10.21.2011
Still: The Journal Contest Issue
Still: The Journal was established in October, 2009, as an online literary journal with my fellow editors Silas House and Jason Howard. In this issue we're proud to present our second annual contest winners, work by four other poets, an oral history of an eastern Kentucky midwife, and a musical performance.
Our judges for the 2011 contests were Connie May Fowler (fiction), Marilyn Kallet (poetry), and Karen Salyer McElmurray (nonfiction).
Read and Share!
Contest Winners in Fiction:
Rachel Hale Drew
Phillip Meeks
Natalie Sypolt
Contest Winners in Poetry:
Connie Jordan Green
Erin Miller Reid
S. Cook Stanforth
Contest Winners in Nonfiction:
Brittany Rogers
Frankie Finley
Kim Trevathan
New work from poets
Adam Day
Coleman Larkin
Chris Mattingly
Amy Tudor
An Oral History with midwife Hazel Durbin conducted by Vickie Cimprich
Multimedia performance by Nikki Lane
6.28.2011
Still: The Journal 2nd Annual Literary Contests
Fiction: Connie May Fowler is an award-winning novelist, memoirist and screenwriter. Her most recent novel, How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly, was published in 2010 to wide acclaim. Her other novels include Sugar Cage, River of Hidden Dreams, The Problem with Murmur Lee, Remembering Blue and Before Women Had Wings, which she adapted into an Emmy-winning film starring Oprah Winfrey and Ellen Barkin. She serves on the faculty of The Afghan Women’s Writing and is currently a visiting faculty member in the Vermont College of Fine creative writing MFA program. She is a Florida native. | |
Poetry: Marilyn Kallet is the author of fifteen books, including Packing Light: New and Selected Poems and Circe After Hours, and translations of Paul Eluard's Last Love Poems and of Benjamin Péret's The Big Game (2011). Dr. Kallet directs the creative writing program at the University of Tennessee, where she is Professor of English. She also teaches poetry workshops for the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts at their site in Auvillar, France. Kallet was named Woman of Achievement in the Arts by the Knoxville YWCA, and was inducted into the East Tennessee Literary Hall of Fame in poetry in 2005. |
| Nonfiction: Karen Salyer McElmurray grew up in a family with roots in Eastern Kentucky that date back to the 1700s. She now teaches in the MFA program at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia. She is the author of a memoir, Surrendered Child, which received the Association of Writers and Writing Programs Award for Creative Nonfiction, and two novels, Strange Birds in the Tree of Heaven and Motel of the Stars. |
6.05.2011
Still: The Journal, Issue 6
Still: The Journal was established with two of my writing colleagues (Silas House and Jason Howard) as an online literary journal in October 2009. We are proud to say we’ve just published our sixth issue which includes short fiction, poetry, creative nonfiction, an interview, and a multimedia performance.
In every issue we’ve tried to stay true to our original vision: to feature award-winning, established, and emerging writers in the Appalachian region. We’ve chased after excellent contemporary writing either created by writers from or devoted to the Appalachian South, and we’re as proud of our sixth issue as we were of our first.
Elizabeth Howard
Laura Long
Denton Loving
Creative nonfiction by
Sean Corbin
RichardHague
Clyde Kessler
Mark W. Kidd
The Poezia Writing Group (Jay McCoy, Staci R. Schoenfeld,
and KaterinaStoykova-Klemer)
Tracy L. Seffers
Interview with
Multimedia with
7.06.2010
MOTIF 2 Debut
We all are marked by some chance encounter, some happenstance in our lives, some bit of good luck or misfortune, a missed opportunity or a fleeting glimpse, some salvation through the kind-hearted actions of others. We might even argue that a good portion of our literary inspiration probably comes from witnessing some unplanned moment with an unusual outcome. Volume 2 of the Motif Anthology Series represents many of those random occasions. Motif 2: Come What May, An Anthology of Writings about Chance is brimming with the best short fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and song lyrics that speak to the theme of chance. 136 writers provide their literary notions on this motif, a theme tied together with the elusive twines of accident, coincidence, fluke, prospect, and mystery.
