What a glorious morning! I’m in Maryland to celebrate my birthday later this week. I have once again successfully circumnavigated the distance around the sun on this little blue marble of a planet. This morning I awoke to warm weather (it was only 18 degrees when I left Denver) and the sounds of all the birds I have come to know and love in this part of the country. It’s going to be close to 90 here today, and flowers are blooming everywhere! Now that’s what I call a celebration!
For the next week or so, I’ll be staying with my beautiful daughter and her handsome husband and trying not to be the annoying mother-in-law so that when I want to come back in the fall they won’t be horrified and move without leaving a forwarding address. I have friends I can stay with, but I like the bed here and the big pine tree in back where the cardinals meet to discuss the events of the day, and gossip about the chickadees.
I finally got around to installing the WordPress app on my iPad and have now run out of excuses to not be writing more frequently. Truth is I am a little lazy. Even at my age, I still have work to do on myself. It’s not a trait I admire, but I have to accept that it is what it is, and then try to do something about it.
They say that it takes six weeks to break a habit. So…for the next six weeks (until May 22) I am going to attempt to write something every day, even if it is only a line or two or a haiku. It may be a story pulled from the past or a reflection on the moment or a description of a fabulous day (I expect there will be at least one or two of those).
There is meaning to this madness. I have boxes and binders full of materials for a serious writing effort and a promise made to make this available to the rest of the family, if not the world. There are letters between a mother and son serving in Europe in WWI. The mother is my great great grandmother, the son was General Ward Davis who now lies in Patton’s Circle at Arlington. There are letters between my great great grandfather, Leon Fouquet, and his sons in Colorado, Texas, and Oklahoma describing how the Great Depression was affecting them in the early 1930s. And I have a book to write about my grandmother and her twin. Born in 1908 and living until 98 and 104, respectively, they kept wonderful notes and journals of the things they saw during their lifetimes. Somehow I think that those things might be relevant to those of us living today, might provide some insight, might help us understand our lives a little better.
At the very least, perhaps it will help me to understand my own life a little better.
So for the next six weeks, I will be doing the warmup exercises leading to the marathon. If you can stand the huffing and puffing and labored syntax, you’re welcome to join me here while I work on my writing muscles. I look forward to your comments!
Great piece, Sharon. We have some resident cardinals and their “What cheer, what cheer” song always make the day brighter.
It’s been a while since I read this post so I look forward to your promise to write. I especially love your poetry. Would you put a subscription block or follow me thing on it so I can get your posts in my email, please? Thanks, B
Thank you for the suggestion. I will research that putting a subscription option on. I am still learning the software, and I am sure there are a couple of things I can do to make it better, so I appreciate that you took the time!