Author Archives

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A New Year and a New Challenge

This month it was Heidi’s turn to pose the challenge for our writing group. Not one to do things by half, she created an elaborate, arrive-in-the-actual-mail, beautiful “12 Days of Yuletide Poetry Prompts”. Wow! She wrote: “My gift to you: a collection of 12 poetry prompts based on the words of my family’s Yuletide tradition. Starting on Dec. 21, the Winter Solstice, we light an additional candle each day which celebrates a “gift of the human spirit.” Pick one that appeals and address it however you like!”

Each day it was like a little gift awaited me, and I had great fun responding to the prompts in my notebook. Today I’m sharing my response to the first prompt for December 21st which was: “Call back the dying sun using 3 repetitions.” I imagined a lofty tone and a lovely, lyrical response. I even started writing that way in my notebook:

Oh, golden orb
    whose fading has left fields to fallow
    and set green to yield to white
    return, we beseech you!

But somehow things went in a different direction.

Beseeching The Sun on the Solstice

Each morning it rises
within me
a dark shadow to match
the dismal grey that’s saturated the sky
in a ceaseless array of somber tones
for seemingly weeks now.

The mounting dread and dismay
at day
after day
after day
with no sun,
no light, 
no warmth.

It’s the darkest day now
and it feels like there’s not a ray of hope
If the damn sun
doesn’t come out soon
I’m going to dissolve
into a million glum, sodden clumps
of sorrow and gloom
and rain down on everyone around me
just like the unrelenting drizzle
that’s been permeating the ground
leaving soggy trails of muck that suck
at my feet and bog me
down
down
down
until I whimper and whine
and retreat
to stare out the windows
into the abyss

There’s nothing benign about this relentless, 
repressive squash-your-spirits
grey, grey, grey

Sun,
I’m begging you
I’m pleading
I’m down on my knees
Come back!
Come back!
Come back!

©Molly Hogan

As you may surmise, December yielded day after day of no sun in my neck of the woods. No snow either. Just grey drizzle and chill. This is not typical, and let’s just say, I did not weather it with grace. I vacillated between wanting to rant and rave and feeling absolutely depleted and depressed. Writing about it helped a little. Having prompts to ponder everyday was another bright spot. (Thanks, Heidi!)

If you want to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on the links below:
Heidi
Mary Lee
Catherine
Linda
Margaret

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Marcie Flinchum Atkins today.

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Taking Stock of My Reading Life

As the new year has begun, many people have been sharing their reading lists from 2023. Even though I’m a lifelong avid reader, I’ve never kept track of my reading. There’s no particular reason why, I’ve just never really thought about doing so. All these lists nudged me to consider my own reading life. What did I read over the last year? When I stopped to think about it, I realized that I did not like what I saw.

I have to admit it: I’ve been stuck in a bit of a reading rut for quite a while now. Maybe more like a ditch, really. I read all the time, but I primarily read and reread lighter things. If I pick up a book and it starts to get stressful, I put it down. Emotional turmoil? No, thanks. If someone is going to die, forget about it. Due to this new habit of mine, I’ve sometimes found myself with 4-5 books partially read at one time. What I do finish is often not worth mentioning–or at least embarrassing to do so.

“I’ve been reading way too much crap lately,” I confided to a friend recently.

“There’s nothing wrong with reading crap,” she said.

“But,” I continued, “I’ve not just been reading crap, I’ve been rereading crap!”

“Oh,” she said. Then after a moment, she continued, “Well, you really should at least read fresh crap.”

Exactly!

So, it occurred to me that keeping a list of books I’ve read might be a good way to hold myself accountable for upping my reading game–for digging my way out of this trough. If I have to write down the title, and maybe share it sometime, it might spur me to be more selective about what I’m reading. I mean if it gets too stressful for me, I can always opt out, right?

Stay tuned!

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Sticky Buns

In our home, it’s not Christmas without sticky buns. This year I briefly toyed with the idea of not making them– maybe I was a bit more tired, maybe I was feeling less than festive- but still I made them, and as they always do, they worked their magic.