Motif 2: Come What May is published by MotesBooks (Louisville, Ky) and is the second anthology in the annual series. Motif 1: Writing by Ear, An Anthology of Writings about Music was published in 2009. Both anthologies are available directly from the publisher.
Contributors to Motif 2: Come What May are:
Alice Hale Adams
Christopher Allen
Janice Willis Barnett
Jennifer Barton
Joseph Bathanti
David Baxter
Laura Treacy Bentley
Peter Bergquist
Chad Berry
Tara Betts
Carole A. Borges
Cathy Smith Bowers
Peg Bresnahan
Bill Brown
Bobbi Buchanan
Michael Scott Cain
Ben E. Campbell
Emily Cavan
Ann Cefola
Sherry Chandler
Amy Clark
Sandy Coomer
Judy Cooper
Chella Courington
LeAnna Crawford
Wayne Cresser
Barbara Crooker
Ann Curran
Ed Davis
Marie Davis
Cheryl Denise
Peggy Duffy
Joyce Dyer
Suzie Work Edwards
Michael Filimowicz
Erin Fitzgerald
Melissa Frederick
Katy Giebenhain
Harry Gieg
Andrew Glaze
Chris Green
Connie Jordan Green
Judy Lee Green
Ruth F.Grubbs
Ellen Hagan
Richard Hague
Paul W. Hankins
Maryanne Hannan
Pauletta Hansel
Melanie Henderson
Michael Henson
Jane Hicks
Thomas Alan Holmes
Stephen M. Holt
Michael Homolka
Randall Horton
Ron Houchin
Silas House
Elizabeth Howard
Jason Howard
M.J. Huang
Dory L. Hudspeth
Charlie G. Hughes
Laura Hunter
Lori-Lyn Hurley
Frank Jamison
Jessie Janeshek
Marilyn Kallet
Mike Karman
Erin Keane
Sandi Keaton-Wilson
Kit Kennedy
Alan King
Alison Kolodinsky
Lolette Kuby
Kate Larken
Irene Latham
Anthony A. Lee
Christina Lovin
Denton Loving
Sylvia D. Lynch
George Ella Lyon
John C. Mannone
Linda Parsons Marion
Sue Massek
Donna McClanahan
Karen Salyer McElmurray
Michael McFee
Alan McMonagle
Michael Medley
Phil Meeks
Kali Meister
Jim Minick
Felicia Mitchell
Susan J. Mitchell
Elizabeth Morelli
Irene Mosvold
Lisa Parker
E. D. Pendarvis
George Petty
Larry Pike
Lee Ann Pingel
Melva Sue Priddy
Mary Anne Reese
Joshua Robbins
Richard Roe
Jackie White Rogers
Sakabaka
Jane Sasser
Mike Schneider
Roberta Schultz
Judy Sizemore
Jimmy Dean Smith
Kathryn B. Smith
Larry Smith
Noel Smith
Anna Egan Smucker
Lex Sonne
Georgia Green Stamper
Mari Stanley
Art Stewart
Charles A. Swanson
Natalie Sypolt
John J. Trause
Larry Thacker
Frank X Walker
Amy Watkins
Julene Tripp Weaver
Robert West
Laurelyn Whitt
Dana Wildsmith
Cyndi Williams
Tiffany M. Williams
Sylvia Woods
William Kelley Woolfitt
Jeff Worley
Praise for Motif 2: Come What May:
With a passion and focus most editors only dream of, Marianne Worthington spins a bold thread through the essays, poems, stories, and songs of the second volume in the Motif series, Come What May: An Anthology of Writings About Chance. Here are brief encounters that sprout generations; split seconds of ruin; sudden migrations, lust, and strife. These pieces remind us to cling to life’s lessons with grace and humor. Worthington steers what could be an unwieldy theme through a touching and illuminating series of pirouettes. Following her deft lead, there’s a good chance this anthology will delight those lucky enough to read it.
