Monthly Topic: Crushes

Last month I wrote about "Moving In," the topic of the Sun Magazine's Readers Write section.

This month's topic is Crushes.  Fun!  Write a little story, true or fiction, about a crush and then send it to me (sarah at productionmurray dot com).  I'll put up my contribution later this week.

Check out The Sun here:

Jonquière

The town from the autoroute

looks like a pincushion.



The wooden poles,

holding the lifelines that enter the veins of the village,

stick up between the squatting houses.

Erected in the ground,

frozen,

the poles cannot sway in the screaming wind.

The men of the village,

too are pinned to the ground,

working night shift at the aluminum plant,

while their wives get pedicures

and shop at the local strip mall.

Anchored to this life,

generation after generation,

like paper dolls-clothes pinned on.



The poles stand silent,

their glory ravished,

    ugly oval blemishes

where their vibrant leaves and branches

    were ripped from their torsos.

My Region

My region.  The familiar

            tastes, jobs, faces, and tree-line.

My region.

            The tilting of an eyebrow tells all we need to know.

That sense of “us.”  This is my region.

            Us. The restaurant in the gas station. 

Ply-wood cabins on frozen ice.

            Us.  Accent and the turning of phrases, so that wherever I go, I am known as “us.”

Back to

my region

Happy to Live in Québec

When Americans go on and on about how good I have it as a Canadian resident, I usually remind them of the downsides. Long waits at the doctor's offices. Shoddy service in hospitals. Lack of specialists for most diseases and conditions......etc..... But then I was reminded this week about just how good I, and all Canadians, do have it when it comes to health care.

My cousin's husband, Ben, found out he has leukemia. They were just getting by as things were, but now there's no insurance, no job, no coverage. His job at a garage didn't provide benefits. My cousin, Maria, stays home with their two toddlers and takes night classes to become a paralegal. Even if she were to get a job to try to pay for his treatments, she would have to pay for day care which would be a large percentage of her wages. And then who would drive Ben to his doctor's appointments? It seems like a dead end. Of course the hospital can't refuse to treat him even without insurance, but it will leave them in tremendous debt. How much? I can't begin to imagine.

So I thought, how much would it cost if my husband had leukemia here in Quebec? Treatments= $0. We bought an additional insurance for about $7/month that covers all expenses incurred by a hospital stay (gas, parking (the parking lots at hospitals aren't free here), a private room (the rooms usually have several people of both sexes), $50/day, and food). And if we had children, it would cost $7 a day in Quebec's government-subsidized day care. So for $7 a month and $7 a day (if we had children), we would be very comfortable. Sure, we pay a lot in taxes, but when the unexpected happens, it is appreciated to have our basic needs covered. Merci Québec!

Update: Ben's in the hospital and will be for at least another week.  He's very sick.  The hospital is helping them apply for Medicaid and even if they don't recieve it, the hospital will take on their case as charity.  So, it will be covered, but not without paperwork, headaches, and worries.  

Words transformed into art

The American artist Brian Dettmer transforms dusty encyclopedias and dictionaries into 3-D art.  He cuts into the pages, performs "an autopsy" in his words, revealing the hidden sculpture.  The words and graphics are in their original places.  Amazing!  

Yard Sale Day!

Inspired by Maira Kelman

I love it! The whole town outside, meeting each other, bargaining with each other, SMILING!

And we got some great deals too...
We've already used this one:
Mmmm...Yum...

Then I got this cute black dress for $2! I can't wait to wear it.
And I got what I was really looking for...a bike. It's so comfortable.

A lovely day.

Maira Kalman's blog on the NY Times blog is breathtaking.  Words and art blending together to make poetry.  I'm so inspired by her work and hope to add some similar work to this site.  Do you have anything to share with us?  Email me at sarmurr1 @ gmail. com

Time Traveler

I spun around as fast as I could. Like an erratic top. My arms flung wide, my feet stomping, faster faster. I figured that if I spun faster than the speed of time I could visit a bygone era. That's how Doc sent Michael J. Fox back to see his parents as horny teenagers, right? While turning, I thought of Abraham Lincoln, so I'd be transported to Ante-Bellum America, to meet the Great Liberator. Even President Reagan was not quite as grand as Lincoln. I kept my eyes open as I spun; the blurry forms of kids playing four-square, a girl upside down on the monkey bars, a boy jumping rope, a makeshift soccer game, a race between pals made me think that I must be approaching the speed of time. Colors interwoven. But just before I could reach the speed when time stops and then reverses, I slowed, then stopped. The blurry forms continued to pass wildly for a moment. The dizzying effect convinced me that I had been within reach of Lincoln's welcoming hand. When I had recovered from the light-headedness, I tried again. Maybe this time.

