Inspiration and Distraction for Today

Here we go! I hope everyone is taking care of themselves today as we wait to find out which direction our country will go.

Sunday I attended a friend’s birthday event. It was brilliant. In a reserved room at Missoula’s award winning library, she read a few poems for inspiration, gave us a prompt to use the five senses: taste, smell, hearing, touch, and sight.

She read a wonderful excerpt from Joe Brainard‘s I Remember. He was an artist and writer. It began:

I remember the only time I ever saw my mother cry. I was eating apricot pie. I remember how much I used to stutter. I remember the first time I saw television.

It’s a lovely exercise. If you need a distraction today maybe try your hand at writing a poem.

In the ten minutes we had to write and stirred by I Remember this is what my pen and paper composed:

I remember when my cousin, Wilkie Bee, and I stayed with our grandmothers

Our grandmothers were sisters

I remember that one of us would get a banana for best behavior

I remember I never got a banana

I remember the jar of buttons

I remember how I loved to string them onto a string

I remember my grandmother, Nanoo, smelled of baby powder

I remember the sound of the silver bell she jingled, signaling the housekeeper to bring the biscuits to the table or fill her dainty coffee cup

I remember how the biscuits and butter melted in my mouth

I remember how dainty my grandmother was, how she spoke softly

I never heard her raise her voice