Looking for Inspiration
I leafed through the weathered pages of an old notebook that held ideas for posts from the 1st year of blogging; the year that held so much promise and optimism. I found a page of words quickly, recklessly jotted down.
I realized it was from the first Minnesota Blogger Conference; from a writing exercise in Kate Hopper's session. I didn't know Kate then, but later in the day introduced myself and chatted. I've since gotten to know her better.
Inspiring Women
Kate is the kind of person who you want to just hang out with and absorb her gentle kindness. She's inspiring and heartwarming and funny. Her book, Use Your Words: A Writing Guide for Mothers, has just been published, and I couldn't be happier for her.
Kate's session at this conference in 2010 was early in the day and my head was still foggy, as it always is in the morning, and there were streaks of bright sunlight shining in through the windows making me feel sleepy and lazy.
I didn't really like writing anything sitting there crammed between two strangers, but I followed her instructions and begin to scrawl out a memory from my childhood.
I did not stand up to share my scribbled down memory. I remember that Kate Selner did; hers was beautifully composed, as all of her writing is. She told of how her brother taught her to ride a bike when she was a young girl, if I remember correctly; a seemingly mundane occurrence that became lyrical through Kate's words.
An Exercise in Memories
My words now seem to make more sense to me; and perhaps it's just that I'm reading it at night, when my senses are more alive, many, many months after writing it. Here's what I had thought to write down on that September morning in 2010.
My brother and I were working in Daddy Mack's backyard picking up trash, pulling weeds, moving junk. There was always trash blowing from the empty lot next door and getting stuck in the long, prickly hedge that ran the length of the property. He would give us a few dollars and a handful of coins for doing this work.
For some reason that I've never been able to figure out, Daddy Mack had a lot of spare rusty metal parts scattered about, stacked in piles and half buried in the yard allowing the grapevines, fruit trees and tomato plants to grow entwined in these parts.
Daddy Mack called to us to come over to him. Our grandfather was tall and solid with arms and legs like tree trunks. He held out his hand and showed us 3 small speckled blue, yellow and white eggs.
"Look what I found," he said. We were intrigued. "Are they Robin eggs?" I guessed.
"I don't know. Let's see," he said, as he popped one in his mouth.
We stood motionless and horrified, as he ate the other two eggs, as well.
His eyes were dancing and his mouth broadened into a wide smile, as he pulled something out of his pocket. It was a small Cadbury Mini Egg package. He offered us some eggs, as he assured us, "It's chocolate."
It took us a moment to recover our senses, but we gladly accepted the little chocolate eggs with the crisp, sugary shell and enjoyed a good laugh over the prank. And still to this day, when I see this purple bag of candies, I think of my Daddy Mack.
The Scoop
You never know what you might find in old notebooks, on scraps of paper, in ancient letters or in the recesses of your memory that stir the senses and refresh the mind. Over and out...
Anna
Love this!
Posted by: Terry | Saturday, April 14, 2012 at 12:52 PM
Great post!
Posted by: Julie H | Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 09:10 AM