Another week in the Ozarks: writing/ critiquing/ basking in autumn’s ambiance

 

 

                OCTOBER 24, Saturday, 9 a.m. – Couchwood.  Leaving—again--for a week at Eureka Springs by way of Beebe to pick up b-f-f Dot. To hit Hwy 65, we cut across Hwy 64 to Conway, stopping in Clinton to “sell” a book, then to Marshall for gas. After a must-stop at Ferguson’s for coffee and a huge cinnamon roll, we rolled into Eureka Springs around 3 p.m. One more leg down the twists-and-turns of Scenic Highway 62 to Spring Street--our home for the next week.

                We settled into our suites, Dot in Spring Garden at the Main House of Dairy Hollow; moi in Muse 1 of 505, the Usonion house in the Frank Lloyd Wright style.

Dot went out with her daughter and granddaughter. They had driven over from Edmond, Oklahoma, to see their mom and grandmother since they hadn’t been able to visit Dot on her recent birthday.

                OCTOBER 25 Sunday. The trio invited me to join them for brunch at Myrtie Mae’s restaurant, after which Linda and Amy headed back west. Dot and I worked separately on our writing goals—her’s was to write a new chapter every day. Mine was to finish last week’s Halloween column, finish “Dazey’s Dilemma,” a short story-in-progress, and to begin on a possible memoir inspired by May Sarton’s “Coming Into Eighty.” I would tentatively call mine “Edging Past Eighty.”

OCTOBER 26, Monday. We met the other residents, Cynthia from Springfield, Judi from Cincinnati, and a new writer from D. C. a young, Jewish man who worked at the Library of Congress.

At 7 p.m., a Haymaker poetry critique session was scheduled across town. At 9:30, the 8 poets who had--as one guy said, “tortured” (critiqued) each other’s work--“limped away” to rest for the “onslaught” of a second session the next morning. All our poems were equally discussed, dissected or divided. Fun, fun, fun!

OCTOBER 27, Tuesday, 8:30 a.m. The poets met at the Forest Hill Restaurant, and then to the Express Inn for another session. The glassed-in breakfast room jutting out from the building had served as a meeting place for several years and most of the group lodged at the Inn. I began the meeting with a “lesson,” or “sharing,” called “Genesis of a Poem.” Then we sparred through another poem from each.

At noon, we traveled to Sparky’s, fortifying ourselves for the final afternoon session. After it ended at 4 p.m., we hugged and kissed those friends we won’t see again until spring.

OCTOBER 28, Wednesday. I revised the Haymaker-critiqued poems as per suggestions, then returned to Dazey. Rain fell gently, confining us to our rooms. Looking out my window, I noticed . . . “a squirrel/ up and down the wet pine . . . sometimes/ lost in the grayness”.

OCTOBER 29, Thursday. We struggled to get enough internet access to check our email. We later discovered that the entire town went down that night. But at 1 p.m., we left for our flea-marketing excursion. First, to the Purple House, the hospital’s thrift shop. Then to The “doggie” store—the Humane Society’s thrift store, then to the Barn Shoppes.

At dinner, we discovered the cook’s faux pas: She served pork. Ahron had to go without meat.

OCTOBER 30, Friday. The last full day. Judi left early, we were leaving tomorrow, Cynthia, on Monday, but Ahron had two more weeks of residency. Dot and I spent two hours at the last flea market, the Echo, whose merchandise is all donated, and whose monies go to the free medical clinic.

OCTOBER 31. We left at 10, stopped in Marshall for lunch and ice cream, then pulled into Beebe at 3, into Benton at 4. It was a thoroughly wonderful week. The two cats even “spoke” to me after leaving them with only an every-other-day check-in.

May November be full of inspiring nuggets for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another week of spring in the Ozarks

 

               APRIL 21- Easter Monday, – Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow. On the road at 9:30 and drove four hours straight only to find the doors all locked at 1:30. Luckily, the other resident was on “his” porch and while he went down for some lunch, I found the keys to my room and came back up for a nap. I unpacked the car then and parked.
             After that, I went outside and wrote.

