writing prompt

Oh the changes The Change has wrought

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

Having now planted both feet firmly in the land of the post-menopause crones, I’ve noticed some changes I didn’t at first attribute to what the old women used to call The Change.

The chief one, the one that still has me shaking my head, is that chocolate is no longer always the answer.

Yeah, I know. I can’t believe I just wrote that either.

I liked chocolate as a kid. Almond Joys and Hershey’s with Almonds were favorites. Chocolate ice cream, chocolate milk. However, I equally enjoyed rainbow sherbet, lemon drops, lemon pie, and cherry turnovers. Japanese rice paper candy was a go-to for a few years.

Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

And then — puberty. For approximately 45 years of my life, chocolate was always the answer if I wanted something sweet. More than that, I craved it. Like precision Swiss clockworks, the approach of my period found me in line at the drugstore next to my office buying the big 2 lb. bag of M&Ms with peanuts.

I imagine I needed the magnesium.

This was not a mere craving or a self-indulgent habit. No, it was a full-on medical crisis.

I would devour that entire bag before I left to go home for the day. My period would start within 12 hours of the bag’s opening and the popping of the first handful into my mouth. Yes. Handful.

Years later, when we finally hired a contractor and had the kitchen installed, I declared one of the pristine white cabinets reserved for chocolate. Reserved for my chocolate. Chocolate I wasn’t going to be sharing. My son and husband were forbidden to even peek inside, because by then, chocolate was a need much more often than just one week out of the month.

One time, my son had a friend over for a sleepover. The master bedroom is up in the loft, and the acoustics are such that I can hear from my bed a conversation happening in the kitchen better than I could hear if I were standing in the kitchen.

That night, cabinet doors were opening and closing. The refrigerator, the freezer. All to the soundtrack of pre-teen banter.

I hear the friend say, “Wow! Can we have these?”

I don’t know what the “these” were that he might have been holding up for my son’s approval. The cabinet was stuffed with everything from Belgian truffles to Oreos. An all-chocolate roll of Necco wafers, a tin of chocolate-covered pretzels, and elaborately decorated chocolate-dipped plastic spoons to stir coffee or hot chocolate.

There’s a pause.

I hear my son say,

“Not if.   You.   Value.   Your testicles.”
Heavy emphasis on the you.

I had to roll over and muffle my laughter in the duvet.

Teach your children well, people.

About a decade later, the chocolate cabinet was moved to another wall when I took advantage of the installation of new flooring to tweak the kitchen design. By then, I was living alone. I didn’t need a designated chocolate cabinet. My stash was safe from predators. The little-bit-less-than-pristine white cabinet now holds cobalt blue barware – tiny ornate gems for Chambord, margarita glasses, martini glasses, handblown Mexican shot glasses for tequila, champagne flutes, and, of course, two styles of wine goblets. Many of the glasses have never been used to hold anything but dessert – often a chocolate mousse.

The red wine goblets traditionally got the most action.

This is another of the changes The Change wrought. I no longer NEED the red wine. In fact, it’s a problem now. Ditto coffee. My more than a pot a day is down to about three cups. Both libations do nasty things to my stomach. But the dazzling blue martini glasses get used for vodka martinis with two strips of lemon peel. Not one. Two. And I have plans to serve crème puffs filled with lemon curd and swathed in whipped cream in the oversized margarita coupes.

Photo by Hans Leuzinger on Unsplash

I am craving lemon. I’m buying lemonade – I haven’t drunk lemonade with any regularity since I was a kid. Starburst or Life-Saver gummies with all the citrus flavors find their way into my grocery buggy. The jar of lemon curd is already in my Amazon cart. Brach’s lemon drops when I can find them. Any old brand when I can’t.

I have even purchased a yellow blouse. I look dreadful in yellow, and I always have. I think it must be the association with lemon. I don’t think I have scurvy, so I’m not sure why my body is craving lemon, but I learned during The Change that arguing with it was fruitless.1

A few years ago, my mother asked what I wanted for my birthday dinner. I promptly answered fried chicken and lemon pie. The chicken was strategic. My mother is a competent cook, but her food is under-seasoned and often just not quite right in one way or another. She makes a few really good dishes, one of them being fried chicken. It is astonishing. I have tried and tried to duplicate it without success.