—Neela Vaswani, author of You Have Given Me A Country
Take a chance on Come What May. You won't regret it. With remarkable insight and intelligence, 136 talented writers across a broad spectrum of geography, generations, and genres, delve deeply into the meaning and nature of synchronicity, coincidence, luck, fate, bashert, and kismet -- and the very enigma of human existence. Come What May is an important book for anyone interested in understanding humankind today, individually and collectively -- and why we act, think, and feel as we do.
—Janice Eidus, author of The War of the Rosens
MotesBooks
Louisville, Ky.
http://www.motesbooks.com/
6.27.2010
Literary Contest sponsored by STILL: The Journal

The first annual Still Writing Contests in Fiction, Poetry, and Nonfiction
Contest entries should follow our normal submission guidelines, which state that “we want to feature writing that exemplifies the Mountain South or that is written by an author with an established connection to the region.”
Rules:
Submitted entries must be unpublished.
Simultaneous entries are accepted as long as you let us know if your submissions will be published elsewhere before the contest ends.
The contest reading fee is $8 PER ENTRY, payable to Still’s PayPal account, which can be accessed from our website: www.stilljournal.net/contest.php
An entry is defined as one short story, or one nonfiction piece, or one poem. You may submit multiple submissions in multiple genres, as long as you pay a separate entry fee for each submission. Contest entry fees cannot be refunded under any circumstances.
Manuscripts should be typed in a standard 12-point font (Times New Roman is preferred) and should have numbered pages. Prose must be double spaced. Poetry must be single spaced. Prose entries must not exceed 6,500 words. Poetry entries should not exceed 100 lines.
Make sure that your name or any other identifying information does not appear anywhere on the manuscript(s).
Deadline for email postmark is 12:00 a.m., August 15, 2010. Any entry that is not sent on or before that date will not be processed and entry fees will not be returned.
Winners will be notified by September 15, 2010. Winning entries will be announced publicly in the 4: Fall 2010 issue of Still: The Journal.
Prizes:
$100 for winners of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and publication in Still: The Journal, 4: Fall 2010. All other contest entries will be considered for possible publication.
Judges:
Fiction: Ann Panake
Poetry: Maurice Manning
Nonfiction: Janisse Ray
Submissions:
We prefer electronic submissions and fee payment. Submissions should be saved as a word document, rich text file or plain text file only (doc, docx, rtf, or txt ONLY) and attached to an email. Multiple submissions must be sent separately (in other words, if you are submitting a short story, an essay, and three poems, for instance, you would have five different electronic submissions and five different entry fees). The subject line for each entry should include “Still Contest” and the category; for example: Still Contest Fiction, Still Contest Poetry, or Still Contest Nonfiction. Include with each entry a title page which contains this information:
o Title of entry
o Category listed in parentheses next to title
o Name
o Mailing address
o Telephone number
o Email address
Do NOT include your name or any other identifying information on the manuscript(s). Please number all pages.
All entries must be sent to contest@stilljournal.net. Entries will not be processed until the $8 entry fee is also paid.
Mail submissions can be accepted, although electronic submissions are preferred. Follow the above guidelines for manuscript and title page preparations, include an $8 fee per entry and mail checks payable to Still to:
Still
P.O. Box 1121
Berea, KY 40403
Mailed entries must be postmarked by August 15, 2010.
Failure to follow any of the above guidelines will result in disqualification. Inquiries or questions should be directed to contest@stilljournal.net
12.28.2009
Golden Apples of the Sun
I hope by now you've heard Caroline Herring's latest CD project, "Golden Apples of the Sun" (Signature Sounds 2009). If you haven't, you must.
Really. Hurry.
Honestly, it's one of my favorite CDs of the year, maybe of the decade. Bobbi Buchanan's online magazine, New Southerner, featured my review of "Golden Apples" in the Winter 09-10 issue. You can read the review here, but it would be better if you just bought the CD and shared the love. You won't be disappointed.
