Posted in Bones, Culture, Memoir, Personal, Politics, Practice, Structure, Work, Writing, blogroll, tagged sleepaway camp on August 14, 2007 | 5 Comments »
The summer of 2004 I was on a sabbatical from my work. That summer I wrote every day. I also created with three fellow writers a workshop-style group. At the beginning of each week, we emailed to one another new sections from our manuscripts. At the end of the week, we met in person to give feedback on the work each writer had sent. It was [...]
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Posted in Art, Bones, Culture, Dreams, Life, Money, Personal, Spirituality, Structure, Topic Writing, Vision, Work, Writers, blogroll, tagged balancing work and art, becoming an artist, not being tossed away, the artist's life, the writer's life on July 12, 2007 | 7 Comments »
Today is the 12th of July, one of those days smack in the middle of summer where all I can think about is how much I’d rather be doing anything other than working in an office for a living. I’m supposed to be writing about an object from Frederic Remington’s studio, but the place is [...]
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Posted in Family, Life, On the Road, Personal, Random, Travel, blogroll, tagged family vacations, Ghost Ranch, motherhood on July 7, 2007 | 6 Comments »
It finally cooled down here in Ghost Ranch. The temperature hit at least 100 a couple of days ago (that’s what the thermometer in my car said, although someone today told me that a meteorologist here told her it hit 106). At this altitude (around 6,000 feet) the air is thin and the sun deadly. Rain came [...]
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Posted in Authors, Family, Gratitude, Great Places To Write, Holidays, Money, Nature, On the Road, Personal, Photography, Place, Spirituality, blogroll, tagged family vacations, Ghost Ranch, Kitchen Mesa, New Mexico, photos of Ghost Ranch on July 5, 2007 | 20 Comments »
This is the second year in a row (which I suppose is long enough to call a tradition) that my daughters and I are spending a week at Ghost Ranch. I lived 44 years in New Mexico before ever laying eyes on Kitchen Mesa. I don’t know what took me so long to get here, [...]
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Kendall from Splice Here “tagged” us at red Ravine to share eight random things about ourselves. “Tagging” (aka a meme) is kind of like those chain letters you get via email — send this note to a dozen other people and you will get showered with joy — except without the prognostications of happiness, good fortune, or money if [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Bones, Books, Culture, Doodling, Dreams, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Holding My Breath, Home, Laughing, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Wake Up, blogroll on June 8, 2007 | 16 Comments »
-Holding My Breath, watercolor and ink painting, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
Holding my breath when I drive by a cemetery, else spirits of the dead will invade my lungs. (Present. Given to me by my husband. Something he did as a child. Now it belongs to our family.)
Checking all the locks on doors [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Family, Money, Personal, Politics, Practice, Spirituality, Writing, Writing Topics, blogroll on June 1, 2007 | 13 Comments »
-Santisima Virgen Maria con Angeles, photograph of retablo by Ecuadoran santero and folk artist Claudio Jiminez, © 2007 by ybonesy. All rights reserved.
We did a brainstorm on topics for red Ravine in this post and this one and one of our readers (thanks, mimbresman!) proposed we write about rituals. Rituals, like the way he always touches [...]
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Posted in Art, Bones, Books, Culture, Doodling, Family, Gratitude, Haiku, Life, Love, Personal, Politics, Practice, Relationships, Seasons, Spirituality, Structure, Work, Writing, blogroll on May 29, 2007 | 28 Comments »
The girls are off for the summer. This morning I head out the door for work. “Whaaat?,” they cry, “Whereyagoin??” I tell them I have to go to work. “Wer-erk?, but it’s summer!!”
This happens every time they don’t have school. Presidents Day, Fall Break, snow days, teachers’ in-service. In their minds, all the world revolves around school.
I wish it [...]
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Posted in Bones, Books, Culture, Death, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Haiku, Holidays, Life, Love, Money, Music, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, blogroll on May 27, 2007 | 5 Comments »
I am sitting on a burgundy leather couch in the Satellite coffee shop. I used to come here and write with a small group of people, we did Bones-style writing, and I remember how much the music bothered me. Today, now, it’s a bluesy piece with an organ played low and a woman’s smoky voice. Lounge [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Dreams, Family, Haiku, Home, Laughing, Life, Money, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Spirituality, blogroll on May 25, 2007 | 13 Comments »
We moved into the new house yesterday. I’ve been unloading all my saints and folk art. I’m not sure where to put everything, so I’m sticking things wherever I find a decent spot for them, just to get them out of the way.
