I’m late with my Friday morning post. Chalk it up to busyness.
I won’t say all that’s going on that made the days busy, but here’s a little of it.
Monday I went to the hospital for a test, only to find out the test was no longer needed because a test they did back on April 15 covered the same area. $20 miles of expense just getting there, and about two hours I would never get back.
Wednesday I went back to the same hospital for a different test, an MRI to take a closer look at a small mass of “neoplasm” found in the April 15 test. While the final report isn’t complete, it appears to be just a cyst on my kidney. Nothing to worry about.
We had painters at the house Monday-Wednesday, finishing the work needed after repairs from water damage to the house. I think I’ve blogged about that before.
Yardwork continues, though I’m pretty much on top of it and need to do only a little every day. I hope to get in an hour today.
We are slowly putting everything back in place from the house repairs. Got some done last night.
We continue to sell a few things in our dis-accumulation efforts. Sold two items this week, and brought a bookshelf to the garage for work to strengthen and repurpose it.
I’ve been writing this week. Today I wrote the last two sections of Chapter 2 of Volume 2 of A Walk Through Holy Week. I feel good about the progress.
I’ve had several items of correspondence this week with other writers—some for our critique group and some just for pleasure.
Yesterday I finished transcribing letters from or years in Saudi Arabia. I still have a travel journal to transcribe, then I’ll start putting them in a book for family. No hurry on this project.
I have made great progress with scanning/formatting/e-filing the poetry critiques I did from 2001-2010, which I had printed and saved. I’m down to less than thirty still to do. No hurry on this project either.
I’m working on plans for three special events over the next two weeks. Not going to say much about them now, but will likely blog about it later.
So with all this to do, I sort of forgot about my regular Friday post. Still, I’m not terribly late with it. And I won’t be late with my Monday post, for it’s already written and scheduled.
I usually try to have the posts for the blog go live around 7:30 a.m. on Mondays and Fridays. Usually I try to write these a day ahead so that I don’t have to rush them on posting day. But here it is, nearly 8:00 a.m. on Friday, and I’m just writing today’s post.
This week has been very busy as we are dog-sitting again. Our neighbor’s dog, Rocky, has been with us since Saturday. He’s a good dog, but he gets homesick a lot. At his house he goes outside without a leash to do his business. At our house, if we let him out without a leash he will hand around a few minutes, then run home. We then have to go uphill, pass the three wooded lots between our houses, and find and fetch him.
Still, it’s been good to have him here. He’s older now, and I figured out this morning that we may be walking him more than we need, for he didn’t come right out of his nighttime kennel and run to the door. I think I will walk him less today. When we came back from a long walk a couple of days ago, we passed some neighbors out on their porch and stopped to chat for a while. I told them one of us was worn out. The other was a dog.
It’s been good to get my steps in every day. My weight is down (helped by a little sickness on Tuesday) and I’m very close to reaching a major milestone on weight loss. Look for an announcement soon.
On the second walk today, three deer were grazing. Caught two of them in this shot.
Rocky goes home tonight and, despite the work involved with his care, we will miss him. Because of the early morning walks, twice I encountered a herd of around eight deer grazing in the lot north of us. Never would have seen them under normal circumstances. Alas, I didn’t get my camera out in time to snap a picture before they scattered.
Meanwhile, in other news, the water/mold remediation work inside the house is finally done. Two men were here yesterday to re-install the built-in bookcase. All water damaged areas have been removed and replaced. Corrective actions have been made in three areas to keep it from happening again. The painting is not yet done, for we will have Rocky’s owner, who is a professional painter, to do that, hopefully soon. But today I will start putting books back on the shelves. We’ve already put some stuff back in the master bathroom.
I’ve also been able to mostly keep up my writing schedule. Monday through Wednesday, I completed one chapter in the Bible study I’m writing. Yesterday I planned out the next chapter and edited the gospel harmony it’s based on. Today I will try to write one section in it. By the time my writing is done tomorrow I hope to have two more sections done, which is actually a little ahead of the weekly schedule I’ve set for myself.