Herring's video for "Tales of the Islander"
11.29.2009
STILL: Open Reading Period begins December 1
Beginning December 1, the editors at Still: Literature of the Mountain South will begin reading open submissions. Below are the submission guidelines:
Still: Literature of the Mountain South is an on-line literary journal featuring literature of the Southern Appalachian region. Our reading period is December 1 through December 31 only. We are committed to publishing excellent writing that does not rely on clichés and stereotypes. We want to feature writing that exemplifies the Mountain South or that is written by an author with an established connection to the region. We accept submissions of SHORT FICTION, POETRY, and CREATIVE NONFICTION.
We encourage established, unpublished, or emerging writers to submit their best work to Still.
We appreciate writing grounded in craft as well as experience. We are moved by lyrical writing that is compelling, distinctive, accessible, and finely written. As a purely editorial decision, we will not consider trite, light verse, genre fiction, critical analyses, inspirational or motivational advice, erotica or pornography, or any writing that purposefully exploits or demeans. We cannot accept unsolicited interviews or book reviews at this time.
We will consider one short story or one creative nonfiction piece up to 6,500 words or up to five poems less than 60 lines each during the reading period. Please do not submit more than once during the reading period.
We accept only electronic submissions. Send submissions with STILL SUBMISSION in the subject line. Submit only one double-spaced story, one double-spaced creative nonfiction piece, or up to five poems as a WORD document or Rich Text Format to the appropriate editor. Poetry submissions should be sent as one attachment. Attachments that are not in .doc, .docx or rtf formats will be deleted unread. At the end of your submission include a five-sentence biography and your contact information. Cover letters are unnecessary and discouraged since we will be choosing your work based on the merits of your writing and not on past achievements, publications, or awards.
We will consider simultaneous submissions as long as you let us know if your work is accepted elsewhere. We will not consider previously published materials, including any online publications.
Still acquires first rights for publication. Upon publication, rights revert to the author. Still reserves the right to reprint work at a later date if we have the opportunity to occasionally make a print anthology and want to include your work.
Still is published three times a year: October, February, and June. The submission period is December 1 through December 30 of each year. We will only read submissions received during this reading period. Any submission received other than during this time will be deleted unread.
Send submissions to appropriate editor:
Fiction submissions: fiction@stilljournal.net
Nonfiction submissions: nonfiction@stilljournal.net
Poetry submissions: poetry@stilljournal.net
10.22.2009
STILL: Literature of the Mountain South
Poets featured in the first volume are Steve Holt, poet and teacher from northeastern Kentucky, Ron Houchin, award-winning poet from Huntington, West Virginia, Irene Latham, poet, novelist, and editor from Birmingham, Alabama, Lisa Parker, poet and musician from Virginia, and Josh Robbins, poet and teacher who lives and works in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Fiction writers featured are Mark Powell, novelist and teacher from South Carolina, Kathi Whitley, short fiction writer and music manager from eastern Kentucky, and Tiffany Williams, short fiction writer and teacher from Pikeville, Kentucky.
Nonfiction writers are Donna McClanahan, essayist, fiction writer, and poet from Irvine, Kentucky, Karen Salyer McElmurray, award-winning memorist and novelist from eastern Kentucky, and Beth Newberry, editor and essayist from Louisville, Kentucky.
Still features an interview with Appalachian scholar, musician, activist, and writer Jack Wright, and a video song clip from Sue Massek, long-time member of The Reel World String Band.
The editors will publish new issues three times a year and will sponsor a contest later in 2010.
Read it, enjoy it, leave us your comments on the "Feedback" page.
9.01.2009
Epistemology or 10 Ways of Knowing:

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
1. Watching a daughter in sleep.
2. Determining which birds are pacifists and which are competitors at the feeders. Squirrels will let the finches feed with them, but not the jays. Jays will let finches and turtle doves feed with them, but no crows allowed. Crows are hoggish, but fascinating.
