Idaho. I don’t know.

“In the end”, He ponders, “a story is just someone’s snippet .” He moves along in the hot Idaho air, a blessing in April. Dust swirls up, around and lands on his hairy arms. “Why not mine? Why not put down all the life that is farming and digging and gathering and selling? I will just start to jot and see what happens.” Smiling, the planting rushes by.

 

Burn, Cardboard, Burn!!!

Um.  I cried today.  A lot.    Watching “The Dog Whisperer“.  Looking back,  I am not sure if it was because his teeth were so professionally, blindingly white that my eyes hurt to look upon them, or because he talked about finding the right time to move forward after grieving for a pet.  Maybe both.  (I just wore sunglasses and sobbed.  No one was looking.)

Also, I cleaned my bathroom because I was angry.  I find it is the only time I do clean.  Chores don’t help.  Even with a chore chart.  You know, chore charts?  The ones that I share with my kids so they will do theirs?  Bribery doesn’t work either.  (If I clean up, I will …. insert reward….)  I wonder why my kids aren’t motivated. 🙂   So here I am back to being angry when I clean.  My bathroom is shiny.  I am not angry anymore.  (I left the tub for another time.)

Lastly,  I burned cardboard in the fireplace of my new place for the first time.  Not pieces of cardboard, which would be acceptable.  No.  I shoved entire large moving boxes into the gaping maw of this fire-belching wonder.  It was therapeutic to get rid of all the moving boxes that have cluttered up my life. (And my house.)  I didn’t wait and do it to bond a bit with the kids while they tore them down to acceptable size.  And I sure as hell didn’t take them out for recycling.  There was nothing acceptable, or even safe, about me creating this fire-storm, barely contained, as I pushed box after box inside the fireplace, and then judged when to shut the glass doors.  I felt cleansed as I did something that I would never let my kids get away with, and was ridiculous.  It felt marvelous.  I did NOT tell my husband.

Nothing dramatic to write about.  No nuggets of wisdom.  I just thought I’d solve the mystery of the thought, “Why do I feel so worn out?  I can’t remember a thing that I did today!”  Woot.

 

Ode to Dr. Seuss (Just for fun)

Posted on October 5, 2011 by free2live282000

I was told, in a writing group, to find an author i loved and imitate that style to use in an introduction about me.  The first time around,  it was ok.  Just standard hi/who i am/how many kids/where i live/blah blah/blah.The revision was where we were to critique the other people’s intro’s, and then do our original intro in the author of our choice’s style.

A.  I have never critiqued anything in my life,  least of all my work.  I figure other people can figure out how to love their own work better by getting a sober look at it the next day.  What could I say that could top it?

B.  I didn’t read deep works of literature.  My parent’s and grandparents were literary genius. and I grew up with their words dripping of the ceiling and oozing out of the carpet.  And.  And I still loved Dr. Seuss the best.  Why, then would I choose some flowery words for my revision?  Perhaps I felt some need to impress some faceless people.  Maybe I wanted to know if i could make up poetry on the fly.  Either way, it stunk.

So  I will do my introduction in Seussian style. Read it out loud.  That’s what it’s meant for. It’s how it was read to me, and how I read it to my kids.  It’s what I grew up on. (And, it’s late at night.   )

There happened to be, once upon a new lately,

A child named Sharon, who grew up sad…greatly.

She started out squished, smack dab in the middlers

of boy and girl yappers, and several young dribblers.

She worked and she played, but just didn’t feel homey,

Even though her house held some great musicamony.

Bob warbled. Sue wibbled.  The twins just kajiggled.

The dog swayed her boubilous back and her front.

The cat jumped on kids right on que, meowing funk.

The piano and trumpets and trombones blig-bleeng’d.

Mom and Pop even foisted their musical thing.

(They put us in church so we all could …GULP!… sing!)

So often this child, in her room, would set setting,

And far-away thoughts would  ka-thunk, just for getting.

With fingers on forehead and lips all scrunched up,

She’d imagine that world as her oyster, and FLUP!!

She’d write them down, scrib’ling any way she saw fit,

On walls, or on paper.  Pig latin, Sanskrit!

