Guest Post – Cheering for Life

I’ve been following Susan Payne’s Blog The Water Witch’s Daughter (written under the pseudonym SuziCate) for at least a couple of years and each time I read it, I’m enchanted with the combination of breathtaking photos and heartwarming insights, touching stories and snippets of life.

Susan recently published her first book, Stepping into the Wilderness, an anthology of sixty encouraging posts from her blog. Each contains five thought provoking questions to promote inner growth through reflection or journal writing. In addition, each piece contains five writing exercises for enriching the writing experience. Each contains five thought provoking questions to promote inner growth through reflection or journal writing. In addition, each piece contains five writing exercises for enriching the writing experience, and in this post she shares a touching story with prompts for you to write about parallel experiences.

“Is my letter crooked?” I adjusted the large “N” stretching across her sweater and pinned it in place.

“How about my hair? My bangs ok? My pony tail too high?”

“You’re perfect. Now, get out there and get us going!” She was beautiful, popular, and my best friend.

Her skirt flung to and fro as she swung her hips to the beat. Green and gold pompoms danced through the air as all the girls followed her lead in waving their arms above their heads. The bleachers smelled of sweat and mixed perfumes as we clapped, yelled, and stomped. She jumped from the human pyramid, long, muscular legs spread, back arched as her arms almost touched midway, and landed on her feet. She ran across the gym clapping and cheering, “Go green. Go gold!” She encouraged the football players. She encouraged us to get into the team spirit. By the end of the pep rally I was so caught up in school pride goose bumps tickled my skin and sent a chill over me.

Her damp bangs formed a ridge around her dark eyes. Her ponytail hung limp, but she bounced. She asked, “How was the new routine?”

“You performed flawlessly!” And that she did. Oh, how I wished I was wearing the short swirly skirt and toting pompoms. She tossed the pompoms to me…”Hold ‘em for a minute. Will ya’?”

“Sure.” She had no idea how I loved the times I helped carry her stuff. I thrust my arms skyward mocking her earlier movements. Problem was I jerked back and forth. I didn’t have her grace. Honestly, I didn’t have a rhythmic bone in my body. I tripped over my own feet, and my voice was definitely not the sing-song type.

Still, somehow she talked me into going to cheerleader practice camp. I flopped. She encouraged me to keep trying, telling me I’d eventually get it. I didn’t get it. I dropped out before tryouts. Though we walked our days together, she was swamped with cheerleading duties, and I was busy with my own fortes of being literary magazine editor and newspaper reporter. Still, we supported one another with our gifts. I helped her write her school papers, and she helped me develop confidence.

About fifteen years later, I told her on the phone it was going to be ok. I told her she could beat the cancer. I encouraged her to do the chemo, the radiation, go to Mexico, swim the Atlantic, to do whatever she needed to live.

She suffered, but her faith and courage proved to be as strong as her grace. I called her every week and traveled four hours to visit when I could. On the last visit, she was so weak she could barely eat or speak. “Don’t pray for me anymore. I think God is tired of hearing my name and wants you to pray for someone else. I need you to do something else for me. Will you?”

“I’ll do anything you want,” I said as I squinted my eyes to hold back the tears.

“I need you to tell my story, to encourage others to keep faith no matter what. And I want you to write my obituary.”

“There’s no need for an obituary. You’re going to be fine.” I knew I was lying but I just couldn’t bring myself to have this conversation.

“Promise me you’ll write it.” Her fingers pulled at mine.

“I promise.” I squeezed her fingers for confirmation.

A few days later I awoke about five a.m. to a cool wind sweeping across my soul. I knew before I got the call. I wrote the obituary and delivered the eulogy. As she requested, I encouraged all in attendance to keep the faith.

I never learned to dance, nor did I develop a singing voice. Still, I am a cheerleader. A cheerleader of life, that is. Through reflection of these many years I am learning my friend’s story, though it seems she knew mine all along.

As a genealogy enthusiast I write memoir. As a person who feels emotion deeply, I wrote poetry. As a hiker and canoeist, I write prose about my connection with nature. As a creative, I write fiction. From my soul, I write inspiring words to encourage others. I say this to you: Embrace this beautiful life of yours, and live your time here with passion and love.