As far as my special projects are concerned, I’ve fallen a bit behind on them. I’m transcribing letters from our years in Saudi Arabia, intending to put them in a book. But I found a folder with eight items in it from our Kuwait years. The last few days I worked on them, typing and formatting them. They will have to go into the book on the Kuwait years and I’ll have to republish it. All for family, of course. The project of scanning genealogy papers and e-filing them has fallen on hard times. Perhaps I can get back to that in a few days.
No, the taxes! I forgot I still have our taxes to do. Got the business taxes done and in before the March 15 deadline, but still have to do our personal income taxes. I suppose I will have to start on that tomorrow. Alas.
This was an okay book, not great. Not sure of its truth. Will never read it again, so it’s gone, today added to the sale/donation pile.
Our efforts at dis-accumulating continue. Perhaps not as fast as needed to do a downsizing in this decade, but we make a little progress. The last month has seen the old postcard collection acquired in the mid-1980s, having been left behind in the house we bought, for $115. But the buyer wanted me to ship it to Houston and so didn’t want the small, steel cabinet. I was able to sell that for an extra $10.
Then Lynda decided she was willing to part with the Gulf War memorabilia she brought back from Kuwait in 1991. They were supposedly Iraqi items. I listed them on Facebook Marketplace, not being sure they would sell. After one price reduction, a mom contacted me. She wanted them for her son (maybe a teenager), who loves military stuff. We were able to arrange a transfer that was convenient to both of us.
But really, the big thing we need to part with is books. For a bookiphile, that’s like cutting your wrist. But we have to do it. Despite the number of books we’ve gotten rid of, we still have at least 2,000 books in the house. I gave one away at writer’s critique group last week.
One book obviously isn’t much; we need to do more. In our living room is a built-in bookcase. We are going to have to dismantle this to repair some water damage that appears to be from improperly installed flashing around the chimney. We have already removed some books from the lower shelves and piled them, to prevent them from being damaged and allow the bookcase to dry from a little moisture found.
As Lynda and I discussed it, she suggested that we get rid of a series of Bible study books that are shelved on that built-in. We went through one of those books together, and started a second. They aren’t bad books. I learned something from them. But when you have 2,000 books, and need to unload at least a thousand, I agreed with her to put those in the sale/donation pile.
I then suggested we also get rid of two books from the built-ins, the two books in The Bible Code series. We read these aloud together. They are an easy read because the books are not long, are well-written, and have lots of illustrations of where the Bible may have a code in the books of Moses. I say “may have” because, while the writer makes a good case, I’m not fully convinced it’s true.
At first Lynda balked. She was more accepting of the Bible code than I was and thought more of the books than I did. But then she agreed with me that we read the books, got something from them, and with all the other books in the house we were unlikely to read them ever again. So she agreed to get rid of them. I’ll move them out tomorrow.
I also have a fairly large set of magazines about World War 2 that I got from my dad. I had intended to read them, but it looks as if I never will. I have them listed on Marketplace and lowered the price twice. I think I’ll do so again and see if they will sell. Also on the getting-rid-of-block is my collection of WW2 history books. They are all good. If I had a shortage of books I would probably read all of them again. But, with a book surplus and a shortage of years ahead, I think they will also go up for sale.
Six Bible studies, two Bible codes are a long way from 1,000 books. A good sized box of magazines, and perhaps ten war books are not much. But it’s a start. I’m hoping over Thanksgiving, when our children are here, we will be able to take some time to go through a few things and, with their encouragement, get rid of some things we haven’t done anything with since the 1970s through 1990s.
In my last post, I wrote about how I was grinding through a bunch of tasks, and, to keep them all straight, I needed a to-do list. I’m in The Dungeon right now, writing this, and I don’t my current to-do list with me, so I’m starting a new one.
I do these on a long, narrow note pad that we’ve had for years. I found this pad in the desk in The Dungeon, something that isn’t used too much. I was given to us when we bought our house in Bentonville in 1991. Time to use it up I would say. It’s perfect for to-do lists.
