Old Mesquite

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Outside my library window       

Nascent bright green leaves, softly wave.

An elaborate contrast against

The rugged black bark of old Mesquite

Whose arms stretch out to embrace Spring

In long feathery finery.

Rising in the near distance against

The perfect blue sky

Behind old Mesquite

Pusch Ridge presents itself.

It will disappear in a few weeks as

Mesquite becomes denser,

A screen and shade against the

Slowly increasing heat

of Summer sun.

Dwarf Chaste Tree,

Little sister to old Mesquite,

Sits under his protective arms

Shyly showing her tightly leafed buds

In tiny clumps,

Inviting Spring’s release.

Toe Compatibility

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Originally posted on A Way with Words Blog

It seems a small thing. The care of those strange-looking, very necessary appendages, feet.

It was not on our minds when, at ages eighteen and nineteen, we rushed off in the heat of lust and starry-eyed optimism to elope. Toe compatibility. Now as senior citizens, after decades of marriage, it is a point of discussion.

My husband and I indulge ourselves in the luxury of monthly pedicures. Years ago we were gifted His and Hers Pedicures by a friend.  I think it was a joke gift to see if my husband would do it. We tried it out. Oh my. The soothing feeling of having tired feet and legs massaged is like lying on a warm beach with ocean waves caressing your legs, an hour in heaven. We were hooked. It took a few appointments to find the right nail tech/massage therapist for each of us, but we came upon perfect matches and have stuck with them for years. Amy is my lady and Kathy takes excellent care of my husband’s feet. He has beautiful feet, like very large baby feet, soft and clear. Kathy points out his feet could be models. He wears socks and shoes always. My feet, in contrast, are gnarly. Because I have bunions, I go barefoot unless leaving the house and then I usually wear sandals exposing my feet to the elements. Poor Amy must use the cheese grater tool to peel the callouses off mine.

I have my nails painted but he eschews such frippery. The ladies try nearly every time to talk him into adding color causing laughter all around.  His treatment is done before mine, so he walks next door to Starbucks and buys a mocha that he brings back to share as my nails dry. After our appointment, we are relaxed and feel pampered.

It sounds perfect but…the incompatibility comes because my nails grow quickly so I’m ready for a trim every four weeks; his grow slowly and he can go seven or eight weeks. I know I could trim my nails myself as I used to do, but I’m spoiled. We compromise because we like to go together. My nails are usually long enough to climb trees by the time we go in and my heels are akin to horse hooves. My husband needs a light trim. Who would have dreamed that a simple self-care task would become an issue for monthly discussion?

Wordsmithing

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Writing. Something I am doing almost all the time. Even in my dreams. I may not be physically committing words to paper but, in my head, stories are being created, or poems, or current events noted. At some time during the day, I try to find a space to scribe those thought forms with the symbols we call words.  

Every year a new list of words is published by a variety of sources including Oxford House and Webster. Last year ‘staycation’, ‘metaverse’, and ‘shrinkflation’ were offered in the listing of new terms. They were words I understood and may use. I’m particularly fond of ‘badassery’. Other words like ‘finfluencer’ (a financial influencer), ‘crunk’ (full of energy), and ‘ASMR’ (autonomous sensory meridian response) will probably never enter my lexicon of jargon.

I love to play with words, so welcome the expansion. However, I’ve noticed that some old words are being abandoned or profoundly changed. Some very nice old words at that. As our culture changes so do the words to describe it. One prime example is ‘gay’ used today to indicate a homosexual male and in the past to describe a happy, carefree feeling. ‘Literally’ used to mean something actually happening now but has been converted to a word of emphasis such as a ‘literal’ smash hit.

I believe the world is a sadder place without ‘nizzled’ (slightly intoxicated), ‘chuffy’ (haughty, puffed up), and ‘quixotic’ (absurdly romantic). I made myself a promise to discover some great old words and apply them in my next story.