Walking Along the Edge of the Woods:

How do you deal with loss? Do you close up and shut down? Do you face it head on? Do you rely on faith?

Have you ever been asked to something difficult but felt obligated to do it? How did you deal with it emotionally?

When have you felt your prayers or needs were not being heard? Did you remain encouraged things would get better?

Have you ever known with certainly in your soul something has occurred before receiving confirmation?

Do you have a best friend? Why is this person important in your life?

Stepping into the Wilderness:

Write a death scene. Have your character make a bizarre request of a loved one.

Write a memoir about how a non-achievement in your life became a gain in the long run.

Write a narrative about the best friends of your life. Tell us how they have changed or remained through the seasons of your life.

Write a dialogue between two people where one wishes to emulate the other.

Write a short story about someone keeping hope alive in a bleak situation. Use your setting to convey the bleakness of story’s situation.

The above questions and exercises are not in my book but are an example of those contained in my book.

Susan’s book, Stepping into the Wilderness, is available on Amazon in both Kindle and print, and you can visit her on the web at The Water Witch’s Daughter.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I’m proud to have Irish ancestry on my mother’s side of the family. One branch left as recently as the Potato Famine, the other left earlier. I know quite a lot about the more recent immigrants. They were coal miners, arriving first in Braidwood, Illinois then moving down to New Mexico where the family dug in.

Maybe it’s that Irish blood in my veins, or maybe not, but Celtic music is among my favorite, and I feel most at home on earth in summer, surrounded by green. Perhaps those roots explain the dreamer part of me.

Three years ago my husband and I spent ten glorious days rambling wild Irish roads in the southwest corner of the Emerald Isle. For reasons of economy we reserved a subcompact car, with a trunk so small that it wouldn’t hold both suitcases and carry-on luggage, and the choice was serendipitous. Many of those roads are paved over cart paths, with lanes only inches wider than that mini-car and stone walls tight beside. Hubby is a veteran left side driver, but our nerves were taut as the natives careened along at twice our pace.

I was able to verify that Ireland really is as green as the pictures, and unexpectedly sprinkled with jewels. Especially in older parts of towns, houses are vividly painted in all colors of the rainbow, perhaps to offset the frequent grayness of the sky that provides the mists and rains to keep the isle emerald. I couldn’t tangibly verify the spirits that lent mystique to the misty Cliffs of Moher, but I felt their presence before hearing the legends.

It was a long way, but we did get to Tipperary, and we kissed the Blarney stone to boot. We stayed in the countryside rather than exploring cities. We saw sheep, sheep and more sheep, and almost as many ancient ruins of castles, churches and cottages. Some were old when Columbus sailed. We got tipsy on mead and ate with knives and fingers at a medieval banquet in Bunratty Castle. We saw seashore, rivers, and plants with leaves that made me feel leprechaun-sized. We discovered that Ireland has mountains! We visited a couple of “living museums” with villages and farms demonstrating the old ways, making it easier to envision the Spartan conditions my ancestors lived in.

We visited a famine museum that explained why they left. From the exhibits I learned that before the famine, the average male Irish peasant ate eleven pounds of potatoes per day. The women ate eight. They had a few wild berries, greens and fruit in season, and some buttermilk now and then, but their primary diet was potatoes. Historical studies show that those potato fed people were stronger, taller and healthier than their counterparts on the Continent who primarily ate wheat in the form of bread and gruel. Imagine that! My respect for the potato soared.

Yes, especially now that I’ve visited my Irish homeland, I’m proud to be at least part Irish, and drink a toast to St. Paddy.

Write now: about your roots. Where did your ancestors come from? Has your ethnic background influenced your life in any significant way? Did your family observe ethnic traditions? Do you continue to keep those?

Apology to China

Shanghai skyline from bus crossing bridge

Shanghai riverside park

My face is red. I misspoke and must set the record straight. As you can see from the two photos above, the skies are not always white in China as reported in my last post. Flipping through some of the thousands of photos I took on our trip, specifically to find pictures of some of the stunningly beautiful high-rise architecture we saw (my title for the trip is China: Under Construction), I was shocked to see several consecutive pictures taken in Shanghai that featured blue sky. At first I thought that was caused slightly tinted bus windows, as in the first shot, but the second one was shot in the open air around noon.

