Of Gardens and Metaphors

The ragtag garden looks tattered and worn. The delphiniums have turned gray and seedy. Daisies, summer-sweet are fading. I’ve sheared back the shabby spent spring ground cover: rock cress, blue creeping veronica and phlox, but I’ve been a bit slow about the lamb’s ear—there’s a reason. The pale spikes like gray ghosts in the garden keep me company and I like to drag that particular chore out through the whole summer, if possible, just to get a dose of its fruity wonderful scent occasionally.

I spent my gardening time last week spiffing up flower beds from the ravages of time and season. I filled several bags with the garden debris: ground cover cuttings, deadheads and surrendered pansies. Ah, well…my heart always aches when I pull out a dying pansy, but I try to be philosophical about it though. I planted the pansies last fall; they’ve done their job and more.

Mid-summer gardens wan a bit, mine do, anyway. Most of my flower beds are perennial shade gardens and what does get plenty of sunlight. I make the most of by planting favorite sun-loving perennials. All but the roses are over by August. I should bring in late summer bloomers, but I’m alright with the absence, I have my few annuals and the vegetable garden. And always there is ‘Lady in Red’ salvia that I plant for the humming birds.

What has the condition of my garden got to do with writing? Maybe, nothing, but it got me thinking—about gathering metaphors. It’s a whole lot like gardening and a good place to find metaphors, too. Sometimes the places you look have an abundance of what could be used as a metaphor, sometimes you have to really look and consider before you find something that will work.

I think the more places you visit, the more experience you have, the easier you find them, think of them, use them. Visit your garden or your neighbors, visit a museum or aquarium, zoo. If you’re writing about another time period or place visit someplace that has some connection, however tenuous. Collect paint chips, just for the color names. Pick up magazines about the subject or time period (flea markets are great for this. The magazines are cheap and plentiful and you can just about find them on any subject.) Magazines are amazing for great detail and descriptive words condensed. Look for surprising names, traits—the perfect imagery-metaphors.

This type of research has an added benefit—it’s fun and it fills the well and what’s summer for?

And remember: it's not what you find, but how you use it.

Eco-friendly Writing

Eco-friendly writing has been covered by most of the writing magazines I subscribe to with the basic ideas of recycling such as using both sides of paper, using recycled paper, notebooks, etc., and e-mail for your business, as much as possible.

I love the planet earth. For over forty years I’ve recycled and put back. I’ve recycled aluminum cans since the ‘60s, and tried to pass that habit on to my boys. In fact, it was a daily chore to mash cans we used or found. We hunted discarded cans on our walks and my oldest son was able to put away $500.00 before he was two with the money we got from recycling cans. I also compost grass clippings, leaves and coffee grounds, turning what was heavy clay to rich, friable soil.

So, recycling paper and running a green office is second nature. All rough drafts are printed on the backside a previous draft, a slash of highlighter indicator to which is the old draft, I buy recycled paper, I use the backside of mailings for scratch paper and recycle my ink cartridges, as the articles suggest.

But I take things a step further: I’ve begged from or had given to me reams of used paper; a neighbor gave me a case of paper that had the heading printed on the top incorrectly. I refill ink cartridges, where possible, I use pens that use refills.
Then I turn up the recycling and have some fun. I love the swap meet or some call it the flea market. Every Sunday, my husband and I and often, one or more of my sons frequent the local flea market. It’s been going every Sunday since the ‘60s and every year it gets just a little bigger. With all the reality shows on now about the treasures you can find, more people hope it is their lottery. Me, I’m on the look-out for the useful.

What have I found? Staplers, one week, staples to fit them, the next, a sewing machine drawer, perfect for post-it notes, a wooden nail box, just the right size for scratch paper, an old wire desk file, an old wooden desk file, a perpetual desk calendar, a stack of 10 legal pads for 10¢, 10 composition notebooks for $1.00, old paper clips (very unusual looking, an old rolling library table used for a dictionary, a school bell (hey, I’ve used it) standing paper files (I think they’d make great weapons, toast holders (also great for currently in use files, old McCoy plant pots (great for holding paper clips and flash drives), a chamber pot (no, not for use, although I do wish I had a bathroom in my office. I could live there, if only, because I have an old office fridge for water and snacks. The pot is used for my lipstick plant).

