Circles, I’m popping circles into my mouth. I’m addicted to Trader Joe’s bucket of miniature chocolate chip cookies. I couldn’t figure out why they tasted so good. It was Liz who piped up, “Oh, it’s the butter…” when she read the label after dinner.
Circles in cubes, the rubber bottom of a stainless steel coffee cup, the “O” in coffee, the round plastic tubs of binder clips, primary colors, the paper Caribou coffee cup that holds the pens and Sharpie Accents in florescent yellows and greens. The round knob on the navy gray lighthouse on the mouse pad.
Circles connect.
Watching a show about brains. Men’s brains. Women’s brains. They said men are linear and women are circular. It was the Good Question on one of the news channels. Do men like tech gadgets better than women? Do they buy more tech gadgets than women?
It might seem like it. But that’s all changed. Women are within a few percentage points of men in their cravings for high tech. The survey asked women, “Would you rather have a diamond or a new I-Pod or Palm?” Women are choosing technology, growing up with it. And if you really think about it, technology allows them to stay better connected and that’s really what circles are all about – connection.
The metal sprinkler head with grooved sprockets above my head. The smell swiftly pouring out of the slate paint can on the floor outside the cube. You can get high from that smell. I had to walk outside; my eyes are burning.
The roundness of Sun. Moon. Mercury and Mars. The roundness and curves of a woman’s body. The spokes on my first bike, with two playing cards, Aces, hearts & spades, clothes-pinned to the wheel. Wait, how did we do that? Were they clothes-pinned to the wheel or the spoke? I can’t remember now. The picture that comes up isn’t accurate. I can’t keep typing and scrutinize the image in my mind at the same time. So I keep writing.
Labyrinths are circles. But they are not mazes. You don’t get lost in a labyrinth. It’s impossible to get lost in a labyrinth. The way in leads to center. The way out leads to an open door.
The Blistex DCT lip balm in an orangish pink container next to the keyboard. The mole above Liz’s upper lip. The underbelly of a sow. The eyes of Mr. StripeyPants; Chaco’s are slitted and green, not as round. And Kiev’s are more oval. If I think about it.
And that’s what writing topics do, force you to think about the world in circles or squares or ovals. In do’s and don’ts and what if’s.
The wrinkled trunk on the ash tree outside the deck. The number 10. The sold sign in the window. The Goodyear tires on the ancient Camry. The barrel of a loaded gun…I don’t own one. But my friend wants to go to the shooting range and try our luck on the targets.
That reminds me of the day my mother shot the glass top off of some kind of antenna outside my grandfather’s house. Geez, she must have been only 20 something. What was I? Maybe 8 or 9? The guys in the family dared her, said she couldn’t shoot. Guess what, she could. And I wonder if she remembers it? Or did I make it all up?
We drove by my grandfather’s house last time I was in Georgia. The house is in S.C., horse country. But there it stood, just the way I remembered it, but older. Round, tall pecan trees and the long porch with wrought iron rails. Houses in the fifties were long and sprawling. The more land you had to spread out on, the better. It seems like they shoot up these days. But I am drawn to the wide open sprawling spaces and simple forms of Scandinavian Design and teak and birch and cherry, all those woods that are probably endangered now.
I like sleek but comfortable. Not much frill but strong. I like a strong that is round, not a strong that is hard-bodied and inflexible. Now I’m thinking of the Buddha belly that is large and round, the stomach of a Laughing Buddha, and just at that moment, the circular clock ticks its last tock, the battery is dead.
Not to worry, I saw a Sundog in the sky yesterday, ice crystals circling the Sun, impossibly animated and frozen in time. More energy on the way.
-posted on red Ravine, Wednesday, January 16th, 2008
-related to Topic post, WRITING TOPIC – CIRCLES
W O W QuOinMOnkey! That truly is an Observant writing practice. YOu lOOKed at everything! I was there with yOu the whOle tOur.
“Labyrinths are circles. But they are nOt mazes. YOu dOn’t get lOst in a labyrinth.” I really like that.
And the sundOg is sO hOpeful.
Thanks!
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QM I remember well shooting the light out. It was at the top of a radio station tower. They dared me so I had to show them. First I shot the outer shell (the red part). Then they said it was luck so I shot the whole bulb out. Dad rushed us in the house. The owner was a friend of Dad’s and had just replaced it. Dad told me later he paid for the bulb to be replaced again, $50 at that time. I’m surprised you remember it !!
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That’s amazing! QM, you have a great memory. And MOM, where did you learn to shoot?
Leslie, excellent use of circle accents in yOur cOmment (hey, that’s hard!) 8) .
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These practices are wonderful windows into the way the mind works, how thoughts can gracefully merge from technology into the immediate sensory world to astronomy to labyrinths and beyond. What a journey!
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I learned to shoot when I was about 13 or 14yrs. old . We lived in the country and my brother had a BB gun and a 22 rifle. We used to stand on the back porch and line up matches in the yard then strike them. He went hunting but I just liked target shooting. I did some skeet shooting later in life. Once my brother’s friend was shooting at something on the ground and the bullet recocheted and flew up and scraped my arm. That was the end of his visits to our house. Boy was my father angry. I remember going to his house and Dad angrily telling his parents. I was only 12 or 13 then but I still remember how angry my parents were. Of course we would have done the same as parents.