FROM THE COLONY DECK

Dogwood
as far as I
can see in these mountains.
Settling in to write this Easter
Monday.

The sun
merely a bright
spot behind a cloud bank.
On Easter Monday, the weather’s
still cool.
        
           At dusk, I hear an owl from somewhere down Dairy Hollow Road.

again this year
heartburn follows
Jana’s great dinner.

APRIL 22 – Tuesday. The annual (for 21 years) Lucidity Poets Retreat doesn’t begin till tonight. So I tackle the myriad submissions to CALLIOPE’s poetry file. This is a gratis job (a non-profit writers’ publication), but –despite the general editor’s wishes (“You went there to write!”)—I spread all of them out on the kitchen table and sort them by dates received—some as far back as December. Though a newbie at editing poetry for a lit mag, I try to respond (via email) as soon and as personally as possible.
The opening session of the Retreat brought old friends together (of all the hugging you ever saw: in someone’s coat collar or lapel might be one of my earrings) and a few new folks who quickly became friends.

          APRIL 23 – Wednesday. The honor of leading one of four workshops starting at 8:30 meant my leaving here at 8.  Three Texans, an Illini, and four Mizzou poets had been assigned to the group.  In two long sessions, we critiqued each others’ poems sent in earlier. Lunch at Sparky’s Bistro with Missouri and Mountain Home friends lasted until 1:30, and the next session began at 2. I eschewed that one for a nap. The evening lectures added more information and inspiration. Afterward, we participated in a read-around. I lasted one round, but some of them stayed for two. When the leader called for a 3^rd round, I heard that several called out, “Enough!” By then it was ‘way after 10 pm.

 

            APRIL 24 – Thursday. Another workshop session, another lecture, a group picture, then the afternoon was free. It threatened rain, and I came down with a fresh cold. Sure enough, we had to wear raincoats over our dressy clothes for the final activity.

            The Awards banquet began at 5:30. Dr. John Crawford provided the pre-and-post banquet piano music. Though I was sure my poem would win at least an honorable mention, alas, it didn’t. With a runny nose and sneezing spells, I didn’t feel like attending the usual ritual of goodbyes at the local pub. My sleep was noisy and fitful. Rest was out in the woods somewhere, or in the fields. It certainly was NOT in MY bed.

 

            APRIL 25 – Friday.  After two days of arising by alarm for early workshops, I slept in till rested, arising at 8:05. This day was all mine. Coffee and journal on the back deck, and time to write. And write I did—for two hours. After breakfast, I continued toward my goal of organizing all the Calliope poetry submitted thus far, and trying to get them all a schedule for publication. Turned out to be a complicated procedure that meant emails to most of the poets before I could call myself done. 

          After a sumptuous dinner (provided at the Colony each week night) of salmon “cakes” (I call them” patties”), mashed potatoes, steamed, uncut asparagus, salad and lemon meringue pie, I drove across town to the only local store, Dollar General. I needed more antihistamine, some throat lozenges, batteries for my camera, toothpaste and the most important thing, ice cream. I continued working on the poems submitted until bedtime. The Haagen-Dazs strawberry provided a cooling, sweet midnight delight.

 

            APRIL 26 – Saturday. Another whole day alone—except for the loud folks motorcycling, walking, yelling, playing their car radios loudly—I finally finished the CALLIOPE task with each poem tucked away in folders labeled “Summer ‘14”, “Fall ’14,” “Winter ‘14/’15,” “Spring ‘15” and a couple as far out as “Summer ’15.”

 

           APRIL 27 – Sunday. Sunday. Here it is 9 p.m. and I’ve just now wasted four hours of typing into my website 62 "found" poems. SIXTY-TWO. I could tell the machine or the text editor was getting tired. First, it skipped two spaces instead of one, then three spaces. Once, the screen went completely away, but came back presently. When the 62^nd poem—the end of the ones beginning with F—was typed in and a note as to the date, I looked around for a SAVE CHANGES. Couldn’t find it, so started searching. And, for want of a SAVE, the lot was lost.

