CHECKOUT EXPRESSION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

The supermarket checkout express lane can trigger some hot buttons for me.

One, of course, is the customer who plops 15 or 20 items on the conveyor belt when there’s a state 12 Items max limit. The poor clerk’s not going to bounce them. It’s simply the rudeness to the rest of us that bugs me.

Another is the use of credit cards, when permitted. It slows everything down.

The other day, though, there was a geezer who cut in front of a girl with a shopping cart. She was, from appearances, a quiet teen.

“Excuse me,” I said, “There’s a girl in front of you.”

“I can’t hear you,” he replied.

So I repeated the situation.

“Mind your own business,” he retorted.

We were all shocked.

“You can go in front of me,” she finally said.

Any suggestions for how to handle this?

He’s an embarrassment to all geezers, am I not mistaken?

I’m still miffed. Whatever happened to manners?

 

SAWYERS MILL

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments
Always, a central weathervane.
Always, a central weathervane.
The street winds through the old complex.
The street winds through the old complex.

While the Cocheco Millworks in downtown Dover anchor the center of the town, the Sawyers Mill complex is tucked away on the Bellamy River.

Both the Cocheco and Bellamy form the flanks of Dover Point as they flow toward the sea.

Worker housing.
Worker housing.

ARID SHADOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

The conditions that created the desert where we lived created what was sometimes called a “rain shadow.” It was ironic, actually, considering that we got far more sunlight by living on that side of the Cascade Mountains than if we’d been in, what, the rain glow?

Sometimes, though, it seemed to dry up all of our emotions, too.

A journey into the murky places of endless fog, mist, and rain, in contrast, could do wonders in the soul.

~*~

Olympus 1For a free copy of the complete American Olympus, click here.

ROUND AND ROUND WE GO

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments
Fair warning, especially when there's no backup.
Fair warning, especially when there’s no backup.

Drivers from other parts of the world are often terrified by New England’s use of traffic circles at busy intersections. We’re not the only people to use them – Washington, D.C., has some of the worst – but they do become landmarks. In New Hampshire, for instance, a set of directions might mention the Portsmouth Traffic Circle, or the one at Epsom or Stratham or Alton or Lee, shown here.

It's when you add traffic that things get fun.
It’s when you add traffic that things get fun.

Other terms for the routing around a central island include “rotaries” and “roundabouts.” What Romans call theirs would be unprintable in a family-friendly blog like this.

 

THE SCOUT HOUSE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment
The tradition of New England contradancing flourishes inside the Scout House in Concord, Massachusetts – a former barn now owned by the Girl Scouts and rented out by the folklore enthusiasts. Monday nights are legendary, and weekends are packed.
The tradition of New England contradancing flourishes inside the Scout House in Concord, Massachusetts – a former barn now owned by the Girl Scouts and rented out by the folklore enthusiasts. Monday nights are legendary, and weekends are packed.
Seen from the side.
Seen from the side.

 

 

 

EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

Driving back from the coast along a rather honky-tonk stretch of highway the other night, my headlights flashed across this sign:

INTEGRITY
— —
FOR SALE

At least, that’s what I think it said. The two blanks, I’m finding, may have said Residential Brokerage.

Still, considering our public life today, the message is disturbing.

How do you read it?

LIBERATING IN THE END

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

A central question facing compositional artists of all stripes (in contrast to performing artists like actors, dancers, and musicians) is the matter of determining when a work’s finished.

How do you know?

Is just out-and-out satisfaction a measure? A trusty one? Hmm.

Let me suggest some others.

Sometimes it’s a sense that you just can’t go any further with it. And if it’s in a state beyond notes and fragments, maybe that’s it. You’ve hit a wall, a property line, or just the shore or riverbank. So you stop. Period.

There are times, admittedly, when you think something’s finished and put it aside only to find, on returning, it needs more – revision, for starters, and maybe additions and major restructuring. (A friend spoke the other evening of drafting a memoir in the third-person and then redoing it in the first-person, the kind of change I’ve done in some of my fiction. And Brahms had an early symphony that became a piano concerto, if I recall right.)

Working under a deadline can simplify matters. Time’s up! Next!

Nice, if you happen to have an advance or pipeline of delivery or the concert’s coming up.

Novelists might even find doneness appears as the time they find their focus obsessing with the book under the one they’ve been tackling.

Some poets will say that once it’s published, they can let go of it. Finito!

~*~

In the bigger picture, the “finished” question isn’t just about having a manuscript ready. For a writer, it’s ultimately about landing the work in a reader’s hands. A place where a dialogue can begin. And getting that manuscript from a polished draft into circulation can be a huge, energy-depleting limbo, especially if your life is filled with competing claims on your time.

In short, you can either focus on seeing that one work through to publication – or you can create the next one, while the inspiration’s still hot. For me, as I tried to balance my writing life with a journalism career, personal relationships, spiritual practice, and so on, I wound up with a huge backlog of finished material. At least I’d wisely not put off the writing for retirement, as had a number of colleagues I’d known – none of them ever managed to fulfill that dream.

What I did find, though, was that the unpublished work became a burden of its own. Its emotional weight inhibited new work. Why bother? It even had a way of twisting my sense of identity – who was I then and who am I now? Think, too, of the relationships that fed into one work – and the people I’m with today. As in lover or spouse.

So the experience of having my book-length works finally being published brings the “finished” consideration across yet another threshold – the matter of being liberated. I can let go of trying to hold that memory, treasuring that epiphany, honoring that friendship.

Should I have just trashed them long ago and moved on into other, non-literary endeavors? Just think of the hours that could have been directed instead to overtime pay, which would make my retirement more secure. Or travel or …

Maybe it’s just a case of hoping for acknowledgement. Hey, here I am!

Still, it’s what I’ve done.

What I have is a feeling of being true to a responsibility carried to its completion at last. What happens from here is, well, liberating any way it goes.