As far as what got done from the last to-do list:
Flu shots.
Heard back from two contractors. One gave me a little more information on his schedule, moving the work out some. The other apologized for not getting me an estimate yet and established a date when he would. I would have to say, I feel a little better about contractors today.
Got my hair cut.
Continued to write in my current work-in-progress, A Walk Through Holy Week, Part 1. I should finish a chapter today, putting me at 70 percent finished with the first draft. That puts me a little behind where I hoped to be by this time, but I’m not unhappy with my progress.
Got some filing done, though I have much more of that to do.
Attended my writers’ critique group last night. A good meeting; I might blog about it next.
Have started getting things together for Thanksgiving.
And Thanksgiving will dominate my next to-do list, which I started by interrupting writing this. Lots to do in terms of cleaning and organizing. Also buying in some groceries. I’m trying to plan our meals so that we get to Monday night’s supper, the last we will have alone, finishing the last prepared item.
It will be a good Thanksgiving, with both of our children, their spouses, and all our grandchildren here. It may also be the last family gathering at our house for a while, as henceforth we might shift these to our daughter’s house.
So carry on, everyone. My wishes to out to you, a bit early, for a happy Thanksgiving.
Time to work on a cover for the newest volume in this series?
It’s that time of the month—time for accountability of writing goals. How did I do last month vs. what I planned? First, the progress.
Blog twice a week, on Monday and Friday. As usual, I achieved this. Only one time did I find myself late and have to throw something together.
Attend three writers meetings. One writers group is folding, so I’ll only have three most months henceforth. Attended all three, as well as an online social gathering of writers.
Begin serious writing work on Documenting America: Run-Up to Revolution. I don’t know how fast this will go—or how slow—so I won’t set a word goal. I actually began this on Saturday, and was able to complete the commentary part of Chapter 1—first draft, of course. This bodes well for future writing progress on this book. Yes! I made some major progress on this. As of 8/31, I had 12 of 31 chapters complete. The rest have the source documents fully edited and are ready for my words to be added.
Read more in reference documents for my new Bible study idea. If everything gels, get started on the study overview and outline. I didn’t read any more source documents, but I did spend a little time improving the outline.
Continue to work on digitizing/discarding of genealogy papers. Yes, I did this, though made less progress in the last week than previously.
Now for some goals. I’m a little hesitant to set any, because my mind has been too active on some potential new projects. But, if I don’t set some goals I’m just drifting to the future instead of steering a purposeful course. So here they are.
Blog twice a week, Mondays and Fridays. I suspect my readers are tired of seeing that goal each month.
Attend three writers meetings, plus the online social gathering.
Complete the first draft of Documenting America: Run-Up To Revolution. This is very doable, but I will have to be disciplined, especially in consideration of…
.. Decide on whether to post my new Documenting America book to Kindle Vella and, if I do, get the first chapter/episode published on Wednesday, September 6.
Tie down the new writing idea that came to me on August 28-30. Write all I can about the idea in manuscript. No, I’m not sharing what it is now. Heck, I don’t know when I would have time to write it if it seems viable.
Enough! I’ll also be working on the genealogy papers digitization project. I have a very large notebook open on my desk that I’d like to get all the way through in September.
I hope to do some writing on the sequel to this this week.
It’s Sunday evening as I write this, multi-tasking as we watch the specials about 9/11. I’m looking ahead to tomorrow, and realize I don’t have time to write the type of post I’d hoped to have for Monday. Even Friday is a little iffy for a post that takes a lot of time.
This is a killer week. Not so Monday and Friday, but the other days have a lot of activities and appointments.
First, I have two “gigs” this week. On Tuesday, I will repeat my presentation on the Universal Postal Union to the NW Arkansas Letter Writers Society. I made this presentation in May, but almost everyone who normally attends was gone that day. So I’ll do it again. Fortunately, all I have to do is dust off my PowerPoint and run through it once or twice.
