Archive for the ‘Creative Writing’ Category
The Middle of June
I may be jumping the gun just a bit, because the picture party for Jim Klobuchar’s Adventures’ “Jaunt with Jim” bike ride, won’t occur until this evening, and that is where I will be premiering my video to a ‘live’ audience, but loyal readers here at Relative Something deserve some special privileges…
Here is a sneak peek at my version of Jim’s annual week-long bike trips around the state of Minnesota and surrounding region:
Little Lights
Little lights
scattered
underneath the night
echoing something
not quite right
things coming to this
after all these years
we’ve had to fight
for principles like peace
real understanding
and an abolishment
of fear and blind suspicion
but right or wrong
the balance of light and dark
persists forevermore
let’s combine our lights
and hang out together
in the warmth and love galore
while those much less inspired
brood in their doom and gloom
on the far side of the room
like dust destined to settle
as we sing
our hopeful tunes
© 2009
Save This
Save This
What if it was random writing?
Kind of like stream of consciousness
Only less organized
Not that some coherent thought
Would voluntarily show itself
A lot like the feeling you experience
When you are waiting for your ride
How many different versions
Of strictly rhetorical questions
Does it take to produce
A result so much less inspirational
Before the fabrication becomes
Entirely forged self evident
And the versions that evolve ensure
That self-conscious dash for the car
As if every eye was blatant aware
Saw each nuance and crack in veneer
With all judgment force then passed
Whole reputations effectively formed
Witness for defense denied
Reason most likely wronged
Imperceptibly darkness dawns
Light that was but a different shade
Suddenly burns bright the increased contrast
While still the line of cars
Fails to match the waiting heterogeneity
Though in transition
As slow as the evening falls
One seems to find the other
As if choreographed by fate
Until the lone straggler
Gets picked up late
And whisked to the next destination
Leaving solemn solace behind
To deal with all that remains
Of the questions
Which linger unasked
Hinting at perpetual
Ineffectual translation
©2001
Deep
deep, deep breaths
that have nothing to do
with the reason
they are being breathed
inspire
wonder beyond the seen
close to the way
your left hand is resting
so lightly
as if I were too hot to touch
and the sound
of the clock ticking
almost vapid
though fascinating nonetheless…
ideas wiggle
to gain footing
when the breath,
the hand,
the clock ticking
align
to fall flat
in a pile
no thicker than
the space between time
but deep,
deep as a mind
can be mined
The Wedding Cake Story
I know this girl that professes to dwell in possibilities. Someone in my family asked her to bake a wedding cake. She said, “Yes.” She said yes, even though she had never, ever baked a wedding cake before in her life. She had never talked to anyone who had baked a wedding cake, decorated a wedding cake, or transported a wedding cake. It’s possible that simply saying yes would lead to more stress than she anticipated dwelling in.
It doesn’t really matter that she could have probably purchased a trouble-free wedding cake from a bakery for the amount of money that she spent on ingredients and accessories for this project. Nor does it add much to the point of this story to reveal the number of ‘test’ cakes baked in practice for the final event, or what one does with so many practice cakes once they have been prepared.
This tale begins with a side-story that helps establish a baseline of stress that provides important perspective. Try to imagine that this girl is a career girl. A ‘meetings long into the night’ type of career girl. Let’s just say that this girl works in a capacity of very high responsibility for a public institution that was recently cited for spending beyond their means and placed in very public reprimand by the laws of the state. While managing that crisis for the, pardon my editorial opinion, ‘buffoon’ who is ultimately responsible, she is also actively pursuing alternative top-level employment options.
On the very Friday that she took leave from work to stay home and bake, she got up early to compose a letter to go with her curriculum vitae formatted late the night before, in order to have it finished with little time to spare for a courier to deliver by the deadline for a job she has her sights on. After that, she has nothing to fret over except making her first-ever attempt at a successful wedding cake for a group of about 200 guests of her husband’s niece’s wedding.