Sticky Buns

I did not want to cook
or bake or clean away
the dirtied dishes
yet again.

Still, with a sigh
I measured, heated, cooled, combined,
set aside the bowl for the first rise.

Later, I rolled out the dough–
grown with the mysterious gift of yeast
to double its size–
then spread the melted butter
sprinkled clouds of cinnamon sugar.

Slowly my shoulders relaxed,
my jaw softened as I eased
into each step
following the journey of the recipe
forward and also backward
to my mother
to my grandmother.

How many times did they stand just so-
alone in a kitchen
maybe tired and distracted
creating the sticky buns 
that sweetened each  
holiday morning of my childhood?

Did they ever imagine that my thoughts
of them would be forever
cinnamon-brown-sugar-sweet
tightly-rolled and baked to golden perfection
the centerpiece of every Christmas morning
past, present
and future?

©Molly Hogan, draft

The holidays are steeped in memories. As I wrote in my post on Tuesday, they are wrapped in past and present. In my world, sticky buns are a perfect example of this.

This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Michelle Kogan. She’s sharing a wonderful assortment of elfchens. Be forewarned: I suspect that writing them might be as addictive as eating sticky buns! Just one more…

May the past infuse your present with sweetness and a sense of connection as we enter the new year.

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The Gifts of Christmas, Past and Present

After the gift opening and the Great Food Indulgence (aka brunch), we headed to the beach. On the way down we wondered how the beach would look after the recent storm. Would there be a lot of driftwood? How had the dunes fared? Erosion in past storms had actually revealed military rocket motors and casings from World War 2, when the beach was used for military target practice. We chatted about this and that, wondering aloud what we would find there today.

We arrived to find only a few cars in the parking lot. Nick and Lydia headed off to explore the fort, and Kurt and I wandered on the path toward the beach. Already we saw mounds of debris and driftwood along the path’s edges. We came upon a white-haired man sitting on a bench overlooking the water.

“What a beautiful day!” I said, as we approached him.

“Yes, it is,” he agreed. We exchanged holiday greetings and marveled over the layered debris from the storm. He mentioned how he remembered finding bullet casings on the beach as a kid, and we exclaimed how we’d just been talking about that.

After a few minutes, I gave in to the lure of the beach, the shifting blues and silhouettes, and wandered ahead to take pictures. Kurt stayed to talk.

A while later, Kurt caught up with me.

“Were you talking all that time with that man?” I asked.

“We talked for a while. He sprinkled his mom’s ashes here a few years ago, so he comes here every Christmas day. He told me, ‘I don’t think she can hear me. Probably not. But still I like to come.'”

“Oh, I’m so glad you stayed and talked with him.”

“Yeah. He told me that he had diabetes and that he’d had a heart attack. He talked about not knowing what each day would bring and needing to enjoy the time you have.” 

Then Kurt said that as he left to join me, the man apologized, saying to him, “Hey, sorry to talk about such downer stuff.”

“It’s not downer stuff,” Kurt responded, “It’s just life, man.”

I think of that man now, sitting on that bench alone. Of how I wandered on without his story, content to investigate a different one. Of how Kurt stayed to talk, to ask questions, to connect.

I took lots of pictures yesterday. Mostly of sun and sand. Of storm-tossed trees and piles of debris. Even one or two of my family. But of all the images I saw yesterday, it’s the one I didn’t take that is strongest in my mind. That man sitting quietly on the bench, looking out at the water, thinking of life, his challenges, and mostly, remembering his mother.

Later on our walk, we came across another bench. Another story of love and loss. Of remembrance. This time I paused for a little longer, holding my own loved ones, near and far, close in my heart.

The holidays are wrapped in both past and present. Here’s hoping yours were filled with handfuls of love and laughter and seasoned with memories that brought more smiles than tears. Wishing you peace, joy and light as we head into the new year.

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Making a Fashion Statement…of a sort…

I picked up the pink, wool sweater and put it on top of my pile of clothes on the bathroom counter. There! Ready for tomorrow! I thought, satisfied to have that annoying nightly chore done.

I turned to head toward bed and my book, when something caught my eye.

