Bummer all around--or mostly. I went to a "Meet and Greet" at an upscale, high-rise retirement community this morning to meet women who might be interested in my memoir class, but someone had dropped the ball. The energetic, enthusiastic woman who had contacted me and set this up is out on medical leave, and somehow no one else picked it up. Nada. Not one person. So I came home. But I had dressed and gone up there--an hour out of my day that I could have put to better use. Only good was that I visited with my longtime friend, Margie, who now lives there but even that wasn't good. She told me her husband has some new, potentially severe blood disorder--no energy, etc.
When I came home about eleven, it was steamy hot--I opened the car windows. About an hour later, Jordan called to ask if I had a spare jacket for Jacob. A norther had blown in with the suddenness that happens in Texas and dropped the temperature thirty degrees. Darn cold and damp to boot. It rained but had quit by the time I went to get Jacob. I took one of my down vests which he flatly refused to put on until his teacher asked him if he wanted to miss spring break. At last, reluctantly, he wrapped it around himself for the short walk home.
Linda, who always eats dinner with me before memoir class, bailed today because she didn't feel well and all that rain was predicted (she has an hour drive to get here), so that was another disappointment. I had bacon and eggs for supper instead of the anticipated meatloaf at the Grill, but then someone brought chicken salad and pimiento cheese finger sandwiches to class and I made an absolute pig of myself.
Memoir class is always rewarding--tonight three people presented memories of their childhoods and did a terrific job of evoking time and place. We could smell, hear, see,and feel the places they described, especially a lakefront cabin on Lake Michigan. I grew up with such a cabin, and Mary Margaret's piece tonight made me most nostalgic. Some really good writing comes out of these women, and I am amazed and gratified. We talked a lot about description--how much is too much? General consensus: description draws us in as readers. When we stood in our circle to close the session and said one word about how we felt, mine was enriched. You know what? Maybe it wasn't such a bummer of a day after all.
Stay tuned, please, for blogs to come on the reprints I'm about to get posted as e-books--I'm excited-- and my thoughts on loss of hearing. Subjects that are rattling around in my brain.
When I came home about eleven, it was steamy hot--I opened the car windows. About an hour later, Jordan called to ask if I had a spare jacket for Jacob. A norther had blown in with the suddenness that happens in Texas and dropped the temperature thirty degrees. Darn cold and damp to boot. It rained but had quit by the time I went to get Jacob. I took one of my down vests which he flatly refused to put on until his teacher asked him if he wanted to miss spring break. At last, reluctantly, he wrapped it around himself for the short walk home.
Linda, who always eats dinner with me before memoir class, bailed today because she didn't feel well and all that rain was predicted (she has an hour drive to get here), so that was another disappointment. I had bacon and eggs for supper instead of the anticipated meatloaf at the Grill, but then someone brought chicken salad and pimiento cheese finger sandwiches to class and I made an absolute pig of myself.
Memoir class is always rewarding--tonight three people presented memories of their childhoods and did a terrific job of evoking time and place. We could smell, hear, see,and feel the places they described, especially a lakefront cabin on Lake Michigan. I grew up with such a cabin, and Mary Margaret's piece tonight made me most nostalgic. Some really good writing comes out of these women, and I am amazed and gratified. We talked a lot about description--how much is too much? General consensus: description draws us in as readers. When we stood in our circle to close the session and said one word about how we felt, mine was enriched. You know what? Maybe it wasn't such a bummer of a day after all.
Stay tuned, please, for blogs to come on the reprints I'm about to get posted as e-books--I'm excited-- and my thoughts on loss of hearing. Subjects that are rattling around in my brain.
No comments:
Post a Comment