Write about:

Write about sunshine and mesquite trees heavy with pollen blooms.
Write about plants rooting in new soil.
Write about stars in the western sky popping out of the dusk darkness.

Write about baseball, its rhythms and ballet moves on the mound and infield.
Write about the crack of a bat from the powerful left hander.
Write about kids snacking on ice cream with dad wiping their faces with his t-shirt sleeve.

Write about stories--the bedtime mystery, the afternoon on the patio Irish tales of women gone wrong.
Write about stories--dragons in the sky, Indiana Jones taking a step across the chasm.
Write about stories--fairy tales and Nancy Drew, Bobbsey Twins, and Bible passages.

Write about what is elusive: joy, bliss, peace of mind, quietude--
until I write about all of it.

Making Room

In the past few days, I began a new morning writing practice.  This change took place after I made room for it by clearing a bedroom desk from other knickknacks, books, pens.  Just the act of making room for something new can open up my mind and clear space for creativity.  A small step with maybe significant results.

I also continue to push myself to engage with my community, beyond my comfort zone.  Yesterday, I volunteered for our local Humane Society and walked a sweet dog, Snugglefoot.  She kept looking up at me as if to ask, "Am I being a good girl?  Do you like me?"  "Yes and Yes",  I would say to her as I patted her head and scratched her ears.

A few days before, I had a Bunko night with other ladies.  As I threw the dice, lost a few games, won a few and shouted "Bunko" four times, I observed myself.  I was ill at ease with the banter and lightness of conversation.  But, as I made myself participate in it, I heard myself being funny, even a bit silly.

Interesting experiences and I will keep up with them as I learn more about different parts of myself--making room for summer growth.

Learning to write

from Poets & Writers "The Time is Now"  Week 10 prompt for creative nonfiction

Credit is due to so many people in my life for teaching me how to learn to write.  But first, a little blame.  My pre-first grade teacher (or maybe it was in first grade), decided it would be better for me to be a right-handed writer rather than a lefty which is how I started out.  I remember someone tying my left hand behind my back until I got the idea and practice of writing with my right hand.  So that might explain by zig-zag life as it has evolved.  In any case, I write right-handed now when I use long hand and type with both hands--so maybe all's "write/right" with my world, after all.

So that is my first memory of writing.  I next recall Miss Meyers in 3rd Grade who bopped us on the head when our cursive letters didn't look perfect.  I received quite a few taps on the noggin for poorly shaped cursive capital letter "F".  Those green paper letters for print and cursive that lined the top of the blackboard throughout elementary school are burned into my psyche and still haunt me in midnight dreams.  The traumatic memory is so strong that, when I do write long hand notes on holiday cards, I often get a response such as "I can't read your writing, Anita."  So there you go, Miss Meyers,you couldn't bop me into submission.

That is the skinny backstory on my learning how to write--actual content development soared with Mrs. Hanson at Kimball Junior High, eighth and ninth grades.  Even though I struggled to get beyond a "B" on my essays, I had already began penning poetry thanks to the oral tradition of poetry (James Whitcomb Riley and others) passed along from my mom and her mother.  My poetry writing might have been the reason Mrs. Hanson recommended me to honors English when I entered high school.

First year at Larkin H.S. was a partial bust for English class.  My first teacher was pregnant and left early.  I have no memory of her and we had quite a few substitutes after that whom I also don't remember.  But then, after the holidays, we had a substitute that stayed for the entire semester.  I don't recall writing much in class except for book reports.  The glory in that experience was she let me make reports on books that were way beyond my age range.  Somehow, I had been able to convince a librarian at the Gail Borden Public Library that I could handle the content of adult books--mostly biographies on artists such as Michelangelo and Rodin.  Their biographies were rather "racy" for me and introduced me to homosexuality and illicit passions.  I wrote about those themes (and a few details).  The nameless, but important, 10th grade substitute English teacher read the reports and didn't censor my writing at all.  She did correct my grammar and composition and so the world of writing exploded in potential along with the world of reading.