Wait…what’s that? Is that a hole?

I turned back and picked up the sweater. Sure enough, there was a hole, front and center. A few forlorn threads lay broken and unraveled, circling a glaringly empty space. No chance of hiding this one. Or was there? I pulled two of the largest threads together, trying to knot them up and hide the damage, but there wasn’t quite enough slack. I tugged again, turning the fabric this way and that. Finally, after a few more attempts, I gave up. I looked down at the sweater and its now-a-bit-larger hole. Maybe…Could I just…? No, I told myself firmly, there is no way you can get away with that.

Sighing, I walked over to the closet and pulled an alternative sweater off the shelf. Hmmmm….it looked a bit…off. The sweater was supposed to be soft and slightly fuzzy, but this garment looked a bit more than that, not pilly, but maybe a bit too much like the llama or whatever creature had donated the original fibers. I took it back to the bathroom, grabbed a pair of scissors and snipped strategically, removing some longer bits and pieces. Then, I held it up before me and gave it a quick glance. That’s better, I thought. I put it down on the pile and headed off to bed, well satisfied, once again, to have that task done.

At the end of the next day, as I walked my class back from Library, the student next to me spoke up.

“Mrs. Hogan?”

“Yes?”

“Is your sweater made of ….” she hesitated, tentatively touched my arm, then continued, “…cat?”

“Cat?!” I exclaimed.

“Well,” she said, “it’s sort of all fuzzy and…” she gestured vaguely at it, waving her hands. “Well, I just thought maybe it was made of cat fur…” She trailed off, looking a bit uncertain.

“Um, no,” I responded, unsure whether to laugh or cringe, but certainly not wanting her to feel bad. “I’m not sure what it is, but it’s definitely not cat.” I looked down, seeing my sweater with new eyes. I lifted my arm to look closer at the fuzzy threads. Cat!?!

We walked the rest of the way back to class. Every so often the student gave my arm a sidelong glance and a discrete pat. I’m not sure she was buying my denial.

Tonight I’ll try to bring a more critical eye to the task of garment selection. And this sweater? Well, I definitely won’t be wearing it to school again!

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PF: Inkling Challenge: luc bat

This month it was my turn to choose the Inklings challenge. I was intrigued by Wendy Everard’s prompt during Ethical ELA’s October Open Write to write a luc bat. Luc bat means six eight in Vietnamese, and the form alternates 6 and 8 syllable lines. There is no particular subject and no required length, but there is an interesting, interwoven rhyme scheme. Here’s how Writer’s Digest shows it:

xxxxxA
xxxxxAxB
xxxxxB
xxxxxBxC
xxxxxC
xxxxxCxD
xxxxxD
xxxxxDxE

You can read their full description here.

I knew I wanted to play around with this form, and I figured if I set it as the challenge, I’d be sure to do so. It turned out to be a relatively tricky form, at least for me. So, as I’m wont to do, I turned to the marsh for inspiration.

Again I Turn to the Marsh

dawn lures me to the marsh
some find this setting harsh and miss
the subtle shifts and bliss
of tide, land, wings that kiss the sky
as herons, egrets fly
gulls soar, their strokes a sigh, a clue
of movement against blue
and all that is askew turns right
My spirits, too, take flight

©Molly Hogan

If you want to see what the other Inklings did with this challenge, click on the links below:

Linda Mitchell
Margaret Simon
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn
Catherine Flynn

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Anastasia Suen at her blog.

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Radiator Adventures

“Well, one thing that could help is make sure that the radiators are dust free,” the man commented. “Just take a vacuum to them.” He was sitting on a chair in our living room, talking to us about our furnace, possible replacements and overall issues with heating our 200+ year old home.

We looked at each other guiltily.

Oops!

I peeked over at the closest radiator. Even without removing the metal strips, I could see dust inside, and it may just have been a slight breeze moving through(remember…old house!), but I think one of the larger clusters waved at me tauntingly. I immediately added “Vacuum out the radiators” to my towering mental list of good intentions.

