BOOKS, 33 1/3 ALBUMS, DEATH & PIZZA

It helped to write my last blog

“What Was My Purpose?”

I started writing some haiku-like poetry

In the dark room

a long time

something beautiful develops

~ ~ ~

The last two books I read:

The Tao of Jung by David Rosen

 and My Quest for Beauty by Rollo May.

~ ~ ~

I’m happy that soon some OLLI friends

and I will be reading at the library. I made a poster.

~ ~ ~

Now, I’ve got some crazy idea

to design 33 1/3 album covers

as part of the “nostalgia” kick I’m on.

I paste them over old album covers.

Here’s a poster I designed.

Each one represents a song I’ve composed.

~ ~ ~

My new DIET PLAN:

EAT LESS OF WHAT YOU LOVE

I'm sure I am addicted to wheat.

I break down with pizza.

I tried the $8 Your Pie pizza when

they were selling it on 3-14-2015

 for $3.14. (∏ = 3.14). 

I loved it!

I ate two slices while it was hot,

just out of their brick oven.

I brought the rest home and warmed up

one slice each day in the skillet.

Pizza is oh, so comforting,

like a drug of choice.

 I’ve bought one pizza each week since 3-14-15

~ ~ ~

REMEMBERING MARGOT

A really good friend, Margot Endsley, died March 30.

Our birthdays were a month apart.

Her death weighs heavy on my heart.

She had a massive heart attack.

I knew her by the authors she loved:

Faulkner, Sartre, Dostoyevsky, 

Ruth Rendel, & John Irving.  

I knew her from the secrets we shared

back in the 60s, when we first met at

The University Women’s Club Discussion Group.

I knew her likes and dislikes.

I helped her plan Dick’s memorial service.

Wed. Mar. 25, (five days earlier)

I had visited with her in her car

in the Kroger parking lot.

We talked about old times, books, diets

dogs, and children.

 She was reading East of Eden.

We talked about death and dying that day,

how we wanted to go quickly.

Last year I emailed her my entire memoir

 and she’d printed it out and read every word.

It’ll probably never be published

but she was the one person I most wanted to read it.

 And I’m consoled a little that I have that memory

 because now she’s gone.

It was the kind of death she wanted.

Fast.

~ ~ ~

I still don’t know what my purpose was or is,

 but it has something to do with love & music.

Maybe I'll get my piano solos made

into a CD, finally,

now that I have designed a cover.

~ ~ ~

HERE'S THE LYRICS & PIANO SOLO FOR

"BECAUSE OF LOVE"

(I would have loved to have
heard Frank Sinatra record it!)

~ ~ ~

This was going to be my blog:

WANTED: Fairy Godmother/Housekeeper/Agent!

~ ~ ~

scroll down for earlier blogs:

WHAT WAS MY PURPOSE?

WHAT WAS MY PURPOSE?

I still don’t know why I was born,

or what my purpose was.

 ~
Was it to be a gardener
 and take photos?

~ ~ ~

Was it to write poems?

At seventy-eight

I breathe in the pure clean air

above the tree line.

Whispers from the Universe are nearer.

Now I may unlock the doors

tap the red shoes

and go home.

~ ~ ~
Maybe, to keep an illustrated journal?

 ~ ~ ~
Or, write an unpublished memoir?

~ ~ ~
 Was I born to write music?

~ ~ ~
Or, to be a mother?

 ~ ~ ~
Was it just to be a friend?

 ~ ~ ~
Not a dilettante artist!

 ~ ~ ~
Maybe to be a lazy bum?

Yes! Most likely a lazy bum!

A dib, dab dilettante!

I've just been making it up

as I go along.

And now sending it to
cyber-space.
Maybe the dead are tuned in.

~ ~ ~

These days I have less energy,

or reason to do much of anything.

But when the Brown High Newsletter

came around again

to those of us who are left,

 I was reminded of

Mrs. Lyle’s kindergarten class in 1942

at J. C. Harris Grammar School

and I know some of them
 are still listening.

and my new OLLI friends

 might read this too.

~ ~ ~

I don’t think I was born
 to write music.
It's just that

  music has consoled me.

So, I bought myself

 a ukelele for Christmas.

(old album covers in the background)

I wrote my first song

on a little plastic ukelele

back in 1951.

It made me happy.

~ ~ ~

thanks if you read this!

stay tuned . . .

or scroll down and read

The Plum Tree is Blooming Again

THE PLUM TREE BLOOMS AGAIN

I am sitting at my desk

looking out at the garden

thinking of my mortality again.

How many springs has the

the plum tree bloomed?

It’s on its last leg

and so am I.

This is my seventy-seventh spring

 and I am remembering back

 to my wedding in 1958

in a summer from yesteryear.

The sky was blue, then, too.

~ ~ ~

I can still cut flowers

and arrange them.

