I'm enjoying reading through my writing exercises. That word - exercise - conjurs up thoughts of arithmetic exercises or phonics exercises or the physical exercise we're encouraged to do every day. We writers need to exercise our writing muscles much like we exercise the muscles that keep us going.
The day's prompt was" The simplest things of all" ... ready, set, go, write for ten minutes, keep the hand moving, no good, no bad.
and I wrote ...
What is simple, if I really think about it. Is it simple to make a cup of tea?
Perhaps if you have only a box of Red Rose tea bags in the cupboard and a kettle of boiling water on the stove. But here the simple task begins with choice. Herbal or black or green? Tea bags or loose tea. Where's the tea ball? Where's the tea kettle?
Then I hear her voice. "I had a little perforated spoon that had a hinge and a latch. Perfect for just one cup of tea. Do you know where that is? I could use it. All there is here is generic tea – not even Lipton or Tetley, some nondescript brand."
A simple cup of tea is now complicated by all that has gone before. In the back of the cupboard is a small round teapot. It's made of a white and blue speckled pottery and once had four footed mugs to match. One of the mugs remains today and it's in the cupboard with my rotating collection of mugs for coffee and tea.
The simple task of making a cup of tea ushers in the difficult task of sorting through the memories.
The teapot and mugs were a going-away gift from co-workers when we moved from Allentown back to the farm in 1976. I wonder if Gaby is still alive, if her troubled marriage survived, if she ever lost that extra weight she carried with such shame. Louise, the one who named our photo-typesetting computer Horace, is gone now but the sound of her voice whispers in my ear.
Again, get back to the simple thing – a cup of tea.
End of 10 minutes. Pen down
The following one was also in that notebook - not from writing practice but more as a journal entry.
"Dear President Trump,
Today my granddaughter and I went out to breakfast at a lovely little restaurant with outdoor seating as we're still in the midst of the pandemic you so badly handled in those darkest days of your presidency.
I asked that beautiful little nine-year-old what she'd write to you if she had the chance. She said the following to me: "President Trump, your behavior makes me feel absolutely farty. By that I mean smelly, foul, disgusting."
1 comment:
It is interesting how different writing by hand is from typing, not necessarily better, but different in the kind of thinking it prompts. I hope you found that hinged tea spoon. I am typing this over my morning coffee. I find myself wanting to take my journal outside with yet more coffee now.
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