How could that happen? How could I fail to remember the mild sunburn I got that day as we walked through a park and along the streets of a part of town that has been preserved as a living, fully functional museum of a historic Shanghai shopping district?

I share this story with you for three primary reasons. First, to set the record straight about China’s air and weather. But more than that, this incident reflects the way memory works. I began the trip noticing the white skies, and I can truly say this sunny day was an anomaly. To my mind, this beautiful sunny day was comfortably “normal,” like I’d expect at home, so to my programmed perception for the trip, it was hardly worth noticing. It did not stick in memory.

Ordinarily, the unusual does stick in memory, but for the purposes of this trip, my perceptions got turned around. The white skies that would be unusual at home became the norm for China, and that norm, being unusual in my overall life experience, is what stuck — not the single gorgeous day that lulled me into a sense of familiar comfort and knocked the sky out of awareness. (I hope you follow that!)

The third point is the value of having multiple modes of capturing your experience. If I hadn’t had those photos, I never would have remembered the sunny day. And ... if I hadn’t been focusing on white skies, I never would have noticed that one day was different. More about this in another post.

Our minds and memories are amazing things, as are the functions that focus what’s in them. I don’t want to turn this blog into a dissertation on brain function, fascinating as the topic is. If you want to learn more, specifically about the reticular activating system that continually scans our input for relevant information and helped me notice that blue sky when I saw it this morning, I recommend two books. The first is Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain , by Sharon Begley. The second is Liberating Greatness, by Hal Williamson and Sharon Eakes.

Was I untruthful in my earlier report of white skies? No. That is my primary memory, and although it’s not entirely accurate, it was my “personal truth” when I wrote it. It’s also generally true. In this case, writing about a country I’ve come to care about is not so different from writing about a person I care about, and I felt obligated to set the record straight. I can do this in a blog. It’s not so easy in print. I would not lose sleep if I’d immortalized that impression, but this is a good reminder to me and others to double-check what we can, if there is a way to do so, without becoming obsessive about details we can’t check.

Write now: about a time when you discovered a memory error, or remembered things differently from a family member or friend. Or maybe nobody called you on the error, but you found it yourself. How did you handle this? How do you feel about literal accuracy in your writing? Are you fact focused or impressionistic?

White Skies

Any three-year-old child will tell you, the sky is blue. That’s one of the fundamental truths in life. Even on a cloudy day, you know that blue sky lies above the clouds, soon to return. Blue sky, green grass, white snow, clear air. These are constants you can count on. Unless you live in China. Maybe other places in Asia too, but China is the one I know about. In China the sky is white. So is the air. Not white like snow, but white like pearl dust.

I’d heard about the air quality problems in China, and I expected to find nasty brown air when I stepped off the plane in Beijing last month. Imagine my surprise at finding pearly, milky mist, not the sinister, visibly toxic smog I had anticipated. Perhaps this is just an anomaly, I thought. Perhaps tomorrow the mist will clear. But it didn’t. It varied in brightness and luminosity, and we had occasional rain, but it never cleared. The same conditions prevailed in Xian, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Chongqin, and Guilin. They remained constant out in the country as we cruised along the Yangtze River through the three gorges from Wushan to Chongqin. Finally, in Hong Kong we saw patches of pale blue between the clouds.

To my vast relief, the visible air presented little challenge to breathing. I found it a source of continual fascination, more novel than being surrounded by cities too vast to fathom, an endless sea of Asian faces, and incomprehensible language and signs. The mist magnified the sun’s strength, diffusing it to generalized glare that taxed the limits of my camera and hurt my eyes.

Shanghai Skyline through hotel room window

The air absorbed the cities. In Shanghai our hotel room was on the 35th floor of a tower high above the city. Clusters of skyscrapers filled the landscape as far as I could see around an arc of about 120º. I have no idea how far this cityscape extends — the edges melted into the mist.

In contrast to the sky and air, the grass and trees were reliably, intensely green — the same green I know and love at home. The earth was brown, and water variable. These constants reassured me that I had not left Planet Earth.

I loved every minute of the twenty days we spent in China, seeing the sights, wandering random city streets, taking copious notes and thousands of pictures. I loved the openness of the people, who always returned a smile and nod, and often asked us, in halting English or simple gestures, to pose for pictures with them. Those who were able to ask were endlessly curious about our opinion of China. They are intensely proud of the progress their country is making, and Olympic Fever raged like the Spanish Flu. It matters immensely to ordinary people that Americans think highly of China.

