Julia Child and the Montgomery Wards catalogue
I needed to come up with a baby picture to be used as an ice-breaking group exercise at a sales conference I once attended when I was in my 20's. The only one I had was a small 2 x 4 black and white, the one where I was wide as I was tall. “Just look at me, I’m obese. This would be child abuse today. How could you let this happen?” I would ask Mom. “Oh, look how happy you are there, a good fat baby. You just kept [...]
Undeveloped and straying?
So here I have it, 66,000 plus words orchestrated to show my life experiences, baring my soul and sharing my bumpy journey through the years, my memoir. I have witnessed its transformation from 75,000 words in tones of discontent, wonderment, resentment, with some anger and perhaps sadness thrown in there for drama’s sake whittled to an essence of bare minimum, the core. But by all true definitions of memoir, is it really one? Must a memoir meet certain genre defining criteria in order for it to be classified as a [...]
Make Breathing Your Most-Considered “To-Do”.
“Breathe, just breathe, c’mon now, here we go. Breeeaathe.” How many times have I told myself this or others have had to tell me? I’m driving in the car, seatbelt fastened, both hands on the wheel, my mind’s dialogue spins fast, my breath is short and shallow. Whether on my way to the next agenda item, feeling anxious or just nerves have plagued my mind and body, I could use some deep breathing. Maybe you are a Type-A person, competitive, ambitious, impatient, aggressive, running through the day’s busy-ness, all the [...]
Home Cooking
Timmy and I never felt neglected when it came to the availability of food. Mom believed preparing three meals a day to be one of her many housewife duties. Watching Julia Child on television was as regular a practice as going to Mass on Saturday nights. “This is not how it turned out for Julia,” she’d say hunched over the stove. Mom’s Good Housekeeping cookbook reflected its use with grease stains, stuck pages and torn binding as she frequented the recipes. Her menus tended to be redundant, though. For example, [...]
In Black and White
My memoir, “Under the Birch Tree” has been a work in progress for over ten years but it has been only the last year where I have been intent on completing it. It’s time for me to turn the last page and close it up. I have received critiques from two trusted editors/writers. Their feedback really came to the same conclusion, though approached from two different ends. I believe all my elements are there, mixed with my chapters of, “roots,” “yellow walls . . . white walls,” and “docked.” Sometimes [...]
Contemplating
Contemplating the opening words of my manuscript. I want to be descriptive, motivating and alluring, yet not too vague. And that's not meant to be an oxymoron, but rather to entice readers to keep reading, planting seeds of my theme in the hopes they will grow and weave their roots throughout my story. TO A TREE “The time has come for us to move on Let us nest that time in the Bottom of the tree To grow with each new branch Letting our leaves bud with Each new spring [...]
A summer passing
It is with the recent passing of the autumnal equinox when I remembered the highest of my summer days. Maybe it is in the passing of one time to another, from season to season, from the end of a year to a new one when I can’t quite yet be excited about what is to come until I have reflected on what has passed. I acknowledge respect and a gratitude that I will never be in those moments again. But before I release them to distant memory, I recall the [...]
from Under the Birch Tree
Some here say to just wait a few minutes and the weather could change in an instant. There’s nothing quite like the seasons in Chicago. Some inhabitants surrender to the intolerance, moving elsewhere, shaking their heads. Not me, though. The seasons in Chicago are like yin and yang, or the Cubs and Sox, the Bears and Packers, the Mayor and city unions. I struggled to find poise in the imbalances in my life which kept me distracted from acknowledging how I was really feeling. In winter, forceful winds demand attention, [...]