Maybe she knew what was ahead when I entered Mr. Caldwell's 11th Grade English class, followed by Mr. Fuhs' senior year class.  Both challenged our class with Faulkner and Hemingway, Joyce and Shakespeare and more.  They were equally unfaltering in their critiques of our writing and stretched our vocabulary with weekly tests.  By the end of my senior year, I was not only well prepared for college English classes, I excelled.  English Literature became my major and I immersed my reading and writing into medieval English Literature, 17th Century, a semester on Shakespeare, a semester on American writers--mostly Mark Twain.  At my public university, Northern Illinois University, I learned poetry from Lucien Stryk, a poet himself and international translator of Zen poetry.  I joined a writers group and had week night poetry sessions with him a a handful of others "invited" into his dusty living room where we ate crackers and cheese and drank sparkling wine.

The years have passed since then (1971) and, in all of them, I have continued to write and to learn to write.  As I wake each day in my 69th year, I read daily poetry, bits of nonfiction, everyday comics, and nightly fiction that lulls me to let go of reality.

I am grateful to all of my teachers and--through my past years of teaching writing to GED students, graduate students at the UA, and tutoring a family of second language elementary students--I hope I have helped others enter the wonderful world of writing.

Solitude

Sunset Crater, July, 2018, photo by Anita C. Fonte

At evening, the distant lowing of some cows on the horizon beyond the woods sounded sweet and melodious….  Walden, Henry David Thoreau, p. 87.

What is such solitude to me?  When and where do I experience it? How does solitude help or hurt me?—These are questions that a Poets & Writers prompt from March, 2017 poses and it has taken me four months to go back to this section and compose my responses to it.  Just lately, in honor of Thoreau’s 200^th birthday, I pulled out my Signet Classic edition (probably from college 1967-71 since the cost of the book was fifty cents and there is no publishing date listed), and began reading it a few paragraphs at night before I go to bed.

His time is not my time.  He rallies against trains and not cell phones.  For me, the culprit of my “noise” is television where the daily dramas of Trumpland as reported on CNN or MSNBC becomes a Greek chorus as I do online tasks.  I do turn it off for “writing” and/or escape to my local Starbucks where, in the past, I could expect a decent degree of solitude.  But, as I write this, there is one heavy haired female who ignores my annoyed glances and talks on her cellphone as if this were her private office!  This kind of partial solitude is unhealthy for me and it’s becoming so common at cafés that I have been thinking of what else can I do to find/create solitude?

In the distant past, which I recall in the quote above, I experienced quietude and solitude at my Grandparents’ farm on Randall Road.  They didn’t raise cows, but their neighbor did, and the black and white Angus breed would linger by the wire fence, chewing their grass and plopping their cow pies on the picked ground.  Sometimes I would hang in the branch of an oak tree, or lie on the soft hill and chew on a blade of wild wheat.  I was content—a feeling I rarely have in my sixth decade.  I do not often experience contentment to that depth.  

Of course, my memory may be faulty.  Maybe, even then, I was anxious about school (probably) or fearful about what mood my dad would be in when he picked me up from my grandparents.  My dad might have been bipolar, and definitely had Italian son-of-an alcoholic behaviors plus WWII PTSD, so life was daily drama with him at home.  My maternal grandparents who had the farm, were Cherokee, Scots-Irish, German and stoical Methodists.  My mom was much like them.  And there was a part of her girlish charm that couldn’t cope with my dad’s complexities.  So that farm was my refuge and the symbol of my childhood contentment and happiness.

Sometimes, living in the desert, looking at the night sky, I experience moments of bliss, thinking about how the sky is bigger than I can see: a great “out there” that holds mystery and magic.  And the mountains are places where I can sometimes escape to feel similar moments.  But I am usually with someone, not alone, so solitude isn’t part of that kind of escape.  When I go to the Botanical Gardens, I am often alone and I feel safe.  

Aha! Now there’s a place where I can cultivate more healthful solitude. And when I read a good story I am into a transitory solitude; that kind of aloneness inspires me to write or convinces me it is futile to write at all. It depends on the mood I am in going into the story.  How can I encourage myself to be more “in the mood” of being inspired and not discouraged?  Maybe, before I read, I can pause and make the intention to be open to inspiration.