Words as Art

Steven Paul Jobs by dylanroscover

Visit the site to see this encouraging, beautiful work of art magnified.

Moving In

As mentioned, for a fun exercise I try to write according to The Sun Magazine's Readers Write monthly topics. The topic in this month's edition is Moving In.   Here goes:

Finally in Florida, far from the snow and chilling wind of central Pennsylvania. She had dreamed of this home, complete with the palm trees which seemed to bow before her. And now she owned it. Her only child had married young, thankfully, allowing her the freedom to move south. The house was perfect, except that it was a dull grey colour. Grey is a colour for a Pennsylvanian house, not for a house facing the sunrises of the Atlantic. Pink, she decided. Pink stucco. It was 1963 and pink stucco was all the rage.

She called the painters while her husband was at work. He didn't seem to understand just how very close the house was to fulfilling her dreams, simply a coat or two of pink paint. The "just-one-more-thing-until-it's-perfect" argument had worked for the cobblestone walkway, the sodded yard, the chandelier, but he put his foot down at pink walls. "Pink walls, he had said, PINK?" his face turning that very shade. She had only nodded and turned on her heel.

That evening, she stood at the door peering through the glass, waiting for his reaction. When he stepped out of the drab brown sedan, dressed in a tidy grey suit with matching hat, she knew she had made a mistake. He stumbled and swayed, like when he was drunk. And he stuttered, another of his "symptoms." "Wha, wha, what is this, this, this mess, these....walls. And who, who is going to to pay?" His hands lifted up to the heavens. "Grace! Get out here Grace!" he screamed, his face passing from pink to bright red. She opened the door with false confidence. Can't show regret. Then he'd get the upper hand in this house and we can't have that now, can we? "Yes dear?" she answered sweetly, "what is it my dear?" Infuriating woman! A growl of rage poured from his mouth, his only answer. Then tottering, he tumbled to the dark asphalt, his hat spinning off his balding head. She turned to go into the house. What will our new neighbours think of his antics? What exaggeration! All this over paint colour!, she thought while she scanned the neighbours' windows see if any happened to be watching.

Then she heard a slight murmur. She turned to her husband and knelt beside him. "Howard? Hap, dear?" No response. That's when she ran inside her pink stuccoed dream home to call 911.

A stroke they told her. Too much stress, they said, with the move, the house, your ridiculous desires she imagined them saying. The paint barely dry and she was driving the sedan north to Pennsylvania. Packed full with all she could salvage: photo albums, dishes, clothes, tablecloths, a house plant, but had to leave the new furniture, the shiny kitchen appliances, the ocean. North to her daughter's house. A temporary arrangement. "As soon as Hap gets better," she promised her daughter, her namesake Grace. "OK Mom, as long as needs be. The boys can share a room and you can have the back bedroom," knowing that her mother really meant "as soon as he dies."
Her eldest grandson, ten years old, tore off his posters of Mickey Mantle and retaped them onto his younger brother's walls. It was HER room now. Hap couldn't climb the stairs, so he slept in the living room behind a sheet.
Ten years later Hap died. She didn't leave as promised but stayed in the room. She couldn't imagine moving back to Florida now, at fifty years old and alone. Plus without a house payment, she could spend his pension as she wished. It would last for years. Good thing too, because she, my great-grandmother, is still alive at ninety-six years of age. And she's still living in the back bedroom. 

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Inc.

Incorporated.  You have to be more than one entity to be incorporated.  Community is what I long for.  A community of writers expressing themselves.  This blog will keep me writing, editing, developing ideas and hopefully it will do the same for you.

I hope for honest feedback on what I have written to make me a better writer and hopefully other writers (a good portion of the literate West) will share what they have written.

There will be prose.  I will summarize some of the essays I've written for class, so that all that time and research does not go to waste. Additionally, the Readers Write section of The Sun Magazine, a magazine devoted to publishing outstanding poetry and prose, has inspired me to write monthly on the designated topic.  For instance for this month (May 2009) the theme is Moving In.  Read what other amateur writers have written.  And then join in!*

And there will be poetry.  You know those break-up poems scribbled in a journal somewhere?  Tear them out and share that emotion.  Hey, it'll be cathergic.  I'll do the same.  

Hope to publish some of that poetry someday?  I will research the major literary journals, indicate the style they most often publish, and their guidelines.  Hopefully it will be a handy resource for the writing community.

My hope for this blog is that it will become not just my own meanderings, but yours as well!

* I will only publish what I do not expect to submit for formal publication, so that it is applicable for publication.  Only send me what you will not submit for publishing.