Fast forward a month or two and we’re in full home improvement mode. No, we haven’t vacuumed out the radiators yet, but we’re repainting the living room. We’ve removed the furniture from the room and Kurt has repaired various cracks and divots. The ceilings are done and it’s time to clean the walls and trim and get that started. This is all to explain how I came to be sitting on the floor, taking the long, external metal plates off the radiator, with the vaccuum sitting next to me, looking appropriately serious and intense. We both suspected this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park.

We had no idea.

I removed the splice plate and the two long metal strips came off easily. For your reference, below is a picture of what the inside of a clean baseboard radiator looks like. Add about an inch of accumulated dust and grit to this and you’ll have an idea what mine looked like.

“EW!” I exclaimed, calling out to my husband who was in another part of the house. “Kurt, I could make a small animal out of this!”

Dust lay like a thick Shetland sweater over the heater fins. (No wonder we’d had a hard time heating this room!) I reached over and peeled a thick layer up and off. I think I may have blushed. This was even outside of my normal low housekeeping standards! Thank heavens for a sturdy vacuum. I gave it an affectionate pat, turned it on and we got to work.

There’s a deep satisfaction to listening to grit and debris getting sucked into a vacuum. I watched the dust zip away, feeling ever more virtuous. Bit by bit the radiator fins came into sight, as did a few lost treasures–a marble, a random earring, some paperclips. I was going to have the cleanest baseboard radiators in town!

That’s when it happened. The vacuum came to an especially thick clump of dust and didn’t tidily suck it away. Oh, it tried valiantly, but the dust clump remained. I tried a few different angles. Nothing worked. Turning off the vacuum, I poked with my finger at the stubborn clump. Why wouldn’t it go up the vacuum hose? Was it another earring? A toy lost long ago? I leaned in to take a closer look.

Uh oh

“Kurt,” I wailed. “I’m pretty sure there are feet in this dust clump!”

Whatever it was, it had clearly been there a long time and had no intention of disappearing up a vacuum hose. I held my breath, took the vacuum attachment and carefully poked it under an edge of the clump, flipping it up and over. The soles of four little feet came into view, pointing stiffly upward. Beneath the shroud of thick dust were the desiccated remains of a small critter.

“It’s a mouse!” I shrieked.

“Well, get rid of it,” Kurt answered, still safely away in the other room.

“Do you realize that all the times we said, ‘Oh, something smells bad. I guess something must have died in the walls’ (which if you have ever lived in an old house is just a thing that gets said sometimes), there was actually some creature cooking on our radiator! In the same room with us! And we were breathing that air!?!”

I said this, in various iterations multiple times.

“The very air we were breathing!”

“It was just right there, cooking away!”

“It was like a mouse barbecue!”

Then finally, after disposing of the remains, I announced, “Kurt, this is so disgusting. If you ever tell anyone about this, I am going to deny it.”

Unless I write about it…

Note: This morning as I write this (and I kid you not!), my cat is poised in the corner where the radiator meets the wall. She hasn’t moved for food or affection, both an essential part of her morning routine. She’s gazing intensely at the radiator. Her tail is twitching. Every so often she madly scrabbles her paws underneath the metal plates. I know what this means!

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PF: Considering the spider

Earlier this fall when I was at the marsh, I spied a spider, peering from a web constructed in the whirl of a milkweed leave. My pictures didn’t turn out, but I’ve thought about that spider again and again: There was something about it, its web, and it’s watchful stance. It seemed poised at the edge of advance and retreat. I could relate only too well.

Considering the spider

What does Spider think
as it poises itself there?
Is it rapt at fall’s advance,
at the golden autumn air?
Or does it sense its coming end…
the frailness of its lair?

©Molly Hogan

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Karen Edmisten at her blog.

PS Here are a couple of other spiders I did manage to “capture” early this fall.

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Early Bird Sale

I told myself earlier in the week that I wasn’t going to be able to go. I simply had too many things going on and couldn’t spare the time. I hadn’t really thought about it again. Or so I thought.

Then, early on Saturday morning, soon after I’d started writing, I glanced at my watch. 6:05 am.