In the end, it’s the white sky and air hovering above and around that sea of welcoming faces that I remember. China, the land of the white sky. It would be hard to get used to, and much as I loved my stay in China, it’s good to be home where the sky is blue, as it is supposed to be, even on a gray rainy day like today.

Write now: about a time when you were in a situation where some fundamental element of life was changed. Perhaps you visited the desert and missed the greenness of your part of the country. Perhaps you live in the desert and felt claustrophobic amid endless trees. Seashore, mountains, cities, country. Differences are good and help us appreciate our home surroundings. How do you react and handle these differences?

The City That Glows in the Dark

Ties to places can be surprisingly strong. Although this wasn't news to me, my understanding of this fact was recently deepened. At one point during a program I attended, the speaker got into a short interchange with an audience member about the evils of Los Alamos, New Mexico. “... glows in the dark ... all those toxins ... total denial ... doesn't it just make you shudder?”

It certainly made me shudder, but not for the reasons they were discussing. My family moved to Los Alamos the day I turned seven. I left when I went to college, and my parents moved elsewhere within five years. Over the past forty some years, I have been back only four times, and briefly at that, but Northern New Mexico in general and Los Alamos in particular will always be “home” to me.

Although I've always felt a special attachment for Los Alamos, I had not realized how deep it ran. As they rained invectives on a place so dear to my heart, images of golden aspen groves dotting the panorama of the Jemez mountains rising above the town floated through my mind. I could hear the wind whisper through pine boughs, smell sun-warmed, vanilla-scented pine resin, and taste the slightly acrid tang of pine gum. I thought of riding my bicycle out to the next mesa for a picnic with my sister, or hiking alone through the canyon behind our house. That canyon was my favorite spot for introspection and licking wounds.

How could I explain to them that although I understand their horror about decisions made by people there, and although I might be one of the activists pressing for accountability and responsibility if I still lived there, the place itself is an innocent victim of mankind's sometimes misguided efforts to protect our nation and the human race?

I was momentarily stunned, at a complete loss for words to defend this place I love so dearly. I sat in horrified silence feeling as if they were desecrating the temple of my youth. I knew better than to take their words personally. It seemed preferable to let the moment pass than to prolong it.

Regardless of what others may believe or say, Los Alamos will always remain a place sacred to my youth; a place where I was safe and free to roam at will, exploring the wonders of nature, dreaming dreams and hoping hopes. There were many other aspects of growing up there that were truly special, and I often written of them in family history stories for my descendants.

Perhaps it took this shocking experience to fully focus the extent of my fervor and connection with this unique place where I came of age. Now my challenge is to find a way to pay tribute to the soil that nurtures my roots.

Write now: about a place that has been especially influential and special to you. What does (or did) it feel like to be there Describe the sights, sounds, tastes, scents and other aspects of the place. What happened there to make it special to you? Do you return there often?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

A Closer Look

Close-up of puddle in my driveway, October 2007

In her January 19th blog post, "Why I'll Never Write Your Lifestory," author Diane Chamberlain states, “Your life story, while it may be fascinating, may not make for good reading. A good, readable story requires a structure and focus, and most life stories don’t fall neatly into readable form.”

The same day I read an item in the Denver Post about school children who are interviewing grandparents and writing about their family history. The article tells how Colorado writers Irv Green and Andrea Gross collected over thirty stories from young writers and published them in a book, Relatively Speaking. The article also notes that grandchildren are more apt to be interested in written legacies than the author’s children.

These two items are in interesting juxtaposition. On the surface they may sound a bit contradictory, but a closer look shows otherwise. It may be true that an ordinary life may not fall into a neat and compelling structure, and may seem a bit unfocused. To the general public, that life may not make compelling reading, but to a descendant two or three generations later, it can be fascinating. Even small scraps of that life can be fascinating.

In fact, Diane goes on to say that herself: “Even if your story doesn’t turn out to be publishable, it will be invaluable for the generations that follow you. I would give my new 21″ flat screen monitor to have just a few autobiographical pages from my grandparents.” (My 19″ flat screen is safe. I do have several pages from or about three of my four grandparents and my mother, and I treasure every word.)