Then, Wednesday morning, I am to be at John Tyson Elementary School in Springdale (40 mile drive), where I will make a presentation of There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel to Henry and Izzy, the two students I had Zoom meetings with about a writing project they were doing, then had them be beta readers for my book. They don’t know I’ll be there and giving them the finished book. This will be at 9:00 a.m.
I have several hundred more of these WW2 newspapers to inventory.
Then, at 12:00 noon, I have an appointment with my cardiologist’s P.A. Hopefully I’ll learn how well the cardio rehab program went. Between those two appointments, I’m hoping to meet someone for coffee. We’ll see if that happens.
Then, Wednesday afternoon, Lynda and I have dental appointments. I’ll barely have time to get home after seeing the cardiologist to leave for the dentist. But, unless we head to church that night, that will end appointments on Wednesday.
At noon on Thursday, Lynda will have her MRI to find out what, exactly, caused her sciatica attach in July. That has been twice delayed, not because of us, but because of insurance and provider problems. Then, that evening, is a semi-monthly meeting of the Scribblers & Scribes critique group. I’ll have some preparation time required for that.
In addition to this, I have my normal activities, which at the moment include:
morning 2-mile walks
digitizing a minimum of 10 printed letters a day
inventorying a minimum of 30 issues of the Stars and Stripes
whatever writing I can squeeze in, most likely on The Key To TimeTravel, though I have other projects to work on as well, if I want to do so.
A little bit of yard work, although the work I got done on Saturday puts me a little ahead of where I normally am.
reading for research as well as for pleasure, including a couple of C.S. Lewis writings.
At some point, I need to begin the strength exercise program recommended in the cardio rehab program. I hope to begin that on Monday.
So yes, it will be a busy week. Hopefully I’ll be able to see progress on all my tasks.
The Centennial book is done. I have my copies in hand. Full distribution starts on Sunday May 22.
Ack! It’s almost 11 a.m. and I’m just now getting to writing my blog post for today. Something must be wrong with me.
Yes, something is wrong with me. I’ve been too busy. It began last Thursday, when a Zoom meeting about our upcoming church Centennial celebration was still going strong after 2 1/2 hours, and I hit a wall. I couldn’t go on. I abruptly ended the meeting, took a break, and a few hours later got back to the task we had been working on—now alone. Yes, I still work better alone than with someone else.
Not the final cover, but some thoughts I had on a draft. The artist is working on it.
Friday and Saturday are blurs to me now. I know some heavy yardwork and a daily walk were involved. I had a number of e-mails about the Centennial, also about There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel. Saturday evening was taken up with study to teach Life Group on Sunday morning. Sunday was the usual church, Life group, fast-food takeout. Then we went to the high school graduation reception for our neighbors’ daughter. Through a comedy of errors (which included my not understanding the invitation), that took us a while to even get there. Back home, tiredness set in and I didn’t get a lot done during the afternoon. In the evening I went back to the Centennial work I have been tasked with, and got a little more done. I also did some in-depth critiquing of a piece send by a member of our critique group. This morning, the first thing I did was finish that critique and e-mail it to her.
Back on TNSTATT, we must finalize the book cover, create the publication files (e-book and print book), decide whether it will be on Amazon only or go “wide” to other publishers. I think it was on Friday that I got most of the final formatting done. Today I re-read a couple of the later chapters and made a few edits. I declared it done around 8:15 a,m. and began the final formatting. This includes such things as adding in a listing of my other books which, for some reason, is never up-to-date. I spent time getting it up-to-date, and creating a system for keeping it up-to-date henceforth.
I have another hour and a half of work on the print book, then an hour or so on the e-book. Then I will be ready to work on something else. What will it be?
I ought to get back to the second of two Bible studies I was writing, as described in this post. I had pulled off the second while waiting on feedback on the first. But last night I learned that the man I sent it to for review never got the e-mail. I re-sent it last night, confirmed he got it, and so now I wait. I may get back to that. The Scribblers & Scribes meet this Thursday evening, and I’d like to have something to share. But what? I’m not sure they will want to review and critique pages of a Bible study.