3. Smelling the air after rain on a humid day.
4. Rubbing a dog’s fat belly.
5. Eating a ripe peach.
6. Reading the right poem at the just-right time.
7. Singing with Lester Flatt.
8. Finding an old photograph of your parents.
9. Receiving a letter.
10. Striking the right chord.
8.31.2009
Morning Quiet

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
I’ve been up writing since before daybreak. The house is quiet but humming peacefully. The refrigerator motor provides a pedal-point accompaniment to the rhythm of my dogs snoring through their early morning nap and to the percussive chip-chip-chip of the redbird family at the feeder right outside my library window. The weather has cooled down. Mornings are foggy and slow. These couple of hours before I have to go to school have given me just what I need: time to contemplate without anxiety or the burden of interruption. It’s a gift. I wish I could give it to you.
8.30.2009
The Great Blue Heron: Sightings, Sculptures and Stanzas

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
My mother’s nursing home sits near the banks of the Holston River in southeast Knoxville. She often reports that from her window she can see great blue heron flying across the sky. She saw one recently, its matchstick legs long-dangling as the blue-black feathers blurred past her view of the outside world.
The great blue heron is inspiration to many artists; perhaps because it’s a stunning experience just to see one. Native Americans believed the heron wise and considered it a good omen to see one before a hunt. Tennessee artist William Brock’s sculptures of the great blue heron are so life-like that real herons have been known to set down in his field where several of his sculptures live. My friend and former teacher Danny Marion has spotted many a heron from his river house on the Holston River. Here’s his poem, “The Great Blue Heron,” originally published in his chapbook about birds, Miracles of Air (1987), and available in Marion’s collected works, Ebbing & Flowing Springs:
Framed in my window
your swash of slate grey
stillness is a winter study
of stones cobbling shore.
Twilight & the river unravels
its secrets in shallow threads
rippling gold around your spindle-
legs.
Downriver sycamore & willow
echo the grace
of your neck arched
to angle over pools.
Soon darkness drapes a distance
between us & fog rises
in a dance of wings.
8.27.2009
Medicine Hat or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Jay Farrar

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
On my drive back home from Tennessee on Sunday afternoon I played my newly-purchased Son Volt CD American Central Dust.
I-75 North from Knoxville into Kentucky is an awful place on Sunday afternoons, jammed with crazy truckers hogging the left lane, rage-filled men who’ve had to spend the day with their wives’ relatives, reckless kids racing back to school, and mamaws who should have given up their cars last year.
I didn’t care. I just let Jay Farrar’s way-out voice and asymmetrical lyrics wash all over me.
I used to worry that I didn’t always understand Farrar’s sideways, abstract songs, but I’ve learned to just take them as the gifts they are: loosely-related words situated next to each other orchestrated by thrashing guitars, clunky piano playing and, occasionally, fiddles, mandolines, organs or accordions. His songs make the most lovely and provocative tone poems. Sometimes reminiscent of Neil Young, The Byrds, Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, The Carter Family, or Hank Williams, his compositions are familiar yet completely original.
I’m not one of those geeky fans who knows the intimate details and evolution of Farrar’s various musical incarnations, but I do know that when everything is going wrong for me, Jay Farrar can fix it. His songs will wail me home safe and sound.