Lemon pie? Box pudding and frozen pie crusts. Forget the meringue, I want real whipped cream.  That stuff in a can is fine. This was my childhood favorite in the pie category. I enjoyed standing at the stove stirring the pudding until the perfectly round gelatin capsule melted and released the lemon flavoring. Lemon pie was my birthday choice anytime we weren’t going out for dinner.

Even as I was eating my natal day celebratory meal of fried chicken and lemon pie, I marveled that my birthday treat did not involve chocolate nor was I washing it down with a robust Malbec.

I am now all about fruit desserts, candies, and other treats, with chocolate only sometimes being the answer.

Oh, the changes The Change has wrought.

1 I know. I couldn’t resist.  I did try.

666(X3) ≠ 42

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

The Instant Pot arrived with a blast. 

In nanoseconds, my social media feeds were filled with folks I respect singing the praises of the Instant Pot. 

Photo by Katherine Chase on Unsplash

I am no slouch in the kitchen; I own nearly every kitchen gadget in existence.  But after roughly 30 years of putting dinner on the table every evening unless I was hospitalized or had a pizza coupon, I was just over it. 

Even a viral new gadget was not enough to tempt me. 

Especially that one.

Near as I can figure, the Instant Pot is the New Millennium’s restyling of the pressure cooker my dad used for years. 

I was terrified of that thing. 

It started out innocently enough. A pot roast, some seasoning, and a few other secret ingredients were combined for a period much shorter than conventional pot roasting and turned out a plateful of wonderful.  But to get to wonderful, I had to get through the rattling brass regulator that, at a certain stage, would start screaming while the heavy pan rocked and rolled in jeopardy of falling off the stove.

My dad, an artillery expert in the United States Marine Corps, would tell us to step back using his Captain Kinsey voice when he opened the pressure cooker.

I didn’t have to be told.  Anything that made those movements and those sounds on a stovetop in suburban America circa 1971 was surely one of the demons released in William Peter Blatty’s runaway best seller, The Exorcist.

There was never a problem when my dad used the pressure cooker, aside from my stress response.  I had heard tales.  I knew facts. From where?  I have no idea.  Why or how a 12-year-old would be well-versed in pressure cooking cautions and disasters before Google is a mystery.

And so, my feed continued to be full of the awe of my friends who had received an Instant Pot for Christmas or Mother’s Day or their birthday, or because it was a doorbuster special on Black Friday.  They shared results with photos, noting the cooking time with squeals. They traded recipes they had adapted. Whole communities were formed around the appliance.

[Instagram was emerging at roughly the same time.  I kept calling it an Instapot.  I know for a fact that unintentional perversion of the appliance’s name grated on more than one person’s nerves, and she took every opportunity to correct me.]

My feed was soon almost entirely Instant Pot and Wordle brags.  (What happened to Wordle? I didn’t get into that either. I’m such a renegade.)

It was like a cult.

I stood back and tried to look interested and polite.  I was not interested. Not in the least.  I didn’t care that this incarnation of the pressure cooker could replace seven other needs: slow cooker, rice maker, Saturday night babysitter, warmer, yogurt maker, steamer, and bowling team sub. 

I still didn’t want an Instant Pot or Instapot. It was nothing but a gussied-up pressure cooker manufactured in an era marked by shoddy workmanship and planned obsolescence. 

I was afraid of the noisy monstrosity my dad used.  I didn’t even like cleaning the damn thing, it scared me so much. I’m told the Instant Pot is quiet.  That adds even more fear.  I could hear the demons in my father’s pressure cooker clattering for escape.

Terror accompanied by silence can be expressed mathematically as:

666 ( X3) ≠ 42

Silent terror destroys the ultimate meaning of life.

At every gift-giving opportunity at the zenith of its popularity, someone would get that gleam in their eye. I would say assertively, “I don’t want an Instant Pot.  I really don’t. I do appreciate the thought, but I will just return it.  Please. I’m busy, please don’t add to my to-do list.  I would prefer to receive nothing.”

