A Line in the Sand

This week's prompt focused on character development. We asked you to tell us what your character - or you -wants. It's a way to get to know your character or yourself better.

They’d each drawn a line in the sand.  Between the lines was a very deep chasm.  For the first time that she could remember, they couldn’t even agree to disagree.

They’d been invited to honor her mother’s memory.  The part that believed in human rights, civil rights and equal rights.  The part that was ahead of her time.  The part that was, according to one friend, “exceptional.”

He believed in these things too, but resisted the invitation.  In this instance, he believed these things conflicted with his daughter’s best interests.

She didn't see it his way. She longed to honor her mother’s memory.

He didn't see it her way. He longed to protect his daughter.

They’d each drawn a line in the sand.  Between the lines was a very deep chasm.

R

Red Writing Hood is the writing meme of The Red Dress Club.  The finished piece should be no more than 600 words of either fiction or non-fiction.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

A Kindergarten Do-Over

A recent article in the New York Times reminded me of my own kindergarten experience when my family lived in Passaic, New Jersey.  There, in order to enter kindergarten, a child had to be five by February 1.  With a January 29th birthday, I squeaked in just under the wire.  So, in September 1967--at the tender age of four and a half--I left behind the safety of Miss Elaine, Miss Bea and the Children's Corner Nursery and trekked off to Thomas Jefferson Elementary School #1 to begin my academic career.

Although I don’t remember much about it, I understand from family stories that it was quite an inauspicious start.  My teacher, who remains unnamed to this day, had been teaching kindergarten since kids rode dinosaurs about, and hadn’t changed her lesson plans since the days of primeval soup.  As the family lore goes, on one of the first days of school, I came out of the (even then) old-fashioned, mammoth building carrying a construction paper ice cream cone that I’d made in class.  Upon seeing it, the older kid who lived downstairs in the two-family house where we lived upstairs immediately told my mother, “Tomorrow she'll make a traffic light.”  Guess what?  The next day I made a traffic light.

But I digress...

Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was believed that youngsters (that’s what they called us back then) had to learn to be neat and conform to societal norms.  As a result, we weren’t allowed to wear smocks when we finger painted and had to color and paint within the lines, always selecting--and I use that term loosely--green for the grass, blue for the sky, and  yellow for the sun.  What fun is that?

She also believed that children had to learn to be self-sufficient and therefore we got no help from her when it came to tying shoes, zipping coats or buttoning sweaters.  God bless my Aunt Claire, who sewed Velcro on all my clothing so I, too, like the five-year-olds, could “button” and “zip” with the best of them. 

We survived this way for four months, as my mother always told the story, before her prayers were answered:  Mrs. Whatever-Her-Name-Was broke her leg on a skiing trip during winter break and didn’t return to school for the rest of the year.

That summer, when I was five, my family moved from Passaic to Silver Spring, Maryland.  Unlike in Passaic, kindergarten students in Montgomery County had to be five by December 31st. This time around, my January 29th birthday saved me, and by December 31st, I was almost six.  Nonetheless, when my mother registered me for school at Glenallen Elementary, there was no question that I was getting a “kindergarten do-over!”

Que Sera, Sera

This week's RemembeRED writing prompt from The Red Dress Club:

It's that time of year...graduation.

For this week's prompt we are asking you to remember a graduation.  It doesn't have to be yours and it doesn't have to be high school.

With a solid blast of Baroque trumpets as background, four-hundred and ninety eight of us followed Meryl Streep as though she was the Pied Piper.  Guided by the mortarboard perched atop her long auburn waves, we trekked like a flock of bats behind her:  up the hill from the field house, past the ‘Pard statue, across the campus’ one road and into our assigned seats in the grid of white chairs splayed out in front of the library like tombstones in a World War II cemetery.

When it was her turn to speak, she approached the podium, but before she uttered a word, her voice rang out in clear, sweet song:

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

The actress’ a cappella rendition of Doris Day’s classic was an apt lesson for all of us that day.  Perched on the brink of the rest of our lives, we certainly did not know then (nor do we ever really know) what awaits us around the next bend.  Twenty-six years later, that lesson still rings true for me.  More important, I know--as I believe I knew then--that no matter how bumpy the path, my family and friends, my quality education, and my gut will always help to steer me in the right direction.  After all, they haven’t failed me yet.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Remembe(RED) is the memoir meme of The Red Dress Club.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

Was She Wrong?

This week's Red Writing Hood prompt:  

Write a short piece - 600 words max - that begins with the words, "This was absolutely the last time" and ends with "She was wrong."
 
Have fun with it. Think outside the box. Don't go with the obvious.  Happy writing!

This was absolutely the last time she’d repeat the conversation, which only stirred up negative, angry thoughts.  And yet, as much as she wanted to, she just couldn’t stop.  It didn’t seem to matter that so many others had been so gracious and generous with their care and concern -- checking in, reaching out, and helping her, in big ways and small, to hold it all together during what Queen Elizabeth surely would call an annus horribilis.  

Still, she looked for any excuse to repeat it -- as if each repetition could somehow erase a little piece of the spot where a red hot poker had seared it into her memory.

“I know she didn’t mean anything by it,” she told Meredith, as they sat catching up over coffee after way too many months without a girls’ weekend together.  “I even understand that she thought she was being supportive and funny, but Oh! My! God!  I’m in the midst of making impossibly tough choices about my body, my health and my life, and all she can tell me is that ‘it’s time to lop those puppies off??’  Really?!?” 