I put one of my carved wood statues from Guatemala in a perfect-sized [...]
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Posted in Body, Bones, Family, Home, Life, Love, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Work, Writers, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 23, 2007 | No Comments »
So much to not love, the taking care of kids, for one. Yes, I have kids now. Yes, I love them, I love them so much that I really understand for once those corny words to the Tina Turner song, Love Hurts. But man, it’s hard taking care of kids. I want to be alone, [...]
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Posted in Life, Love, Money, Personal, Practice, Secrets, Topic Writing, Work, Writers, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 23, 2007 | 4 Comments »
I didn’t love babysitting. I dreaded it each time Mrs. H. called or Mrs. B, especially Mrs. B. Her kids were brats. I was a kid myself, I wanted to be a brat. I needed the money.
There were sunflower seeds and watermelon sticks to buy at Circle K on a hot middle-of-the-summer day. And earrings, [...]
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I made a list of all the jobs I’ve had in my life, which is the first step in this week’s topic post (Job! What Job?). I thought I had a lot more jobs than this. I guess I’m more stable than I presumed.
1. Babysitter: Starting at about age 13. From my Summer Diary of 1974, a [...]
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Posted in Essay, Growing Older, Haiku, Life, Personal, Place, Relationships, Topic Writing, Work, Writers, blogroll on May 18, 2007 | 6 Comments »
Do you want to know something strange? For three years I worked on the fourth floor of my company’s five-story building and never saw the guy who sat in the cubicle next to me.
I heard him on the phone almost every day. I knew when he was talking to his ex-wife by the way he’d [...]
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Posted in 25 Things, Doodling, Dreams, Family, Great Places To Write, Holding My Breath, Laughing, Life, Personal, Politics, Practice, Random, Wake Up, Work, Writing, blogroll on May 15, 2007 | 16 Comments »
My 15-minute practice on Place; that topic post is due today
Walk through the house next door and sit in each room; we close on it today, and tomorrow it will belong to someone else
Draw the hummingbird that’s been buzzing around in my head
Go for a walk on the ditch behind my house just so my [...]
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Posted in Authors, Bones, Books, Culture, Dreams, Haiku, Life, Love, Money, Nature, Personal, Place, Poetry, Random, Reading, Relationships, Structure, Writers, blogroll on May 13, 2007 | 6 Comments »
I got a call on Friday asking if I would be one of seven bilingual speakers to present dramatic readings of Pablo Neruda poetry and views of his political life. “Si, como no,” I said (although afterwards I worried that “dramatic readings” were a second cousin to slam, which, as I’ve noted before, I don’t do).
The readings [...]
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Posted in Bones, Books, Family, Haiku, Home, Life, Love, Personal, Place, Practice, Relationships, Work, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 10, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Digging in the dirt, they say, is relaxing. Putting your fingers into moist sand, part sand part clay, sandier the dirt, better the drainage, bigger the cottonwoods.
When we first moved to our house, Jim and I took a spring and dug up all the Bermuda grass. Growing like a network underground. They say, too, you [...]
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Posted in Family, Life, Personal, Practice, Random, Seasons, Weather, Work, Writing Practices, blogroll on May 1, 2007 | No Comments »
Whenever I say “May Day, May Day,” I say it in that nasally voice that I associate with the robot on Lost In Space. Danger, Danger Will Robinson.
I didn’t realize today was a holiday. I mean, I don’t know anything about May Day. Is it a holiday because it’s the first of May? I feel [...]
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Poor Dee. I go into her room, shake her just so, just so I can wake her up. She has a horse show today, and it’s early. Early for a Sunday morning. I don’t want to wake up Em, or Jim. We all went to bed late last night. I wiggle Dee about, she’s probably [...]
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Posted in Culture, Family, Life, Money, Personal, Place, Practice, blogroll, tagged assimilation, brown pride, chicana identity, chicanismo, Chicano, chicano pride, self-identity on April 26, 2007 | 13 Comments »
I saw a home-made sticker on the back windshield of a car today. It said, Chicano Por Vida. Chicano For Life.
Well, yah, I thought, unless you use skin bleach or dye your hair blond and use blue contact lenses, you pretty much stay the way you were born for your entire life, que no?
Pues, no. Not always. There [...]
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Posted in Books, Family, Gratitude, Growing Older, Haiku, Life, Love, Personal, Practice, Relationships, Secrets, Topic Writing, blogroll on April 25, 2007 | 7 Comments »
My nephew Adam turned 18 this week. A couple years ago I took him and his sister with me to Santa Clara, CA for a week-long conference. I also took along Dee and Em. We stayed at what was then a Westin Hotel across from Great America amusement park. Adam and Beak took the girls to rides during the day while I [...]