Jay Farrar’s "Medicine Hat"(from Wide Swing Tremelo)
THERE WILL BE DROUGHTS AND DAYS INUNDATED UNVEILINGS FREE FROM SATURATION DEPARTURES RAISED WITH NO MASQUERADING THERE WILL BE TEACHERS THAT DIE BY THEIR OWN HAND PUNDITS THAT PUSH HEADLONG FOR ATONEMENT FRIENDS AND FOLLOWERS DEVOTED TO LIVING THERE WILL BE WATCHERS THAT PLY FOR NEW CONFINES AND THOSE COMMITTED TO SOCIETY'S CIRCLES UNWARY COGS WITH NO CADENCE OF VIRTUE THERE WILL BE RIGHT THERE WILL BE WRONG DROP OF A HAT AND IT'S ALREADY STARTED JUST LIKE THAT AND THE DEED IS DONE WHAT I'D GIVE NOW FOR THAT HAT TO BE MEDICINE THE TIME IS NOW TO BE ON THE RUN THERE WILL BE MACHINATIONS UNFORESEEN SLEEPWALKING SENSE FROM A BAD DREAM NO PROMENADE WALK IN THE PARKWAY THERE WILL BE CATCHWORDS FILLED WITH INFECTION CIRCULARS TO PROP UP OCCASION NO GOLDEN MEAN TO GUIDE THE FOOTSTEPS THERE WILL BE LEVELS ON HIGH HILLS THAT APPRAISE THERE WILL BE UNCHANGING CERTAINTIES BAROMETERS THAT FOLLOW THE STAMPEDE THERE WILL BE RIGHT THERE WILL BE WRONG DROP OF A HAT AND IT'S ALREADY STARTED JUST LIKE THAT AND THE DEED IS DONE WHAT I'D GIVE FOR THAT HAT TO BE MEDICINE THE TIME IS NOW TO BE ON THE RUN THERE WILL BE SIGNPOSTS OF INDICATION SEMAPHORE GO SIGNS AND WARNINGS HAILSTONE HALOS AND COUNTRY BLUES WAILINGS THERE WILL BE STRAINS THAT BREAK OUT OF STRAIGHT TIME THAT PAVE WITH GRACE DIFFERENT ROADS TO THE SAME PLACE NO CONSEQUENCE TO REPAY WHAT HAS BEEN GIVEN THERE WILL BE LAYERS OF MEANS TO AN END DRAWN OUT DAYS BEFORE RESOLUTION DREGS WILL RAIN DOWN FROM ALL DIRECTIONS THERE WILL BE RIGHT THERE WILL BE WRONG DROP OF A HAT AND IT'S ALREADY STARTED JUST LIKE THAT AND THE DEED IS DONE WHAT I'D GIVE FOR THAT HAT TO BE MEDICINE THE TIME IS NOW TO BE ON THE RUN
8.26.2009
Lead in My Heart
Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
I got those back to school blues.
I’ve either been in school or teaching school since 1981, and every opening day is always the same: fitful sleep the night before with dreams of betrayal, slight dizziness and nausea, and a sense of dread for the long semester ahead. No matter that I enjoy the subject matter I’m teaching (that reward comes later in the semester, and I’ll be glad for it). No matter that I enjoy knowing my students (and that’s another reward that comes later in the semester). No matter that I love the challenge of teaching. Right now, on the first day: it’s fear and loathing.
I’ll be better tomorrow. I always am.
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8.23.2009
A Poem for Sunday morning by Robin Behn

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
Yellow Morning
She awoke deep into the morning,
forgiving words,
Forgiving how they want to make
the whole world one color.
Forgiving how that color is loneliness incarnate.
Forgiving how they persist,
building themselves an altar
peopled with people, thinged with things,
and touched, sun or no sun, with sun:
she awoke so deep into the morning
time had gone pungent and dim
like the smell of an old locked trunk
stirred by a slow ray of light,
within.
This is the dream of the woman,
and this is the dream about the woman
another woman, her/no-her,
woke in the middle of, and wept.
Outside, a fledgling
—filthy lump upon a wet, black bough—
punctured daylight with its high cry,
the sound of it shredding time
—a nest, a nest, a nest—
until an adult the color of blood
appeared and put his blunt beak down
into the tiny throat.
But then it woke again,
not trusting the dream of trust,
and cried, and cried-and-cried
—for-SA-ken, for-SA-ken—
so that an adult the color of blood rolled in the earth
appeared and put her whole blunt beak
down into the throat and held it there
the length of time it takes
in love, for the grail to be passed,
and then, and then, it could sleep.
Who fed the birds?
It happened outside of words.
Black Oil Sunflower Seed?
Whatever. A need.
Robin Behn, from Evensong: Contemporary American Poets on Spirituality, Gerry LaFemina and Chad Prevost, eds. Bottom Dog Press, 2006.
8.21.2009
How Can I Keep from Singing?