Or, I may start on something completely new. I don’t want to go into too much detail. Tentatively titled Tales Of A Vagabond, it would be the start of an autobiography. I actually started it when I realized I needed to write my blog post.
Whatever I ultimately do with Tales Of A Vagabond, I know that finishing the two Bible studies will be my next main writing tasks. But after that, what? I’m kind of itching to do some work on a genealogy book about one of Lynda’s ancestors. My two partly-complete and temporarily-abandoned Thomas Carlyle books are starting to look attractive again. There’s always the next Documenting America book, for which I have completed the research. If TNSTATT takes off, I may hop right on Book 2 in that series. I just don’t know.
That’s not really the full list. I will be taking time soon to pray about this and see if I get some divine direction. The problem is, God has never given me such specific guidance. He usually leaves it up to me, and I have learned to pray that he would direct my footsteps as I make the best decisions I can. I suspect this will be one of those times.
Elise, working on her “word” for earning money from Grandpa, while Nitwit surveys the scene from above, watching out for Useless and Nuisance.
We are back in West Texas for a visit with our daughter’s family. I know, we were just here a month ago, but they had need for a babysitter last Friday night, and we said we’d come do it. We drove here last Thursday, and will likely leave for home tomorrow, though possibly not till Wednesday.
It’s been an easy gig. The four kids were reasonably compliant with doing their chores on Saturday. Even little Elijah, 5 years old, was given two chores. He had his sister write out a to-do list for him, as she was doing for herself. Grandparents can usually ride herd on the kids in a way the parents can’t. At least, they seem to do somewhat better with us in some ways, being a little quicker to jump-to-it when we ask them to do something.
Sunday was church. I went early with the three oldest kids, Lynda and Sara and Elijah coming later. Richard, as pastor, was already there. I attended men’s class for Sunday school, then, during church, I found an unused room, connected by Zoom, and taught our class at our home church remotely. The attendance was good, and the class went well. Of course, that mean I didn’t sit through a church service yesterday. Hopefully I can do so today on the replays.
Elijah had fun cleaning his play area in the sunroom, then checking it off as a job done.
It was difficult to work on writing during this time, so I’ve done a lot of reading. As much as possible, to be an example for the grandkids, I’ve been reading in a print book. So far, no real indication that it’s doing much good. Except maybe for Elise, who is reading Harry Potter: The Order of the Phoenix in a print book—but she has been doing that for a while. I was able to review two chapters for critique group, which meets on Thursday. I guess on Friday I managed to spend on hour on the Bible study I’m writing. I don’t feel like I got very far with it.
We brought a surplus bookcase from our house to help organize theirs. Elijah’s other chore was to put books and toys on it, which he did with much help from Elise and guidance from Grandpa.
We have also had to care for Useless, Nitwit, and Nuisance, the three pets. Except, it’s now four pets. One grandchild was unhappy that he didn’t really have a pet, so they arranged for a rescue kitten to come join the menagerie. Except, the rescue kitten was in Oklahoma City. So we stopped there on the way here, met up with the rescue woman, and brought the new kitten here. The grandson named her Sapphire. While she is transitioning into the household with three pets there already (actually, more than that if you include the bearded dragon and the goldfish), she is needing a lot of attention. While I was wondering what nickname I could give the new kitten, Elise said it ought to be a name about a girl who needs a lot of attention. Obviously, I immediately named her Diva. Hopefully, with this pet the zoo is complete.
Diva is isolated from the two older cats, she being a female and them being not-yet-neutered males (kittens who are almost cats). I didn’t spend a lot of time with her—if you don’t count the 6 hours in the car between OKC and here.
My plan is to leave the zoo tomorrow. We’ll take their recyclables and drop them in OKC, then get home by a good time, though too late to join an on-line writing group.
One bit of writing I did accomplish (besides this blog post). While sitting on the front porch yesterday, reading for 30 minutes before the onslaught of 20 people from their small group at church for a Super Bowl party, before reading I set my mind to writing a short poem. Nothing major, just a cinqain (a five-line poem). I don’t know if it’s any good, but it’s sitting there on my phone, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.
