It's late, and I'm blog surfing... you know how that goes, don't you? A long day at the office, tired from carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, worries about innumerable things swirling around inside your mind. You fall into your favorite chair and pull your computer onto your lap...and start surfing. Checking in with old friends that have been silent for a while....remembering blogs that inspired you way back when you first embarked on this writing journey... And you read words like this...

But knowing who I want to be and knowing when I'm not living from that place can at times crack my heart. And that crack in my heart is often where my words come from...as well as my tears. What cracks my heart are the things that are important to me, the things I'm passionate about, and often our passion can bring our tears because there's so much emotion and energy behind the passion. When was the last time you cried?

Oh, I used to cry a lot. At movies and commericals and concerts and dance recitals. At books and paintings and small children playing and birds singing and even flowers growing.

But I was so much younger then. I'm so much older now - and the tears hardly ever come.

I miss crying. That sounds ridiculous, I suppose - why should anyone miss the red eyes and stuffy nose that inevitably follows a good crying jag. But there's something cathartic about crying- it cleanses the emotional system, like shaking the rugs in our senses, airing out the linens. After a good cry, you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.

Those italicized words up there nearly made me cry, and that's no small feat these days. Fact is, the writer of those words probed a very sensitive nerve with me..."what cracks my heart are the things that are important to me, the things I'm passionate about, and often our passion can bring our tears.

Sitting here in my little study, curled up in my favorite chair, two small dogs sleeping contentedly at my feet, I reach over to the table beside me to pick up my teacup...suddenly, warm tears fill my eyes.

On that table is a photograph of a little boy dressed in a red sweater and denim overalls, a blue baseball cap on his head, an expression of joyful wonder on his face. A photo I snapped 26 years ago of my son, taking his first independent steps on the fresh spring grass in our backyard.

"These are the things that are important to me, the things I'm passionate about..."

If you have children, you know there is nothing more important than that, nothing that brings a greater sense of fulfillment, nothing that evokes more passion.

No writing, no music, no traveling, no nothing.

Children grow up much too quickly, and I think mine more than most (which is both a blessing and a curse). Thinking about my son as a child, thinking about him now as a grown man -well, that makes me cry when nothing else can.

"Our passion can bring our tears."

Michelle, thanks for reminding me. It's good to know.

Becca Rowan

February 21, 2008

Life in General

Three Word Wednesday

Becca Rowan

February 21, 2008

Life in General

punch

t-shirt

unravel

A punch of color, Tanya thought staring at her pale reflection, that's what I desperately need. She picked up her mother's scarf, and fingered the fuschia silk between her fingers, releasing the scent of Joy perfume, it's aroma swirling around her head like a ghostly presence. She inhaled deeply, hoping to channel her mother's energy and strength.

For life had begun to unravel for Tanya, her relationship with Tony coming undone at the seams and disintegrating before her eyes. She could feel the growing distance between them, but she had no idea how to bridge the gap.

Perhaps a vacation, she thought, a long trip just the two of us, walking along the beach and sipping champage. Or something more adverturous - an Alaskan cruise or even a safari.

Who was she kidding? She draped the scarf around her neck, letting it hang loosely down the front of her black t-shirt. She had none of her mother's adventurous spirit, none of the signature style had that made Jocylen Ventura so widely admired. Why, she couldn't even wear a scarf the right way.

She pulled the soft fabric from her neck and tossed it carelessly onto the bed.

"What's up, doll?" she heard her stepfather's laconic voice from the doorway behind her.

Startled, Tanya turned, her eyes taking in Tony's olive colored skin, his warm dark eyes, his tall, lean frame dressed in charcoal gray slacks and form fitting sweater. Color rushed to her cheeks, and she looked quickly away.

"Nothing," she mumbled, plucking the scarf up from the bed and twisting it nervously around her fingers.

Tony stepped closer to her and lifted one end of the silk scarf to his face, burying his nose in its scented folds. "God," he murmured, "this smells just like her, doesn't it?"

Tanya's eyes focused intently on him, pure fury burning through the irises directly onto Tony's bent head. How could he be so oblivious? she wondered. Hadn't he realized her mother didn't really love him? She simply used him for "arm candy," a ridiculous expression but particularly appropriate for the situation. He deserved so much better, Tanya thought, suddenly overcome with a desire to cup his cheek in the palm of her hand.