Nothing to fret over, that is, until her daughter gets home from college that afternoon with a fever and flu-like symptoms seeking a sick-bed to crash in and hoping for some tender loving care. And her husband gets home from work suffering with prednisone withdrawal symptoms, useless to the world, and collapses in that same bed for the night. So the girl does the best she can with what she’s got and holds together long enough to finish what was planned for the day and make her way to a bed in the spare room for a night’s sleep before the big wedding day.
The next part of this tale requires another side-story. It probably deserves it’s own telling, and it may seem hard to comprehend, but the point here is how it really throws this cake adventure over the top. On Thursday, the girl’s brother sends out a mass-email announcing he is taking his wife out of the country for over a week to celebrate her birthday and leaving their three young children home with his father-in-law. But grandpa is not from this country and his grasp of the English language, based on listening to his efforts, is pretty much represented in single-syllable, one-word sentences. This presents no real problem for the kids, because they speak his native language. However, for the bulk of care-givers generously included in the mailing as enlistees to provide support, it is an additional challenge.
Shortly after midnight, the phone in the girl’s house is ringing. Her number-one son trudges upstairs with the phone to find she is not in her bed, but soon finds her in the next room. Who could be calling at this hour of the night? It is her 7-year-old nephew to report he is throwing up, over and over, and wants more support than Grandpa can provide. The girl is up in a flash and dashing out the door to head over and help nurse what sounds like the saddest of situations. It lasts all night. Vomiting every 45 minutes or so, and then, diarrhea, too. When he finally seems to be able to sleep at around 6 a.m. she finds that his little brother is now awake and wanting attention for the morning. She goes the whole night with little-to-no sleep.
Eventually, necessity drives her back to her own home where she must frost and decorate cake. She tries to shower off all memory and any trace of the sickness from the wee hours just prior and takes on the most important task before her. By the allotted time she is packed and ready to go: cakes, boxes, flowers, decorations, display components, frosting, and tools. The cakes travel just fine. The setup goes well and it is looking beautiful. And then she hears a “snap”.
While the wedding party poses for the last few pictures and the guests are beginning to arrive, the girl turns to see the tiers of wedding cake tipping and crashing before her eyes. Was she dwelling in this possibility? Let’s just say that she isn’t so naive as to have not prepared for the need of ‘backup’ cakes. But what she probably didn’t plan on was the accumulative buildup of these unrelated stresses all precipitating this not so unlikely situation that she now found herself in. I guess that is the point of this whole story. It is at this point that the reader is supposed to try to imagine what it must have felt like to be the girl at that moment the upper layers of cake smashed to pieces on the table and floor.
It’s quite a spectacle. Who knows what life lessons the girl is destined to learn as a result of all this? We could dwell in the possibilities.
The girl reported that the catering staff that had been busy setting tables and preparing the room seemed to suddenly have a pressing need to be someplace else, but not before one paused to exclaim, “You are so fucked,” before leaving the room. Even the girl’s friend, who was along for support that only true close friends can provide, recognized this moment as beyond category and sought extra-ordinary response. She stole behind the bar and poured a shot of whiskey, offering it to the girl, who, without hesitating, despite never having been a whiskey drinker, downed it for whatever possible assistance it might provide.
By the time the wedding ceremony was complete, the backup cakes were in place and the display modified on the fly to no longer involve plastic towering parts. The uninformed were none-the-wiser. Mother-of-the-bride, who reported making it through the ceremony without crying, suddenly lost her breath and was overcome with teary emotion when she first saw the cake. In the still somewhat shocked state of the sudden aftermath, this is one of the possibilities the girl is allowing herself to dwell in: how moved and amazed the mother of the bride was to see, what to her was, the most beautiful wedding cake ever prepared.
Wedding Cake, The Preface
The following is a little something I composed for my niece and her fiancé shortly before their wedding day…
For Liz and Nick, March 2006.
At first it started as just subtle cake baking smells. There wasn’t really anything out of the ordinary to see in the normal goings on in our kitchen. The smell from the oven was just really enjoyable. Wait–no, that’s not quite accurate. In reality, it started back before the first of the year. We were invited to a New Year’s Eve dinner party and instructed to contribute a dessert.
