Laurie Klein, Author at Laurie Klein, Scribe

Settler or Pioneer: Finding Your Role

Heart pounding, fingers crossed, some years ago I auditioned for the musical, “Quilters.” That evening my serial nightmares began:

In the wings, I awaited my cue for a play I had never read
Once onstage, I couldn’t speak
At curtain call, I took a grand bow . . . in my underwear

Do dreams like these ever reduce you to wee-hour, brain-jellied panic?

Hi friends, I was recently invited to write a guest post for the lovely website, Ishshah’s Story.

To continue reading the tale, which includes my Eastertide kidney stone debacle, please click here.

If you want to leave a comment, you can do so at either site.

Exposure: Risk and Gift

by Laurie Klein 8 Chiming In

Exposure—now there’s a threatening word. Are you up for an armchair adventure?

Let’s play “Exposure: Risk and Gift,” a creativity game I dreamed up, well, just because.

Exposure: Risk beginning, step 1

Using paper (or your device), write I’m afraid 25 times down the left-hand margin
Finish each phrase with whatever comes to mind, without lifting pen from paper (or fingers from keys)
Circle any “I’m afraid” statements that alarmed or surprised or annoyed you

Exposure: Risk writing, step 2

If you read my recent post on the Camperdown Elm, here is the same tree, seen later in the day and from another angle. Trick-or-treat, anyone?

Camperdown Elm with vintage home — Camperdown Elm at Dusk, Poulsbo, WA

Using one of the statements you circled, write a letter, or a list, a poem, or a song, or even a partial scene using one of these phrases below (or one of your own) as a kickstart:

They planted me deep, downhill from the Ferris place, never suspecting . . .
Sleepwalking inside somebody’s nightmare . . .
I never meant to . . .

Or you could write from the viewpoint of someone discovering the cure for Dutch Elm Disease . . .

Play with possibilities, no matter how crazy, and see what happens. Sometimes free writing unearths an emotion that’s “under the radar,” eating at your inner peace.

Exposure: Offer a gift, step 3

The Camperdown Elm in November dusk (first two photos) looks pretty creepy.

The Camperdown Elm below was taken in April, in afternoon light.

Camperdown Elm at Filoli Garden, Woodside, California

Margaret Atwood once said: So much depends on the light, and the way you squint.

Now take what you’ve risked writing so far and “gift it” with one or two of the following:

A favorite time of day, or weather
A new character
A quote or proverb you love

Follow wherever the words want to take you. Stop when you feel done.

Read back what you’ve written. Has the overall mood and/or meaning changed?

Have your thoughts about the underlying fear you identified changed?

Exposure: Optional

Consider emailing me what you created. I’d love to read it!

Was this experiment interesting or enlightening?

Would you enjoy a similar creative prompt from time time?

p.s. To see a stunning full view of the Filoli Camperdown Elm tree in bloom as well as the fabulous winged seedpods in close-up, click here. (scroll to image #5)

Reflections

by Laurie Klein 15 Chiming In

Just this, for Holy Week . . .

Yes

I am going to start living
larger, looser—
stripped down
to my sapling self, leaning toward
that leafless tree Messiah loved
enough to die on.

Maybe its boughs sheltered him once,
from pelting rain,
spread shade like a cloak,
dropped one late fig, surprising his palm—
one small story uniting and
easing them both
at the end, on that hill like a skull.

My brow touches the earth.
Moved by hosannas, echoing
still, deep inside stones,
I rise. Then the tight turn,
lifting fingers, limbs,
my bird-soft hair—
all the thorns, delicately removed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

. . . be like the tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.

—Jeremiah 17:8

“Yes,” from Where the Sky Opens, by Laurie Klein

While a Baby Slept: (“I Love You, Lord”)

by Laurie Klein 8 Chiming In

Dear readers, I thought you might enjoy reading the story behind “I Love You, Lord,” a guest post I recently wrote for Makes You Mom.

I Love You, Lord, but: Live in a dorm for three months? At age fifty? What a way to celebrate the Five-O milestone.

No nails or screws. No thumbtacks or tape, even—dorm rules nixed hanging any personal decor. At least the barracks sported fresh paint. Thin walls leaked every sound, each word spoken.

Ancient plumbing simulated banshees with microphones. A dawn shower risked waking the dead. A flush goosed pipes to operatic range. I never saw a drinking glass shatter at a high note but braced for the possibility.

Thin walls leaked every sound, each word spoken. (click to continue reading)