At that moment, Tony looked up, his eyes meeting her own, so full of pleading and expectation. She could feel him recoil slightly, even as he took a step back, placing a good distance between himself and her body.

"May I keep this?" he asked, deftly pulling the silk scarf away from her grasp. "It reminds me so much of Jocelyn..."

Tanya shrugged. "It's yours," she replied, pulling back into her shell and closing the dresser drawer behind her. "Enjoy it."

She shrugged past him, careful not to let any part of her body touch him as she walked out of the room.

Hopeless, she thought, the image of Tony's face buried in his dead wife's favorite silk scarf, inhaling her scent as if it were a magical elixir.

Too bad he doesn't know, she thought to herself, remembering the way she had wound the length of silky fabric around her mother's slender neck.

Too bad for him.

Becca Rowan

February 19, 2008

Life in General

Writer's Island-Time Travel

Becca Rowan

February 19, 2008

Life in General

Too fast. That's what I think about time. It travels much too fast. Remember how the days once crept by, every minute larger than life and filled with opportunities~for play, for laughter, for being with friends, for having fun. Did you ever once give a thought to time running out, to not having enough of it?

When was the moment you first noticed the swift passage of time? For me, it as my 16th birthday -and I need a calculator to determine exactly how long ago that was. There's a Polaroid picture of me in an old photo album somewhere, leaning in to blow out the candles on my cake, dressed in the plaid skirt of my school uniform, my long hair in two brown braids draped over my shoulders. Truthfully, I look more like 6 than 16 in that picture- yet I recall looking in the mirror that day and thinking, "Someday you'll be old." Old like my mother - who was all of 45 at the time. Old like my grandmother, who was 63.

Looking back on all the years since then, who could have believed they would travel by so swiftly, a blur of college, and marriage, and motherhood. Like fast motion photography, it sped past me-my life-leaving me standing here in the chill wind of ghostly memories. I brace myself each day, digging my heels into the earth to keep myself grounded firmly in this moment, whatever it might be.

Oh, I know I'm one of the lucky ones. I'm healthy, and strong, I've never faced mortal illness or danger, my family is rife with long lived women, and, thanks to advances in modern science, I could conceivably count more years than any of them.

Yet those years fly by so swiftly, and there is still so much left to do.

There's a poem by A.E. Houseman, set to music by Ralph Vaughn Williams...Lovliest of Trees, it's called. It's a beautiful, lyric song, which many of the high school girls choose to sing as a festival piece. It goes like this...

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride, Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.

If you do the math, the narrator of this poem is 20 years old, lamenting the thought of "only fifty more" springs. It makes me smile to hear teenage girls sing this song, trying to grasp this idea of a finite amount of time in which to savor the cherry blossoms.

Well, I've had fifty springs, and more besides. And they seem to roll around more quickly every year, those cherry blossom months. Soon, another long Michigan winter will be past, the robins will return, and the sun will warm my skin. I'm grateful for that, although it reminds me again of this swift network of time I'm traveling through.

So excuse me while I go wander the woodlands...there are cherry trees to savor.

written for the writer's island

Becca Rowan

February 17, 2008

Life in General

Sighing Times Seven-Cafe Writing

Becca Rowan

February 17, 2008

Life in General

Cafe Writing, Option Two: Give me seven things that make you sigh... 1) Seeing my puppies curled up together sleeping - the perfect canine companions;

2) Hearing my son talk about things he's passionate and knowledgeable about;

3) Tasting a fresh cup of rich, dark roasted coffee first thing in the morning;

4) Feeling the touch of my husband's fingers wrapped around mine;

5) Talking, laughing, and sharing stories with my girlfriends;

6) Playing music that I love on the piano, like Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat and Debussy's Arabesque Number 1;

7) Losing myself in the pages of a wonderful book.

Seven lovely things, and reading over them I see how reflective they are of all the things most important to me...my family, my animals, music, books - and yes, coffee too. Sensible, I suppose, that the things which make you sigh with delight would be those things with which you wish to fill your life. And how fortunate I am to be able to sigh in pleasure and not in pain, to revel in simple moments, to feel such satisfaction arise from tiny miracles like sleeping puupies, a young man's conversation, a hand to hold in the dark, a confidence shared among friends. For life in general is filled with moments like these - and mine in particular are very fine indeed.

Sigh.