A Southern Snow

TODAY'S BIG STORY:  My phone rang around six o'clock...in the morning! My daughter was calling to tell me that her backyard was covered in snow and that her two chocolate labs were going crazy ~ rolling around and jumping up and down!  "Quick!" she insisted.  "Get up and see if it is snowing at your house!"

I replied that it wasn't even daylight at my house, but she persisted with her demands that I must get up!  That is how Southerners behave when we get a southern snow. We get plenty of rain, Spring Break sunshine, and our fair share of storms, but only on rare occasions do we get snow.  And just like those labs, we go crazy!

So...I turned on a light (as it was still dark), put on my housecoat and my big coat (as it was also freezing), grabbed my camera, and proceeded outside.  The southern snow did not disappoint.  In the soft half-light of dawn, the world behind my house seemed almost dreamlike.  I decided to join the frenzy and take pictures of the new-fallen snow...literally at the crack of dawn.  When I turned on my camera, a battery symbol was blinking across the viewfinder. Just my luck...my battery was dead.  I simply wanted to take some quick point and shoot pictures and head back inside my warm house.  Now I would have to dig out the SLR camera, deal with manual lighting and focusing, and hope that the battery was charged.

The first three pictures I took were solid black, which is when I realized that I had not taken off the lens cap.  By this point, my teeth were chattering, and I could hardly hold the camera steady; still, I persevered.  The luminous glow of the snow against the first blush of daylight created a beautifully-tinted quality to the images.

In the 2005 movie adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, my favorite scene is the walk at dawn.  Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) and Darcy (Matthew McFadyen) meet each other in a field just as the sun begins to rise.  The soft glow on her face as she watches him walk towards her is absolutely beguiling.  I can watch that particular scene a thousand times for the cinematography alone.  That same snowy silkiness had fallen from the sky and had surrounded my home.

Despite the chill, I braved the early morning elements to capture the fleeting southern snow.  In a few hours, the beauty would melt away, and the moment of awe would be forgotten.  My daughter knew for sure that a southern snow is not something to be missed.

 

Dianne ; )

My Music Box Mystery

This morning, I was lying in bed and being quiet while my husband enjoyed his Saturday sleep.  I have this weekend wake-up ritual in which I turn on my side, face my bookshelves, and read the titles of all my books.  Sounds strange...I know.  But today, I happened to notice the vintage music box which sits atop three horizontal books: Canterbury Tales, Selected Poems of Byron, Keats & Shelley, and The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.  The books have a beautiful forest-green and gold binding and are part of The Programmed Series; however, this morning's item of curiosity is the melodic figurine.

The music box was given to me as a Christmas gift when I was a newspaper editor more than twenty years ago.  I think I might have even received it right after I decided to leave the paper and stay home with my three small children.  I do know that my most favorite cousin and dearest friend, Sandy, gave me the music box; and I have cherished it ever since.

One of the most endearing aspects of the vintage collectible (besides the fact that woman is typing, she is Victorian, and she has a vase of flowers on her desk) is the bewitching melody the music box plays.  I have never been able to identify the song.  So...here I go.  I get out of bed and head to my own desk.  I begin an online search for the music box and see if I can find out the name of the mysterious melody.  Only one match appeared on Google.  I find a single picture of my music box on WorthPoint.com ~ an online resource for researching and valuing antiques, art and collectibles.  According to the site, the vintage music box plays "Yesterday Once More" ~ a hit by the Carpenters from the '70's.  Oh, I am beginning to love this little treasure even more!

The description states that music box works, but sounds wobbly.  Oh my gosh! Wobbly is exactly the way the music sounds!  The thesaurus offers suggested synonyms for wobbly ~ precarious, frail, halting, and diaphanous.  Diaphanous is defined by Webster's dictionary as gauzy or gossamer ~ a film of cobwebs floating in air in calm, clear weather.  I just love it when such perfect words appear that so distinctly describe something that seems beyond words.

