned on the TV to watch the evening news, SAM reminded me. Disturbing images and sounds. Turn it off. Okay, I will, for a while.

You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across--not to just depict life--or criticize it--but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it. Things aren't that way. It is only by showing both sides--3 dimensions and if possible 4--that you can write the way I want to. (Ernest Hemingway to Dr. C. E. Hemingway, 1925, Selected Letters)  

While Grandson made sandcastles on the beach, his other Grandpa who lives in Japan tried to get word to his daughter. Phone service was unavailable. Somehow, he managed to get a message to her on Facebook. "I'm all right," he wrote. That's more than I've been able to manage lately. Sometimes the words refuse to come out, and I can't even manage to call or send a simple e-mail message to someone dear to me. Or leave an encouraging comment on a Japanese friend's site. March 11--even before 2011--had already left its mark on me in "three dimensions and if possible four."

And life for a few years was pretty flat until this little guy showed up to hold my hand and make his mark on me--on March 11, in "three dimensions and if possible four." It's beautiful, don't you think? Life. Sometimes I need tangible reminders.