Carlene's Birthday Party

Here's my movie for Carlene's birthday party

If you'd like to see it, go to http://gallery.me.com/linda_harris48/100203

Your user name is nana

Your password is BLUEBIRD

Gate C22 by Ellen Bass

GATE C22

by Ellen Bass

At gate C22 in the Portland airport

a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed

a woman arriving from Orange County.

They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after

the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons

and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,

the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other

like she’d just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,

like she’d been released from ICU, snapped

out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down

from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.

She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine

her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish

kisses like the ocean in the early morning,

the way it gathers and swells, sucking

each rock under, swallowing it

again and again. We were all watching--

passengers waiting for the delayed flight

to San Jose, the stewardess, the pilots,

the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling

sunglasses. We couldn’t look away. We could

taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back

and looked at her, his smile was soft with wonder, almost

as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,

as your mother must have looked at you, no matter

what happened after--if she beat you or left you or

you’re lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix

not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you

as you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.

The whole wing of the airport hushed,

all of us trying to slip into that woman’s middle-aged body,

her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,

little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.

CORRECTION

I incorrectly attributed that "ART IS THE HONEY" quotation to Picasso. Actually, credit should go to Theodore Dreiser. Ooops. And now, I can't figure out how to edit the title.....

Prompts for August and September

Think: "timed writings at home."

Using your book, Naming the World, as the treasure trove of prompts that it is, read the first 28 pages. Then flip to the end of the book, the section called Daily Warm Ups.

Write for 5-10 minutes a day, one prompt a day.

Choose the one you like best.

Turn it into a 300-600 word piece and make copies to pass around at the August and September meetings.

Dates for September Writing Groups

Sunday: September 5th: 2:30-5:30

Monday: September 13th: 7:00-10:00

Thursday: September 16th: 6:30-9:30

Saturday: September 11th: 2:00-5:00

Art: the stored honey of the human soul (Picasso)

Blog virgin here, just revving up and learning the contours of this new road, the blogosphere.

The title, "A road of one's own," echoes Virginia Woolf's words. What does a writer need, she asked? A few pounds and a room of one's own.

The artist needs a room, a niche, a tree house, a car--some space that's her own.

We also need roads of our own. I learned that after years of being a passenger, letting someone else do all the driving. Where to stop, when, for how long--those were the decisions of The Driver. We rarely agreed.

Our traveling styles couldn't have been more different (though we didn't know that until we were already far enough down the road that a U-Turn was out of the question.)

The driver in this story believed in getting there, fastest route possible. (Our son calls his father's travel style Operation Haul-Ass) The passenger, had she been behind the wheel, would have meandered all the way. (Operation Poking Around.)

Day, one of my mentors and traveling companions, gave me a bag filled with art supplies. Inspired to stretch out of my comfort zone of words, I'm traveling a new road. Playing with colored pencils and wet paints is delicious, juicy.

When I begin a trip, I meander, get lost on purpose, take detours. I meet the most amazing trees and people along the way. Encounters on the road can change everything.

Tennyson wrote, "I am a part of all that I have met." Imagine that--every tree, every movie, every friend, every delicious encounter with strangers--it all becomes part of you. How can we meet--if we don't meander?