A book I discovered last year is Dreyer’s English, an Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer. Great word ‘utterly’. Mr. Dreyer has taken Strunk and White, the absolute bible of English grammar, to a whole new level. While the little tome of Misters Strunk and White is in my portable writing folder at all times, I prefer to look things up in Dreyer’s bigger book that sits on my desk. He always has a good story to go along with the lesson. Anytime I can laugh as I learn, I learn much better.

Happy wordsmithing to all.

Mental Feng Shui for a Peaceful Orderly Mind

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

I was given this reminder in 2008 and I refer to it often. I hope you find it helpful.


 1. Exceed expectations and do it cheerfully.

 2. Remember the three R’s: Respect for self; Respect for others; Responsibility for all your actions.

3. Remember that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

 4. When you lose, DON’T lose the lesson.

5. When you say ‘I love you’ mean it.

 6. When you say ‘I’m sorry’ look the person in the eye.

 7. Believe in love at first sight.

 8. Love deeply and passionately. You might get hurt but it’s the only way to live life completely.

 9. Be engaged at least a year before you get married – know the person through all seasons.

10. Marry a man/woman you love to talk to. As you get older, their conversational skills will be as important as any other.

11. Never laugh at anyone’s dreams. People who don’t have dreams don’t have much.


12. In disagreements, fight fairly. No name calling. Speak your truth without rancor.


13. When someone asks you a question you don’t want to answer, smile and ask, ‘Why do you want to know?’


14. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

15. Talk slowly but think quickly.

16. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.

17. Remember memories are made with people, not things. When all is said and done, it will be the experiences you have and people you love that will be important – not the car or jewelry.


18. Don’t judge people by their relatives.


19. Don’t believe all you hear, use your common sense; don’t spend all you have, give some away; don’t sleep all you want, just all you need. Life is short – be part of it.


20. Smile when you answer the phone. The caller will hear it in your voice.

21. Be kind to animals, we share their planet.

22. Say ‘bless you’ when you hear someone sneeze.


23. Daily – Spend some time alone. Spend time with God.

A true friend is someone who reaches for your hand and touches your heart.

A Very Successful Weekend

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Jackie flew to Tucson from Colorado on Wednesday to join Sally and me for the Tucson Festival of Books. She brought a snowstorm with her. Fortunately, we live in a high desert where snow can stomp in and wrap us in a big downy blanket in the morning and by afternoon the snow disappears under the gentle smile of the sun, and all is clear. Snow lingers in the mountains to remind us it is still winter, but we can go about our tasks with no restrictions of weather.  

Our weekend began Friday with our appearance at the author’s table at Barnes and Noble on Broadway. We greeted customers and introduced them to our book, Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets, a collaborative memoir of twenty-five years of writing and being friends.  We sold some books and had great conversations with readers, other authors, and would-be authors. Our book is designed to encourage writers to create critique groups to enhance their skills and help them toward publication. We share stories we wrote throughout our time together, so the book is also an anthology of fiction and non-fiction, short stories, essays, and poems. Something for everyone. It was hard for the store to put us in just one genre because we fit in many so they call us “Local Authors”.

Saturday was our turn in the independent authors’ tent at the Tucson Festival of Books. The Festival attracts thousands of people from all over the world for the two-day event. We met dozens of readers and writers who came to our tent to learn about and buy our book. We made new friends and met new readers. Some old friends stopped by too. We were invited to do a podcast in the near future. Stay tuned for more information on that.

The third day, Sunday, of our marathon was at the Barnes and Noble store on the northwest side of town at the Foothills Mall. Again, dozens of old friends, new friends, and readers surrounded us. The two hours sped by in a blink. Sally and Jackie will add more pictures to our story in their blogs this week. Even better than the book sales engendered we were filled with the excitement of people learning about our journey as writers. Some readers shared their opinions of our stories and said it was the kind of book they would read over again because the stories are so varied, and they get something new out of each reading.