I am the lone arranger.

I have rearranged the shelves

in the sunroom studio

I am the poet and piper, too.

Here’s a new music video

"Come With Me"

playing pan flutes with photos

of the plum tree

and blue sky.

~ 

and a new poem.

AMOR FATI

Amor fati

Love your fate

even if you didn’t get what you wanted

even if you didn’t want what you got,

even if your plans were thwarted

and ended in dead end streets.

Even if hope was overrated

even if the prison bars

were of your own making.

Love it because the sun will be there

 every day

even when you can’t see it.

Love your fate

because just living itself

is beautiful,

in some strange, mad way.

~ ~ ~

stay tuned . . .

A GLOVED & GIRDLED MEMOIR

 Confessions of a Blue Tomato

Writing this memoir

Confessions of a Blue Tomato

has been such an ordeal,

 I've not even wanted to post to this blog.
At least I can give you a preview.

Here's a draft of the book cover.

I've used my maiden name as author.

This took some tweaking to get this photo here.
I wanted it small because that's how it will show up online.
 The title isn't bold enough. 

Here's the book description:

Confessions of a Blue Tomato is a compelling portrait of growing up as a gloved and girdled girl of the ’50s with unfulfilled hopes and dreams. This hauntingly unforgettable mother-daughter story is told with psychological insight, through the narrator’s poignant and sensitive Southern voice.

First Grade - Spring 1942

(me in saddle shoes)

It's a memoir about an only child growing up in Atlanta during a time of streetcars and blackouts, remembering the dusty playground of Joel Chandler Harris grammar school where soldiers from Fort McPherson gave bouncy jeep rides to school children during World War II. It’s a story about listening to the radio and collecting movie star photos, and riding a bicycle to the Saturday movie serials. It’s about opening a door and smelling popcorn, and walking on sticky floors and hearing childish screams, as the Mummy raised up out of his tomb in the darkened Cascade Theater.

I decided to make the first chapter . . .

 V is for Victory

 . . . because, it's the story about us earning

our Victory Badges during World War II.

Everything was rationed

and we were encouraged to

 collect paper, tinfoil and grease

to turn in for the war effort.

I'm on the third row 

grinning, wearing my badge.

 The plaid dress was made by our

neighbor out of feed sack material

and trimmed with rick rack.

~ ~ ~

Here’s the opening paragraph.

T H E   B E S T   T H I N G   A B O U T   S E C O N D  G R A D E was World War II. The main reason being that Miss Ruby Price was the meanest teacher I’d ever had, except for one special morning when she yanked us into place, two by two, marching us down the wide marbled hallway for an important announcement about the war effort.

~ ~ ~

Then I go back to the beginning. 

 Chapter 2.

IN THE BEGINNING . . .

MY CHILDHOOD WAS LONELY. I was an only child with no daddy, so I'll just start by saying that my story is more about being born with a broken heart than anything else. I know it's hard to think that a baby can come out of a womb so sad and all, but I did. It was like being born with a port wine stain on my heart, because no one could see it, especially me, not until later, and then, I could only feel it.

~ ~ ~

Chapter 3

FAMILY SECRETS AND MYSTERIES

The memoir is also about Mother

who grew up in the Roaring Twenties!

Mother (r.) (c. 1928) on a double-date with her

friend, Grace in the North Georgia Mountains.

 They wore matching striped

pajama-like dresses.

And, look, they're acting so "jazz age" risque

rolling up their pants' leg.

~~~

In sixth grade we put on a play

 The Queen of Hearts

Every child had a costume.

Robert was the King of Hearts

I was the Queen.

Later he dumped me for a new

girl in town. 

~ ~ ~

The gloved and girdled 1950s began.

Mother posed us,

 (l-r) me, Sandra, Frances & Kay

wearing our first pair

of stockings and heels at Easter.

~~~

Another preface excerpt:

. . . it's about a deep south world of fresh peaches, mimosa fronds, kudzu, baptism, Stone Mountain, Peachtree Street, the U.D.C (United Daughters of the Confederacy), failed auditions, and being miscast in the role of Betty Crocker. 

~~~

Yes, Mother loved to pose me for photos,

 so I wanted to be a movie star

 to make Mother smile.

I call this shadowbox collage,

 "Living Mother's Dreams"

I put all my medals at Mother's feet

and a pair of rhinestone earrings.

~ ~ ~

Okay, that's enough distraction.

Finish proof reading & editing the memoir.

~~~

"Wait a minute . . .!"

Here's one more photo ~ The New Horizon Band

I play a drum in.

This group keeps me sane.

I thank my lucky stars for this group!

We play at Retirement Centers

and Assisted Living Homes.

stay tuned . . .

and,

scroll down to read:

clams casino at the oak room

confessions of a blue tomato

===