         But—after fuming, whining, crabbing, grousing—I decided that this was nothing compared to the destruction and deaths caused by today’s tornadoes.

         Forgive me, Lord, for magnifying the insignificant things instead of the important ones that really matter.

 

After two weeks in the Ozarks

 

 

                Home now from two glorious weeks at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs.

Oh, the new chapters I wrote. Oh, the books I read and reviewed.  And the poems I penned.

               I also contacted the poets who’d submitted to “CALLIOPE: A Writer’s Workshop,” for which I’m the newly-appointed editor.

              What else? I learned to operate the digital camera bought two months ago, and while doing so, discovered the company had been out of business for eight years! Why were their products still being sold?

              I made notes from the books I read. I brainstormed scenarios for the sequel.

                Talya and Dorothy were housemates. We visited over wine-thirty and at dinner.

The last few days, others moved in, either for Crescent Dragonwagon’s Fearless Writing Weekend or for the Colony’s board meeting on Saturday.

Checking my journal, I realized I hadn’t told anyone about the elk head I saw at Marshall on the way up. I’d stopped for gas. Four or five fellows were gathered around a pickup bed. I saw antlers and—nosy, uh, curious me--went over to look. A young man had just killed the beast near Woolem. He described it as “3.5 points.” Woolem was fairly close to Marshall; I passed a sign a little north of there.

For you who like to read about local folks and their “doings,” I have an idea.  Dr. Pat Adcock, professor emeritus at Henderson State University, has written two novels, both of which I read while at the Colony. Bill White of Hot Springs AR especially will enjoy Dr. Adcock’s Muggsbottom stories, for they are set in the Arkadelphia-like town of Arcady. Confession: I loved the books, but I should have had a dictionary at hand. Instead, I listed the unknown-to-me words (I love to find new words.) and later, looked them up.

Some words I knew, thank goodness, from other readings: reprobate, sodomite, debauched, hirsute and reconnoiter. I knew conundrum, cryptic and caveat, contretemps, lachrymose, intimations and histrionics.

But back to the stories: they involve four British gentlemen who do not like the government of Mrs. Thatcher. Therefore, they decide to find another country in which to retire. They butt up against some of the local Arkansas people, their customs and attitudes. The narrator (the thinly disguised author) becomes a friend, observes and reports all their shenanigans. Therein lies the fun.

 Enjoy your autumn-- literally and, if applicable, metaphorically.

Mother Nature doesn’t always accede to our plans

Google image: Ozarks

            

                 BFF-Dot-from-Beebe and I have spent the past few days “on vacation.” Planned ‘way back in early August, Navarre Beach, Florida was to be our destination. An off-season, half-price rate made it ultra enticing.

 

               But as the time neared, Karen, the tropical storm, threatened. And came closer. Then closer. Predictions were dire.

 

                The condo owner called and cancelled us. With the rain they’d already had, he said, plus what would come with Karen, Navarre would flood and more than likely cause evacuations. Who wanted to spend an anticipated (Dot had never been to Florida) vacation holed up in some hotel with (possibly) the power off? Even if one’s son lived in the area?

 

              Dot was ready to go somewhere. We lobbed possibilities back and forth: Eureka Springs and Branson were two of them.

 

               “What about the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow?” I asked her. She was accepted earlier through an application process that included ten pages of writing samples, a list of publications and two references.  But, because at that time they required a 2-week minimum stay, she backed out, not needing to leave her place for that long.

 

                I’m an alumna of the writers’ colony, so I said, “Let’s call Linda and see if perchance she has two suites unoccupied/unscheduled. SHE DID!  And for the entire time we intended to be away! Serendipity! The rooms were in separate-but adjacent buildings, which was fine with us.

