I’m in the cool temperate rainforest of northern California, home to Avenue of the Giants – a breathtakingly beautiful primeval forest of giant redwoods. Sounds are different here. Some carry farther through the synapses of moisture in the air, but others are muffled by the weight of droplets hanging heavy on ferns, moistened bark, towering trees.
Some people complain about the rain, but this place is rich with life and history recorded not in pen and paper, but in tree rings and fossils of Scotia Bluff. There aren’t enough words for the varieties of fog. From this one spot I can see ocean fog that advanced over the coast, then ebbed as the day warmed; sinuous fog that sweeps like a bridal veil along the curving river; low-lying clouds wrapped around hilltops; and little fog ghosts hovering between trees and over a deep gully. Who knows why they appear where they do?
Here it smells like hands in soil; like Christmas coming. How lucky I feel to experience life on mirror coasts.
On a forest note, here’s an educational site called silva rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric, by Gideon Burton at BYU: http://rhetoric.byu.edu/, for you practitioners of rhetoric. 🙂
Word for the day: petrifaction ~ the process of fossilization.
Monthly Archives: December 2010
Building blocks
I just visited an older family member who, over the past few years, we’ve gone from supporting as he needed help at his home, then in our home, then, finally, just in the past few weeks, in the dementia unit of a nursing home outside of Washington, D.C.
I was so worried that he’d feel frightened, and just returned from yet another visit. (So now you can guess the inspiration on that poem from the last post?)
His changing brain reminds me of a set of building blocks built into a complex structure. But, slowly, some of the blocks are stolen, so he has to rearrange the remaining blocks in ways that make sense.
Today I asked how he’s feeling. He told me this is the nicest hotel he’s ever stayed in ~ the chef is fabulous, and what service!
We are all authors. And while this man’s new story isn’t quite true, it also is.
Building Blocks
Building blocks
I just visited an older family member who, over the past few years, we’ve gone from supporting as he needed help at his home, then in our home, then, finally, just in the past few weeks, in the dementia unit of a nursing home outside of Washington, D.C.
I was so worried that he’d feel frightened, and I just returned from yet another visit. (So now you can guess the inspiration on that poem from the last post?)
His changing brain reminds me of a set of building blocks built into a complex structure. But, slowly, some of the blocks are stolen, so he has to rearrange the remaining blocks in ways that make sense.
Today I asked how he’s feeling. He told me this is the nicest hotel he’s ever stayed in ~ the chef is fabulous, and what service!
We are all authors. And while this man’s new story isn’t quite true, it also is.
One Little Poem
One little poem…
I just heard that one of my poems is being published! It’s in an anthology of poetry with other writers from the Maryland region.
My poem was inspired by the moment I redefined a good night as: one on which the police didn’t call to say they’d picked up our senior.
No, not high school senior…
The poem is called Losing Words, written in twenty-eight diminishing lines from the first person point of view of an aging man. It’s from my collection, Growing Down. You can find it in Life In Me Like Grass On Fire: Love Poems*, an MWA book edited by Laura Shovan.
My advice on helping an elderly family member through the aging process is: keep your sense of humor.
If you’re going to hunt for a lost pair of reading glasses twelve times in one afternoon either way, make it fun! Use your imagination. A little competition with prizes is okay! It’s part of life. You may as well laugh about it. Be kind to everyone involved, including yourself. Remember how you’d want to be treated, because one day that may be you. And your kids are watching. 🙂
Life in Me Like Grass On Fire: Love Poems, available at Amazon.com
One little poem…
I just heard that one of my poems is being published! It’s in an anthology of poetry with other writers from the Maryland region.
My poem was inspired by the moment I redefined a good night as: one on which the police didn’t call to say they’d picked up our senior.
No, not high school senior…
The poem is called Losing Words, written in twenty-eight diminishing lines from the first person point of view of an aging man. It’s from my collection, Growing Down. You can find it in Life In Me Like Grass On Fire: Love Poems*, an MWA book edited by Laura Shovan.
My advice on helping an elderly family member through the aging process is: keep your sense of humor.
If you’re going to hunt for a lost pair of reading glasses twelve times in one afternoon either way, make it fun! Use your imagination. A little competition with prizes is okay! It’s part of life. You may as well laugh about it. Be kind to everyone involved, including yourself. Remember how you’d want to be treated, because one day that may be you. And your kids are watching. 🙂
Life in Me Like Grass On Fire: Love Poems, available at Amazon.com