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Karma Free Writing will be offering 27 Days of Karma Free Writing Prompts starting on the 1st day of Spring. These writing prompts are designed to stimulate the creative process for writing your personal story - and beyond.
27 Day Karma Free Writing Prompts - Honorarium
The 1st 14 days are free. To go the whole 27 days there is a $27 honorarium.
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2010
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March
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- DAY #12. THEME: "REVISIT"
- Day #11 - Theme: "For me? You shouldn't have!"
- Day #10. Theme: "Turning Points"
- Day #9 - Theme: "Body Parts Know"
- Day #8. Theme: "I am HEALED!!"
- Day #7 - Theme: "Fun or Fear"
- Day #6. "Buying a pair of shoes."
- Day #5. "That Part Of My Live Is Over Now."
- Day #4. "That which is no longer."
- Day #3. "My Whole Life Was About To Change - I jus...
- Day #2. "Should of, would of, could of ... IF ONLY"
- "Prompt #1 - Things my parents taught me"
- KFWB - 27 Day Writing prompts - Intro
- Tomorrow We Start !!
- Almost there !! Two More Days !!!
- 5 More Days until the 27 Day Karma Free Writing Pr...
- One Week - Saturday March 20th 2010 - The 1st Day ...
- 27 Day "Karma Free" Writing Program set to start M...
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March
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About Me
Home. It's cliche. It is no longer. I can go there. The town is there, sort of.
ReplyDeleteIt was small, full of farmers and ranchers. People who knew the earth, the skies, trees. All of us had gardens. Some of us had things like chickens or ducks. We'd fish for crawdaddies with bacon tied to a string. We'd wander around town at all hours. We ate burgers at the tiger grill.
It wasn't that long ago that it was long distance to Dallas. Now people think it is Dallas.
It is older than Dallas.
Sprawl and a tornado killed it. One day it was a an old town full of charm and cozy potential. A place that Bonnie and Clyde ripped through and robbed.
That night it was gone. Half the town square disappeared. A dive by the creek was picked up and plopped down fifty feet away. All five the 80 year old poker players still in their chairs but cards revealed.
One car sat still in the driveway. The truck next to it had it's camper shell snatched off and taken some place unknown.
The old couple up the street shimmied into their closet with a mattress on top of them. The wind sucked off the roof, sucked away the house, pulled open the door the closet,vacccumed away their shoes and left. All that was left of their home was their door-less closet.
The trees were gone. It was called the City of Trees. No more. It even took the grass. It became a town without sod.
they didn't re-build the square. It still stands, a memory to half-baked charm. Half a square, half the hope, half the potential. Even the safe that Bonnie and Clyde robbed was sucked up and pulled away.
A town full of stuff...houses, books, cars, buildings, kitch, photos, blenders, lawnmowers, cash registers, gasoline pumps, the Tiger Grill sucked up, pulled apart and scattered.
But no one ever found the debris.
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ReplyDeleteIt again was fall, with rain. The dark, dead, doom of winter on the Great Plains was nearing. The true nature of nature was now showing its face. Willa Cather must have been Viking stock or of Mongolian breed. The pioneers who settled here had strength of machines. How would people of today survive 150 years ago? How would it have been possible without all our modern conveniences, our creature comforts? Where would my father be without his Homedics BB3 Foot Massaging Bubbler Foot Bath? -How could my mother live without her lighter? -How could my wife survive without her iPhone? -My mother in law without her remote control? –My sister’s doubles matches? -My brother’s airport access to TED lectures? -My sister’s Volvo that continues to break down? How could I go on for a single moment without a Grande Soy Latte Macchiato? I shudder island to think.
ReplyDeleteI was driving around this place last fall; the town on the Missouri that I was born in, raised in, remained in until my early twenties. I was emotional, driving my Dodge Stratus from Hertz. Hertz had the best deal on Kayak that day. This was the first time back that I was alone, the first time I had to explore, to let my eyes see the city with no distractions. My heart surprised me and was able to let in my childhood, my adolescence, my memories of a place I never really saw, rarely understood or cared about. It was an exciting slow ride in my Stratus…Foghat blaring on Z-92 FM. My parents had picked an amazing town; rolling hills, changing seasons, a large enough population with different races, with high and low economic neighborhoods, parks, libraries… funny how I never saw any of it growing up.
