Moonlight and Money

When my husband and I were first married in 1984, we were a cliché-come-to-life: happy but poor, with our student loans (microscopic by today’s standards) and a desire to replace our hand-me-down furniture with nicer things.

This was before I began my famed love affair with thrift shops, where for about a dollar I can find a piece of fabric that instantly transforms an ugly chair into a thing of beauty. No, back in the early years of our marriage, we'd haunt an antique store in Northwest Portland, where we'd admire a long elegant table and imagine ourselves serving a holiday dinner set amongst flowers and candles. Or we’d pass the carved doors of a French wardrobe and picture our own clothes hanging inside, amidst the mingled scents of fresh paint and musty wood.

Another imaginary amusement of ours was to drive to a small furniture shop in the suburbs and sigh over the long cool white curves of an ultra-modern couch. The first time we entered the store, a sales woman, neatly dressed in a business skirt and blouse, greeted us with warmth. On our second visit, the same woman smiled and said to let her know if she could help. The third time we walked through the doors, she glanced in our direction with a dismissive look that clearly said, “You again?”

Feeling embarrassed, we resolved to make at least one small purchase, a difficult endeavor since we couldn’t afford so much as a lamp. Eventually, though, we did find something in our price range – a calendar of poster-sized paintings. Among the stylized still lifes, the pictures also included a portrait of a peach-toned man and boy (“Tell Pere” and “Tell Fils,” the son with an apple atop his head) and a strange scene featuring a woman, a hunter and some moonlit water.

For years, those posters graced the walls of our various abodes before taking up permanent residence in the damp basement of our current house. Last winter, though, when I was making plans for the last session of an adult writing class, I suddenly remembered the posters. Bringing up both the William Tell painting and the moonlit scene, I asked my son which one he would find more inspiring as a writing prompt and he instantly chose the latter.

How right he was. When I asked my students to look at the poster and write whatever came to mind, every one of them created pieces that were filled with life. While my husband and I are not quite so poor as we were 30 years ago, I can’t imagine buying anything now that could bring me more pleasure than the poems and stories – including some dark beauties as well as one comic piece – that my students read aloud that night.

Here is one of those pieces:

 

Freewrite from a Poster by R. Smith

 

            There is something about the moon, tonight

 

(though I’ve danced before)

            Now I dance with the moon

when I move, it follows

            The moon (because it is light-footed)

twirls me like a top – lead, follow, lead, follow

 

            I dance beside the waters whose ripples tango, whose silence

restrains (the waters reflect the moon)

            The earth beneath my feet waits for the rhythm of the trees

to cut in on the moon

            And

the earth beneath my feet has no sound but is my orchestra

            I dance like the wind

 

            I dance with the moon

the trees cut in, I sail with the trees

            I dip with the clouds – Hey

Mr. Huntsman: Put down the bow and let that creature breathe

            another day (put down your bow and join me)

No

            Bring bow and pluck the string to set the slope in motion

set the trees spinning, send the moon into pirouette

 

 

 

Oh, Yoko

What could I possibly have in common with the controversial Yoko Ono? You can find out in my article at http://www.voicecatcher.org/archives/category/writers-craft.

The Sincerest Form of Flattery

Here’s an old family story: Once my cousin and her family visited us. I was 7 to her more worldly 9. She wore her long blond hair pulled off to the side in a ponytail and a navy blue beret tilted near one eye. She hadn't been at our house for more than an hour when I pulled my long blond hair into a side ponytail too and dug through the box of dress-ups in my closet until I found a brown velvet beret, which I wore at an angle on my head. I confess my imitation didn't stop there. To complete my ensemble, I donned a sleeveless mock turtleneck t-shirt that looked a lot like the one my cousin was wearing.

Despite my young age at the time, I think I sensed even then that my older cousin might have felt a little smothered by my onslaught of adoration throughout her visit.
Not only did she have to sleep in my room, with its pink walls and rows of dolls with painted-on smiles, but she also had to endure my following her, happy-puppy style, throughout the small one-level house. Alas, there was no stopping me. In my cousin's presence, I was like a small white flower leaning toward the radiant light of her style and verve.