Don’t be deterred from writing, even if you thing your life has been of the “plain vanilla” sort, and don’t be deterred if your children seem currently indifferent. Think longer range.

But I had a further thought. Diane seems to be speaking of chronological overview accounts of life — the sort of story a novelist would write. If you look across an expanse of meadow, you primarily see an even green field. But drop to your knees with a magnifying glass, and look closely. You’ll see blades of grass growing in different directions and an infinite variety of shades of green. Some grass is glossy and other types are a bit rough and “fuzzy.” You may see clover, a few dandelions, some oxalis, or plantains. You may see buzzing bees, gnats, ants or lady bugs. Smell the scent of loam, or the cow pies nearby. Feel the sunshine on your shoulders and the coolness of the damp earth. Up close, that meadow is a busy, fascinating place.

Take a lesson from that meadow. If your life is a level playing field, zoom in tightly on specific interesting incidents. Write short stories and essays about the details and your thoughts on life. Describe your surroundings, and the doings of everyday routine. That will be structured, focused and eminently readable. Your grandchildren will love you for it.
 
Write now: look closely at items in your house, like a picture on the wall, or the contents of the silverware drawer in your kitchen. Look at them from six inches away. Write for ten minutes about details of what you see, as if you’ve never seen them before, and include things like the scattering of brown and white crumbs in the bottom of the divider tray. What color is the tray? What design is on the silverware. What do the items remind you of? What memories do they bring back? At the end of the ten minutes, play with adjectives. Expand color words with metaphors (red as sunset on a smoggy day), and replace mundane adjectives like “small” with “the size of a matchbook.” Try to avoid using the same adjective twice.

One Memory (Link) Leads to Another

Not long ago I discovered Write Your Life, written by Seniorwriter, aka Marlys Marshall Styne. (I just added her site to my Links list.) The post I landed on, Teddy Turns Fifty, was about a teddy bear she bought as a gift for her newborn niece, Cynthia. Cynthia and Teddy just passed the half-century mark.

The post is delightful, and so are the comments. One comment mentioned what appeared to be a pile of diapers behind a shoulder. Seniorwriter replied, “Yes, Karen, I imagine that is, indeed, a stack of cloth diapers. I don't suppose that any other kind existed back then.”

My monkey mind hopped from that comment to a personal memory about disposable diapers. I had extensive experience with cloth diapers at an early age. I was eleven years old when my baby brother was born, so I was thoroughly familiar with every aspect of changing, rinsing the messes in the toilet, washing, hanging the wet rags on the clothesline to dry, then folding them. Changing diapers can’t be avoided, but the rest of that routine was a nasty drag to be avoided whenever possible! Not long before our first child was born, I heard of disposable diapers, and found the idea tantalizingly attractive.

Our first son was born in Boston in 1966, and the day he turned four weeks old, he and I boarded a plane to fly to Philadelphia as the first leg of an adventurous trip we would undertake as we relocated from Boston to Richland, Washington. Using cloth diapers his first four weeks were easy, thanks to a generous gift of diaper service from a compassionate grandmother. The fifth week was also easy, with Grandmother’s washing machine and dryer at hand.

Realizing that cloth diapers would be a problem during the drive across the country, Hubby and I searched stores around South Jersey for disposable diapers. Both selection and stock were meager, but we found enough to serve the purpose. The day he was five weeks old, we hit the road, with Baby happily ensconced in a folding canvas car bed/bassinet in the back seat. He was no problem at all on the long drive. When he was hungry, he joined Mommy in the front seat for a soothing swig of milk while Daddy drove. How simple! (How do parents manage to get anywhere today when children must be anchored firmly in the back seat at all times when the car is moving?)

Diapers weren’t a problem on the road. I could easily change them while kneeling backward on my seat. They became a problem the evening we spent in Omaha. Fortunately, we had nearly finished eating our dinner in a family restaurant near our motel when our wee tyke answered an exceedingly urgent call from Nature. I’ll spare you the details, other than to mention that the disposable diaper he was wearing might as well not have been there. Suffice it to say that I grabbed him, Infantseat and all, and ran to the car while Daddy paid the bill. We went straight back to the motel where Baby had a bath. When he was asleep in his car bed, I hand-washed all his clothing and blanket, and scrubbed the plastic Infantseat shell and liner. (That infant seat, baby carrier of choice in the 1960s and 70s for cars and everywhere else, appears in the photo.)