 

                I boarded Greye and Boots at the animal clinic, and we Taurus-trekked northward to the Ozarks (4 hours) instead of southward (10 hours) to the Florida panhandle.

 

              Even with the next-day’s rain, we both were happily warm and dry in our suites, complete with writing space, wireless hookup, coffeepot, snacks, good lighting—everything a writer needs for a productive getaway. Oh, and our laptops.

 

              Dot slept longer than usual the first night due to the extra walking, climbing and descending stairs, excitement, etc. Plus, she didn’t need to get up for work or to get Son off to work with a lunch. I usually sleep as long as I can anyway, having nothing but cats to cater to.

 

            We wrote and read and emailed and Face-booked. At mealtimes during the weekend, we ate from the residents’ refrigerator that held culinary leftovers—cauliflower, rice, soup, pasta, dilled potato slices, white cake with a lemon curd layer—plus sandwich makings, juices and milks. Or from food we’d both brought along.

 

           By Sunday night, the Corvette Club members had returned to where they were from—or were on the way home. The previous day’s rain had cooled temps down to jacket weather. I’d packed shorts for the beach, but did have two pairs of jeans amongst them. A windbreaker and one long-sleeved blouse were my only warmish duds, so Dot loaned me a denim shirt.

 

          Six other residents have moved in since we came, so this week at the common dinner hour, there were 8 writers around the dining table. Such sessions of good food, fellowship and sharing added to the serendipity of the alternative vacation—

 

                                                    ---the mountains instead of the beach.



Cold week in the Ozarks: a journaling

Bundled up last October; not quite as cold this spring. But still cold--most of the week.

 

by Pat Laster

 

 APRIL 1- Monday, 7:55 a.m. – Couchwood. Sunny and foggy; up at 6:58 before alarm. Prepping to leave for a week at Eureka Springs – Lucidity Poetry retreat (for two days and three evenings) but living at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow.

APRIL 2 – Tuesday, 8:14 a.m. At WCDH in the Peach Blossom Suite. Lower floor accessible street-side by stone steps (a death-trap by night without a flashlight) or park-side by a narrow path between the building and the edge of a 6-foot drop-off onto Polk Street. 42 degrees, rainy.
          After the first night, I wrote:

Lighting’s

poor, chair’s too low. 

The heating unit sounds

like a squadron of motorbikes

revving.

 

Coffee’s

good, the décor’s

pleasing and restful, bed’s

comfortable, dresser storage

ample.

          9:42 a.m. –breakfast: an Easter dinner roll spread with peanut butter and dried berries brought from home, almonds (ditto), cold skim milk and coffee from the common kitchen here. A cinquain texted to the roll baker:

Brother
Guy, I just ate
one of your homemade rolls
at Dairy Hollow in April.
Yum, yum!

APRIL 3 – Wednesday, 6:23 a.m., up with alarm at 5:58, 34 degrees!?! A call during the night from Tech Support Simon, who was “tuning up” my 3-week-old laptop, interrupted my sleep, making the alarm seem even earlier.
          Leading a Lucidity poets’ workshop across town that started at 8:30 meant leaving here at 8.  Jottings from the session included: “forensic = law,” a line from one poem, “The dead always want more,” and a reminder that “specifics are better than generalizations.”

APRIL 4 – Thursday. My notes begin at 11:30 with a lecture by our renown and long-standing professor Larry Thomas from Ypsilanti, Michigan, who has traveled this route for 19 years. After this year, he’s bowing out. Past age 80, he deserves to, though we will miss him terribly. Notes: Frost’s quandary can become our own: “What should I do today?”
          In another note the lecturer says, “A poem says one thing and means another.” I don’t agree with that statement, because many of my works are literal, not metaphorical. Perhaps he was talking about GOOD/GREAT poems.