Next, I have to hear the song "Yesterday Once More" to solve the music box mystery once and for all. After I listen to and recognize the familiar song, I am sure beyond all doubt that the mystery of the  anonymous strain remains unsolved.  Even though the Carpenters' hit is a swell seventies' song, it is not the music box song. The recurring refrain is still a haunting secret, at least to me.

The figurine is described as a pretty blonde woman who may be a teacher or librarian, seated at her desk typing.  She is wearing glasses and a long Victorian dress.  I imagine that she is a writer who has just purchased her first typewriter.  The look on her face is one of sublime contentment.  She listens to the clicking sound of each key as the first page of her literary work materializes before her eyes.

I love the delicacy of her hands and the confidence of her posture.  I may never be able to name that tune, but I can positively identify a writer when I see one.

Dianne ; )

Just Right

I have places where all my stories begin.

That is the first line of an essay entitled "Knowing Our Place" written by Barbara Kingsolver.  The essay is taken from a compilation written by various Southern women – a book called All Out of Faith edited by Wendy Reed and Jennifer Horne.  I want to be sure that my works cited is out of the way, because if there has ever been one ounce of plagiarism in my heart, it is for this sentence.  

I have places where all my stories begin.

I do have places where all my stories begin.  I have such an appreciative sense of place when it comes to telling stories; I just want to soak it all in.  As a young child, my first impressions of place were always linked to permanence.  My grandparents’ home, my parents’ home, all of my aunts and uncles and neighbors’ homes – these places represented permanence to me.   Everyone I knew lived in the same houses and owned the same land until they died, so much so that the houses were actually named for their owners.   

But for me, finding that permanent place has been more like the children's tale of Goldilocks and the three bears.  I first thought about how I identify with that story when I read an article in Cottage Living April 2008.  The article was focused on a trend called 'pocket neighborhoods' and one of the architects – Ross Chapin – made this statement about finding 'the sweet spot' of home design: When it’s just right, there is a resonance.  It’s what Goldilocks was searching for.

So…I decided to read the original children’s story again. As I perused various internet articles, I learned that the original nursery tale dates back to the early 1800’s.  In the earliest version, the intruder was a she-fox, who was later replaced by a hag-like woman.  Over the years, the silver hair of the ugly old woman was transferred to a younger protagonist, and finally changed to golden hair – thus, Goldilocks.  While versions vary, we do know that Goldilocks was in search of the comforts of home and these comforts had to be just right.

On a literary level, the story uses the rule of three.  In his book, The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories, author Christopher Booker calls it the "dialectical three...where the first is wrong in one way, the second in another or opposite way, and only in the third, in the middle, is just right.  This idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling."

Unlike most fairy tales, the uniqueness of this story is that it offers no resolution.  Goldilocks runs back into the forest (the wild place) and never returns to the bears’ house (the civilized place) again, which is an ironic contradiction in itself.  No matter the outcome, we still have a place where the story begins.

My own search for just right has led me to homes that were too big, too small, too hot, too cold, too old, and too new.  And yet, I found something just right in every single place; I found story.  To date, we have yet to find that just right perfect ending, but we have found places where all our stories begin.  Some of today’s big stories are so simple, but when they are examined years later for their hidden lessons, they are profound.

Back to the beginning…In her essay, Barbara Kingsolver writes the following: Whether we are leaving it or coming into it, it’s here that matters, it is place.  Whether we understand where we are or don’t, that is the story: To be here or not to be.

In the earlier version of The Three Bears, the old woman took three actions: She looked in at the window, then she peeped in at the keyhole, and seeing nobody at home, she lifted the latch. At that point, I’m in for the rest of the story, no matter where it leads or how it ends. Once I am here (place), I have to be here (story).  If the process is too hard, too soft or just right…it’s all part of knowing my place.