I notice the new sign, “IOWA – HOME OF THE HEARTLAND.” It used to say, “IOWA – A PLACE TO GROW.” This is the sign that welcomes you to Iowa as you’re leaving the state of Illinois, which is separated by a very narrow, muddy and oily Mississippi River.
ReplyDeleteAs beautiful as Iowa is, there isn’t much to do there. Of course, if you’re a farmer, that’s not true. Your work never ends, up at dawn and asleep well after dark, your hands are in the soil, the deep rich land I called home for 18 years. My Dad wasn’t a farmer, but Uncle Aaron was and we got to visit his farm often, feeding the pigs and riding on the horses. We got to ride with him on the tractor, too. The smell of manure assaulted my nostrils at first, but I soon became used to the stench.
Pulling into the driveway at my parents condo, I stuck my head out the window and breathed in the freshest air I’d smelled in months. I was enjoying my studies in New York as well as the excitement of city life, but the country was soothing to the soul. I relished the clean air, vast sky and wide open spaces. I delighted in the feeling of safety and the loving arms of my family. I couldn’t wait to change my clothes and go sailing with my dad.
We sailed back and forth across the narrow Mississippi River, avoiding the barges as they’d briskly chug by, waving at the men on board. Dad was a good captain and I was an appreciative passenger, sprawling on the front of the boat in my bikini, soaking up the sun. I breathed in the vast space. It filled my soul and awakened my inner senses. Was freedom really being away from home? This home of the heartland, this home where I grew up, this home sweet home where my life had begun. Splash! I leaped off the front of the boat into the cold river, fully alive!
Does anyone know why we're writing for 27 days in a row? What is the significance of the number 27? Or is it just a random number . . . Joshua?
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ReplyDeleteI remember the field behind our house
ReplyDeleteIt seemed to go on forever
Venturing out “thataway” was truly an act of courage
I remember wild strawberries along the side of the dirt road
Tall grass and weeds that did a dandy job of hiding me
when I didn’t want to be found.
Nothing but me and weeds and grass....for miles.
(well, it was probably more like yards, but I was smaller then).
And now...
houses and driveways and mailboxes lined up
concealing nothing and revealing nothing
nothing mysterious and dangerous out here
just the mindless repetition of a mass produced security
a neatly ordered universe of civilization...
and the grass and weeds and the strawberries
they still harbor me in the untamed backyard of my mind
Today's posts are simply gorgeous! ..Had to do technical writing all day and my tendinitis aka tennis elbow flared up again.:( Sorry mine's lackluster.. but happy to share. Thank you everyone for the inspiration.
ReplyDeleteI moved back into the neighbor a few months ago with a fiancé. How adult I felt and happy too.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was refreshing at first. I had come full circle. From the dorms to my future married life.
The buildings appeared all brand new. I think it started when they built a new bookstore. I remember the old one from getting my books there every semester. It was just one room filled with piles of scores, textbooks and manuscripts. I remember—do you?
Now the newly branded bookstore is across the street. Filled with merchandise in both window fronts and more accessories than I’ve ever imagined existed. Normally, I love that stuff. But it’s just not worth much to me. There’s something to be said for sentimental value.
Even Tower Records is gone. There’s a Best Buy, with squeaky-clean escalators. It’s just not the same. People used to buy tapes here, now you can get a flat screen or two. I’ve never gone to the in store musical performances, because it’s too complicated.
I finally accepted an invitation and dared to explore the new annex. It was an acoustic set, so I figured it could be more organic. Less branded, hopefully. It was complicated to find the stage. I had to text my friend directions.
Remember when you could sneak into other recitals or rehearsals without missing class? Remember when we looked at our professors and each other in wonderment? Remember how the world was our oyster?
KT bear: I love the weeds and grass and strawberries. What a great image.
ReplyDeleteA/A/A: Love the "uncle aaron", that the choice is that and not my uncle aaron. it immediately makes me identify with you, as if he's my uncle too. I feel the familiarity of the midwest, the down home feeling, immediately.
