I just thought I'd put this here

Inversion

Carol Schiess

It's ugly outside, dismal,

dreary, cold, and the air is

bad-- same old, same old.

The cold seeps in, sits

on your bones long enough

to make them hurt--as if

you didn't know. Worse,
the gray finds your soul,
settles in and conquers,

then takes residence

just behind your eyelids.

You can hardly see out--

no news there.

If you had the nerve

you'd wrap your coat

around you, step outside,
scan the sky for blue,
and dare the sun to
get up his guts and

come out of hiding.

It would do no good--

everybody knows that.

Besides, you just may be

as gutless as the sun.

Best to stay inside--you

tell yourself again--curl up

with a blanket in a
nice warm corner,

turn on all the lights

and wait--no courage

required.

I think it acceptable, even appropriate, to complain

Inversion.

Dismal, dark, unrelenting, unpromising.

Oh, please, let there be a sunny day again.

Another perspective

My friend's husband called today. He has an appointment tomorrow and asked if we could postpone my proposed taking his wife for a ride. Of course we can.

We talked for a while about Pennsylvania--because I'm going there next week and because he went to Penn State.

I asked again how she's doing, and he said again, no change. But he went on to tell me that she's okay. "She putters around here," he said. "But she's happy and I'm happy."

I'm happy to hear that, and I hope it's true.

Same O, he says

I called my friend's husband today to ask if I could come over on Friday and take her for a short ride. He said that sounded good.

But first I asked him how she is doing. "Same o, same o," meaning same ol', same ol', or same old, same old. But you knew that.

After he said that, I couldn't speak for a moment. So he said, "She's no better, no worse." I am sure it's true, but I didn't like hearing it. Not that I expected she would suddenly be all better and herself again. Just that to put it in those words--same o, same o--sounded heartless.

I hope she will know me well enough to go for a ride with me. I hope she will feel like going. I would like to hope it will be a good thing for her. He'll get a brief respite while we're gone. That's okay, although I am less concerned with that.

So that is what I will aim for Friday, taking my friend for a ride.

Here's what I'm thinking today

It's a beautiful sunny day today, and I can see everything so well. I had my downstairs windows washed yesterday.  And today I opened my front door and let the sunshine in for a couple of hours. A treat, thanks to the weather.

Weather. I just wrote a short essay about it. In the essay I said I grew up where the weather was perfect. I will stand by that. Yes, we sometimes had morning fog off the ocean, but it burned off as the sun came up. I loved living close to the ocean, and that occasional fog was something I liked and liked knowing about as a feature of where I lived. I also liked it when there was no fog. Get it? The weather was perfect.

OK, yes, it rained occasionally.

Which brings me to what I thought of today.

In elementary school, when it rained, we stayed in for recess. I always liked that because it was unusual and because we were not doing school work; we were playing. Heads up, Seven up, or some other game involving an entire class of kids.

It occurred to me to wonder today how our teacher(s) felt about it. No breaks from the kids. As a child, I assumed they liked it, too, because they liked us. That was a given. That's the way I saw it, and I never had a different kind of thought about it.

But my friend Joan, who recently retired from teaching 2nd grade--and she is so happy to be retired--told of having to spend all recesses inside. No breaks from the kids, except at lunch time. And she did not like it.  When they were in they were doing school work. It's a reflection of new educational theories and practices. Our indoor recesses were the rare thing, the exception, remember. I don't think this means Joan didn't love those kids, but anybody needs a break, a change.

Back to me. What I come away with, regarding my own experience, is that I was a pretty happy kid, secure in the love of my parents, and therefore secure in the love of other adults, like my teachers. I never thought they might not like me. What do you think of that?

Ho hum

It's Saturday. I have cut up and prepared strawberries for freezing, a task which requires no skill, only time, a knife, and quart-size freezer bags. Oh yes, and strawberries.

Which are very expensive just now, being out of season. That's why I froze them. (I know this is fascinating.) I had not planned to freeze them when I bought the two 16-oz boxes. But I cannot eat them all before they spoil, and I do not want to waste any bit of even one berry.

Get it? 

*     *     *

Somehow, it has warmed up today, 45 when I got up, and I have a pool in my back yard. Not for swimming. Not attractive. And lots of mud back there, too. The wind comes up strong now and then. 

Not my favorites: mud and wind. But warmer I do like.

It is still winter.

Here goes

Somewhere between 15 and 20 years ago, I wrote this poem. It's based on my memory of something when I was very young.

Here I must explain that the poem is in no way expressing anything against my sister or my dad. And it only represents one small thing, not my whole life with my father. I wanted to write a poem, and when you write a poem you find a way to show what you're talking about.  Blah, blah, blah.

Obviously, I'm about to put the poem here, or I wouldn't feel the need for that explanation.

Daddy's Girl

Carol Schiess

In that window-walled

square room of yours

you play a fast clack clack song

on the L. C. Smith black keys.

Seated you are my height--

I can see the window's shine

on your head, my voice can speak

straight into your ear.

You do not look up

or stop your fingers

while I tell my request.

I think you must hear me.

In the flowered chair,

you hold my sister on your lap

as rain slaps the street outside

and runs down our long hill.

The lamp throws a yellow light

around you, yellows your head,

your teeth, your tongue as you laugh,

saying funny names, made-up words

whose meaning I guess at.

You touch her hair, her face,

call her china doll.

Still New Year's Day

I bet you didn't know this. Idaho dropped a huge potato on New Year's Eve. You know, like New York City's ball?

You're thinking, "Hokey."

Two of my grandsons were just here and asked if I had watched the potato drop. On TV.

No. I might have been asleep. Well, for sure. I was asleep.

They did. They went downtown Boise last night and watched. I'm glad. Kind of a fun thing to do, even if it is hokey. We here in Idaho can drop a potato if we want, you know.

And I suppose Idaho will drop a potato every year now.

Resolved

Time for resolutions for the new year. In what ways I'll make this year better than the last.

As I recall, my recent resolutions--last several years or maybe last 40 years, maybe--involve my intake of sugar and the curtailing of same.

Yep. That's true this year, too.

And a faithful regimen of exercise. Work to stay healthy.

See my family more often. Lola's idea of a monthly dinner together--each third Sunday--is good. I am resolved to do it.

Do something for other people.

Read more.

Still working on the rest.