At the end of the weekend, we were exhausted and exhilarated, but ready to put pen to paper and start a new journey of words.

They’re Back – The Boys of Summer

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

Baseball is back. The opening weekend of Spring Training for the Cactus League is finally here. Tucson once hosted Cleveland Indians now Guardians, Chicago White Sox, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Colorado Rockies. Now all have gone north to be in the greater Phoenix area, a larger spectator base and less travel time between each of the fifteen Cactus League teams. The weather has been a little iffy.

Friday was in the 40s with clouds, Saturday climbed into the 60s with clouds and Sunday started with rain showers and overcast skies in the 50s for the day. That may not sound cold to those in the midwest or on the east coast who are experiencing freezes now but to a Tucsonan like me, being below 80 is considered a freeze.

Our daughter and grandson braved the frigid temps to attend a Cubs vs Dodgers game on Sunday – Dodgers won 9-4. The Dodgers this year are so weighted with talent, they may be a bit top heavy. On paper they are a slam dunk (basketball) – a monster outta-the-park grand slam cinch to be in the World Series; but time and the baseball gods can make those paper predictions just so much shredded confetti. The rules are different this year, one I applaud – the limited field shifts (that was out of control); two I’m skeptical of – the 15-second pitch clock and bigger bases. We’ll see if they improve a nearly perfect game.

Since my favorite players have done the musical bases game and switched teams over and over, I now have no favorite teams. I just root for my players. The big advantage to that is I am rarely disappointed in the outcome of a game because somebody I like is nearly always on the winning side.

Besides the opening of baseball in Arizona, Tucson hosted La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros this week, a nine-day celebration of everything cowboy. It started as a three-day competition back in 1925 so we are in year 98 of the Festival. It is a big deal in Tucson. The kids are out of school on Thursday and Friday for rodeo week. Historically the Festival attracts cowboys, Indians, calvary, horses, steers, and bulls from all over the country. Each year there is a parade on Thursday. It is the longest non-mechanized parade in the country, 2.5 miles with over 200 entries. Sunday was the culmination of the competitions. Cowboys and cowgirls of all ages enter. Muttin’ Bustin’ and Junior Rodeo are for those 5 to 13. The reigning rodeo king, Trevor Brazile who has won eight All-Around Titles and numerous championships was here. He didn’t do so well this time around. The official results were not announced at the time of this post. Prizes amount to over $300,000. The Tucson rodeo was featured in several movies including, The Lusty Men, 8 Seconds, and Ruby Jean and Joe.

As a side note Tiger Woods was here in Tucson for a Match Play game this week and the Encantada Gem show, a part of our Gem and Mineral extravaganza, was this week. The G&M Show starts the first week of February and this was the final weekend. Buyers and dealers from all over the world gather to compare rocks.

This week my co-authors and I will participate in the Festival of Books on the campus of the University of Arizona, Saturday, March 4th from 10 am to 1 pm in the Indie Author Tent.  It is the third largest book festival in the U.S.  We have book signings at both Barnes and Noble stores, Broadway on March 3rd, 1 pm – 3 pm, and Foothills Mall on March 5th, 1 pm-3 pm.

Tucson is a Happenin’ Place.

Transformative Power of Poetry

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Originally published on A Way with Words Blog

I recently read “Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World by Jane Hirshfield. It is a dense study of how written expression moves the human soul during times of strife and turmoil and the virtually muscular articulation of happiness. W.H. Auden wrote that “Poetry makes nothing happen”. However, poetry has the power to soothe or enlighten people. Jane says, “In the simplest act of recognizing the imaginative, metaphoric, or narrative expression of another, you find yourself less lonely, more accompanied in this life.”

I often turn to poetry when I’m troubled; when the outside world is not making sense to my interior world. I write, painting emotions in visual terms. Recently in a journal I wrote, “a sepia smear slides through the doctor’s words as the verdict is rendered”. It gives a deeper meaning for me than simply recording a sad but expected diagnosis.