I had a real methodology for that pen drawer, and thinking about it even now, it gives me a sort of thrill, and I strongly desire to be at my parents’ house, in the kitchen, an empty slot where the pen drawer used to be, and its contents on the kitchen table. I would test out each and every pen, throw out those whose ink had run dry, affix caps on the correct pens, sharpen pencils until they had perfect points, put the pennies into the change drawer (that was a whole other day’s work!) and place like writing utensils together, so no one would ever be confused if they wanted to jot something down.
ReplyDeleteThe refrigerator usually came next. My father, a product of extreme poverty, had arrived in this country with literally five dollars in his pocket, and kept all foodstuffs at least one year beyond their expiration dates, including yogurt that had green mold on its white peaks, and bread that had turned black and dry with age. So as not to meet with his angry resistance, I’d clean the frig when my parents were out of the house, while watching forbidden shows on the black and white 13-inch TV, and eating the crust off a frozen pie my mother had hidden in the basement freezer in case of sudden company. Once, over a matter of six months, I ate almost an entire pie this way, and when company did come, only the round middle of the pie was left. Somehow I thought that no one would notice if I ate the pie in concentric circles, because the shape stayed the same. I was actually surprised my mother figured it out and had a hissy fit about it. I wish I had told her what I know now: if you tell your child that something is forbidden, she will do that very thing for the rest of her life with the utmost pleasure and the utmost masciscism. Until this day, I watch sexy TV shows (I graduated to a color flat screen) while eating sweets. It’s one of my favorite things to do. Well, just after organizing my parents’ pen drawer and refrigerator.
You know how sometimes you own something that you were never really a part of? Like Woodstock, or the Moon launch, or Obama’s election if you didn’t vote, or American Idol if you did? Well, I felt that way when Tower Records closed. I don’t think I ever shopped there more than once or twice, but it was legend, man. You’ve got to say “Man” because that was the era. I felt like it was me who saw Robert Plant picking through albums at midnight in a nearly empty store. I felt like it was me who stood in line when the Cars did their record signing or when Rod Stewart got in that famous fight with Brit Ekland. Really I just remember it as a place that I drove by on Sunset Blvd. so many, many times, hardly noticing it in the array of visual feast and art and signage that was Sunset Blvd in those years. Going East on Sunset, Tower records on the left. It was always there and was always going to be there. Like the World Trade Center, or your Father, or Girlfriend. And then it was gone. Its passing announced before its’ demise on the nightly news. “Local landmark closing”, like the Brown Derby or Book Soup. Is Book Soup still open? Tower records stood for a time when albums were vinyl and album covers were art. When hair was long and Weed was illegal. When cell phones didn’t exist and your dreams still did.
ReplyDeleteWhat is no longer there…lush green vegetable gardens a water pump a half acre of beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, the sun blasting down on my 40 year old mother as she picks out weeds smoothes the soil and I play in the backyard under the enormous willow with its flowing branches and the music from a transistor radio plays somewhere inside the house as my sister gets ready for her date and we wait for the afternoon to pass. My mother insisting I eat a string bean raw and the crunch of it between my teeth and the richness of the afternoon because of nothing in particular except here in this time and place something still feels intact and real and a neighbor drops by in my tiny neighborhood by the water and life seems rich and perfect and whole. My father rushes into the backyard in a frenzy and examines the take from the garden his mouth watering demanding that we eat soon because he does not have much time and must get back to his job and put the finishing touches on a patio he has just poured and he is hungry so hungry for his pasta and the fresh tangy red sauce my mother made from the glowing garden tomatoes. He barely notices me making a mess as usual in the mud and dirt while my sister leaves through the front door for a summer date with girlfriends her hair curled, lipstick blood red, her skirt short enough to show her knees. Summer. I say the words in my mouth like I am eating a ripe cherry. I love the summer. Freedom, no school, freedom. Do whatever I want all day long. Bliss. I know it will end as each day passing kills my freedom but it can’t it mustn’t because once this day is gone once it is over it is over bye bye forever and even as a child I sense how fragile this is yet I take it all for granted. My mother stays forty and beautiful, my father virile and strong, my sister kind, smiling, excited about her life unfolding before her. Somewhere inside I am already grieving.