APRIL 5 – Friday. 42 degrees—finally sunny. 10:05 a.m. After two days of arising by alarm for Lucidity workshops at 8:30, I sleep in till I’m rested. Vivid dreams of being back in the music classroom of 7^th graders are thankfully quashed by notification of a full bladder. At 7:20, I rouse, decide it’s too early, so, like a cat, I stretch, yawn, assume my favorite (fetal) position and return to sleep. But not a deep sleep, for I begin building Fibonacci (a new form of poetry for me) in my head. [6 more pages of notes.]

APRIL 6 – Saturday, 7:38 a.m. 50 degrees! I take my coffee outside and a bird seems to greet me. “Sweetie, sweetie, sweetie, sweetie,” with an occasional 5^th “sweetie.” It must know I stand below. [Tee-hee.]
           From inside, I grab a straight-back, slatted-back, caned-seat wooden chair. (Yes, I know there’s too many adjectives, but I want to be specific.) Add a pillow, fetch the oak TV tray that I brought with me “just in case.” (This is the “case.”) Voila! An outdoors writing station! [7 more pages of notes, mostly research about boardinghouse rates and related information.]

APRIL 7 – Sunday, 7:32 a.m.—up at 7:27, 51 degrees, cloudy. DREAM: I’d accepted an interim choir directing job at a local church. After one-and-a-half rehearsals of a difficult but doable anthem, I up and quit. “Lack of respect,” I shouted.
          First inciting event: While I was “teaching,” a man whom I knew talked–not whispered--to his neighbor the entire time. Second inciting event: Four women—two of whom I knew—quit singing and began hand-jiving in rhythm.
          Skip to the end: As I was leaving, the talkative tenor had gathered the group and some Cokesbury hymnals in the choir loft to “pick out something for Sunday.”
          I think I just dreamed a short story!

 

I never tire of time in the Ozarks

Porch of Spring Garden Suite, Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow,
Eureka Springs Arkansas

by Pat Laster

 

Who but an over-achieving writer would take such pains to bundle up and go outside on a below-freezing Ozark morning? (With coffee, of course, even though a stronger roast than my usual half-caff.)

Answer: For one, a back-packed mountain man walking an ubiquitous incline toward downtown. For another, a dog walker. She looked over. I “Good morning”-ed and in response, she said, “I just saw a red fox go across the road. Beautiful! ”

So I’m in good company here in Eureka Springs, in Spring Garden Suite, my usual stable  at Dairy Hollow. I did ask for a room in the new “505” building next door, but Ms. Director forgot and instead, scheduled a writer who wanted to stay a month. I didn’t mind, especially when I discovered it was Tom S. from New England who was a co-resident several years ago.

MY MUSE

One leaf,
large and tattered, 
followed me inside, like
a cat waiting for the door to
open.

 “Hello
there! Come on in!
You’ll be safe from Jana’s
leaf blower. Here, join the ones I
picked up

as I
crossed the parking
lot yesterday. Right up
here under the lamp where I can
see you."

Behind me, cars and conversation. A writing workshop was scheduled for all day in the main house. If someone parked in front of “my” place, (six feet from the street) I’d have to move inside!  Or complain.

VIEW FROM THE STREET AT THE WRITERS COLONY FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF A DOG WALKER

Would you
 look at that! A
cleverly stuffed strawman
posing as a writer on this
freezing

morning.
No gloves, though. Life-
like hands, even holding
a Razorback pen! It IS a
writer!?!

Vehicles began parking on “our” street. But no one exited an SUV. Might it be a photographer? After all, there were now three papers in this town, though two of them seem to have the same information—written by different folks.

No newspaper photog, alas, but Tom walked by with a basket of breakfast and lunch fixings “so I won’t have to ‘bug them.’” He gestured toward the main house soon-to-be-awash with paying, workshopping writers. “Oh,” he continued. “Mind if I take a picture of you writing? I’ll send it to my wife and email or text you a copy.”

“Oh, no!” I said, followed immediately by, “Okay.” How did he know that at that very moment I was writing about a photographer? Karma?  Indeed, I DID look like an obese straw person!

