I want a poem I can live
happily ever after with
even if we fight
A poem that will talk to me
but one that won’t say
what it thinks I want to hear
I want a poem meant to be
that says what it means
and isn’t afraid to wear
its heart on its sleeve
I want a poem that takes chances
and breaks down my defenses
one that knows that actions
speak louder than words
_______Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
I know that Smashing Pumpkins is the name of a band but it’s also a tradition in our family.
It’s a “boys will be boys” (as my 9-year-old grandson Bryce says) fun way to dispose of rotting pumpkins that I grew.
And there is more than one way to collect seeds for roasting.
Bryce came up with the idea and this is the 3rd annual pumpkin smashing games.
This woolly caterpillar got a good start on this pumpkin.
For Bryce, his brother Liam and his hopa Joe, the pumpkin ritual is sport, complete with all the gear and with a horsing around hosing off at the end (which they know better than to include me in).
Here’s Bryce showing his one of his ninja techniques.
And Liam posing with his trophy.
I must say, I miss the days of carving and decorating pumpkins with the boys. I’m hoping they’ll still want do that with some of my hands-off from smashing pumpkin harvest.
Maybe next year I’ll grow pumpkins for pies.
-The following first appeared in The Floyd Press on September 21, 2017.
Laughter filled the June Bug Center over the weekend for the Floyd Community Theatre Guild’s (FCTG) production of The Not-so-Grimm Tales. Presented by eleven young actors, the play gives a modern twist to three Grimm Fairy Tales, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White and Cinderella. 
“A princess doesn’t always need a prince to help her out with a situation. Sometimes it’s best to work together,” director Emily Gruver told the audience during her welcoming introduction.
Physical comedy was a highlight of the show and popular references included a comedic scene where Cinderella’s step sisters sing Beyonce’s Single Ladies (put a ring on it) to the Prince, and Snow White refers to her overbearing step-mother as “Mommy Dearest.”
The Not-so-Grimm Tales will return to the June Bug stage on Friday and Saturday, September 22 and 23. at 7:00 pm and Sunday September 24 at 2:00 pm. FCTG will be presenting Scrooge The Musical from November 30 to December 2nd.
Photos: The Wolf, played by Sarah Hall, poses as Little Red’s grandmother. Little Red, played by Jovie Jeppson, carried a basketful of organic vegetables for her grandmother. 2. A mother, played by Lettie Jeppson, modernizes classic fairy tales to teach her daughter, played by Sophia Adamo, that there is more to life than being pretty or being rich. 3. Cinderella, played by Lily Anderson, is reunited with the Prince, played by Nolen Jeppson, with some comic relief provided by the Fairy Godmother, played by Sunny Anderson. 4. The cast takes a bow.
1. THIS is what happens when you drink the kool-aid.
2. Joe and I went to a Cosmic Charlie Grateful Dead tribute band concert at Chantilly Farm over the weekend. I couldn’t decide if it felt like I was at a rave or a gospel church service.
3. For me, going to Grateful Dead concerts – whether an actual show with Jerry Garcia and the rest or a great tribute band like Cosmic Charlie or The Kind – is something like going to church. There is a following that knows all the words to the songs and sings out loud together. It’s not like a sit down quiet church, but more like a revival or an African American gospel service of release and praise. The light shows are transcendent. The lyrics range from good fun story-telling to philosophically Zen. – More from my post “One More Saturday Night” HERE.
4. Chantilly Farm is also a campground and there was a VW Bus Camp-out the same weekend as the Grateful Dead cover band, which fit well with the retro theme.
5. On the same weekend that we danced to Grateful Dead tunes, we started watching Ken Burns’ Vietnam War documentary, 10 years in the making and 18 hours in length. The soundtrack and scenes are nostalgically retro, familiar but also new. it’s been good to view the period as an adult, learn more about the backstory and put it all together. It’s heartbreaking to see the result of U.S. interventions/support of dictators (especially because we didn’t seem to learn from it). It’s hard to see how the truth was kept from the public so long and how the war was “prolonged because it seemed easier to muddle through than admit that it had been caused by tragic decisions.”
