Time Travel – Reflections on an Old Ledger

This 111-year-old ledger was a gift from a friend. It’s a beautiful, large book, full of rich nuggets of information. I believe it came from a local hardware store in business from 1907-2004. The script inside is really lovely. (Check this out if you’d like to see how this skill has changed and evolved and is now sadly disappearing.)

Here are a couple photos:

Some things purchased back then: wagon covers, well buckets, washboards, buggy whips, lard cans, harnesses, cow yokes, and black powder fuses. A sewing machine sold for $3.25. In the photo above, a refrigerator cost $27.50.

Names from this time period are fascinating: Wad Moon, Green Surber, Frantz Carter, Isom Cherry, Perles Creavey.

Looking at the many entries, it seems that Hawk Schick needed a new roof, Herbert Alfother needed a new wash boiler, Bud Galbraith needed phone wire, and O. H. Mahery needed his sulky repaired.

I’m sure there’s a story in here somewhere. I’ll keep looking, walking back into an era when things were simpler but maybe harder. Maybe.

Have a wonderful week. Rest, get outside when there’s sunshine, and read a good book. I’m finishing a charming children’s book right now called The Mouse with the Question Mark Tail by Richard Peck.

And don’t forget to ask ‘What if?’

 

 

Two Things

#1

Hey, anybody out there dealing with a really mean, grumpy inner critic lately – you know, that voice in your head that plays off all your anxieties? (raising hand)

Here’s how it’s been going with my creative work:

Me: (to inner critic) Shut up.

Inner critic: No, you shut up.

Me: No, you shut up.

Inner Critic: (not shutting up)

I’m getting pretty tired of it.

I need some tips.

Maybe I should give mine a name, so I can be more direct. Anyone else name their inner critic?

I’ve done some reading about this. There’s lots of information that suggests ways to cope, mostly that you first realize you’re being an active participant with the Meanie, and then do some separation and recovery with positive self-talk. In doing this, you create a new habit, and we all know it’s easier to create a new habit than it is to break an old one, right?

This is not to say that the inner critic doesn’t have value. I’m sure it does, in certain instances. But consider what it’s telling you. Do you have evidence to the contrary?

Being kind and compassionate to yourself, giving yourself a little grace, is a personal habit I need to develop. What about you?

#2

Book Talk – I just read the best middle grade story. It’s rich and compelling and has so much to tell us about ourselves.

The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh was a National Book Award Finalist in 2023.

Here’s a blurb:

“Thirteen-year-old Matthew is miserable. His journalist dad is stuck overseas indefinitely, and his mom has moved in his one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother to ride out the pandemic, adding to his stress and isolation.

But when Matthew finds a tattered black-and-white photo in his great-grandmother’s belongings, he discovers a clue to a hidden chapter of her past, one that will lead to a life-shattering family secret. Set in alternating timelines that connect the present-day to the 1930s and the US to the USSR, Katherine Marsh’s latest novel sheds fresh light on the Holodomor – the horrific famine that killed millions of Ukrainians, and which the Soviet government covered up for decades.”

I highly recommend!

*I wish you all the best this upcoming week! Give yourself a hug. And read a good book.* 

Autumn

It’s time for my annual post about Autumn. It’s been hot and dry here where I live, with very few signs of fall. This poem makes me happy and helps me see this season that I love with new eyes.

TO AUTUMN by William Blake

O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof; there thou mayst rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe,
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now  the lusty song of fruits and flowers.

“The narrow bud opens her beauties to
The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
Blossoms hang round the brows of Morning, and
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest Eve
Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.

“The spirits of the air live on the smells
Of fruit; and Joy, with pinions light, roves round
The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.”
“Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat;
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.

Letting Go

I said goodbye to this dear lady today. She was the best kind of cat to have on a farm, sweet and cuddly but also courageous. More than anything, she was my friend. I will miss her.

Fall

It’s time for my annual fall post. No poem this time. Just a thought, something that reminds me how much I love the fall. 

                                                                                                

                                                  “Autumn is a second spring, where every leaf is a flower.”
                                                                                                                         ~Albert Camus

 

A Picture and a Thought

Oh, the plums. The sweet, bright taste of plums. William Carlos Williams said it so well in his poem This is Just to Say:

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

And which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

We picked these from a tree in our backyard. It was astonishing how quickly they ripened. Green one day, a deep purple red the next. Mother Nature is truly amazing. And now, we have our own plums…waiting in the icebox.