It can be said as well that joy expressed in poetic terms layers an event with a calculus beyond the dictionary rendition of words.  My feelings when I witnessed the birth of my grandson could not be contained in words like joy or elation. “His first breath coursed through me, the first breath of new life, evergreen hope, a rainbow of possibilities exploded my lungs. Tears sprang unheeded in rivulets of gratitude”, I wrote.

One example Jane uses in the book is a poem by Czeslaw Milosz, a Nobel Prize winning Polish-American poet of the twentieth century. He expresses the transitory nature of life in this short poem. A simple memory stirs a wider wonder. Who are we and where are we going?

Encounter

We were riding through frozen fields in a wagon at dawn.

A red wing rose in the darkness.

And suddenly a hare ran across the road.

One of us pointed to it with his hand.

That was long ago. Today neither of them is alive.

Not the hare, nor the man who made the gesture.

O my love, where are they, where are they going,

The flash of a hand, streak of movement, rustle of pebble.

I ask, not out of sorrow, but in wonder.

Czeslaw Milosz

Being able to use words to convey the deepest sense of who I am is my joy.

The Blessings of Grandparents

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Originally posted on A Way with Words Blog

I read a post, Nostalgia, by Cerebralintrovert yesterday (https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/134502934) and it happened to coincide with a short piece I recently wrote and presented at our library writers’ forum about my great-grandparents, Nellie Mae Hutchison and James Uriah Kasenberg. Children who have good memories of their grandparents are very lucky indeed in these days of scattered fractured families. I am very fortunate to have known all four grandparents well, plus three of my great-grandparents. Of course, I wish I had asked more questions of those wonderful people about their lives. All were born before the 20th century dawned, ordinary lives in extraordinary times including the aftermath of the civil war and reconstruction, two world wars, a worldwide depression, the 19th amendment, and consequential inventions such as the telephone, automobile, airplane, electricity in homes, typewriter, and camera.  Things we take for granted impacted their lives in new ways. I’m sure they had inciteful words to offer beyond, “don’t get too close to the creek when it’s runnin’ hard” or, “the dust will still be there tomorrow, so go have fun today, dust furniture tomorrow” or, “good manners don’t cost a thing and are a gift you can give everyone.”

I spent many Sundays, holidays, and celebrations at the Kasenberg home in Wichita Kansas. We were blessed with a close family that even included some ex-wives of my great-uncle Jim (a crowd in itself). When I became an adult and tried sorting out the relationship of the grownups in our “family”, I discovered some were not really related. They were neighbors or church friends of my grandparents. They all rated the name Aunt or Uncle because they were always around at family gatherings.

Jess and Mabel Davis, my father’s parents

Two of my “bonus” cousins were the daughters of my dad’s best high school friend. My grandparents, Jess and Mabel Davis, lived next door to my friends’ grandparents in the little town of Anson, Kansas. I called their grandmother, Grandma Meyers, but as a child was never clear how she was MY grandmother too. (She made the BEST egg salad sandwiches.) Later in life, those two “cousins” became step-cousins when my dad’s sister, Nina Maurine, married their father, Mervin. Nina Maurine and Mervin had been an item in their country high school. But Nina Maurine fell madly in love and married a handsome local farmer (a Clark Gable lookalike) and became a rural housewife with three sons.  Mervin went on to college, married, had two daughters, and became a successful businessman. Decades passed. Mervin’s wife died. A few years later after Nina Maurine’s husband died, Mervin asked her out. The rest, as they say, is history. The old flame rekindled when they were in their 70s.

Oh, the stories I have about my family are priceless and were generously passed along to me. I’m very sure every family is endowed with stories and wisdom of generations, but we don’t seem obliged to pass them along. In other cultures, in distant times, before writing became universal, a designated person was told the family stories and given the assignment of orally passing them to the next generation. I mourn the loss of that cultural tradition. I applaud all biographers and memoir writers who strive to keep the links between generations alive. I’ve committed to telling my grandson our family stories as part of his birthright.

