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Dear ,
Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are surrounded with love all day long. And I hope you'll make time today to write down at least one "love story" that deserves preserving.
My current writing project is a book about being my mother's daughter called How She Fed Us
. It's a memoir combining recipes (my mother was a dietician who loved to cook) and stories, which, now that I think about it, are all love stories of one kind or another. I am not much for cooking, but oh, how I look to cook up stories, essays, and poems!
(If you have ever wanted to write about food in any way, shape, or form, I'd love to have you join me this coming Tuesday for a workshop called Delicious Memories. Details here and below.)
But today, I'm sharing a love story about my mother and father, pictured here just after their move from our family home to an apartment in a managed care facility. They had just celebrated the 51st anniversary of their engagement, and you can read about that below, too.
My mother was suffering from an illness called Lewy Body Dementia, but that didn't dim their love for one another, much as it altered their lives. That's a love story that inspires me still.
What love stories inspire you? If you don't tell them, who else will?
Love and light,
Maureen
Upcoming WordPlay
COASTAL WRITING RETREAT AT THE SUNSET INN,
SUNSET BEACH, NC
(Writing as Renewal and Inspiration)
Back by popular request: a weekend writing retreat full of activities to reconnect you to your creativity. Renew yourself, whether you are a practicing writer, closet writer, or as-yet-to-pick-up-the-pen writer. $378 includes writing sessions, two nights' lodging, two breakfasts and Saturday lunch (hotel tax and Saturday dinner at a local restaurant not included).
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, February 22 - Sunday, February 24, 2012
TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here first, then call). Register soon -- this is a popular event and spaces are going fast.
PROJECT: BOOK AT THE SUNSET INN, SUNSET BEACH, NC (Writing as Renewal and Inspiration WITH a bonus: Resources and Information to Help You Complete Your Book-length Writing Project) / 1 weekend session
In addition to the fun, stimulation, and satisfaction of creating new work through a variety of prompts and techniques, there will be support offered for writers who would like to write and/or publish a book and 1) don't know how, 2) don't get around to it, 3) feel a) intimidated, b) confused, c) overwhelmed, d) uninspired, 4) all of the above! In a beautiful coastal setting, you will gain knowledge of the steps you need to take to write and publish a book and begin creating your own personalized plan. Note: Class doesn't include critique of your book manuscript.
WHERE: The Sunset Inn, 9 North Shore Dr., Sunset Beach, NC 28468
WHEN: Friday, March 1 - Sunday, March 3, 2012*
TO REGISTER: Contact the Sunset Inn at 888.575.1001 (if you would like to handpick your room, view your choices here
first, then call). Register soon -- there are only 5 spaces available.
New Offering!
DELICIOUS MEMORIES (Writing about Food in Any and All Genres) / 1 session
Food not only nurtures and sustains us, it's a rich source of metaphor and memory! We'll explore our connections with food as we write of when, where, what, with whom, how - and even why - we ate! You can use your food writings to create a family cookbook, creative nonfiction, poetry, a food blog, etc. -- or just for your own pleasure.
WHEN: 6:30 - 9:00 p.m. Tuesday, February 19, 2013
WHERE: Queens Sports Center,
TO REGISTER:
http://www.queens.edu/Academics-and-Schools/Continuing-Education/Program-Categories/Writing---CE/Writing---Delicious-Memories-with-Maureen-Ryan-Griffin.html For details about more 2013 offerings, visit
www.wordplaynow.com/current.htm.
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Featured Writing
Road-to-Damascus Pork Chops I was restless the last night I stayed in our family home, restless and all alone.
A few days earlier, I'd flown up to help my father and mother move from this house my siblings and I grew up in to a retirement center that offered the escalating levels of care my mother would soon need. My sister, father, mother, and I had spent days sorting through belongings, packing and transporting boxes across town. We'd made progress - most of the rooms were empty of everything but the furniture they weren't keeping - but there was still more clearing out left to do. It was a big house, with many closets and cupboards, and my mother was a packrat whom it seemed had saved everything. Mother and Dad were spending the night in their new apartment; my sister, who lived in the same city, was home with her husband.
This is the last time I'll ever be here, I kept thinking, the last time. I wandered through the near-empty rooms, opening closet doors, cupboards, and drawers. I felt as if I were searching for something. I didn't know what. I thought about the conversation my father and I had after I'd gone to daily Mass with him that morning. It happened to be the 24th of January, which is the Feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, and also - I'd never known this - the day my father proposed to my mother.
My father, who was named after Saint Paul, said he hadn't realized at the time that he was proposing on the day his patron saint was struck by the Holy Spirit, fell off his horse and became a believer, but he and my mother got a laugh out of it years later when they made the connection. Thinking about this made me smile. And now, here I was, fifty-one years later, wandering a house my parents would never live in again. They were on a new road now, on their way to a destination that was, unlike Damascus, final.
I opened one cupboard above the washer and dryer, and then another, and stared at the spare cookie tins my mother had stacked inside. Hmmm. For some reason, I felt compelled to open each of them. Empty. Empty. Empty. Until I got to the bottom tin, where I found, inside, a bride and groom cake topper that must have been saved ever since their wedding day. I carried it into the kitchen and arranged it ceremoniously on the table for my parents to find, along with a note congratulating them both on the occasion of the anniversary of their engagement. Even in a time of loss - especially in a time of loss - any anniversary deserves at least a small celebration.
And the pork chops? As they say, man cannot live on love alone. This recipe of Mother's is one of my father's favorites that she made throughout their marriage. I confess - she called them Arabian Pork Chops. But I know she wouldn't mind my renaming them in honor of the anniversary of their engagement. What are daughters who, instead of helping in the kitchen, spent their growing-up years hiding in their rooms reading, writing, and making up stories for, after all?
- 4 tablespoons shortening
-
6 pork chops
- 6 slices onion
- 6 bell pepper rings
- 1 cup uncooked rice, divided
-
3 cups stewed tomatoes
- 1 cup diced celery
- water or tomato juice
Brown chops on both sides in a skillet. Place 1 slice of onion and 1 pepper ring atop each chop. Place 1 tablespoon of rice in each pepper ring. Pour tomatoes, celery, and remaining rice in skillet around meat, and pour water or tomato juice over all to cover. Cook over medium heat. Place lid on skillet once it begins to steam (about 8 minutes). Simmer for 1 hour over low heat, checking liquid level occasionally. Add more tomato juice or water if liquid is all absorbed before the rice is cooked. Serves 6.
~ Maureen Ryan Griffin
WordPlay Now! Writing Prompt
This is WordPlay -- so why not revel in the power and potential of one good word after another? This week, it's "love."
Go ahead. Tell a love story, any length, any genre.
Want to be featured in a future Word-zine?
S
end in a piece of your writing that you think could inspire other WordPlayers to write. 500-word limit, please.) You can send something inspired by this writing, or anything else of your choosing. Email your words to WordPlay here and your piece may be chosen for a future Word-zine.
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MAUREEN RYAN GRIFFIN, an award-winning poetry and nonfiction writer, is the author of Spinning Words into Gold, a Hands-On Guide to the Craft of Writing, a grief workbook entitled I Will Never Forget You, and two collections of poetry, This Scatter of Blossoms
and When the Leaves Are in the Water. She believes, as author Julia Cameron says, "We are meant to midwife dreams for one another."
Maureen also believes that serious "word work" requires serious WordPlay, as play is how we humans best learn -- and perform. What she loves best is witnessing all the other dreams that come true for her clients along the way. Language, when used with intentionality and focus, is, after all, serious fuel for joy. Here's to yours! |
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