Tag: aprildaily

Streamside stairs

April 30th, 2016

I love stone steps, especially when they climb through the woods to a waterfall. Along with lighthouse stairs, the curving stairs on the hike to the Cascades near Blacksburg, Virginia, are among my favorite stairways.

Stone stairway on hike to Cascades waterfall in Giles County, Virginia
They are made with stone from the mountain. They are mossy and organic. They look like they belong.

These stone steps are man-made, in harmony with nature. Instead of making humankind feel other, pitting our species against the rest of the natural world, the stairs make me feel included. They make me feel like we belong.

For the month of April, I resolved to publish a blog post each day. This is the final Aprildaily post of 2016, and is in response to the Daily Post one-word prompt, Stairway.
Soft shaping

April 29th, 2016

From the street, everything about our landscape was blocky. When we moved in, the front of our house was all straight lines and rectangles: driveway perpendicular to the street, stairs perpendicular to the driveway, flower beds parallel to the house. Right angles, hard lines.

When we lived in Maryland, we rented a small house that felt welcoming to every person who visited. A picket fence curved around the corner of the lot instead of meeting at right angles, and the path from the gate to the front door formed a graceful, elongated S. Nestled against the fence were the mounds of rounded flower beds.

On the inside, large floor-to-ceiling windows looked out on the gentle curves of the garden. A raised brick hearth filled one corner of the living room: a foundation for the wood-burning stove. The pot-bellied stove and its hearthstone softened what would have otherwise been a sharp corner in the room.

All those curves made a difference. I am convinced they are what made the house feel so welcoming. They directed the eye, and the feet, to move along a pleasing path, without hard stops or starts. In our home now, I keep looking to see where we can add soft edges, where we can add graceful curves.

Out front, we can’t build an S walk to the front door since the door is on the second level, but we can add rounded flower beds. Already, with the first bed laid, the house feels more organic. The curved lines relax it.

In our living room, though, we have work to do. Rectangular windows, fireplace, bookshelves, rug; blocky, square furniture; hard slats of wooden blinds. We need some softeners in here. Circles, ovals, or something organic.

Looks like I have a new weekend project.

For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. This one is from the Daily Post one-word prompt, Curve.
Lunch break

April 28th, 2016

Our daughter is out of town on a field trip, our son is at school, my husband is at the office, and I am home, alone with the cats, on my lunch break. I sat in the quiet house, at the wooden table, and looked out the sliding glass doors while I ate chick pea salad with lemon juice, olive oil, and basil for lunch. Birds chirped. Cat tails twitched.

After eating, I rinsed my plate and loaded it into the dishwasher. I dollaped creamy peanut butter into a square glass bowl, then mixed chocolate chips into it. I licked the spoon and I smiled at our cat while she chased a stinkbug.

Now, before going back to work, I’m sitting by the window in our living room. I’ve put my new Prince album on. I turned it up loud. Louder than I turn it up when the kids are home. I’m sitting on our lounge chair, a warm breeze blowing my hair, while I sip coffee and write my 10-minute write. I’m typing directly on my laptop instead of writing in a composition book first. Today is all about efficiency, because to be honest, I forgot about today’s write until about 8 minutes ago.

Flower petals flutter in the breeze outside. The kitties have fallen asleep after lunch, one on top of the homemade scratching post and one in the white chair. They are curled up, nose under tail. The music has switched to a slow, melodic song. The Beautiful Ones.

I could fall asleep like a cat right now. In a sunbeam with the windows open, listening to my new record.

For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. This one is from the Daily Post one-word prompt, Solitude. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
Ice cream strategy

April 27th, 2016

In Durham, North Carolina, there is a dreamy ice cream establishment called The Parlour. Within 5 seconds of looking at the menu, I stopped at the fifth item and ordered. “One scoop of Salted Butter Caramel in a sugar cone, please.”

I swooped my tongue across the smooth caramel cream and knew I had made the right choice. My coworker behind me ordered.”Rum raisin,” she said. I looked at the menu, two items down from what I ordered, and saw they use the same brand of rum in their ice cream that we drink in our cocktails.

“Dang, I didn’t see that one. Can I try that, Chrissie?” We took a bite of each other’s ice cream and oh my goodness. I’ve never ordered rum raisin before, and after tasting hers, I wanted my own.