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
Last night I participated in a reading from Jason Howard’s new anthology of writings about Mountaintop Removal Mining called We All Live Downstream. Before the reading, I met Bobbi Buchanan, the editor of New Southerner, an online journal that offers excellent writing related to environmental stewardship, supporting sustainable communities, and self-sufficiency. Before last night, Bobbi and I had only met online, so it was great fun to see her and to talk in person for a few minutes. On the way back home, one of my friends said to me: “I can’t believe that you meet Bobbi and two minutes later, you all were singing!” And we were. Bobbi mentioned a hymn and I tried to sing it. I was mixing up one hymn with another hymn, and we ended up laughing after Bobbi told me I was just singing the same hymn over and over.
By great coincidence, I found today that there is a tradition among Inuit women called Katajjaq or throat-singing (not to be confused with the complex dual-toned overtones of the Tibetan throat singers in central Asia). According to one source, in the Inuit culture two women face each other, and one singer leads by setting a short rhythmic pattern and the other singer offers another rhythmic pattern. Usually the exchange lasts up to three minutes or until one of the singers starts to laugh or is left breathless.
Maybe later I’ll write more about all the cultural ramifications of singing, but for now here’s a question: How much happier would we be if we always greeted each other with singing and laughing?
8.20.2009
Be Still!

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
I can’t find it, of course, but I used to have a quote from a writer that said something like this: a perfect day is being curled up somewhere looking up words in the dictionary all day.
Today I’m contemplating the word “still.” Variations on the word “still” include:
adjective:
remaining in place or at rest; motionless, stationary
free from sound or noise; silent
subdued or low in sound; hushed
free from turbulence or commotion; peaceful; tranquil; calm
without waves or perceptible current; not flowing, as water
not effervescent or sparkling, as wine
noun:
stillness or silence
a single photographic print, as one of the frames of a motion-picture film
conjunction:
an yet; but yet; nevertheless
verb:
to calm, appease, or allay
to quiet, subdue, or cause to subside (waves, winds, tumult, passion, pain)
And my favorite of all . . . the directive I regularly received from my grandmother: “Be Still!”
8.19.2009
To sleep, perchance to dream—

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
Every evening my dogs take a hard, dog-sleep nap. Usually this occurs from about 6:30 until about 8:00 p.m., and almost nothing can interrupt them. At my house we call this “The 7 o’clock flop” so named after one of our late dogs who used to flop down with a thud and a sigh as she got ready for her 7 o’clock siesta. My two current dogs snore, twitch, yelp, and run in their dog-sleep dreams during evening naptime. Sometimes they cry like it’s the end of the world.
I wonder if their dreams recur like mine do, like the dream I woke up with this morning. The details of the dream are gone now, but the setting is vivid and always the same: I’m inside an old house that is an amalgamation of all my past bedrooms, my grandmother’s boarding house, and my great aunt’s attic room. But unlike my real past habitations, this house is full of run-down, nasty bedrooms: dirt floors, damp limestone walls, velour-covered bedsteads (avocado, moth-eaten, shabby) or just soiled mattresses on the floor surrounded by heaps of bedclothes and trash. Some of the bedrooms have no windows. Those that do have windows are draped in yards of heavy, dusty brocade or velvet. All the rooms are dark as a cave, yet I can see the filth all around me. Some of the bedrooms have outside doors that lead to balconies with no stairs or fire escapes. In the dream I experience vertigo and claustrophobia, but whenever I flee—panicked—from one bedroom, I just run into another, worse bedroom. There’s no escape.
Surely and obviously this recurring dream has some entrenched meaning buried deep among my fears or guilt or insecurities. . . “ay, there’s the rub.” This morning I instinctively began the day with organizing, planning, cleaning, writing—probably an antidote to the messes in my dreams.
I also felt an intense urge to twitch, yelp, run and cry like it’s the end of the world.
8.18.2009
Wash Day

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
My Aunt Mary Margaret would have been proud of me this morning. I got up at 5:30 a.m. and started the laundry. By 6:30 I had pressed three shirts and mended the hems in two pairs of pants. As much as I hate doing laundry, especially anything that has to do with ironing, I think I know why my aunt always did her laundry before daylight. No one is up yet, the rhythm of the washing machine is good company, the house takes on the smell of clean, and there is something mildly satisfying about folding a stack of towels or steaming down the creases in a crinkled blouse.