So, I will see you all on Friday, back home, probably in The Dungeon, in old routines.
When last I posted, we were just past a delightful snow day on Friday. The snow was on Wednesday and Thursday. The final total at our house I figure was about 6-7 inches. Others in the area had up to 9 inches. I didn’t do extensive measurements.
Of course, after the snow is snow shoveling—if you want to go anywhere on the weekend. We had sunny days on Friday and Saturday. Enough sun to melt some snow but temperatures too cold to see that much snow disappear. So Saturday just before noon saw me outside, shoveling. There were maybe 5 inches on the drive by this time. I knew if I could just get it down to mostly bare pavement, radiant energy would dry it. Sure enough, that’s what happened. By the time sundown came I had the driveway shoveled, the van up at the top of the drive, and dry pavement—except for the refreezing that would happen to three or four little streams of snow-melt running down my nice, dry drive.
Saturday and Sunday were productive. Yes, even Sunday. It’s supposed to be a day of rest, right? And it was, sort of. On Saturday I made a list of things I thought I needed to do. Some were normal Saturday activities, such as my stock trading accounting, updating the checkbook and family budget. I didn’t mess with filing, but will have to do that shortly. Kitchen cleaning was one thing. Filling bird feeders was another. Slowly, the tasks got done, mostly on Saturday.
Sunday was typical. Lynda was well enough to go to church with me. We had missionaries in the service. I taught Life Group. We got Arby’s takeout for lunch. Hope and eat, then for me it was to the sunroom with my half-way read volume of Dylan Thomas’s Collected Letters. I’m trying to read ten pages a day, and doing fairly well with it. I tried to nap out there, but didn’t get much sleep time.
So I went to The Dungeon, where I worked on critiquing works for my critique group, the Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. I did five pages in one and ten in another (neither of which was the complete submitted item) and shot them back by e-mail. It was good to get them out. I also sent out the next chapter in There’s No Such Thing As Time Travel.
My other main task was to complete the edits to the church Centennial book. I had a long Zoom conference with the two proofreaders, whose comments were almost entirely edits. They only found six or eight typos, and half of those I had caught in my own proofread. I thought that was pretty good. But they had lots of suggested changes. We went through them, and I’m afraid I wasn’t real accepting of a lot of the changes this late in the game. I needed edits in October.
However, I decided to go through them all, slowly, on Saturday and Sunday, considering each suggestion, and making some more changes. Last night, around 8 p.m. or so, I finished. All suggested edits considered and dealt with, all changes made to my master document, and the master document e-mailed to the two proofreaders. I have one more photo to put in, and I will do that today. No, maybe two photos.
To end the day yesterday, I read about 20 pages aloud to the wife in the book we’re reading, about a Christian convert from Timor. Then I had an hour or so of reading in Dylan Thomas and C.S. Lewis, both in their collected letters. Now, time to see what goes on today’s to-do list—after this blog post, of course.
Is this considered a craft? Oh, no, I did a craft! What’s to become of me? I feel the dendrites in my nervous system getting all worried.
Whether the pandemic is over or not, it’s good to be coming out of it. To go to the grocery store and not wear a mask. To go to church, not wear a mask, and get a cup of coffee (while staying 6 ft. distanced the whole time). To have long-interrupted groups meet for the first time in over a year. Yes, while we realize the spread of the virus isn’t over, and questions remain as to the effectiveness of the vaccine against all mutations of the virus, it’s still good to open up.
One group I belong to has been meeting. The Northwest Arkansas Letter Writers took a few months off, then decided to meet outdoors. I joined this group in March 2020 and attended one meeting before the pandemic hit. These are people who enjoy writing letters, on paper, that get sent through the mail. We have been meeting at a church not too far from me, under a drive-under at the back door, skipping the coldest and hottest months. That was good to keep seeing each other and talk about our letter writing activities.