Musings and Mindfulness

Dreams. 

Everyone has them, even those who don’t think they do. Did you know that, ahem, according to a medically reviewed website, we spend an average of two hours a night dreaming, which supposedly adds up to six years of our lives? This seems pretty amazing to me. And a little disturbing.

However.

Some fascinating inventions have been inspired by dreams (Elias Howe’s sewing machine and Mendeleyev’s periodic table, for instance). And many stories have sprung from dreams (Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for one).

According to those who study sleep habits and dreaming, dreams are simply thinking in a more intuitive state. Parts of the brain sit back to let others take charge. Our daily experiences combine with information from past memories and create interesting results. Sometimes really interesting results.

Writers often compare the act of writing to dreaming (go here and here for examples). A question, though: If writing stories is akin to dreaming, how is reading them any different?

Why do we dream? No one really knows. But can dreams help us dwell in possibility? Maybe.

Here’s one of my favorite children’s poems about dreaming.

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod 
by Eugene Field

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night
Sailed off in a wooden shoe–
Sailed on a river of crystal light,
Into a sea of dew.
“Where are you going, and what do you wish?”
The old moon asked of the three.
“We have come to fish for the herring fish
That live in this beautiful sea;
Nets of silver and gold have we!”
Said Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

The old moon laughed and sang a song,
As they rocked in the wooden shoe,
And the wind that sped them all night long
Ruffled the waves of dew.
The little stars were the herring fish
That lived in that beautiful sea–
“Now cast your nets wherever you wish–
Never afeard are we!”
So cried the stars to the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

All night long their nets they threw
To the stars in the twinkling foam–
Then down from the skies came the wooden shoe,
Bringing the fishermen home;
‘T was all so pretty a sail it seemed
As if it could not be,
And some folks thought t’ was a dream they’d dreamed
Of sailing that beautiful sea–
But I shall name you the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Wynken and Blynken are two little eyes,
And Nod is a little head,
And the wooden shoe that sailed the skies
Is a wee one’s trundle-bed,
So shut your eyes while mother sings
Of wonderful sights that be,
And you shall see the beautiful things
As you rock in the misty sea,
Where the old shoe rocked the fishermen three:
Wynken,
Blynken,
And Nod.

Picture source: Capadia Designs

 

 

Fall-ing

It’s time for my annual post about autumn, definitely my favorite time of the year.

An Autumn Evening
by
Lucy Maud Montgomery

Dark hills against a hollow crocus sky
Scarfed with its crimson pennons, and below
The dome of sunset long, hushed valleys lie
Cradling the twilight, where the lone winds blow
And wake among the harps of leafless trees
Fantastic runes and mournful melodies.

The chilly purple air is threaded through
With silver from the rising moon afar,
And from a gulf of clear, unfathomed blue
In the southwest glimmers a great gold star
Above the darkening druid glens of fir
Where beckoning boughs and elfin voices stir.

And so I wander through the shadows still,
And look and listen with a rapt delight,
Pausing again and yet again at will
To drink the elusive beauty of the night,
Until my soul is filled, as some deep cup,
That with divine enchantment is brimmed up.

Fall

Hello, again, Fall. My absolutely favorite time of the year.

Time, You Know…

Wow. It’s been a while since I posted on my blog. Longer than I realized. But I’ve been busy. Life stuff. Family stuff. Finding my way through it all. Finding me, in a way. And I’ve been writing, too. Skimmering around a bit from one project to the next. But writing. Sketching. Picking at my old guitar. So I’ve settled on one project in particular. Well, two really. Working on projects simultaneously is nice. When one project hangs up or begins to smell, and not in a good way, one can always turn to the other. But really, the process of writing for me has gone from a frenetic thing, a high energy thing, an I HAVE TO DO THIS AND I HAVE TO DO IT SO WELL thing, to hello, old friend. Let me sit a while with you. Let me be real. Let me listen.

It’s a process, right? Life’s a process. And time is a slippery beast.

 

Picture from fccshelbyville.org