When I was little girl and my grandma read me stories, I never closed my eyes or fell asleep; I didn’t want to miss a single thing.  I would ask her to read the same story over and over again, but I never understood why.  Now, I do.  At some point during the narrative, I knew the story so well that I lifted the latch.  No more looking in or peeping in, I walked inside the place where the story began.  

Sometimes, I think we are so busy trying to find the place that is just right that we live outside our own stories as they are being told.  We may catch an occasional glimpse or peep into the narrative of who we are, but we never know the place where our stories begin. 

Thank you, Ms. Kingsolver, for your fourteen published books, and for one completely coveted first line that's just right. 

Dianne ; )

The Seed Kitchen

When my oldest daughter was about nine-years-old, she participated in a bird-feeding project with The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.  Each day, she placed three different seed types on three different plates and recorded the results of which birds preferred specific seeds.  We were fortunate to have befriended an unconventional birding couple at the time, and we spent many afternoons bird-watching and bird-feeding as a family.  Over the next twenty years, the kids lost interest in the birding activities; however, my husband and I have become the unconventional birding couple.   

TODAY'S BIG STORY:  Each winter we re-open The Seed Kitchen, and we welcome back our fine feathered friends. We bring the seeds, and they bring the appetites. Some days we serve more than a hundred hungry visitors.  

The locals arrive first; then a few town birds follow as soon as the chirp spreads that The Seed Kitchen is open.

No discrimination based on color, size, or species is allowed, even though the cardinals do get a bit greedy.

Occasionally, we feed the more distinctive client...

 ...but usually we cater to the flocks.

Black sunflower seeds are The Seed Kitchen favorites, and they leave quite a mess for the clean up crew. Bussing the patio is just part of the bird bistro business. The human waitstaff knows that feeding this homeless population is top priority during the cold months of winter.

 

For now, The Seed Kitchen is the happening place; however, in the spring, most of our loyal visitors will find their own homes and food.  The doors of The Seed Kitchen will close until winter's first frost. Even though we may not see them for three seasons, we will be waiting for their return with a 50-lb. bag of bird seed and sign that reads...

BIRDS EAT FREE!

Dianne ; )

The Middle of a Life Sentence

For as long as I can remember, I have been writing.  I have always known that I would write in some capacity for the rest of my life.  I think the epiphany came when I was in the fifth grade, and I wrote an article publicizing an annual event in our small town.  The assignment was targeted for the entire fifth grade class of Raleigh Elementary School, and ironically, the event was the National Tobacco Spitting Contest.  The thought is so foreign to me now ~ fifth graders writing about tobacco spitting.  Much has changed in forty years.  Still, for a little girl who had been making up stories since the second grade, this was my opportunity to shine. The most creative essay was featured on the front page of the county newspaper, and mine was chosen.  I became a published newspaper writer at the ripe age of eleven.  About fifteen years later, I also became the managing editor of that same newspaper.

Something life-changing happened to me when I read my words for the first time on the printed page.  For some reason, I had always told stories (BIG white lies) as a little girl.  I don’t know why I felt I had to make things up; I just did.  Maybe it was because everything about my family was average and normal.  However, my second and third grade teachers confirmed that I would fabricate events, such as someone breaking into our house, stealing all our clothes, and throwing them into the pond.  Ms. Gaddis (second-grade teacher) recalls that story as her particular favorite.  Or I would make braggadocios statements like my daddy lacked one dollar having a million dollars.  According to my teachers' recollections, each day brought a different story, which always led to the same punishment ~ staying in at recess.  They said I just couldn't help myself.  

As far-fetched as each story might be, I could never tell it the same way twice.  The story started in my head, quickly moved to my mouth, and evaporated into thin air once spoken.  The story vanished...until the fifth grade.  For the first time, I saw the process change.  The words in my head were transferred to the pencil in my hand and became permanently placed on paper.  I remember reading the front page over and over, thinking that I should have changed this word or that sentence. Writer's lament was already alive and well, even then!  I still read that fifth grader’s published essay to this very day.  From that moment, I understood that writing meant processing, and processing meant keeping.  I never realized how much, but for me, writing meant living.