Another group I’m a member of is the Scribblers & Scribes of Bella Vista. This is a writers critique group. We had our last meeting at a library in early March 2020. We typically had four or five people attend out of six active members. One of those has moved away; two others were new and we don’t know what their current interest is. Three of us were core members who rarely missed a meeting. While we were shut down, we sent pieces for critique by e-mail and received feedback the same way, but it wasn’t quite the same as reading pages in front of other writers and receiving comments then.
We began meeting again last Tuesday, all except me, as I had a one time church meeting to attend. I e-mailed in for critique the beginning of a short story. I’ll have to wait for the July meeting to see them all again. Anyone reading this who is interested in a writing critique group can find us through MeetUp.
The other group I’m a member of is the Village on the Lakes Writers and Poets. This group is a diverse bunch of writers, a fair number being poets. They met once a month at a writers retreat center in Bella Vista, sometimes as many as 20 people. The meetings were about inspiration for and education concerning writing, along with read-around of our work. Then the pandemic hit. The March 2020 meeting was cancelled. By April we were ready for Zoom meetings and did this every month during the pandemic.
In May, the State having lifted many restrictions, we met at a coffee shop, just five of us, and did some planning and dreaming. In June, we met at a pavilion of one of Bella Vista’s parks. One of our two group leaders led us in an exercise. Now, I hate writing exercises. I’m not sure why; I’d just rather write what I want to write and be done with it. But I took part. The leader had brought plucked off leaves, colored pens, pencils, and sketching paper. We were to trace a leaf (or leaves, whatever we wanted), then take fifteen minutes to write about it, after which we read our exercise to the group.
Not trace. I’m not exactly sure what this craft is called. Put the leaf on wax paper, then a sketch sheet above it, and rub the leaf through the paper so that the features come through. Leaf rubbing I suppose it’s called. My leaf didn’t want to cooperate. I chose yellow as my rubbing color. Probably not the best, as yellow doesn’t show well. The thick parts of the leaf didn’t show well, so I took a green pencil and traced them.
As to the writing, I stared at my leaf and couldn’t think of a thing. Then I took note of the dendritic pattern of the leaf and remembered an e-mail discussion with my now-deceased friend, Gary Boden, and a train of though came to mind. Here’s what I wrote and read to the group.
Dendritic Passage
As the trace of the leaf shows more prominently the division of segments—i.e. the spine and the hard, thick parts, so is my writing life and all that has brought me to this point. These start at the periphery and end at the bottom of the stem in what is called a dendritic pattern.
Dendritic? Yes, that’s the term. We used it in hydrology to describe the nature of a drainage basin, coming together from the far-flung edges and arriving at the main channel. But I think the word comes from the natural sciences, for I first heard it from Gary, a zoologist by education who ended up his career in computer systems. Branches coming together but with a fabric between them is what makes a dendritic pattern.
As I look at this leaf from an unknown plant and see its dendritic pattern, I see my writing. Each little spine is a genre that captures some of my time and results in a book or story. The latch-key teen experiences resulted in the Danny Tompkins stories. The many places visited early in adult life are being turned into the Sharon Williams stories and Operation Lotus Sunday. My love of God’s story and His word & church has moved to a branch that is the church history novels and
Hydrology, botany, and neurology (if that’s the right word) all make use of the term dendritic. Who knew?
At that point the leader said “Time.” When I read what I had to the group, someone talked about the dendritic pattern of the nervous system. I later looked up a dictionary definition, and both the pattern of a tree and the nervous system were used in the definition of dendritic. And the word “dendrite” for the first time came to my attention. Guess I should have figured that.
This is not a profound post. I have no conclusion to draw, no inspirational thing to write. Just an observations. Groups are coming back. I took part in a writing exercise. I did a craft-like thing and lived to write about it. All is not right with the world, but it was better that day when we met.
My camera is not with me right now. When it is, I’ll edit in a photo of my leaf rubbing, quite possibly the first and last I’ll ever do. Now, on to my day’s dendritic activities.
Oh, and why did I write “Passage” instead of “Pattern” in the title? I guess I don’t know.