She’d write them.  She’d read them.  She’d store em and freeze them.

But always the thinking would go on and on.

Whizzing and crunkling it’s storified song,

(Faster than Pop, driving ’round without Mom!)

So she wrote out her stories, her poems, her thoughts

Pretty soon on Pop’s ‘puter mick-do-hickey-box.

Her angst and her anger, her wonders and worries

Met the freedom of screen, and her eyes soon got blurries.

She wrote of her home, and she wrote of her future.

of siblings, and anger and yammering droolers.

Until, at last, came a big chance to get out.

To see the wide world and go out and about.

So, she went to big cities, to skylines, to urbans.

She forgot about stories because Hey! she had burbons!

The partying, jobbing, and marriage and kid.

It all moved on fastly, her time they all bid.

Till 20 years went, and she started to think,

“With so much amazing-ness, odd-ness and stink,

shouldn’t I put this in writing?”  She blinked.

“I’d remember it more when my thinker’d untrim’d,

with wrinkles and oldness and head giv’n in.”

So she looked online just about where, then, to start.

And decided she needed to pick thoughts apart.

A writing group’s great for that kind of ka-picking.

They pick you and stick you, and build you, till grinning…

you have your hard skin and you new sense of style.

Not to mention the fact that the writings will pile.

The writings will pile and the styles will style.

So… when grinning, make sure to get gunk out of teeth

Cause that kind of stuff is not good to bequeath.

Enough for right now.  I am barely awake!

But in Seuss or no Seuss, it’s the style I’ll fake.

 

Crossing Over. Hold the line!!!.

by Sharon Thornton Montgomery on Tuesday, 09 March 2010.

I’ve crossed over.

I don’t know when i did it. I don’t remember the exact date or event, but here i am. A grown up. One minute i’m roller skating around my mom and dad’s unfinished family room (trying not to get splinters from the plywood when I fall) thinking, “This is the life. The feeling of freedom and flying and not doing chores. Can it get better than this?”, and the next minute i’m roller skating in a quaint warehouse-turned-80’s-disco, cajoling my daughter onto the rink as she watches me wobble around the half wall. I practically spun around from one age to the next with hardly a blink. Crap. My blinks must have gotten longer the older i got.

My whole thoughts, as i’m in this warehouse/roller rink, go like this: “I am NOT going to get knocked over by the 9 year old in lime-green hair. Again. A-HA!”…”This is so fun!”…”Well… i remember it being fun, but why don’t my legs work like they used to? And why am i so much taller than the other people on the rink?”…”Why are all the parents on the side, shaking their head at me, with pity in their eyes??!!!” I honestly thought i could just pick up where i left off a few weeks/years…./decades ago. Dur.

I look over at the DJ up in the magical booth of music and notice that he’s not quite the memory i remember, either. A cool grown up with the ultimate job, and a look on his face that says, “Envy me. I can put on any music I want and have people DANCE around me. AH AH AHH!!!”,… he is not. Oh no. This guy is a pimply 16 year old with a bored look on his face, wondering why he waited so long to look for a summer job. The look on his face that i first took as bliss at landing this fantastic job is actually incredulity that he has kept this gig under wraps from his girlfriend for so long. (She thinks he works at Boondocks.)

So I’ve crossed over. What’s the big deal? Other people have gone there before me. They seem happy and… actually….. happy-ER. It’s like they are keeping the line going steady for me, just waiting for me to take the bait and move forward. No big deal for them.

The big deal for me is being in resistance to change, i guess. I know what it feels like to be a kid, because i’ve done it already. Familiar is good, even if it is keeping me in the past. Letting go of something i know is good, for something i only hear about being better…We-eh-ehll!…That’s a risk, a gamble, and it isn’t a sure thing. Ever heard the story of the monkey and the mouldy peanuts? Look it up. End result is that the monkey is trapped by something good, and is unwilling to let go of the stuff he is holding on to, in order to get what’s better for him.

I would much rather be, by the way, in my 30 some-things and having a great time in the present, than back at the younger age and not able to progress. Now. I have a feeling things just get better the further along I go.

Alright, I’m ready to take the bait. GULP!