Writing Prompt: A Tree in Time

This prompt is brought to us by C. M. Mayo’s Daily 5, October 20th. And by the letter Q and the number 7.

A Tree in Time

Corkscrew willow, c. 2005, shortly after transplanting from bucket to ground

Outside my kitchen window grows a corkscrew willow tree.  The willow tree and I were the same height when we brought it home five years ago.  The sapling was growing in a black five-gallon bucket and fit inside our van.  On the ride home from the nursery, the three Sonars  in their car seats had to dodge the twisty green leaves that wagged around on bumps and turns, threatening to tickle ears and noses.  

We have a tree-climbing rule in our house: no putting your full weight on a branch narrower than your own wrist.  Call it a rule of wrist.  It protects the trees and the kids.

The first couple of years, no branch of the willow tree satisfied the rule.  Now, all of the lowest branches are fair game.  The supple, willowy branches all reach up over the top of the house.  The Sonars can shimmy up at least ten feet, crowing as they look over each other’s heads, spying the neighbor’s yard, shouting in imaginary conquest.  The green, waxy leaves of the willow twist around their faces in a whispering curtain.  

The corkscrew branches reach out and up and down, threatening to tickle noses, grasping for a final caress before the kids are out of reach.  

Resonant phrases from the non-journal, your Writing Wednesday Inspiration

A shiny blue necktie with olive-like embellishments, snarky-librarian eyeglasses, and a sharp pencil on a rumpled bedI’m reviewing old non-journaling journals and recycling great phrases today.  What phrases get your juices going?   

Crumbling antiseptic beauty

Bootleg tailor and Zoot Suit Riots

Frequently desperate spelling

Loitering with intent

Stark conditions, gently rendered

“I’m not against shaving, I’m against rules.” —Amanda Fucking Palmer

Some people swore the house was haunted.

The marching band refused to yield.

The angels have the blue box.

“nails that shine like justice” —Cake

“We like things straight in our culture, but I like things a little crooked.” —Emily Nagoski

“the truth is forever changing”

and

“an elephant was a ridiculous answer to any question - but particularly ridiculous answer to a question posed by the human heart” —Kate DiCamillo, The Magician’s Elephant

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.

10 Things: Towel

Apropos of nothing, I just noticed that a surprising number of these 10 Things posts begin with the letter S.  

Rock with me.  Name the first 10 Things that come to mind when I stand on the table and yell TOWEL!  Post those in the comments and then read my 10 Things. Goooooooooooo!

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My 10 Things from TOWEL!

1. DON’T PANIC

2. The soft green TOWELs given to me by the folks at my last high school job, where I worked as a courier.  Still have them.  They get softer every year. 

3. The pile of flowery TOWELs my neighbor gave us when she cleaned up the family hunting cabin.  Use them for everything.

4. The PURPLE TOWEL.  This is my favorite TOWEL of all time.  It’s just so PURPLE.  I think it came from my mother-in-law and it matches nothing, but that makes it even more fabulous.

5. The Terrible TOWEL of the Pittsburgh Steelers.

6. Throw in the TOWEL, if you’re a quitter.

7. Moist TOWELettes.  These make me think of cheap barbecue joints, grandma’s purse, and urine specimens. 

8. Those blue and white, semi-disposable TOWELs.  What are they called?  Jiffy-wipes?  Anyone?

9.  The little TOWELs that hang from football players so they can wipe the sweat from their hands for improved ball handling.  (Read that one with your mind in the glitter, folks, it’s much more exciting)

10. Drying a car w/an old TOWEL after a carwash.  That is, if you don’t happen to have a soft, old, cloth diaper lying around to rub the car.  

What are your TOWEL gems?  Don’t leave me here, crying in my TOWEL wondering. 

Sunday Projects, No Pirates

The rain continues to fall.  As someone said so colorfully this morning, it’s clear and still.  Clear up to our asses and still raining.  I’m doing a little work around the website here, working on some ideas for NPR’s Three-Minute Fiction contest, and doing a little therapeutic knitting.  That’s the first half of a heart from MochimochiLand.  I’m looking for the pencil sharpener.  What do you do when the light is dim and the rain comes down? 

Notes about the blog and a short story, plus a bit of love knitting

Character Observations

I have never considered myself a journaler.  You could look at the pile of battered notebooks on the closet shelf and argue.  There is always a notebook open on the desk, ready to accept ideas.  I jot down inspirational bits that I hear from other people, or snatches of plot or beauty.  Sometimes I draft blog posts or notes to friends when I’m away from the computer.  Mostly I jot down observations of character.  People I see doing whatever they do.  If those people stick in my head as I move through my day or week, they might end up there on the page.

Some I describe in a few sentences or fragments.

Cashier/neighbor who always calls me Mrs. Smith.  He was a drum major in the marching band when we moved here.  The band theme one year had to do with the pyramids, and his eyes are stunning with a little kohl eyeliner.

The man who sat next to me at last week’s football game filled many pages.  He was lovely, and more complicated and interesting than initial appearances suggested.  Still others pop up in the pages over and over again.  They are characters or fragments of character that I can’t shake out of my brain.  One character appears very frequently in the notebook pages even though I have never met him.  The idea of him is boiled down into a two-word phrase that appears in the margins of the notebook in a variety of contexts.  Because this is a real person, tangentially connected to me, for the sake of idea- and identity-protection, let’s call my Frequent Flyer.

I have tried several times to build a story around the Frequent Flyer.  None of them have ever quite achieved the potential for beauty and irony that I see in the character.  So I tuck him away each time, believing that eventually I will find a worthy tale.

But now, the story has come to me.

My Frequent Flyer’s life goes on.  This time I may get to play a role in the story.  The best part of this opportunity is that even if I never write a satisfying story about the Frequent Flyer, I have a chance to be a part of his life in what I hope is a positive (though very small) way.  That is worth so much more to me than a good story idea.  The irony that this is the best idea (so far) does not escape me, and it’s a plot twist I never would have imagined.  

A pile of notebooks on the desk