Even if cost hadn’t been a factor, this single experience was sufficient to allay any temptation to bypass the washing machine. My rinsing, soaking, washing and folding expertise came into play. Thank goodness, my dryer was a welcome change, and I didn't have to deal with a clothesline.

Isn’t it funny how reading one little thing like that comment, or seeing one seemingly insignificant detail in a photo can bring back a gush of memories? I could go on for pages with other diaper stories. I share this snip of one in hopes it will trigger similar memories for you — that one memory link will lead to another.

Write now: memories of diaper-related experiences, whether they be with your own children, children of friends or relatives, children you babysat for, or anyone else. Let the memories go where they will — potty training, washing clothes, hanging them on the clothes line, types of diapers, diaper-changing avoidance, etc.
Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Writing in the Mist

One morning last month, I awoke to find the world shrouded in translucent, luminous mist. The huge oak tree one hundred feet across the yard was visible only as a dark form.

I love misty mornings but seldom experience them. Lacking a compelling reason, I rarely leave the house before noon. The mist was compelling. I slid into shoes, grabbed my camera, and headed out the door. It’s challenging to describe the sensory delight that enfolded me. The moist, body-temperature air enfolded me in the most gentle, nurturing way. It was as if the air and I merged to become one. Ordinary thought gave way to a sense of awe that transcended words. Wafting wisps of fallen cloud kissed my flesh, like tender caresses from Mother Nature herself. I felt transported into a mystical world.

The street, which runs through the woods along the side of a steep hill, was nearly deserted, so I strolled down the middle, taking the occasional picture of dark tree shapes against misty grayness. If I believed in elves and fairies, this would have been a day to find them in the woods.

Before long, the sun’s power grew, and the mist began to lighten. I left the road and walked into the woods, surrounded by mature hardwood trees, with the top of the hill due east. Tentative shafts of light began piercing the canopy of leaves, rapidly gaining strength and confidence. In a short period of time, the gentle misty grayness was only a memory, supplanted by vibrant greens and browns set afire with life by the magical gold of full-strength sun rays.

As I sat down to write this blog, I was reminded of that morning. Ideas danced in my mind, but only as vague, misty shapes, not readily apparent. But I began writing, coaxing out elusive thoughts. Soon the fog began to part, and scattered ideas and memories coalesced into coherence.

Writing is like that. Sometimes a topic is in focus, full of energy and vigor, ready to burst into full bloom of its own accord. Other times, murky memories float in a mental mist, not quite clear, but luminous and present. In the misty moments, I find it best to be gentle with myself, writing slowly, aimlessly, letting the ideas take shape as they will. And indeed they will. I can’t guarantee that every time you “write in the mist,” you’ll burst through to a stellar story. I can guarantee that if you persist, writing softly and gently, feeling your way through those vague, dark shapes, sooner or later the mist will lift, the sun will shine, and you’ll find a story.

For now, perhaps you’d like to write about your experiences on foggy days. Do they make you sad, glad, fearful? Do you celebrate them or bemoan them? Has anything special (good or bad) happened on a foggy day? What do they make you think of?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Deja Vu

I’d like to thank Bhaswati for reminding me of one of my favorite Natalie Goldberg quotes:

“Writers live twice. They go along with their regular life ... But there’s another part of them that they have been training. The one that lives everything a second time. That sits down and sees their life again and goes over it. Looks at the texture and details.” — Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

I’m starting to think that we may even squeeze more lives out. As I worked intensely on writing, editing and polishing The Albuquerque Years, I essentially relived my preschool years, experiencing more richness and meaning than I did the first time through

Right now, I’m in Austin, visiting our daughter, whose second daughter will be born tomorrow. In an unexpected way, I’m reliving those Albuquerque years in yet another way. This afternoon I spent some time in the backyard with soon-to-be big sister Sarah, who turned two in July. Sarah spent about half an hour arranging small rocks in various patterns, tumbling them down a small statue, showing them to me, tossing them around, and talking continuously about what she was doing. “I put rocks in circle ... This rock is brown ... This rock is gray ... Now I do circle here ... You make circle too.”