I had been given a life sentence.

Writing is processing, and I can process just about anything.  I have written everything from college term papers to publicity bios to conference presentations to newspaper articles to the chronicles of everyday life.  I have written more journals than I can keep dusted.  Still, no one loves to just write (or type).  That’s like a punishment of writing one hundred times on a sheet of paper, "I will not talk in class” or in my case, “I will not tell stories that are not true.”  People always say they love to write, but what they really love is the process of writing.  Like a physician or lawyer who processes each step for a challenging case or an artist or a composer who carefully selects each brush stroke or musical chord, I love to process each word and sentence as through it will produce the historic courtroom verdict, the medical breakthrough, the finished masterpiece, or the literary classic. 

So how do we process a well-written life sentence?  How do the diagrams of our lives compare to those complicated sentence diagrams we remember from high school English?  My kids hate when I say this ~ especially in front of other people ~ but everyone on this planet is terminal.  Ultimately, each one of us will have a final punctuation mark placed at the end of our life sentence. We may have a floor littered with wadded up balls of paper getting to that point, but we have to keep processing until we are satisfied with the complete sentence.  

Life sentences do not always fit one format.  Every single person is where he or she is today, no matter how terrible or how great that place is, because of processing, selecting, editing, and deleting.  We cut, we copy, we undo, and we save. Sometimes processing becomes too difficult, and people just choose to stop…even in the middle of an unfinished sentence.  In grammar, this error is defined as a sentence fragment. Teachers and editors cringe when they identify a sentence fragment, and they correct it on the assignment or submission with the abbreviation FRAG in bright red ink.  The only 0 (zero) grade I ever received in college was placed on a paper I wrote in Freshman Composition.  In the margin of the paper, my professor wrote a nice little note that read Sentence Fragment – unacceptable.  Grade:0

That zero taught me a valuable lesson about grammar and life. Sentence fragments are unacceptable because they don't express completion.  Sentence fragments are thoughts and intents cut short ~ interrupted, flawed, and ended out-of-place. Pertaining to syntax or the relationship between words that determine their order in a sentence, this action undermines arrangement, structure, and agreement.  Most importantly, a sentence fragment fails to be a sentence in the sense that it can not stand alone.  It is missing the most important component ~ an independent clause.

No matter what reference we attribute to the word sentence, most of us think completion or absolution. Webster defines sentence as an opinion or a conclusion given on request or reached after deliberation ~ like a verdict, such as being sentenced to a life of poverty. Sentence is also defined as a judgment ~ one formally pronounced by a court or judge specifying the punishment and also the punishment period imposed, such as receiving a light sentence or serving a life sentence.  The definition that matches a writer’s use of sentence is a main clause ~ a syntactic (connected or orderly) unit ~ which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usually begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses. 

My definition of a life sentence is based loosely on a combination of all three.  Time and again, a life sentence is handed to us like a verdict, or judgment, or punishment.  However, our true life sentences are processed by our abilities to diagram (break down) the necessary parts or elements of those sentences. Once we see how each part describes, modifies, or identifies another, we learn how to qualify, define, and determine the significance of its inclusion and its useful purpose. Our life sentence has a beginning and an end, no matter how restrictive or opposing the middle may seem. Our life sentence is distinguished as being unique by those characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses ~ highs and lows, stops and starts ~ which often occur midstream.  Hopefully, the end result is an independent clause able to stand on its own.

Many times, I have found myself in the middle of a life sentence ~ dependent, adrift, misunderstood. But I know for sure that life is all about composition.  There is no exception to be made for a sentence fragment ~ in grammar or in life.  It is the unacceptable place in our lives where we receive the 0 (Zero) grade if we stop.  We know something is missing or something doesn't make sense.  As long as we are able to ask a question, give a command, make a wish, shout an exclamation, or perform an action, we can turn in the final assignment knowing that our life sentence is complete.

Dianne ; )