While I'm no longer such a sad imitator, I still enjoy being inspired by someone else's spark - especially when it comes to my work. Some of my writing influences include the ironic parentheticals of Kate Atkinson, the musical wit of Jane Austen's long winding sentences, and the colloquial poetry of Billy Collins. For writers - or anyone - the trick is to relish all the different voices we hear and then try to create a new one that is ours alone, to find a new path. After all, no one wants to spend their whole life following someone else around the house. 

The Year of the Horse

On President's Day I went for a brisk walk through my neighborhood and noticed all the Christmas decorations still on display -- a withered wreath hanging on a front door, a poinsettia flanked by two tall red candles in a window, and even a miniature tree all a-twinkle with tiny lights.

One good thing about getting older is I'm not so quick to scoff at other people as I once was. So what if the time to haul off the holly has long since past? I confess I was a little sad myself when I put my own decorations away on New Year's Day. As my fingers plucked each ornament off the tree (my son's paper fish with the glitter glue smile, my daughter's ballerina figurine, and the pale elf my grandmother once gave to me), I felt some tugs in the vicinity of my heart strings. After all, by officially saying the holidays were over and that 2014 had begun, I had to face the fact that my son who was once happy to sit at a table and do art projects with me is now 23 and my daughter will be starting college in the fall.

Now it's the beginning of March already. I've put the relics of the past away, and I'm grasping the mane of this year of the horse as it gallops off into undiscovered territory.

Cyrano's Plume

With Cyrano de Bergerac’s dying breath, he proclaims he’s lost all but one thing: his panache. By this he means even death can’t rob him of his style, swagger, verve, dash. At the end of the play, who cares about his big nose? His spirit and pizzazz take precedence over any so-called physical flaws.

Here’s a question to ponder while you’re sitting in traffic or waiting for your coffee to brew: Does the sweeping white plume Cyrano wears atop his hat solely serve as a symbol of his flair or does its flamboyance actually fuel his inner panache?

I wrote the haiku below about a pair of shoes (big, scuffed, used) that have been adding a little spring to my step lately.

My new shoes – maroon! –

found in the Goodwill bins. No

one else wanted them!

OK, so haiku are supposed to be about nature – raindrops and cicadas and whatnot. But hey, I’m a creative writing teacher and feel obligated to model what fun it is to take a literary rule and bend it to my own purposes.

Next month, we’ll continue bending the rules in my Saturday creative writing class.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

10-11:30am

100^th Monkey Studio, 1600 SE Ankeny St.
Cost: $20 per class

A Certain Fame

Some of my creative writing students have gone pantoum crazy, writing powerful poems with a pattern of repeating lines. As for me, I’m on a little haiku kick.

After seeing an apartment called "Casa Linda," I came up with this poem:

My name, not on a

book cover, but published on

an apartment sign.

According to our former poet laureate Robert Hass, the haiku form started out as an improvisational game that Japanese writers used to play at parties. Apparently, a group of them would make poems by adding to each other's lines and riffing like jazz musicians.

In keeping with that tradition, my Saturday creative writing students will meet next week to socialize and play around with words.

If you feel like joining us, bring a pen...or maybe your saxophone.


Saturday, February 15, 2014
10-11:30am
100^th Monkey Studio, 1600 SE Ankeny St.
Cost: $20 per class

"That's So Portland"

Before our fair city became known for its beards, microbrews and baristas, my grandmother, Myrtle L. Drahn, moved here in the 1960's. A middle-aged wife from Newberg, Oregon, she suddenly found herself single and in need of an income. She got a job at Jones Photo, rented a series of apartments in Portland and spent her free time riding the bus to Montgomery Ward (a department store) and chatting with her favorite waitresses and busboys at Roses Restaurant, which was famous for its bazillion-layer chocolate cakes and donuts the size of truck tires.

Two of the apartments she lived in when I was a kid still stand on Vista Avenue. I see them now every time our family heads to Washington Park, our picnic basket filled with a quinoa salad, some Dogfish Head Ale and maybe a plate of cookies topped with hazelnuts, which my grandmother would have known as "filberts."