6. “Over the years, a number of iconic images have come to be associated with the Grateful Dead. Many of these images originated as artwork for concert posters or album covers. The dancing bears was drawn by Bob Thomas as part of the back cover for the album History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One (Bear’s Choice)(1973). The bear is a reference to Owsley “Bear” Stanley, who recorded and produced the album.” – From the Wikipedia
7. We may not have to lock our doors in the country but we do have to shut them for fear of real bears getting in.
8. My bed is the hearth of my home / where teacups gather like neighbors / and scribbled notes are brushed aside / to make room for friends who come to call / for foot rubs that follow the news… Read this poem, Pillow Talk, in its entirety HERE.
9. Funny, how I posted the above poem and got nearly 20 comments, but only one person picked up on the fact that my bed is the hearth of my home because, as someone who manages Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I spend more time in bed than most people.
10. Yes, there is a fatigue factor. There is also an underlying thread of depression that I’ve been aware of for a very long time. But the depressive aspect exists along with curiosity, playfulness and an appreciation for the beauty and richness of life. It’s a balancing act to hold both darkness and light at the same time, one that brings a sense of wonder. – More from my Essay “Dear Dread” HERE
11. A completely different take on Pillow Talk HERE.
12. “It has been 40 years. . . . In war, no one wins or loses. There is only destruction. Only those who have never fought like to argue about who won and who lost.” – Bao Ninh, a writer who fought for the communist North Vietnamese army, from The Vietnam War
13. “You’re either on the bus or off the bus.” ― Tom Wolfe, from the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a book by Ken Keesy that was one of my formative reads in the ‘70s.
13. “And they built a wall against the future but the future got past just the same.” – My Dharmacratic friend Will
___________Thirteen Thursday
Cosmic Charlie set some “fire on the mountain” Saturday night at Chantilly Farm in Floyd.
For me, going to Grateful Dead concerts – whether an actual show with Jerry Garcia and the rest or a great tribute band like Cosmic Charlie or The Kind – is something like going to church.
There is a following that knows all the words to the songs and sings out loud together. It’s not like a sit down quiet church, but more like a revival or an African American gospel service of release and praise. 
The light shows are transcendent. The lyrics range from good fun story-telling to philosophically Zen.
The set list is always a surprise and feels as if it was channeled: Ripple in still water / When there is no pebble tossed / Nor wind to blow / Reach out your hand if your cup be empty / If your cup is full may it be again / Let it be known there is a fountain / That was not made by the hands of men / There is a road, no simple highway / Between the dawn and the dark of night / And if you go no one may follow / That path is for your steps alone…
There is a bond of fellowship that Dead Heads share and no one ever “feels like a stranger.”
Dancing together is like a language that stirs the spirit. I always feel moved and uplifted … Keep on dancin’ through the daylight … Greet the mornin’ air with song … No ones’s noticed, but the band’s all pack and gone … Was it ever there at all? … But they keep on dancin’
Nature is my kind of church and so is good music that speaks to my soul.
_______Our World Tuesday
My bed is the hearth of my home
where teacups gather like neighbors
and scribbled notes are brushed aside
to make room for friends who come to call
for foot rubs that follow the news
Sometimes my blue comforter
is like a blanket on the beach
and I’m the tourist of my favorite dreams
I sail through sleep under dark clouds
and steer towards futures more sunny
I order poems off the menu
with breakfast in bed
while aches are eased
and my weight is held
I study for tests that I never take
I make and cancel plans
_______Colleen Redman / Poets United / Imaginary Garden with Real Toads
1. This is my first time reading a memoir that starts with the author telling her story from before she was born.
2. “Though I was reluctant to be born, I was attracted by the music. I had plans. I was entrusted with carrying voices, songs and stories to grow and release to the world, to be of assistance and inspiration. These were my responsibility. I am not special. It is this way for everyone.” – From Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, Mvskoke/Creek poet
3. I was asked to cover a controversial Confederate flag rally coming through Floyd for the local paper over the weekend. At first, it was awkward with protesters and supporters mostly on opposite sides of the street, which reminded me of a dance where girls and boys sit across from each other. But by the end of the day, I was sitting on the courthouse wall with flag supporters on one side and protesters on the other, meeting neighbors and making new friends.
4. Meme seen on Facebook: Doesn’t it seem like Trump denied climate change, and then the climate was like ‘hold my beer.’
