Susan Gallacher-Turner posted her 8 Random Facts for the Meme Tag on Wednesday, July 25th. She calls it “Playing Tag for Grown-Ups.” I like that. Susan’s blog is Susan’s Art and Words. She has wonderful photos of her colorful and fanciful sculptures. Billy Jones, the Blogging Poet just posted his 8 random facts and explains…
It was a long Harry Potter Weekend, even out here in the Midwest. On Friday I read about the pirating of “Deathly Halllows” and Scholastic’s countermeasures in the Wall Street Journal as I sat down for a “Fish in a Boat” lunch at a bohemian cafe near the City Museum where I’d gone to watch…
Susan Tweit and Jane Kirkpatrick tagged me for the EIGHT RANDOM FACTS meme which, upon doing a google search, I discovered is going around the blogging world like measles. Who knew? What’s a Meme, Mom? Here’s how Susan Tweit defines a meme:” The word originated with British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who used it first…
“Don’t be afraid to put your heart in the palm of your hands and shake the hands of your fellow human beings.” –Daniel Holland
What is fame to you? How would you know if you were famous? What would that do for you personally, if you were famous? What would it represent? Mean? How big an area would you have to be famous in to be satisfied? Does the itch to be famous ever stop, have boundaries, or just…
Today on Riehlife I’m featuring two poems that came to me simultaneously from my father, Erwin A. Thompson, and my writing friend Arletta Dawdy. Both, curiously, sound similar chords, perhaps on different instruments, so I wanted to run them together. Artletta’s poem presents a coming of age story…a searching and a finding that goes beyond…
I needed to have a going away party. And, so I did. Atop one of the loveliest, furthest-sweeping views of Clear Lake, at the Riviera Heights Club House, 30 friends–artists, writers, musicians, actors–met to celebrate the day, our art connections, good food (from the Mexican Restaurant T&T at the Lake), home-made music, singing, dancing, poetry,…
Maybe we need different places for different phases of our lives. Maybe cherished places remain alive inside us even if we have to move on—our attachment to the earth not thinned, but widened. ~Deborah Tall , “From Where We Stand: Recovering a Sense of Place” ~
The Daughter Remembers I remember when you woke me, Mom, at 1 a.m., against all precedent, to watch the shimmering red-blue aurora borealis and the dark night and stillness. You wrapped me in a red-checked blanket and held me close, until I fell asleep against you, arms wrapped tight. I remember when you divided the…
The Nurse Remembers I remember the first meeting, as we signed her up…being in silence as I took her vitals and did the paperwork. Her cancer was so large when we found it, you could see it in her breast. We talked about her pain. I remember when she first was wheeled in to the…