As I watched her, I had a tremendous sense of deja vu that I may not have experienced if I hadn't been writing so recently of my own memories, which kicked in about the age Sarah is now. Her intense involvement with that simple pile of stones, and the way she used these natural objects to entertain herself and practice all her mushrooming skills (i.e., counting, colors, shapes, conversation) for such a long time was contagious. I delighted in those rocks as fully as she did. I was transported back to a time when toys were whatever one had at hand, and none had batteries or made contrived noise.

Yes, I can go home again, for at least a few hours or days, and I’m squeezing extra joy out of what would be a captivating experience in any event, by comparing these moments with Sarah with my own memories, freshly reawakened by my writing.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Earthworms and Ice Cream

For two days I’ve been struggling with a new post. It reminds me of the huge, fat earthworms that surface in our yard after a serious rainstorm. Those worms lie there ever so enticingly, but if I reach to pick one up (okay, I hear those twitters of revulsion: “Oh ugh! How utterly gross! I don’t even want to read this!” Hang in there — I’m almost done) it wriggles convulsively, throwing itself end-for-end across the rocks to get out of my reach. If, just for the heck of it and memories of childhood fishing days, I do manage to pick one up and plop it in the palm of my hand, it continues to thrash around with amazing strength, seeking to return to its loamy lair.

The essay I’m working on has the same slippery tenacity of those worms. I clearly see the concept, but as I reach for it, it skitters out of reach. I write a few words or paragraphs, but they slide out of grasp. It won’t hold still for the hook.

Fortunately, I have no true deadline for this piece. There is only one thing to do with such wriggly material: let it burrow back into the sanctuary of soil to continue developing. When the time is right, it will reemerge, ready to serve its ultimate purpose of attracting fish t0 feed a multitude.

Not surprisingly, the story I’m working on is about the emergence of light from darkness. It’s about finding gifts in the shadows of life and how to share them in helpful, meaningful ways, so the metaphor of the subterranean worm is apt.

I shall return to the topic, when it’s “ripe.” In the interim, I’ll continue to write, about other things, and other approaches to this elusive piece. Sometimes tough topics are like untying a knot. You nudge a little here, a little there, never forcing. It may take the patience of Job, but sooner or later, you touch just the right spot and it all falls open. Stories can be like that. Nudge, poke, let it rest, nudge again. And one day you find this amazing story staring back at you.

Meanwhile, I do have a little light for you today, of a less esoteric sort, and it should give you a good chuckle. Click over to the August 19 edition of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review to read my story of being Too Old for Ice Cream.

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Writing on the Wild side

One of the touted features of Writing Practice or Morning Pages is allowing your fingers to run free of your Inner Censor to open new thought-branches and discover new ideas and connections. That happened to me this morning. I sat down to write about things I am especially grateful for today. Before I wrote a single word about gratitude, I found my pen moving off into the storm we had two days ago. In only a few lines, I reached a branch. I could write about this angle or that. I chose “that.”

As I started writing about “that,” I found another branch and thought of the crooked path my words were following. My wild mind raced ahead of my pen and I had a clear image of the trails in the woods about a quarter-mile down the road from our house on the “wild side” of the road. Dozens of acres of woodlands spread along the hillside. It’s too steep for development, so it remains Mother Nature’s domain, a buffer zone. I love to hike in that suburban wilderness where magical things are found.

Seeing Beyond the Obvious — photo art by SL

Trails spread along the wild sides of the slope, well-worn and smooth, a generous foot wide. The trails form a network along the hillside, with frequent branches and interconnecting paths. It doesn’t take long to become familiar with the landmarks, know which trail leads where, and how to loop back to the one you began on. Knowing the layout is great, but for me these are trails of discovery, not travel. I go there to find things out of the ordinary: an especially lovely clump of wildflowers, or a bush of blackberries, ripe to perfection. It’s about the fragrance of the forest, and the chattering of jays and squirrels, and shafts of sunlight turning clusters of leaves to gold that would be the envy of any alchemist. It’s about the joy of steps gently challenged by uneven terrain. It's about letting my mind run bare and wild, open to the unobvious.