5. Yesterday I tried to wipe off a comma that I didn’t think belonged on a page of my poetry.
6. I recently received this note about my poetry book “Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife” from Alan Forest, who was head of the counseling department at Radford University when my first book was part of his class curriculum: “Last evening I allowed the book to open wherever it did and read your poem “Jim and Dan.” It reminded me of your book about your brothers and you coming to my classes and sharing with students your felt-sense experiences of grief and loss. This morning it was “The Suitcase.” You write with such truth and your poems have a grittiness that captures life with such meaning and depth. I plan on reading one poem a day and sitting with it. I want to savor each one as a gift. Thank you for writing with such authenticity and sharing the contents of your “suitcase” with me.” Check out the book, published by Finishing Line Press HERE.
7. NPR Interviewer Jeffery Brown asked John Ashbery about his poetry: Is it sort of a conversation with yourself going on? Ashbery: Yes. Very often, not with — maybe not me with myself, but of two personalities in my head who are arguing and sort of ignoring me at the same time.
8. The display of red books that I came across at the Floyd Library (pictured above) reminded me of when I worked at my friend’s bead/gift shop in Blacksburg in the ’90s and a well-known local eccentric came into the shop with a box full of red items that he wanted to give to me: red books, dishes and yard sale-like items. I didn’t accept the box because I didn’t know what to do with it. So he sat out front with it for a while and I felt bad.
9. See Floyd from a painter’s point of view HERE.
10. Flamingos in The Men’s Room: How Zoos and Aquariums Handle Hurricanes HERE.
11. I’m not big on formulas, which is why I never liked algebra or religion.
12. Prunes taste so much better when you call them dried plums.
13. And this explanation from the internet might as well be algebra: “When dried, plums are called prunes, but the prune fruit comes from a different type of plant than plums. Although of the same genus as plums, which makes it a type or variety of plum, prunes have pits that are easier to remove from the flesh unlike all other types of plum.” ________Thirteen Thursday
-The following first appeared as a feature in Sounds of Floyd, a July 2017 magazine insert publication of The Floyd Press
Floyd has always been rich with mountain music, whether it was played on porches, in living rooms, in hollers or churches. The Floyd Country Store’s Friday Night Jamboree was one of the town’s first music venues, which started when The Country Store was a farmer’s supply store and friends gathered around the woodstove to play old-timey tunes. 
Since then, ownership of the store has changed hands several times and the crowds have grown. Every Friday evening, the sidewalks and alleys overflow with musicians and people who come to play or hear the music. Inside, bands perform on stage and people of all generations fill the dance floor to flatfoot. Under the ownership of Jackie and Woody Crenshaw, and now Heather Krantz and Dylan Locke, the renovated building has grown to include a general store and café. It hosts Americana Afternoons, Saturday Headliners, Sunday Jams, workshops, The Floyd Radio Show (modeled after The Prairie Home Companion) and more.
Another music scene was developing around the same time the early Friday Jamboree was. At that time, The Pine Tavern, just north of town, was the place for open mics and free-style dancing to rock, blues, jam and reggae. The Mill (Epperly), home of the county’s first food coop, the predecessor of the Harvest Moon Food Store, also hosted music for a few years, and some fundraiser dance concerts were held at the rented VFW hall.
Local bands playing all genres of music were forming throughout the ‘80 and ‘90s. Singer-songwriters were taking to mics, and interest in Floyd’s scenic countryside, its culture, music and art began to draw tourists. More music venues were developed and music diversity spread.
In 1998 Anga Miller bought the old downtown sewing factory building and repurposed it into two levels of businesses and shops, including a shop filled with her handcrafted Winter Sun clothing line. A stage was the first thing she had built in what was then called Winter Sun Hall. “The dream for me was to always have a music venue,” said the mother of two sons who are working musicians.
In 2010 Dogtown Roadhouse opened in the Winter Sun building as a music venue, serving homemade wood fired pizza. In 2013 Miller and her partner Ed Erwin took over the Roadhouse and became its sole owners. “We’ve had Grace Potter here!” Miller said. She went on to name other Dogtown headline acts, such as Richie Havens, Seven Walkers, Leon Russell, The Hackensaw Boys, