Only rolling abundance

 “When Daddy comes in, he carries you to bed. Is there anything you feel like you could eat, Pokey? Anything at all?

“All you can imagine putting in your mouth is a cold plum, one with really tight skin on the outside but gum-shocking sweetness inside. And he and Mother discuss where he might find some this late in the season. Mother says hell I don’t know. Further north, I’d guess.

“The next morning, you wake up in your bed and sit up. Mother says, Pete, I think she’s up. He hollers in, You ready for breakfast, Pokey. Then he comes in grinning, still in his work clothes from the night before. He’s holding a farm bushel. The plums he empties onto the bed river toward you through folds in the quilt. If you stacked them up, they’d fill the deepest bin at the Piggly Wiggly.

“Damned if I didn’t get the urge to drive to Arkansas last night, he says

“Your mother stands behind him saying he’s pure USDA crazy.

“Fort Smith, Arkansas. Found a roadside stand out there with a feller selling plums. And I says, Buddy, I got a little girl sick back in Texas. She’s got a hanker for plums and ain’t nothing else gonna do.

“Through the window you see the Lawrences’ new rosebush, its base of burlap sticking out of the fresh red dirt. Its white buds are tight-clenched knots. But it’s when you sink your teeth into the plum that you make a promise. The skin is still warm from riding in the sun in Daddy’s truck, and the nectar runs down your chin.

“And you snap out of it. Or are snapped out of it. Never again will you lay a hand against yourself, not so long as there are plums to eat and somebody—anybody—who gives enough of a damn to haul them to you. So long as you bear the least nibblet of love for any other creature in this dark world, though in love portions are never stingy. There are no smidgens or pinches, only rolling abundance. That’s how you acquire the resolution for survival that the coming years are about to demand. You don’t earn it. It’s given.

Cherry Mary Karr

Processing the Past

Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time in my past. It’s an awkward, sometimes unpleasant, rather foggy place to rummage around, and not my favorite. However, with an essay memoir of sorts, it’s hard to avoid. I’ve spent some time in sixth grade, considered earlier, written strait through seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, and eleventh—the last three quite briefly as I don’t remember much—returned to junior high, and attempted to stay present. And keep a fraction of the future in mind. Such as that paper due tomorrow.

 People have told me I ought to write a memoir. As in a memoir memoir. Not an essay but a full-blown bound book that Amazon might pick up and sell for Kindles cheap and I could make ten cents per copy . . .

I’m not sure why. I do know it’d take a long time. Even though, at this point, writing beyond age eighteen seems a bit absurd. Truth is, to me, a foremost principle in creative non-fiction. The question is, which truths? What would be worthwhile to the readers? What creates something more than a self-indulgent exposé of Annie? That is part of the experiment of the memoir-essay assignment in our class.

Right now, the essay comprises of two sections: sixth grade and eighth grade. It is quite possible, after two weeks, with one week left, that I will set it aside. Pick a different approach. A different time. That is writing, I suppose. 

On Procrastination

This piece is indeed an act of procrastination—to an extent. However, it often bites me in the bum when I have writing material bouncing around my mind (that is, I’m talking to myself about absurdities completely unrelated to anything of consequence), for when I put it away to focus on whatever task is at hand, it is gone when I return. Yes, excuses.

So I’ll leave this document open for random bits.

I shall drill into my own children one day the ways of life; maybe I won’t do so, because it is painful to see how ignorant the masses are regarding what seems to be common sense. Yes, ha-ha, common sense is a joke. It is a phrase that should be banned. It is cliché to the extent that it quite honestly means nothing (to me, and therefore everyone, right?). Or it should be revised in the dictionary, since that too has much authority.

Spray not, smelly stuff in the house, or anywhere. It doesn’t make anything smell better. Cook something if you must. Or bundle up and open the windows. You don’t smell like roses when you puke Frebreeze or whatever foulness on yourself. You smell like chemicals. Put on deodorant. Light a candle. But, please, spray not.

Yelling does not make you better heard in most situations; it makes you more deaf and thus more likely to yell louder. It is a downward spiral. Don’t do it. There are so many volumes besides loud and louder, explore them, and ask for some input. They lie if they tell you aforementioned volumes are favorable. Or hard of hearing. Acceptable if elderly, unfortunate if young, don’t become that unfortunate youth.

Don’t refer to the good old days. The good old days were worse than the their good old days. Unless you have a concrete example, such as a can opener that has been in the family for twenty years but was bought from a yard sale and works like chocolate on a bad day. Compare that sucker to the brand stinkin’ new can opener that lasted two months made by a reputable company. Then there is an example of good ole days. Back when music was clean? Ha, ha, ha. Listen to Tight Fittin’ Jeans by Conway Twitty and you will realize sexual innuendos and bald-face speak isn’t new.

HAIR DOES NOT GO DOWN THE DRAIN. Lie. It does. And it creates a wad of foulness, that if lucky, one might remove without it breaking and clogging the drain in a slimy bend out of reach. Lucky is an understatement. And realize it will be gross. If only I had taken a picture of that rodent-sized glob of hair and soap-scum that I removed from our shower drain. All of a sudden, the shower did not puddle into a bath. The screw that had to be removed looked as though it was stripped, useless. But, no, it was simply wrapped in hair tightly enough to hold a person on belay. Sick. As in foul.

A Sunday Morning

            To the right there is a demon, my right hand man, with a pint glass in hand, on a pint glass, announcing, “You’re not worthy,” the slogan of Arrogant Bastard Ale. Ha. Spacing ahead, staring blankly over my head is an owl perched upon the fridge, fattened with cookies; they’re not mine. To the left, a clean counter—beautiful. At four o’clock stand trees etched across a grey sky attempting to clear, over a leaf-spotted soccer field. And a sip of the scent of coffee. Silence.