*   *   *

So, was she wrong to keep repeating the story, perpetuating the hurt, the anger and the disbelief she felt when she first heard the quip?  Wrong to fail to let it go, unable to exhale it forever in one deep cleansing breath?  Wrong to judge someone else’s personal best?  Wrong to let another’s seeming lack of empathy overshadow countless blessings from others?  Yes, yes, yes and yes.  On all counts.  She was wrong.

R

Red Writing Hood is the writing meme of  The Red Dress Club.  The finished piece should be no more than 600 words of either fiction or non-fiction.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

Let’s Play the Dating Game

The prompt:  This week, we want you to recall the games you played when you were young.
Did you love Monopoly, Yahtzee, or Uno? Or did you prefer backgammon, Trouble, or Scrabble?
Write a piece that explores one of your memories.
Let's have a 600 word limit.
 
Seated at the bar, but close to the door, he’d recognized her as soon as she walked in, hugged her, and motioned for her to take the empty seat next to his.  Once they settled in—he with a refill on his Ketel One, she with a sweating glass of Chardonnay--the words flowed.  It was good to put a face to the voice and to pick up where they’d left off over the phone—all without the rippling silence that often descends like fog on such first-time conversations. 

A while later, the hostess led them to a cozy corner table.  Was this chance or had he arranged it in advance?  No matter.  Their gentle dialogue was the perfect complement to the meal, and by the time they left to walk off dinner, there seemed to be a comfortable easiness between them.

“This was great,” he offered, as they approached the train station.

“It was.  Thanks again for dinner and a very enjoyable evening.”

“I’d like to do this again soon.  Give me a few days and I’ll be in touch.”

“Sure…that’d be nice.  Look forward to it.”

Another hug and he was lost in the crowd.  She headed up the block to catch the bus.

*  *  *

And so it was that she'd wasted yet another night playing the dating game.

Of course he didn’t call…they never do.

So now she plays Facebook Scrabble instead, waiting patiently for the page to reload so she can take her turn with the tiles.

Remembe(RED) is the memoir meme of The Red Dress Club.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

Sloth?

Earlier this evening, a friend tagged me in her Facebook post:

Bad news, Jewesses (Rachel Shapiro, Eliza Merwin, JBlogger, JanetheWriter, Gail Brown, Nancy Silverman) -- it's another one of those nasty 7 sins.

From my perspective, this is indeed bad news.  Needless to say, I’m Jewish (yes, some people refer to us as Jewesses) and as my grandmother might say, “Nu?....  Who knows from these seven deadly sins?”

Certainly not I.  In fact, I only managed to make my way through the “gluttony” prompt thanks to my medical insurance provider.  But sloth?  To me, it's synonymous with Sid from Disney’s Ice Age--nothing more and nothing less.

So, like any good researcher, I Googled “sloth,” and Wikipedia provided me with these basics, among others:

• Sloths are arboreal residents of the rainforests of Central and South America.
• Names for the animals used by tribes in Ecuador include Ritto, Rit and Ridette, mostly forms of the word "sleep", "eat" and "dirty" from Tagaeri tribe of Huaorani.
• As much as two-thirds of a well-fed sloth's body-weight consists of the contents of its stomach, and the digestive process can take a month or more to complete.
• Sloths move only when necessary and even then very slowly: they have about a quarter as much muscle tissue as other animals of similar weight. They can move at a marginally higher speed if they are in immediate danger from a predator,…but they burn large amounts of energy doing so.

As far as sloth as sin, I’m with my grandmother…who knows from this?  Perhaps if it wasn’t so late and I wasn’t so tired, I’d Google that facet of the word, too, but not tonight, my friends, not tonight. 

In the meantime, go ahead, call me a sloth.

R

Red Writing Hood is the writing meme of The Red Dress Club.  The finished piece should be no more than 600 words of either fiction or non-fiction.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.

Where are the Hippies?

Today's prompt:  Write about the first (or second) memory that comes to mind when you see this image:

Photo:  Battelle.org

An ashtray, one box of Larks, one of Parliaments and two glasses of Boone’s Farm Apple Wine sat on the table in the kitchen. Amidst the avocado green appliances, two young women sat with them, alternately sipping the cloyingly sweet wine and, chins pointing upward, exhaling hazy blue smoke ceiling-ward. Only now do I realize how young they really were:  one, not yet 30, was the mother of three daughters; the other, at 36, was the mother of two, my sister and me.

This was their late afternoon custom—developed to fill the time after work, when we girls were at Brownies and it was too soon to start dinner. Or perhaps, it was the friends’ defense against a crazy world. Richard Nixon was president, body counts dominated the nightly news, and Helen Reddy, Peter Paul and Mary, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, and the Kingston Trio were the musical backdrop to our lives.

Me (interrupting the peace of the women's afternoon ritual): “Ma, I told Nancy I’m going to be a hippie for Halloween and she said that God doesn’t love hippies.”

Ma: “God loves everyone—especially hippies."

Me:  "Why does God love hippies?"

Ma:  "Because they want to end the war.”

Me: “Then I’m going to be a hippie for Halloween.”

Where are today's hippies who want to end today’s wars?!

Remembe(RED) is the memoir meme of The Red Dress Club.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.