I’ve found three ring binders, files, paper, bookends, frames (I never, ever buy new ones. There are just too many great ones for less than a quarter, mostly old and ornate but I don’t care what kind of metal, I just paint them to match.) I have old cowboy hats, spurs, a bridle, and boots, all for atmosphere. I’ve found a paper punch, a paint brush to clean my keyboard, lead for my mechanical pen, old striped wooden clip boards, ink stands (not particularly useful, but I collect them and old ink bottles.) I’ve found old ledgers for keeping track of submissions, old journals for daily writing exercises, an old staple remover, a map flashlight, a tambourine (don’t ask). I have an old music chair for extra seating with the advantage of storage in the seat. And best of all: research books, dirt cheap.

It’s not what you find, but how you use it.

It's Kaki's Fault

I braided my hair today. So, what, you asked. Well, two years ago I had so little hair, I couldn’t. Last year, I had so much new growth sticking out; I looked a bit like a dandelion. Today, a real nice braid.

What has this to do with Kaki, you ask. Nothing, just a gratitude observation. I try to have one every day.

So, what did Kaki do? And Kaki who?

It all started when I went looking for her book, HEARTBREAK CREEK by Kaki Warner. I have loved every one of the books in her Blood Rose Trilogy. Such wonderful Old West stories, right up my alley, right between the general store and the saloon. As I mentioned, although, I figured it would be so; we had to travel a ways to find it. But, as I mentioned before, that is the state of affairs when it comes to bookstores around here. (It will only get worse, I’m sure.) My husband is not much of a reader and it took him a long time, a really long time to figure out how much a part of me reading was.

It was a case of, love me, love my cat. He did not like cats, but I came with one. One big, gorgeous white long-hair Manx, Tiffany, who thought she was queen of her world. They circled each other for a while, Tiffany tried to seduce his Uncle, which got him appreciating her, at least, and then, a few years later, me and my boys brought home another. That one bit him while he was sleeping. Right under his arm…I think she thought it was a mouse. He thought it was…well, I can’t exactly use the words here.

He’s come to like cats…or maybe, he’s just afraid not to…Anyway, it was love me, love my books. That’s been just as hard for him. I remember his mother once telling me she’d given up reading because every time she sat down to read, his father would find something for her to do. I doubt he even realized. Men can be such…as Edwina, in HEARTBREAK CREEK says, lumps. I think it was just seeing her sit down.

I wasn’t about to let that happen, books were too much a part of me and he sees how it mellows me out, fills me, he sees what writing does for me, he’s my number one fan, but still…

I rushed through Texas Blue by Jodi Thomas (I did like this book, too.) I was reading so I could get to HEARTBREAK CREEK, I opened the front cover. I always read the praises, the acknowledgements and then, finally the first page…

“Honey, where are you? I thought we needed to go to your mothers?”

Oh, oh. I forgot and darn, but I’ve just got to finish this page. “I’ll be right there.”

Much later after we return home, a shadow passes over. I hardly notice, but it doesn’t go away. I concentrate harder…I will not look up, I will not look up…He’s standing there watching me read. I feel my lips press together.

“What were you going to fix for dinner?”

“Of course, I was just going to finish this page.”

“It’s six. I’m kind of…”

Six o’clock, dang, I was only going to read a minute. “I’m right on it.”

That night, late: “Honey, where are you?”

“I’m washing my face.” A blatant lie.

Much later: “Are you all right?”

“Sure, why?”

“I just wondered if you were coming to bed, it’s midnight.”

Holy cow! I’ve got my mom’s hair to do in the morning and…what was I thinking.

I was thinking…It’s Kaki’s fault. The dishes not getting in the dish washer, (my husband did it) the laundry unfolded (my husband did it), the dishes put up. (my husband again)

Next afternoon, after the hair, before dinner as I close the book. “Are you done with that?”

“Yes.”

“Good, that means I have my wife back, right?”

“Well, until COLORADO DAWN is out.”

“When is that going to be?” he asked with no small amount of trepidation.

“Not soon enough.”

Uintah/Uinta

You learn something every day. Sometimes, though, I wonder if that’s because you do something stupid every day. Not stupid exactly but…And sometimes, it takes so long to find out you’ve been doing something wrong/stupid and then when you do...

Anyway, we’re down at the Forest Service office looking at maps for my husband. He drew out a once in a lifetime big game tag for elk this year. Been trying forever or at least, a long time.

I’m a tree-huger (not my word for it), an animal lover…I love shooting a gun as long as it’s at a non-living target. To explain…I’ve gone deer hunting with my husband, helping him find deer…instead, secretly, I’ve been shooing them away. Hey, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him and I figure I’m evening the odds, such as I can, in favor of the animals. Besides, that’s just what you do when you love someone, right?
I get the whole thought process behind the hunting, and believe me, there are definite sides. Loud-voiced sides and it is an argument that we just don’t really get into in our house. Like the wolf issue. I love the wolf and around here, that’s not a popular position and I even get their (the opposition, not the wolf…although I get their point, too…the wolf, not the opposition. Oh, you know what I’m saying.)point. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it. Ranchers, hunters…they have a history, livelihood and all that. I get it. There are just some things my husband and I decided not to argue about. We each have our opinions, respect each other’s and support each other’s but don’t agree.