Another time, we had pecan trees in the yard and there were holes all around the tree in a circle winding up the tree. Dad thought my brother had done it with the 22 gun and punished him because it could damage the tree by making it easy for infections or something to hurt the tree. Later he found out it was a woodpecker that had done it.
I don’t remember a lot about my youth before I married , we seem to remember the things of the most interesting. Of course I married at 15yrs. so there weren’t a lot of young years. I was always old for my age. Now I’m young for my age. Life has a lot of reversals.
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leslie, Ivy, yb, thanks for coming along on the journey. We never know where it’s going to lead in these crazy practices. I’m always surprised at the things I remember. And since I’m focused mostly on writing about memoir, the memories surface often in practice. It really helps.
Mom, I’m glad I didn’t make up the story of you shooting out the light on the antenna. I might have seriously worried about myself! I do remember that we rushed into the house. I’m glad Granddaddy paid for the light. It makes me chuckle, remembering how they all reacted when you hit the bull’s-eye.
I didn’t know all that about how you learned to shoot. That’s kind of cool. Was that the house on Washington Road when you lived in the country? Boy, that area has really changed now, hasn’t it. I remember when we drove down that way last June.
Next time I’m home, I think we should do some writing practices together about these old memories. It would be fascinating.
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One more comment on this practice – since the primaries are headed that direction, I’ve been hearing a lot of NPR pieces on South Carolina.
My grandfather lived in South Carolina on the border of Augusta, Georgia. But this morning, I heard an NPR piece about Greenville, S.C. in the northwest corner of what they call Upstate South Carolina. Mom, have you ever been up to Greenville?
What they said was that it’s one of the wealthiest parts of S.C. partly because of the beauty and the mountains. But the other part was because these businessmen with Vision got together in the 50’s and realized that the textile industry was not going to last. So they went to Europe and courted European companies, primarily German companies, to come settle around Greenville.
Consequently, the economy around that area is booming in high tech industries like fiber optics that pay good wages to locals. They interviewed one woman whose family had worked in textiles for many generations until high tech came. It was kind of fascinating. Then there are other parts of S.C. where poverty is a way of life and textile jobs have moved overseas with NAFTA.
Well, all this to say, it’s fascinating to see where the places you grow up head when they travel into the future.
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quoinmonkey – great stream-of-consciousness/list you wrote here – it really permitted your mind and pen to range over a whole lot of possible associations with “circle”, gathering riches. G
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QM, would you ever like to live in the beautiful SC mountainous green country? It sounds lovely. The horse area sounds wonderful, too. When you talked about sprawling spaces and simple forms of Scandinavian Design and teak and birch and cherry, were you recollecting the kind of furniture in your grandfather’s home? I love teak and maple, and Danish design.
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G, thank you. My mind is a crazy place sometimes. Practice reveals all.
ybonesy, I sometimes think about North Carolina near the Outer Banks area. Or in the mountains where my uncle had a cabin. I’ve driven through those areas but not spent much time in them. They seem beautiful. I can’t remember that part of South Carolina I was talking about, but I bet it’s kind of similar. I’ll have to ask my family.
The furniture in my grandfather’s house did have sleek lines and was modern for the time. As opposed to my great aunt’s Victorian home which in contrast seemed so ornate. Mom bought me a Danish Modern dresser set when I was pretty young. I just recently sold it because I just didn’t have the room. Lots of memories there!
I am drawn to more modern furniture and exotic woods than I am to the older things. Even though I do love history, I want to live with something a little sleeker. My friend Gail grew up with a lot of Scandinavian Design, so I’ve had a lot of exposure to it. Her parents still have that style in their home. It’s comfortable and elegant. I like that style.
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Mom, I just commented on this in another post but I wanted to add it here, too. I really liked this insight at the end of your write. I am starting to get a little taste of it myself:
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It is a great insight. Another circle, too. The cycle of life, but perhaps in reverse?? Just thinking out loud.
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The cycle of life is a good way to describe aging. It’s almost like I gain back all the playfulness of my youth but the body is a reluctant traveler. The mind and soul mature, the body breaks down and passes on, something is reborn from the ashes. Hopefully, the world gains some insight for our having been here. Footprint of a soul.
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I’m trying to think of the cycle of life…but in reverse now…mindboggling.
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I’ve only read one sentence and I’m already craving chocolate chip cookies with the heat of a thousand suns.
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I’d agree with Leslie’s first comment: ‘observant’. Back to that theme from Wild Minds of fearlessly looking at the world, and writing it down. This paragraph, in particular was alive and tactile for me with details:
“The Blistex DCT lip balm in an orangish pink container next to the keyboard. The mole above Liz’s upper lip. The underbelly of a sow. The eyes of Mr. StripeyPants; Chaco’s are slitted and green, not as round. And Kiev’s are more oval. If I think about it.”
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Thanks, amuirin. I had forgotten that paragraph. It is kind of wild juxtaposition of things, all spewing out of the mind. Who knows where these connections all get made. BTW, those Trader Joe cookies are to die for. I’m scared to buy another tub of them. They don’t last long around here. 8)
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