So, of course, I was gifted an Instant Pot with no way to return it.  Four years ago now, I think.

It is still in the heavy brown box UPS uses for shipping.

I’m going to stack the 6-month-old unopened shipping box holding the air fryer on top of the Instant Pot box. 

I’m not afraid of the air fryer.  I might even use it someday.

[I hear tell the Ninja CREAMi is the next viral gadget all the cool kids will be clamoring about. I’m kind of interested in it, but at more than $200, it is not going to complete my trinity of unused, unopened viral kitchen toys anytime in the near future..]

Lucy’s Regal Blue Dress

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment
Nightlife. 1943 Archibald John Motley Jr.

Lucy Goosey pulled her worn winter coat out from the back of the closet.  Glancing around to make sure she was alone, she slid the dress out from underneath the coat.

The dress still had the tags on it.  It was a size 8, and the color was Regal Blue. It fit every part of her, requiring no alterations.

After she cut the tags off, Lucy would tuck them into her scrapbook.

 Lucy had never had clothing, other than underwear, that was storebought new with tags.

She kept the dress secret even from her mother, though it fair killed her.  She did not want the gossip and speculation to start.  She intended to surprise.

She laid the frock on her bed and spread the skirt.  The color was glorious, and Regal Blue was the perfect description.  The taffeta caught the early sun and glowed. With its full skirt and low neckline, Lucinda Marie Duval would command attention.

Lucy paid on the layaway for twelve weeks, doing without the few extras she allowed herself.  She walked to work every morning and home from secretarial school every night so she could use her bus fare against the layaway balance – the one decreasing oh so slowly. 

In celebration of her eventual achievement, the shop owner steamed the dress for free before expertly folding it to fit into the store’s signature box. 

Once home, she lifted the dress, taking care not to disturb the tissue paper stuffed into the bodice and sleeves to prevent wrinkles. Lucy set aside the pink ribbon used to bind the box shut. She would wear it with her maid’s uniform. 

She saved the pristine and sturdy white dress box.

Nothing in Lucy’s life served a single purpose. The gleaming dress would celebrate her betrothal or mark the end of a relationship stealing her youth.  The Regal Blue frock might go on to serve as her wedding dress should they decide on a Justice of the Peace, but either way, it would end up in the window of the consignment store.  The proceeds would be applied to the next semester’s tuition.

Johnny knew she, the woman he had nicknamed Lucy Goosey for her fluid dance moves, had been expecting a proposal for months. 

Johnny changed the subject if the air between them felt palpable with expectation.  He knew she was trying to find the words that would prod his.

Once she found those words, everything would change. 

A few times when her expectation niggled at his brain, he sent his younger brother with a message that he was ill and would not be able to escort her to Smitty’s as planned.

Johnny was not prepared for the Lucy who greeted him at the door.

Everyone at Smitty’s would understand as soon as she walked in arm-in-arm with Johnny. If they did walk into Smitty’s.  Moving from her doorway to Smitty’s might not happen.

The light from the floor lamp set her skin, her eyes, her hair, and the taffeta glowing.  Johnny was on the porch, but the lamp lit his face as well. 

Lucy watched his expression change and then change again. She did not need to say anything.

She was regal.

She wanted it understood she was not a supplicant. His first naked expression told Lucy he did understand.  He knew he had until he walked her home to make the decision.

The niggle had failed him this day. Surprise had been achieved.

The splendor of the dress did not overpower her in any way.  She was striking. She was tall. She was resolute.

Lucy was planning a future ablaze with certainty. She knew lots of people with promise who never found that future.

Still, her voice was soft when she said, “Shall we go now?”

Johnny held out his arm. She wrapped hers around it.

His voice as soft and gentle as hers had been, he said, “You are so lovely.”

Johnny would remember, for all of his life, the image of Lucy in the doorway.

Lucy did love Johnny.  He excited her and made her feel alive. They danced together like one body. She thought them well-suited in temperament, though she wasn’t sure his ambition matched hers.

