Laughing and Survival

A postcard sent to me for my postcard confessional project.  This one is from California.

I haven't had much to laugh about lately, smile maybe, but not laugh.  I won't go into detail, but we all know how it goes sometimes.  I haven't posted in several days, nor have I visited other blogs, nor have I responded to e-mails.  But I am okay.  Not on top of the world okay, but surviving okay.

That's why I was delighted today to see this postcard.  I taught until 7:30 tonight and when Allen picked me up at the college, the postcard was lying on that hump in the floor between the driver and passenger side.  As soon as I read it, my heart just melted, and I laughed and laughed.  It's been a while since I've received a confessional postcard, and this one sure came to me at a great time.  I'd just spoken with my Women's Studies students this afternoon about "Venerated Madonnas," one way women are still sometimes defined today.  I thought to myself, "No Venerated Madonna here!  This woman has a fully functional body and delights in it."

Thank you for this postcard, whoever you are.

I have many ideas for stories I want to write, but at the very least I must get past these first few weeks of classes.  I do continue to add to my notebooks and am doing targeted reading which helps to keep me connected to my projects.

Moving to a New House

I snapped these photos today. I just couldn't resist. The lease ran out on our son's apartment and he doesn't move into his new place for three more days. So we brought his stuff here. The top photo shows what it all looked like as soon as Allen pulled up into the yard with our son's things. The bottom photo shows what happened about five minutes later. It sure doesn't take a cat long to find an open drawer.

The photo got me thinking about how many places I lived:

1-When I was born, six of us lived in a tiny eight wide trailer out in the desert of Southern California. I don't remember living here.
2-Next I lived in a ten wide trailer in NC. There were six of us, until my grandmother died when I was nine. I used to sleep with her, which was fun. I used to keep her awake asking all sorts of questions.
3-Then we moved into a brick house just across the street from where our trailer had been.
4-For a short time I lived with my elder brother. My mother and I moved in with him after my mother left my father. She went back to him and we lived in the brick house again.
5-When I got married, I lived in a one bedroom apartment in downtown Jacksonville, NC, right across from a shopping center.
6-Allen and I bought a cheap trailer and lived in this for many years.
7-I stayed in a small eight wide trailer with the children during the week while I took classes at East Carolina University.
8-Allen and I rented a brick house close to the University when I was working on my Master's in English.
9-Allen and I, plus our three sons moved into a two bedroom apartment in Bowling Green so I could get the MFA Degree.
10-We moved into a duplex apartment, a great old house with stained glass windows. We lived there 10 years!
11-Our present home, a 100 year old farmhouse.

I read somewhere that a house is often symbolic of the human body in fiction. I've never thought of moving days the same way since. How many places have you lived?

To the Lighthouse

Marblehead Lighthouse on Lake Erie.

Why create? Virginia Woolf answers this in her novel, To The Lighthouse. We create because we have to, because it keeps us sane, because it's a way to feel what it means to be alive. This is what Woolf says at the end of her novel. The character is just finishing a painting:

Quickly...she turned to her canvas. there it was--her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues. its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue. I have had my vision.

Lady of the Lake

It was chilly out on the lake and I loved that.

The Big Splash

Allen and Buddha get splashed by Lake Erie.