Looking ahead then looking back

 

Beautyberries close up

 Now that the election is over—if it IS over and decided—we can get on with our political angst (on both sides) and set about to straighten out our part of the country—if it needs it. We can concentrate on how to navigate the upcoming holidays.

Our family Thanksgiving plans, like many others I presume, are cancelled. 

But, to sort of make up for that, I am involved in two other fun activities. One is our monthly writing group meeting next Wednesday, meaning that BFF Dot is overnighting at Couchwood so we can both attend. 

               

The other is a new event: hosting the local poets meeting. Our regular gathering place, the main fire station, is closed for the year. For the past two months, the group has met at a pavilion at Tyndall Park. But plans are that mid-November temps will preclude meeting there again. So I volunteered. That gives me the opportunity to decorate the front part of the house with all the fall-motif collections I’ve amassed over the years.

Let me finish out goings-on at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs that I began last week. On another day, either Saturday or Sunday, we stopped at La Familia for lunch. Again, we were masked and seated ourselves at a booth near a wall.

Lunch boxes—many, many lunch boxes--decorated an upper shelf as far as we could see. Patrons sometimes stopped by close to us to gape at them. I don’t remember ever carrying a lunch box to school, but I remember Dad’s black one, about as large as our mailbox, with a tall thermos inside. I’m drawing a blank about what Lydia ordered but I had a taco salad.

The weather during the week until late Thursday was raw—cold, windy, raining, or rainy. We stayed in and wrote. Monday night was communal dinner in the Main House. Though there were two other writers around, they’d chosen to eat in their rooms. Greens/veggie salads, pureed  soups—one night, carrot and tomato, another night, served in what I call a cereal bowl, squash, and coconut. Those two items were enough for entire meal, but, no, we had a plate of chicken, roasted broccoli and carrots, and mashed potatoes. We ate most of that meal at the table.

Another noon, we drove out of town toward Rogers to Rowdy Beavers. It was raining, but I didn’t hear any rowdiness and saw no beavers scurrying around. LOL

  

Wednesday night, we ate salmon, roasted veggies, and rice. (Jana alternated between potatoes and rice.) Another night was a pork chop, potatoes, and roasted cauliflower. On our last night, Thursday, for dessert, Lydia had store-bought wafers and I had two severed fingers, complete with slivered-almond fingernails and red food coloring blood. They were made from a sugar cookie recipe—in honor of Halloween.

 Lydia finished her long-in-progress novel and I worked steadily toward the Creative-Non-Fiction assignments looming before the term ends in December.

The drive home on Friday merited a gas-stop again at Marshall, then a side trip to Leslie where my youngest brother—he of the Arkansas River flood a couple of Mays ago—lives after leaving Mayflower. He is in possession of an orchard, raised vegetable beds, and a two-story house with a basement.

                

He also has animal neighbors: 30 feral pigs, bobcats and even a bear or two have been spotted by neighbors. Ooh!

c 2020, by PL, dba lovepat press, Benton AR USA

 

I never tire of time in the Ozarks: a look back

 While I'm here in 2018, this post was written about the same experience but in 2012. Perhaps you have come on board since then, and haven't read it. If you read it earlier, perhaps you've forgotten some details--like I had.

2012:
           Question: Who but an over-achieving writer would go to such pains just to get bundled up to go outside on a below-freezing Ozark morning? With coffee, of course, even though a bit stronger roast than my usual half-caff.

           Answer: For one, a back-packed mountain man walking the steep incline toward downtown. For another, a dog walker. She looked over and I “Good morning”-ed. 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. I’m in Spring Garden Suite, my usual stable here 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.

THE 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!  

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. No one exited an SUV. Might it be a photographer? After all, there are now three papers in this town, though two of them seem to have the same information—but 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-motif-ed 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 stairway to the entrance. 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. All the maple and cottonwood leaves were underfoot. Except the ones I brought in to grace my writing space.
~ ~ ~ ~

2018: Next post will update to my current autumn visit. PL

c 2018, PL, d/b/a lovepat press, Benton AR USA 

Once again in the mountains –no, in the valleys, she said

Mailbox at 505, the Usonian house that's now part of the campus

                Last week was my bi-annual trip/ trek to Eureka Springs for two reasons: one, a poetry sub-group meeting and a chance to continue work on my latest book, a memoir, “When I Had Another Name” or “Edging Past Eighty.”

                The Wednesday night dinner--a gourmet meal--included lentil soup, curly endive salad, mashed potatoes, ham slices, baked Brussel sprouts and a sweet potato-squash-mushroom galette. Dessert was pear torte.

                Five writers and one Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow board member partook of the food and—uncharacteristically for me, at least—sat around the table until 8:00 discussing subjects de jour.

                Elise was the board member. She owns both Basin Park and Crescent hotels. She sponsored one of the scholarships that Alia, from Richmond, Virginia, received and who was in residence. Elise’s the one who told us the geographical history of Eureka Springs. It used to be an ocean, she said. When the water receded, it took the soluble rocks with it leaving terrain characterized by barren, rocky ground, caves, sinkholes, underground rivers, and the absence of surface streams.

            The other writers’ homes spanned the width of the country: from San Francisco through Cincinnati, and to New York. I was the lone Arkansan. But I added my two-cents worth to the conversations, believe me (to quote a man-too-much-in-the-news). Being the eldest of the group didn’t stop me. The next-eldest told us she was the same age as Hillary.

                Thursday was spent in my suite revising the latest submission from the writers group at home––the third section of the memoir that takes me through junior high school. I also read some from the book I brought with me, Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald. And I napped.

                Thursday night was the monthly meeting of Poetluck—a potluck meal followed by readings from the Colony residents first, then from the local and area attendees. One unusual “pot” was purple sweet potatoes brought by a couple who live on Bohannon Mountain in Marshall and who grew them on their acreage. I read “Ash Wednesday” from Hiding Myself Into Safety. Later, someone asked me if I were a preacher.

                Friday noon, friend Vicki picked me up. In her VW, we crawled through the busyness of downtown out to Hwy 62 to La Familia. We had a great, needed catch-up meeting over lunch.

By Friday night, Anne Marie from near St. Louis, had joined the group. Baked chicken with roasted cut fennel bulbs, green salad, rice, and a medley of veggies comprised the meal. Dessert was tea cookies. We sat around the table afterwards, discussing various topics until 8:30!

Saturday morning, a Facebook friend, Dan, from a town nearby, dropped by for a first-ever, face-to-face visit. And eventually coffee in 505, since I didn’t have sense enough to figure out how to program the high-falutin’ coffee machine in the Main House. Dan writes a column in the Eureka Springs Independent, so I asked him to autograph my copy. We had a great time. First time I’d ever hugged a man whom I’d never seen before!

At 80, how many more ops to hug handsome men will I have? Huh? Huh?