Cyndie not only baked up one, she did several. The seven couples were presented with a dessert plate loaded with more choices than the main meal. She said she was ‘testing’ some ideas for a wedding cake. Whether they could eat it all or not was not the point. They needed to provide honest feedback as to which they would want for a wedding cake. That was the beginning of the great cake-baking training regimen of 2006.
It’s a miracle there haven’t been any hyperglycemic emergencies in the household since. Well, we have had some help. We sent a cake to Cyndie’s workplace. I took a cake to my workplace. That saved me big time. By late afternoon that day, I was ready to give in and snitch a piece to ward off the day’s doldrums, but by the time I got there, there was no cake left! Thank goodness.
I have sampled frostings till I can’t discern a difference. I have used the bathroom sink when I couldn’t find one in the kitchen under all the baking pans, bowls, measuring cups, spoons and display trays.
Throughout it all, one fact stands out the most. There is this magical abundance of joy and love floating about our home. It is permeating the kitchen. I think even the pizzas coming out of the oven have tasted sweeter.
It seems brighter here, too. When Cyndie is working, there seems to be this angelic glow around her. For all the projects she buries herself in, I cannot recall one that has made her appear nearly as satisfied.
For as long as I have known her, I have been trying to convince Cyndie that you cannot have your cake and eat it, too. That is going to have to change now. For the last few months of my life I’ve been able to do just that!
Timelessness
If you remember a time
when the Smothers Brothers
surpassed Bonanza in viewers
why is it that you remember?
Was there a heart of the matter?
.
.
.
This is timeless, I think…
(johnw.hays) Sep 12, 2002 17:20
Meanwhile, his partner is wandering around randomly through the catacombs of my brain, purposefully dragging his feet to snag wires and cables, breaking connections, holding his arms in the air simultaneously to do the same. In his feigned lack of concentration he blows air through pursed lips as if to whistle, except just short of that so the sound is really only air. About as nonchalant as anyone with a hint of a purpose could ever possibly appear.
IF, for some amazing reason, any fragment of an intentional, productive thought were to be maintained for more than a few hundred seconds, he deftly stumbles hard against the nearest surface to render the focus suddenly askant and significantly altered from the previous depth of view.
Just for good measure, he then quickly begins plugging connections back in, though certainly not in the same receptacles from which they were yanked moments earlier.
Makes me tired just reading it.
From the Archives
I recently re-discovered this word-painting of a July cloudburst I wrote back in July of 2002…
Playin’ in the Rain
Picture the protracted heat and tropic humidity of the consummate summer extreme. Consider the moment when days upon days of overexposing blasts of intense July sun and heat finally give in to the interruption of boiling piles of cloud and the electric anticipation of pending eruption, as opposing air masses collide overhead. Marvel at the quickness with which change takes place. Wonder at the speed of rushing air that intuition tells you should be cool, while senses still perceive heat. When the cloud finally bursts, and the torrents are crashing down, you barely hesitate. Regardless the natural inclination to seek shelter, you step out to feel the weight of impact on your head. With clothes now sticking and drooping with the weight of water, just try to act mature. The pavement steams and simmers, calming your feet with accumulated warmth, while at the same time infusing you with the irrepressible provocation to dance. Arms fling out, head rolls back and splashing ensues. No matter how old you really are, you are a kid again. Silence is not an option. You are as wet as you can possibly be, and at this moment, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
That surely must have come from memories of my youth. We don’t get rain like that here any more. The metropolitan area surrounding the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul has grown so much that we now have a big enough heat-dome over the area to impact the weather. The majority of weather fronts approaching the vicinity of my home, located at the southwest corner of the metro area, tend to break up and slide around to the north and south now days.
I bet if we got doused again like the writing above describes, I would be strongly tempted to go out and play in it like I remember doing when I was a kid. I remember one time when we were able to swim in the flooded corn field across the road from our house after a particularly heavy down pour.
Ah, those were the days. The good ol’ days. I can say that now that I’m old. I suppose the farmer didn’t think it was as good in those amounts at one time, but it sure was exciting. A time when we couldn’t resist the lure to play in the rain.
Relative Something 