Oh, the Early Bird Sale has started.

The thought instantly popped into my head. Clearly, I hadn’t fully submerged it.

What’s an Early Bird Sale you ask? Well, in a nutshell, it’s earlier opening hours at local stores with a generous discount and encouragement to wear your PJs as you shop. At my local bookstore it was 25% off all books from 6-9 am. Every year I choose a book for each family member for Christmas. The Early Bird Sale is the kickoff of my holiday shopping and one of my favorite parts of the holiday season. But this year I’d already decided not to go. I had a very busy weekend ahead with lots of plans and obligations.

Still…

My pen hovered.

I wavered.

Usually I spend time in advance of the sale reading reviews, pondering my options and enjoying creating a list. This year I cobbled together some ideas from a few trusted sources and was out the door half an hour after deciding to go. Actually, I’m not sure I ever fully decided. I just suddenly found myself still in my PJs, list in hand, getting out of my car in the parking lot, and feeling vaguely guilty and very excited.

I wandered into the store out of the chilly, dark morning and was greeted with light, warmth and the hubbub of bright voices and happy conversation. I immediately relaxed. This was where I wanted to be.

I started with new releases. The newest Stephen King was out, but I knew at least two of my family had already bought and read it. I kept an eye out for the titles I’d scribbled down. I looked at Staff Picks, picked up books, read blurbs, considered my options. As I wandered, I listened in to others’ conversations, chimed in a few times, touched the covers of “old friends” affectionately, and breathed in the intoxicating aroma of new books.

After I’d been there a little while, the owner approached me, “Can I help you find something? Oh! I see you have a list! What are you looking for?”

I then spent a delightful 20-30 minutes with her. I’d ask if she had a certain book and she’d say “Yes” or “No”. If they had it, she’d show me where to find it. But, really the fun started with the “No’s”, and especially the “No, but’s…”

“No, but have you read this one?”
or
“No, but I do have one that sounds similar…”
or
“No, but have you read that author’s last book?”

Or she’d tell me she hadn’t heard of a book I was looking for and ask me to tell her about it. I would and then my description would connect to other books, other authors, other sections of the store.

Last Friday I posted a prose and poem combo describing kids at a recent recess delighting in the flurry of autumn leaves falling in the breeze. They had whirled and twirled, stretching their hands out over their heads, trying to catch the leaves as they fell. They had been completely lost in the wonder of it all.

I felt a lot like that in the bookstore on Saturday morning. Immersed in book talk. Giddy with books and the potential of them all. Loving thinking about my family and the interests and nuances of each of them. Busy stretching out, trying to “catch” the perfect book choice and lost in the wonder of all those words. All those books.

When I left the store an hour or so later, I had a large bag brimming with books. I know I was smiling, and I’m pretty sure my face was glowing just like the kids’ faces at recess that day.

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PF: Finding poetry in prose

This month Linda challenged our writing group to write a prose piece and find a poem in it. She offered a variety of options within that challenge, but I opted to go with the original basic prompt. Thanks, Linda, for the nudge to revisit this small moment at recess and find the poetry within it.

The breeze blew erratically in unpredictable puffs. With every gust, leaves flew off the tree in a crimson cloud, like a flock of birds, spinning and twirling away into the chilly air. Around the tree and across the fields and playground, children played. Some kicked around a soccer ball. Some were involved in an intense game of kickball. Others played chase or pumped themselves high into the achingly blue sky on swings. And some twirled and swirled beneath the tree, like the leaves themselves. Their hands were outstretched, reaching to catch the falling leaves. Leaves falling like rain onto their heads, into their hands, and onto the ground around them. They spun and spun, their faces lit with joy and autumn sun. And they laughed at the unexpected wonder of it all.

Soaring

Like a flock of birds
or falling leaves
children
twirl
swirl
their wonder-washed faces
shiny and bright
giddy with autumn joy

©Molly Hogan

Click on the links below to see how the other Inklings met this challenge:
Linda Mitchell
Margaret Simon
Heidi Mordhorst
MaryLee Hahn
Catherine Flynn

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Buffy Silverman at her blog.