Actually, our whole married life…well, it’s true, opposites often attract. Makes for an interesting life. I digress, as I seem want to do…anyway, as we’re looking at these maps, it hits me…I’ve been typing in Uintah where Uinta should be. Throughout my whole darn book. I knew better. A lapse, I guess, but, dang…why? I’m so careful about that sort of thing. Thank heaven for Replace in Word. I got it all changed throughout my book, in the nick of time, by the way.

I was ranting and raving about it, wondering why, when a friend said… stop beating yourself up. It’s a logical error. You live near Uintah, they sound the same, it’s just a loop hole in your thinking.

Anyone else out there got loop holes in their thinking?

Bagged It

So, come afternoon I went in search of Kaki Warner’s book HEARTBREAK CREEK, just released yesterday. I could have downloaded it on my Kindle, but for this book, it had to be the real, solid, hands on thing. I planned an old-fashioned reading orgy as soon as I finished my current book, Texas Blue by Jodi Thomas, another favorite author in Western Historicals.

First stop, Wal-Mart. Not my favorite place for books and really, I was just hopin’ that as long as I had to run to the bank and they had a bank in Wal-Mart, I could combine errands. No luck.

Next, Target, pretty good around here for books, but no HEARTBREAK. Then, a phone call to the nearest Barnes and Nobles, not really that far, but compared to a few years ago, far. There were two great bookstores just two blocks from my house a few years ago. I hate to even say how much money I used to spend at the two stores. (Plus, a B Dalton at the mall not five miles from here. Now, a trip on the freeway many more miles away.) I can tell you this…it was every penny I saved clipping coupons for groceries. That was how I got the money for books when my boys were small. It was a challenge and the only way I could afford the tons of books I read, too.

My boys would wager on how much I could save and watch the receipts reach the floor, cheering me on. Of course, they got some of the money for their own reading. (I have good readers.) Actually, I still do it, even now, when I don’t really have to, I cut, sort and use coupons for book money. I buy fewer groceries, save less with coupons, but I use every penny on books. (And a bit more, too. Books are as important to me as food…all except, chocolate…oh, and as you know office supplies. But that’s just another addiction. I have so many.)

I digress…Anyway; I bagged a copy of HEARTBREAK CREEK before it was even out on the shelves. I was shocked that none of her other books were on the shelves and mentioned it to the clerk that checked me out.” Hey, Kaki Warner just won the RITA, maybe you ought to get some of her books on those shelves.” They looked at me like…Who is this?

I’m happy, too, and looking forward to a few evenings out on my patio with book, lemonade and quiet…Please.

Oh, by the way another addiction I just learned about, about myself: staplers. Yes, staplers. I’ll post some pictures of some great old staplers I found. For now, writing, reading and cutting coupons.

Make It So

Beautiful day. Warm, muggy night. Dress, put on shoes, grab jacket, cell phone, I-pod and head out for my morning walk. Clouds to the northwest look ominous, dark and slung low, but it’s warm. I can smell rain, but I have time. The breeze is moist, but I have time.

The rain hit at the top of the hill as I touched the chain-link fence that surrounds the Air-force base. I’m sans umbrella, but the rain starts slow and smells clean. As I pass a patch of fresh mowed weeds the smell reminds me of the inside of a barn, all yeasty oat and straw, with manure and horse thrown in. I love that smell. It takes me back to the horse-crazy days of a younger me.

Still, every year I haunt the local county fair and the stables awash in that smell. Nothing better than to be able to stroke between the long ears of a mule, the velvet nose of a Tennessee Walker or the tall shoulders of a Clydesdale. That way the scent lingers on me for hours, which cause me to smile even after we leave the fair grounds.

Back in the early days of the seventies during another recession we gave up our horses. There was a baby on the way. But that smell takes me back, always, as now. I quicken my pace, hoping to get back home before I’m complete drenched.
The birds don’t care much about the rain. I hear quail in the brush and Mourning Doves taking off for the treetops. Somewhere, a peacock asks for help and the crackle of a pheasant floats up from the wooded grove below. I could curse the rain and how wet I’m getting but I don’t. I thank the memories that simple, earthy scent gives me.

Could just one paragraph of my writing do the same for someone? Could a smell, a sight, a memory turn into the best writing I do for the week? Make it so.