And so it goes…

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Originally posted on A Way with Words Blog

It is almost like I’ve written this before. Maybe I have, maybe not. My stacks of journals are witness but I haven’t the patience to cruise them all – it would take hours, days, months, etc. The story as old as the ages. What age does. I’m seventy-seven. It is a startling revelation each time I say it aloud. I remember thinking sixty was the end game when I was thirty. What is seventy-seven? I know many people in my generation, my age group. Some are old, some not.  I put myself in the latter category. I certainly don’t feel old. My body does occasionally, but I disabuse it of that notion as quickly as it complains. ‘No, it’s not age, it’s what you ate-drank-did yesterday that is the cause of complaint,’ I tell the federation of bone, fat, and muscle that contains my spirit.  ‘Be more thoughtful in your choices’.

I read some time ago, old is ten years older than whatever age you are. When I was ten, twenty was freedom. When I was twenty, thirty was unimaginably far in the distance with countries like marriage, continents like parenting to explore. In my thirties, there were career challenges. There was so much to do between ten and twenty and between twenty and thirty and beyond.  Seeming lifetimes of choice were encapsulated in each decade. What did I know at fifty, that I didn’t know at forty? The blurrrrr of years, forties, fifties, sixties and now seventies, whizzed by. Here I am looking ten years down the road. What will eighty-seven bring? How will I evolve in that space of time? Who will I meet? What questions will be answered? What fresh questions will arise? What different territories will open? I am ever curious. Each day brings something new. Nothing is static when you are alive. Change is the only constant and change brings opportunity. Embrace each day for the treasure that comes with it. Even difficult days reveal nuggets of discovery, maybe more so.

Painting by Sally Rosenbaum
Painting by Sally Rosenbaum

It is never too late for surprises in life. Not in a million years would I have thought I’d be a published author. A writer, yes, but not published. My stories and poems have always been for my own amusement. Yet here I am in league with two other writers having a published book, Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets, a journey of friendship through words. Published at age seventy-seven! It is a book I believe in because it is meant as an encouragement to those solitary writers who want to be heard by the world at large or those who want to have their voices heard in a smaller way. Writers’ groups can be a support for both.

A Place to Contemplate

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Originally posted on A Way with Words blog

I recently came across a blog that I enjoyed immensely called Seams Like a Story, https://debravandeventer.com/. The author, Debra VanDeventer, is a writer in my hometown of Oro Valley. In fact, as it turns out, she is a neighbor. We met at the Oro Valley Writers’ Forum at our local library. I’m passing this along to our readers because I think you will like Deb’s take on life. She is a writer, seamstress, and grandmotherly adventurer among all the other titles accrued by a woman during a lifetime. She retired from teaching, but it is clear she is and always will be a teacher who looks at life as a learning opportunity. Her most recent blog is about a thing called Hygge – a Danish word that means “courage, comfort, joy.” In our tumultuous times, it is good to have a place to retreat, to contemplate and be comforted. That is what Deb promotes in her latest blog post. Give it a try.

I have commented on my love of writing and what my writing “place” means to me. It is my hygge place where I can retreat to write, read, and contemplate; where hours seem like seconds. I am surrounded by books, music, photos of my people, and pictures that speak to me of places I’ve been either in life or in spirit. It is also a place I share with three cats, my muses. It has taken a lifetime to curate the exact items that give my space that feeling of contentment. Everything in here has a meaning and a memory.  

Stories are born of imagination and experience. Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets is a collaborative memoir of our writers’ group as well as an anthology of the stories we three accumulated through our time together. Most of the writing and editing that I contributed to our book was done in this room at my desk. When we three could not be together in person, we met through Zoom to keep the project alive. Have a blessed day and enjoy your own hygge place.