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Posted in Family, Gratitude, Home, Life, Personal, Practice, Recall, Silence, Work, Writing Practices, blogroll on April 22, 2007 | 14 Comments »
A spare moment, one not accounted for or otherwise claimed. A moment to carve out warmth on the sofa, from sitting here long enough that the heat transfers from me to the cushion, envelops me just so. Just so much that I know when I stand to pick up the pizza crust box and read [...]
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I was 17 years old when I realized I had beautiful feet. I can still dress them up in lotion and nail polish. But back then they were gorgeous naked.
I was sitting in my boss’ office the day it happened. I was on a black leather loveseat, bare feet perched on a marble coffee table, awaiting my check [...]
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Posted in Family, I Don't Remember, Life, Memoir, Personal, Practice, Random, Work, Writing Practices, blogroll on April 10, 2007 | 6 Comments »
I don’t remember the name of the paint color I picked for most the house. It’s a creamy white and I love the way it contrasts against the dark wood beams. I don’t remember what kind of wood it is. I think it’s teak, stained dark, but even if someone told me I probably would [...]
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I’m overwhelmed by the new house. It has a lot of land, which makes me feel like I’ve added a new vocation to my repertiore. Farmer. Or at least Caretaker. I see all the little elms that need to be cut or pulled up by the roots. And dead sunflower stalks from last season. Lillies [...]
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I started experimenting with color this weekend. The paintbrush is a foreign instrument. I prefer pens. You can control them. They are precise.
Paintbrushes are the opposite. Flimsy and loose. You can’t stop the red from bleeding off the lips and on to the chin. Kind of like when you apply too much lipstick. It gets [...]
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Posted in Authors, Culture, Jugular, Life, Memoir, Money, Personal, Place, Recovery, Secrets, Spirituality, Writing, blogroll, tagged change happens at the individual level, saints, sinners on March 23, 2007 | 3 Comments »
I read the edge in ybonesy’s piece, Who Stole My Saint? What I like is that she didn’t shy away from what she wanted to say. She spoke her truth.
Writing breaks us open, wears us out. Most good things do both. Shadow. Dark. Light off the dent in a muddy golf ball. I liked her edge.
No [...]
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I didn’t go see Mirabai Starr last month in Taos when she read from her new book. The translation of Teresa de Avila’s memoir. I wouldn’t mind reading the book, especially if the writing is accessible. I suppose that’s one of the roles of the translator. To make the language as accessible as possible while [...]
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This morning I walk into the bedroom, stop to pick up a piece of straw and its friend, lint. It is not easy to keep the house clean always. Oh, I see a note from Netflix, they received the DVD I sent yesterday. Netflix makes movies easy. I was wondering who came up with the [...]
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Black Beatles box, wax masters
“Listen, do you want to know
a secret?”
Listen.
Fat, fur-covered lynx tail
in a white Muriel cigar box,
1950’s retro.
Sting of the Lady Remington,
my grandmother used to take her time
shaving silky legs. Skinny. Electric.
Tucked in a bedroom drawer.
Great Gray flew away
home, February 8th,
two years ago. I cried.
4th Step shifts, 5th Step blunders.
Your soft blue [...]
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I got an email message yesterday from Yahoo accounts. It said my emails
have been bouncing the past several days and that I needed to go into
Yahoo and verify my email address. So it was then with much surprise
that today I discovered the latest posts to the blog.
Words can not describe the sadness I feel today. [...]
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I’ve been putting off this leg of the assignment. For one thing, which of my 27 items to write about? Some of those wishes are so deep, fostered and fermented for so many years, just saying them out loud brings tears to my eyes.
The bulto. I’ve dreamed about carving those wooden statues. I have a [...]
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Posted in Bones, Dreams, Love, Money, Nature, Personal, Poetry, Seasons, Skies, Things That Fly, Topic Writing, blogroll on December 14, 2006 | 2 Comments »
Dart of a scissor-tail kite, splash of cracked glass, cutting edge of wind-wisped Superior, tear of corduroy feathers, rusty brown
orange red
blue
sky accents.
Ripping the stems from their moorings. I packed boxes of old paints and watercolor pencils. I packed slippery porcelain paint mixers. I packed old wax 45’s and ancient letters from my grandmother.
I packed up [...]
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