ReplyDeleteDeana-absolutely fascinating!
ReplyDeleteThe old stone house is there, but the cellar out back is gone. Gone are the cobwebs, the broken-down shelves, the jars of canned peaches coated with dust. Gone the damp earth smell, the heavy plank door that slammed like the lid of a coffin.
ReplyDeleteGone are the thick vines from the balcony over the door, the vines I slid down when I sneaked out at night.
Gone are the Lincoln-log cities the little boys built in their third-floor attic bedroom, gone the cardboard dresser where Bruce’s stray cat gave birth to stillborn kittens. Gone the gun Steve locked himself in the bathroom with when Bruce came after him with his motorcycle chain.
Gone is the pogo stick I jumped on 117 times to beat Johnny Trout’s record. Gone is the old garage with its asphalt roof where I found the sexy parts of the books Ron Hixon and I pored over. Gone the trashcans Jimmy Robison and I kicked on restless autumn nights. Gone the roosters the Hiltons kept next door, gone the smoke from old Mr. Hilton’s pipe, gone his wife’s gruff foreign grumbling.
Gone is the meteor trace of the most popular girl to ever flash through Montrose high, burning, burning as she crossed. Gone her pompoms, her script of The Importance of Being Earnest, the hair trimmed from her bangs. Gone the small white radio where I heard her call in from her manic state, heard my mother say, Karen Anne, get off that phone right now.
Gone the tired mother and her red pencil and her endless fears. Gone her Pond’s Cold Cream, and her glasses, and her frown and worry lines. Gone her sewing machine and her good sewing scissors that Bruce used to cut cardboard. Gone the coffee table embossed with Bruce’s initials, his dyslexic B backward.
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ReplyDeleteTheme: That which is no longer
ReplyDeletePlaces made up of faces… Masking who we “really” are! A place I go is inside of myself and it no longer exists. And still that place is with me everywhere I go. That place only exists in my mind. It’s not real?
If I told the truth about those places they are dark and mean and ugly and hateful and scary. Who the hell is that I’m talking about? Not me. It’s, the me inside me now? It’s the “Me” I use to be. A place I don’t want to go again.
Morality. Go f… your morals. They have no place in my life. I live by my own rules… Ranting I know… I do it all them time… even in my head thinking and thinking… about all the shit I did.
I if told me, about me, (not the me I am now) the me, I use to be and the things I did. I would say: “that girl is sick and really needs some help”. If I think too long, I can’t write, I just have to get the crap out as I think it, even if it only makes sense to me. OK, so I do care about morals. That’s a big fat lie?
Remembering. Going back to that place/time in my life when I only cared about me. I think I’d rather just “be here” where I am NOW. And I love and feel loved. It’s such a great place to be.
The kitchen light is off. As I pull up the long, gravel entrance the house is lifeless. The dogs are gone, the flower beds are overgrown, and the only signs of life is that someone keeps the lawn mowed.
ReplyDeleteMy Grams' body temple lays underground, wearing her trademark red lipstick and beautiful green dress. Her favorite dog passed only a few weeks before she.
Granddad's sharp and witty mind has slowed to a crawl as he is in constant care an hr west in the nearest major city. His tall stature is no longer, as he sits in a wheelchair. Also gone is his demeaning nature. Forced to be gentle by his failing health and extreme lonliness, seems he finally got it in his last years. Gone is his days sitting with the gavel imposing judgement on those who broke a law. Gone is this job that he took home with him and everywhere he went. Gone is the judge, legally and personaly.
Gone is my youth spent on the ranch mending and painting fences, grubbin mesquite trees from the fields, riding in the truck with the foreman who had a beer in his hand all day long, or eating a tub of ice cream in front of the tv while my sweet grandmother laughed at slapstick humor with me in the evening.
The house is silent. No longer is the home of Grandparents. Two of those that were so dear to me in my youth and had such impactful presence on me. In beauty ways, and in not so beauty ways.