“Maple walnut,” ordered another colleague.

“Maple walnut?!” I knew based on the two flavors I tasted that their maple walnut would be exceptional. “I didn’t go far enough down the menu,” I said. “I saw Salted Butter Caramel and stopped reading.” I studied the menu as I licked my cone. I decided we needed to move to Durham for a while.

Aside from frozen custard we’ve made at home, this was possibly the best ice cream I’ve ever eaten.The cold scoops were smooth and creamy, like silk on the tongue, and the flavors were vibrant and authentic: they tasted like the thing they were supposed to taste like (I recognized the Cruzan rum in the Rum Raisin).

I observed the selections of each person in our large group — some had multiple scoops in different flavors, some ate waffle cone drizzled in sauce, some savored a single flavor. If I would have read through the entire menu, I’m not sure how I would have decided. Do you go with what you know you like, or do you take a risk and try something new?

Afterwards, as we talked ice cream, one colleague said, “I love chocolate. It’s my favorite. I know that if I don’t get chocolate, I’m going to be disappointed. But that leaves me locked into never getting to experience new flavors, right?”

I nodded. I know this dilemma. I suffered this very thing just now, tonight, when my family went to the frozen yogurt bar where I always, always get chocolate frozen yogurt topped with wet walnuts and Reese’s peanut butter cups. Always.

Except tonight. I felt like trying something new. I even tasted the frozen yogurt ahead of time. And tonight I made something different: Oreo cheesecake frozen yogurt with crumbled Oreos on top. It was good on the first couple of bites, but couldn’t sustain itself through the whole cup.

“When I order,” my chocolate-loving colleague said, “I get two scoops. I always get a scoop of chocolate, so I know I’ll have my favorite. And next to that, on the side, I get a scoop of something new I want to try.”

Genius. She knows herself well enough that she has figured this out. She has a strategy for ice cream.

I should have followed her lead tonight. I could have stopped with the sample, then ordered my regular, or even split the cup down the middle. I would have saved myself some disappointment. Next time.

And next time I’m in Durham, I will read the whole menu. And when I order, I will order strategically. Next time, I will order two scoops.

For the month of April, I will publish a 10-minute free write each day. Minimal editing. No story. Just thoughts spilling onto the page. Trying to get back into the writing habit.
Flower bed finished

April 26th, 2016

For those of you following the ongoing saga of our attempts at killing grass (1, 2, 3), we’ve gotten the flower bed cardboarded and mulched.

Before:

No flower bed.

After:

New flower bed 🙂

Now it’s time to work on the herb plot.
Purple Rain

April 25th, 2016

My phone dinged Thursday when I was out of town for work. It was a text from my husband.

Did you hear about Prince?

I did. I had. A colleague from Minneapolis had gotten the news when we were exploring the Duke Gardens. An appropriate place to receive that kind of news, given the cover art of Purple Rain.

Yes :-(. Purple Rain was my first cassette tape that I bought with my own money.

I remember listening to that tape over and over and over again as a pre-teen: popping open the clear cassette case, hearing the clean scrape of plastic hinges, the satisfying tap of dropping the tape in the carrier, the clack of closing the cassette deck. Depressing the Play button. Pulling the liner notes out, unfolding them, reading every word. Staring starry-eyed at the picture of Prince on the cover while I listened. I don’t remember another cassette tape as vividly as I remember Purple Rain.

Brian took our son to his soccer game yesterday while I worked in the garden. When they returned home, Brian said, “I bought you a present.”

He presented me with Purple Rain.

My first record in our new collection.

I stopped whatever I was doing and sat down with the jacket while Brian put the disk on the turntable and started it spinning. It has probably been 25 years since I’ve listened to Purple Rain in its entirety. You know how when you listen to an album enough times, your mind jumps to the opening notes of the next song when the previous one ends? That still happened. After 25 years, when “Let’s go crazy” ended, “take me with u” queued up in my mind in the silence before it actually began playing. I remembered the words to every song on the album.

I’m listening again now, as I type this, before I go back out in the garden. I’m on Side 1 again for the third time in two days. I can’t help but be moved. Purple Rain is a beautiful gift, both from my husband and from a barrier-breaking artist.

A tribute from my new favorite visual artist, Flora Forager:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Bridget Beth Collins (@flora.forager)