so this happened:
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Jan22
Category Archives: writing
Oct15
alive.
“A little boy sent me a charming card with a little drawing on it. I loved it. I answer all my children’s letters – sometimes very hastily – but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a Wild Thing on it. I wrote, ‘Dear Jim: I loved your card.’ Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said: ‘Jim loved your card so much he ate it.’ That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it, he ate it.”
Maurice Sendak, as noted by Luke Davies in an article in the Brisbane Times, December 3, 2011.
Photograph of Maurice Sendak by Joyce Dopkeen.
—
“we can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
– thornton wilder
Jul7
in gear.
what i imagine it looks like inside of our heads –
along with
the scientific explanation for how this all works.
—
“it usually helps me write by reading – somehow the reading gear in your head turns the writing gear.”
-steven wright
—
image credit: milton bradley game company
May23
change of heart.
A 9-year-old girl’s plea to save a sidewalk slab with a heart-shaped cavity has tugged at the heartstrings of Ann Arbor officials, who have agreed to let it stay. The inspector also spray-painted an X over the R that previously marked the slab for replacement, while writing “Save!” and giving the heart a fresh touch of color.
Where Dahlia left a note along the sidewalk last week making the case for keeping the slab, the city’s inspector on Monday left a response letter complete with the city seal on it. “Thank you for your wonderful letter, and for bringing this to our attention!” it reads. “Your note is very well written, and after further considerations, we feel this sidewalk slab can be saved. We’re so glad you let us know, and that we can save your ‘heart.’”
“Thank you for being so passionate and proactive about your community!” the response letter states. “When you’re old enough, you should consider working for the city to continue making it a great place to live. Sincerely, City Sidewalk Repair Program.”
Dahlia, the daughter of Kelly and Matt, said in her note to the ‘Sidewalk People” last week that she was devastated when she saw the slab was marked for replacement.
“You see, the heart is not just a heart,” she wrote. “Ever since I was little, I said hi to the heart. Don’t you see how much it means to me? Every time I pass the heart, I say hi and it brings me joy.”
Anyone else who wants to say hi to the heart now can find it along the east side of Seventh Street across from Waterworks Park between Murray Court and Washington Street.
—
“kind words do not cost much, yet they accomplish much.”
-blaise pascal
—
source credit: ryan stanton, mlive, ann arbor news
May22
have a heart.
“Dear Sidewalk People.”
That’s how 9-year-old Dahlia started her handwritten note placed under a rock along a city sidewalk hoping to get the attention of Ann Arbor’s crews slated to replace the slab she holds dear due to a distinctive feature.
This sidewalk has a heart.
“There is a heart in this block, and as me and my mom were walking home from school, we saw that there was an ‘R’ on the block that the heart is on,” reads the girl’s note, placed next to where she made a heart-shaped chalk outline around a small cavity in the slab the city has marked with an R to replace.
“You see, the heart is not just a heart,” wrote Dahlia, “Ever since I was little, I said hi to the heart. Don’t you see how much it means to me? Every time I pass the heart, I say hi and it brings me joy.”
Her father confirmed his daughter indeed says “hi, heart” every time she passes it. When she heard the city was going to replace the slab with the heart, Dahlia said she was devastated and cried.
“So can you please leave it or at least cut around the heart, for me to pick up on my way to school,” she wrote, ending her note by thanking the city’s repair crews for their work to keep sidewalks safe and encouraging them to give her note an extra read so it makes sense.
A spokesperson for the city’s public services unit did not have an immediate response on whether the sidewalk slab could be saved or whether the heart-shaped part could be salvaged for Dahlia to take.
While Dahlia really wanted to keep the heart sidewalk, her father said the family understands the need to fix it so people don’t trip and has talked with her about it.
“We compared it to the Halloween pumpkin she really loved and wanted to keep,” he said. “We told her we could keep it, but we could watch how when a pumpkin dies it helps nature by becoming part of something new.”
In that case, they put the pumpkin in their garden and Dahlia visited it every day and watched it decay, and in the spring she watched as flowers sprung up. She got to see her pumpkin again in the form of flowers.
As for her well-crafted sidewalk note, her father said while only 9, Dahlia is an amazing writer and gives him and his wife daily gems of wisdom worthy of the wisest, aged writers.
“sometimes the people who walk softly make the deepest impressions…”
-nitya prakash
—
source credit: ryan stanton, mlive, ann arbor
Feb11
this says…
“this says – i love my whole family.”
—
“writing isn’t letters on paper. it’s communication. it’s memory.”
-isaac marion
Jan17
handwritten.
“i love handwritten letters. the way the words get jumbled up when the writer’s excited.
the way the words get neat when the writer is trying not to make a mistake.
the way the words get pretty because the writer’s in love.
i love handwritten letters.”
-word porn
—
January 17th is National Send a Handwritten Letter Day.
The idea is to save the dying art of letter writing and help the ailing Post Office
by sending a letter(s) to someone you care about.
Who will you surprise with a letter? Saving the world one letter at a time.
Jan3
watching.
just a subtle reminder that
olive the cat not the martini garnish/editor at large/bon vivant
is always watching
ready to offer ‘worldly suggestions’ to improve my writing.
—
“you can observe a lot just by watching.”
-yogi berra
Oct21
write something.
after 4 years and 4 tries
at last i find myself in
the erma bombeck writer’s workshop
at the university of dayton
her alma mater
where she has left an endowment
to support writers of humor and the human condition
i’ve always admired her style of writing
her daughter spoke of growing up in the family
the joy of erma’s looks at life
already feeling inspired and so lucky
with very welcoming writers
of all shapes and sizes, ages and stages
beginning to accomplished author
each with a unique story and reason
all with a common passion
the desire to write.
—
“to say, ‘well, i write when i really get into it’ is a bunch of bull.
put the paper in the typewriter, stare at it a long time,
get snowblindness if you have to, but write something.”
-erma bombeck
Sep29
scribbles, scraps, and scrawls.
anyone who works with me, is related to me, or friends with me
knows i love writing my ideas/notes/lists
on any random found piece of paper
all makes perfect sense to me
interesting to look back at later
when out of context and a bit of time has gone by.
—
“but those who cannot write, and those who can, all rhyme, and scrawl, and scribble to a man.”
-alexander pope
—
note: (photo above is an “S” page ( S is for: scribbles, scraps and scrawls)
from a work-in progress – my memoir,
done in a large-format, alphabet book style,
using a bajillion collage pieces cut from everywhere – the best way i know to tell my story.)
I didn't have my glasses on.... 