I always claimed that there was some kind of ironing gene in my family. My aunt and mother ironed everything that wasn’t pinned down when I was a kid. They even made ironing dates. They collected their clean, damp laundry in zippered plastic laundry bags, packed up their irons and ironing boards, and hauled everything to each other’s houses. All morning they ironed while watching TV and drinking Coca-Colas. (Clean Coke bottles were used for sprinkling/re-wetting laundry for ironing.) After he retired, my father took on the role of family ironer. My sister and cousins iron much more frequently than I do. I always say the ironing gene skipped me, and generally, I try to avoid dragging out the iron and ironing board. But this morning it felt right.
8.17.2009
Tomato Sauce: A Lesson and A Recipe

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
I cooked up a mess of tomatoes this morning from my brother-in-law’s garden (see photo above). The tomato sauce is a recipe from my sister and a lesson in how far away from my heritage I’ve moved. My mother and grandmother spent nearly every day of gardening season cooking something at the stove. They canned green beans, peaches, cabbage, and corn. They pickled okra, cucumbers, and peppers. They ran cooked tomatoes through a cone-shaped sieve with a cone-shaped wooden pestle the size of a rolling pin. (Who knows what happened to that antiquated equipment? I’ll bet that pestle weighed four or five pounds.) As a kid, I was interested in eating all that good bounty but not so much in learning the crafts of gardening, canning, or even cooking. I’m a fair cook now, but I’ve never raised a garden, and until this morning, I’ve never cooked tomato sauce. After I tasted the finished product this afternoon, I immediately regretted that I didn’t have more tomatoes for another batch. The sauce is that good, and I’ll be sorry when it’s gone. All my people were farmers, and here I am in mid-life, just now catching on.
Here’s our recipe; it’s time-consuming, but not difficult. I used about 2 dozen tomatoes, various types, sizes, and colors.
Wash tomatoes and remove stems. Make a cross-cut on the bottom of each tomato and place in boiling water until the skins split (about a minute or two). Remove tomatoes and cool slightly, peel off skins, then de-seed by mashing through a sieve. Squeeze out every bit of juice and throw in remaining pulp. I got nearly a dutch oven full of juice and pulp. Prepare for cooking the tomato sauce by first sautéing one or two shredded carrots, several cloves of diced garlic, and one small diced yellow onion (or 2-3 shallots) in olive oil. Sautee slowly until carrots, garlic and onion are soft. Flavor with salt, pepper, dried basil, oregano, thyme, parsley, and a few red pepper flakes. Add tomato goop and bring to a boil. Cover and turn down to a simmer for 2-3 hours. Mixture will thicken if pot lid is tilted during cooking.
Oh yes, the okra in the picture above . . . it's in my freezer awaiting the cornmeal, egg, and Crisco tomorrow.
8.16.2009
A Grand Machine

Discover Something New Every Day: The Challenge
Today I played a beautiful organ in Corbin, Ky. It’s not a pipe organ, and many organ purists would discount the instrument on that fact alone. But it’s a pretty fancy electronic organ that sounds nearly as good as the real thing, and in some ways it is much more versatile than a pipe organ. While playing today, I began to think about what I love about playing the organ:
the vibrations and rumbles that occur in the sanctuary, like the angels are on their way
the windy flush of flutes, which, when registered just right, sounds like birds in deep woods
the rush I feel when my feet and fingers and muscles coordinate and cooperate (this rarely happens, but this morning it did, and I was grateful for all my past music lessons and music teachers)
the gorgeous and exotic names of the keyboards and the stops: swell, positiv, great, celeste, diapason, aeolina, bombarde, nazard, principal, dulciana, tierce, cornopean
the complex and secret knowledge organists have about a mysterious and grand machine; surely this is akin to what magicians must share?
For the Wordle version of this post, go here. (It's so cool.)