So what just happened as I write this?  Either the noise around me drowned out the annoying talker behind me (she still is gabbing), or, for just a few lines, I was lost in the flow.  So a small miracle can happen, even among the noise. 7.27.17e the intention to be iin more " Either the noise around me drowned out the annoyiomeone, not alone, so solitude isn'

Vanessa's opening page

I rewrote my first draft which was in 3rd person/omniscient with past tense to first person and past tense.  Learning, as I go, how important POV (point of view) is to the voice of my story.

The ice storm was dripping into its third day. I wasn’t content to stay inside my apartment practicing the Vivaldi flute solo or reading Tolstoy, so I wrapped three woolen scarves around my ears and scarred neck, tucked the edges under my orange fleece jacket, and declared to Sam, my well-fed cat—

“I refuse to be held a captive any longer.”  Closed spaces brought back tremors in my hands and I had seen them tremble a few minutes earlier.

Out the door and into the cold.  But not for long.  My favorite café was just around the corner and I walked into the warm setting with a smile.

“Hi, Nate.  Busy day today for you, right?”

Pressing steamed coffee into a latte, Nate nodded, his brown eyes flashing a welcome to me.

After ordering my chai latte and warmed up from the inside, I made this a quick café visit and hailed a cab as I exited.

“Where to, miss?  Somewhere warm for you, I hope,” the cabbie asked as I slid into the back seat.

He switched on the meter and turned the heat fan up to high.

“Art Institute, please.  And thanks for that extra blast. It feels good.”

Driving down the slick roads took the usual ten minute ride a bit longer, but I was cozy in the cab and finishing my latte.  I began to anticipate my usual visit to the museum.  It was a favorite place to enjoy afternoons with Mama, and, since her passing three years ago, it had become a more important “artist’s date” to keep.

Mama had shown her own watercolors at small suburban galleries, but I hadn’t inherited the visual talent.  Instead, I’d watch her paint to classical music and felt soothed by flute sonatas even as a toddler.  So, when the time came to pursue my artistic training, I left my crayons in my desk and started elementary school Saturday lessons with Mr. Petri.  He was first flutist in the Chicago Symphony and, Mama had insisted to Papa, “We want the best for our little, Vivi.”

“The best for her at this age is to listen to her Papa and not fuss when we go to Mass,” was his reply.  But Mama had scoffed at the reminder of my rebellious shortcomings and so began my twenty year journey to first chair in the Symphony.

“Here we are, safe and sound,” repeated the cabbie.  He may have announced our arrival twice, but I was caught up in my memories.

“Oh, sorry.  Here you go.”  I paid the driver and scrambled out the cab, watching my steps on the slick steps.  The paired lions had frost on their manes and ice formed on their moustached mouths.  I gently patted one of the paws—a habit I’d learned from Mama and kept through the years. 

“Thanks for guarding the beauties inside,” I whispered as I passed the regal statues.

Inside the lobby, I sighed as I shook off the scarves, unbuttoned my coat and walked over to the coat checker.  My heart fluttered a bit as I anticipated my walk through the hallways to the painting that linked me to my past.

Practice Poems

(A Bref Double, prompted by Writer's Digest, October 2014)

"Between Places"

She sits at the table, pen in hand
gazing at the rain-filled mountains.
It is an autumn afternoon. Pomegranates bloom
along the graveled road.

There are places disconnected
yet connected through memories of land,
space and taste of coffee
that lightens her weekly load.

It is not one she bears with a grudge
but rather a willingness
to lean forward, making room
for whatever the Fates forebode.

Although she lives in a city of sand,
coffee reminds her of another ocean road.

(An ekphrastic poem, prompted by a photo in Writer's Digest, October, 2104 and from viewing Anthony Bourdain's CNN show on The Bronx)

"The Bronx"

I see you on the floor
pushing your chest against the dirty tiles
as you raise up to face your enemy.
He slams his leather boot against your torn shirt.
You grimace, then smile at me.

A lanky feline,
I just happened to come out from behind the metal staircase
and find you fighting for your solitary life.
I wish I could give you one of my nine.

You fed me fish an hour ago,
but now it appears
I am alone on the streets again
as you sputter your last breath.