As I write now, I face a similar branch. I can go on to tell about hoof prints in the mud and communing with deer as I walk on the wild side. I can write about the gratitude they inspire. Or I can loop back to Writing Practice — writing on the wild side of my mind. Right now I’ll choose Writing Practice.

You can see, from the paragraph above, how our wild minds wander through our mental terrain as capriciously as deer amble through the forest, grazing on a bush here, a clump of grass there, and delicious lilies further along. When I write in a hurry, I have a destination in mind, and I write straight to the purpose, sticking to the paved streets of my well-explored territory. With Writing Practice, also known as Free Writing, I set aside a specific destination, and allow my mind to ramble along nature’s path, making choices intuitively rather than purposefully.

Paved roads and purpose are great. They keep life moving smoothly. But if you look aside at all, you are more likely to see concrete walls, vagrant burger bags, and speeding vehicles than wee violet-filled meadows, dragonflies perched on milkweed, or fawns sipping from a pond.

I’m not able to enjoy the trails in the woods just every day. Some days, like the past few, it’s too muddy. I don’t enjoy the bare, bleak woods in winter. I don’t enjoy them when it’s seriously hot and humid. Most days, I don’t want to take the time. That makes the woods especially delicious when I do go for a ramble. Writing practice is different. The weather isn’t a factor, the surroundings are never out of season, and I can spend as little as ten minutes. It took less than five to find the seed idea for this post, and you can see that several seeds also began to sprout.

Writing Practice is no substitute for getting out in nature now and then, but it is a great way to enhance the value of wilderness walks and spread their fragrance into the arterials of your days.

Do yourself a favor. Take a Nature Break today, and a Writing Practice break every day!

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Magical Moments

Have you ever noticed magic in the natural world? I witnessed several magical moments while exploring the rim of Mexico’s Copper Canyon last month, and when I examined my photos in depth, I discovered an additional mystery.

The original moment occurred at sunrise, an event I rarely attend. Strolling along a large point jutting into the chasm, I watched a herd of goats feast on tender leaves.


On a rocky ledge along the rim, I saw someone greeting the sun — presumably one of the Tarahumara Indians who live in caves beneath the rim. I crept closer and snapped a quick photo through a bush.


Then I circled back and found a rocky perch of my own with a stomach-clenching view hundreds of feet straight down.


From here I saw two people sitting in meditation in the exact spot the Indian had been. Apparently the person I saw had been joined by someone else. I snapped another photo before the misty vista’s grandeur worked magic in my soul.


Yesterday I examined those photos, zooming in on the people. The photos were shot about three minutes apart. Nobody else had come along the rim, but the two photos appeared to show different people! The woman in the first shot was clearly a local Indian, judging from the splotches of colorful clothing showing through the bush. Although dark and indistinct, the people in the second seem to be dressed in hiking clothing.

How eerie! How could this happen? Where did the second person come from? How did either one get there? I hadn't noticed anyone else in the area.

This morning a possible answer came to mind. Later that morning our tour group traveled along the rim to another spectacular view point. Our guide showed us a sturdy log ladder in a crevasse. Within two minutes, a series of Indian women ascended that ladder with bundles of baskets and babies tied on their backs in colorful rebozos. Children scampered along to help sell the baskets and other wares to turistas like us.


That must be the answer. There must have been a ladder or path from below to the area I saw at sunrise. To naïve Anglos, the Indians seem to magically levitate up those cliffs, unbound by gravity. If we had grown up on ledges only a few yards wide, we’d also know how to scale sheer rock faces like mountain goats and think nothing of it.

Were the second people I saw also Indians, in slightly different dress? Did the light play tricks on my camera and eyes? Did they climb a ladder or path? Or perhaps these people have discovered the secret of genuine levitation or “beaming in” ... . Whatever the case, the moment was magic while I was in it, and it remains magic as I remember, which I will continue to do on a regular basis.

What magical moments have you experienced? Were they occasioned by natural beauty and splendor? Unexplained phenomenon? Or maybe something else? With or without photos, tenderly transforming them to words preserves the magic. What better gift to the future than a bubble of magical joy?

Write on,

Sharon Lippincott, aka Ritergal

Countdown: 63 days until the release of The Heart and Craft of Lifestory Writing on July 1. Stay tuned for ordering details.