Her future would fork left or would fork right this very evening. So would Johnny’s. The question was whether they would be arm-in-arm on the same fork.

Her mother and father had loved one another. As had his.

Though necessary, love can be not enough. Lucy understood that. Johnny suspected as much, but hadn’t allowed himself to think beyond the now.

He loved his Lucy Goosey, but he would never again call her by that name.

Now was slipping away and soon Lucy might too.

She slowed her pace to match his as he checked his watch.

Smitty’s was just around the corner.

Why I Write

/ wvfurandroot / Leave a comment

I was an early reader.

My father, who worshipped knowledge and bequeathed that religion to me, used 3×5 cards and masking tape to label everything in our home when I was three.

table

chair

couch

television

telephone

door

bed

And then there was the 3×5 card
he attached to his dog tags
with a paperclip that said Daddy.

But I don’t really remember reading early. I may have known some words by sight, but I don’t think I was reading reading.

I have a vivid memory of walking home from first grade, puzzling over a Dick and Jane story. It had been worksheet time, and I finished early, so the teacher told me to look ahead in my book.

I encountered the word neighbor. All the phonics in the world wasn’t helping me with that sucker. I twisted those sounds and pronounced it aloud as I walked home (yes, alone, children were feral in the 1960s), and as soon as I rounded the corner and saw the elderly woman who lived in the house next to ours, whom I called Grandma Dot, it clicked. Neighbor.

I think that’s the day I really learned how to read.

From that moment on, I read everything I could get my hands on. I had library books, Scholastic Fair books, and, best of all, the grocery bags of books my mom bought for me at the local Goodwill and Salvation Army.  And of course, the Weekly Reader. When those ran out, I read our World Book Encyclopedia. And one time, my dad came home to find his 8-year-old daughter reading the Taming of the Shrew in his collected works of Shakespeare.

I read the encyclopedia and the back of the cereal box and the church program and the owner’s manual for the car and anything else within arm’s reach when I had to, but I wanted story.

Someone wrote, or perhaps I heard it said at a conference or workshop,

The human brain is hardwired for story.
We crave it so much that our brain
tells us stories all night long
and we call them dreams.

Or something like that.

I read voraciously, but I was also a social child. Cottoning on pretty early that it was rude to whip out a book and start reading when the conversation began to lag, I began oral storytelling.

In sixth grade, I was famous for holding court underneath the North Carolina pine trees after dinner and telling stories I made up on the fly. After the sun set, they became scary stories, and we all, including me, shivered with delicious fright as the tale was spun. Even I didn’t know how it was going to end.

I didn’t write them down.

By junior high, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I knew writers had to write to be writers, but there was something about the blank page that kept me from making a mark on it.

I only wrote for school assignments.

In high school, I fell in love with classic literature and gave up all hope of ever being able to write that well.

So, I was premed in college.

And then I dropped out when organic chemistry was close to stealing my will to live.

But I continued to tell oral stories to anyone who would listen. Some true. Some not.

When I feared my brain had turned to mush and was sliding out of my ear and down my neck, I re-enrolled in college a few years before my 40th birthday. It’s not germane to this discussion, but I eventually majored in Cultural Anthropology. The semester I took stats and theory, I was in desperate need of diversion and signed up for creative writing.

Doing what I always wanted to do with my GPA on the line kept me accountable. I mastered the blank page. It was dreck, but it was something.

And I found the state of being Diane Ackerman calls Deep Play.

Deep play is the ecstatic form of play.
In its thrall, all the play elements are visible,
but they’re taken to intense and transcendent heights.

My head, my heart, my soul, and my body were all in sync while I pounded keys trying to get the words into pixels before another synapse fired and they were gone.

I love the syncopation of my inner drum circle where id, ego, and superego jammed together, their beat thrumming through my body and my brain.

I write because it feels good. I write because I don’t just want to consume the needed story; I want to create it.

I write to be read. I think I have something to say that perhaps is of use to some people.

And I write to remember. I write to leave a legacy.

I write because that 6th-grade girl remembers the rush she felt when she knew her audience was leaning forward waiting for the next line.

Because we are all hardwired for story.