How will I ever make up the spoiled behavior? How can I ever show them the man I've become? That which is no longer is the advantagious youth who took the wealth for granted, that lied to get anything he wanted. No longer would I empty the liquor cabinet Grandad. No longer would I throw wild parties at the bunkhouse for the local youth. No longer, my generous family, no longer do I take for granted the gift of family. As the eldest of the family is no longer, what remains is paramount to heal and bring close to the heart again.
All the physical place are still there. Strange to say after 40 years. What is changed are the places in the heart...
ReplyDeleteThe Free School. Freeport Blvd. Sacramento. It’s not a school anymore, it’s just a house, like it was before it became a school. I wonder if it remembers being a school. It feels like summer when I go back there now. The house sits on a knoll, in a grove of pine trees. I dug a pit there one day under those pines and slept outside by a fire, overnight, by myself, on the ground, a cigar in the pocket of my barkeep’s vest. When I woke the next morning, I lit the cigar, a Swisher Sweet, like I was a man. It seems now that I had a beard, a mustache, the body of a man. Maybe the soul of a man. I was seven. 1969 becoming 1970. My mom was ditching the hard right world of Walnut Grove, pop. 725. She heard a story on KZAP the radical radio station about a new school, The Free School, based on A.S. Neill’s book “Summer Hill school”. Viola was the DJ, having her rant about public schools and the man. Viola would become my mom’s best friend and the first lesbian I ever knew. That’s how we ended up there, with a bunch of hippies and ex-San Francisco/Berkeley castoffs. Like Les, a teacher at the school, who 20 years later would become our stepfather -- for a year. Les, Berkeley grad, convicted felon, sold some drugs to the feds, was awaiting sentencing, was teaching. 1969. My second grade teacher was facing hard time. Perfect. Teaching us to play monopoly and airband to the Stones, Hendrix, the Beattles, Wwwwwwwipeout. I see a big living room with a fireplace. I loved building fires. None of the city kids knew shit about fires. My grandfather taught me in Walnut Grove. Ball up the paper, set the wood on top but with enough space so the air can flow, “Get a good draft going and presto.” I was the master fire builder. I was the master of seven turning eight. Down the hall lived the bedrooms; a family room and a big craftsman porch. The kitchen was on the right, with a side entrance to the house. We lived upstairs in the attic for a while. Or slept upstairs, kept our things there, our clothes. All my clothes fit in a small cardboard box. My sister and I shared a mattress on the floor. Not sad, an adventure. It was the sixties; she was eight turning nine. Then 1970 arrived and two dirty kids sharing a mattress on the floor of an attic was criminal. How many times some square peg looked at me sideways, in my leather moccasins, blonde flowing mane, head band, dirty jeans, shirtless and said, “Don’t you have parents?” I remember once spitting, “Fuck you, pig!” Only because I heard Les yell it at some pushy cops at a rally at the capitol. We were allowed to swear; to do whatever the hell we wanted so long as we didn’t hurt someone. “Freedom doesn’t give you the license to hurt someone,” Les and the other teachers preached. That made sense to me at seven. Other kids like chubby Timmy Kelley and the tallest of us all Chimayo didn’t get that so much and I had to fight them until one of us bled. Lost one, won one. I smoked cigarettes, cigars, pot, hash, whatever the double-ditch hell I wanted. Shot myself in the hand with a tear gas gun, split my head open at the bottom of a palm tree, got naked with every girl in my class, Kelley, Lindy, Ciana, Laura, and what’s her name. Big girl, wild black hair, crazy eyes. Went to peace rallies at the capitol and mini-Woodstocks from San Francisco to Washington. By then I’d turned eight and could cook, clean, wash and think for myself. And thinking for myself, I knew if I stayed too long, in that place in time, I might never escape. The drugs hurt people, made them sick, killed some. For others it was a confusing time. Like that kid in our class, I can see his face, crazy Darwin’s older brother, Jeff Moon. His parents were deeply religious. Jeff Moon who hung himself from a tree in the front yard of his girlfriend’s house. She didn’t want to be his girlfriend anymore. Nobody was surprised that he was the first to go. He was never really there anyway. I never had to fight him. I guess for some it was a confusing time. Not me. I knew exactly what it was. It was 1969 when littering wasn’t a fine.
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