Later, I went inside to refill my coffee mug—a leaf-motifed one from home. As I turned back to the door, sure enough, there was a vehicle immediately between “my” walk and the street. An older man with a knitted head covering carried his supplies down the stone slab steps to the entrance of the main house. The antique-car license also showed a Vietnam Veteran sticker. I forgave him immediately.

TWENTY SIX DEGREES

Colder,
but the maples
aren’t yet as vibrant as
last year, or hickories quite as
yellow.

 Turns out that the area’s prime color peaked last week. Maple, hickory and cottonwood leaves were now underfoot. Except the ones I brought in to grace my writing space.
 

c 2012 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press, Benton Arkansas

Once more in the Ozarks to write

by Pat Laster

As I type this on a Wednesday evening in Dairy Hollow’s Spring Garden Suite, I haven’t yet investigated Little Switzerland--as Eureka Springs is often called--for its fall foliage.
However, the trip up Highway 65 afforded many sightings of yellow hickory, red sumac and sweet gum’s still-muted variegated colors. I determined to stop somewhere on the way home and buy a hickory and some sumac to go with the sassafras and crape myrtle already growing on Couchwood.
The wind and the change in temperature brought on another bout of sneezing and nasal drip as I drove through Clinton, Marshall, Dennard, Leslie, St. Joe, Bellefonte, Harrison and Alpena. At Green Forest, traffic was stopped across from the cattle-sale barn for ten or twelve minutes while some road overlay happened.
I arrived at the Writers Colony to find a new director, Mary Jo, with bad news: the toilet in my suite was acting ugly. A plumber had been called and was supposed to be on site that afternoon. If possible.
IF POSSIBLE??? But the stars were aligned as some folks describe it. I drove around the curve to the parking space as Mr. Plumber pulled up to my front door. While the young man worked, I carried in case after case (clothes and writing materials/books) and placed them out of the way.
I held the door while he brought in a “John-in-a-box.” I piddled around in the work space/kitchenette—the mini-fridge had not been turned up—and the microwave was uneven on its platform.
Soon, I heard the man say, “This isn’t gonna work,” or maybe he said “ain’t,” and traipsed back through the suite lugging the “cheap—one-hundred dollar,” er, john. “I’ll have to go back to the shop and get another one.”
“Where’s the shop?” I asked in alarm. “Rogers? Bentonville?”
“No, it’s in town,” and away he flew--as fast as anyone can fly while negotiating a hairpin curve and a steep climb from the valley.
While he was gone, I jury-rigged the crippled microwave with a 3 by 5 note card bent six ways to Sunday. It worked, but I added the situation to my evaluation form. The next writer will have the same problem if it’s not corrected.
Soon, the plumber, bald as an unwigged mannequin, returned with a “more expensive, but in these old houses, the only solution” toilet. Installed quickly. Problem solved.
Given my recent experiences, I asked him about recycling. “All but the porcelain—it’s clay—and the plastic.” About once a month, he loads his trailer, he said, and takes everything else to a salvage yard. The proceeds he splits with his boss. “About $200 a month,” he allowed. “Good pay for the likes of me.”
Now, it is Friday evening. Though there are two more residents here—one from Seattle; one from New York--they ate out, so I dined alone at the big table in the Main House. Vegetable-bean soup, tossed salad, cornbread and chocolate pudding left by the cook who leaves as early as she can—the economy has hit the non-profits hard—but not before placing sticky notes to “turn off the stove,” and “salad in the fridge; have a great weekend.”
I’m sure I’ll have a great weekend: no organ to play, no choir rehearsal to attend, no cats to feed, no pears to peel. I can sit on this front porch not six feet from the street, watch and listen as the bikers roar by this curve, the sound lingering, lingering as they maneuver the hairpin and the incline.
Maybe tomorrow night I’ll hear the clip-clop of the horse-drawn carriage rides.

c 2011 by Pat Laster dba lovepat press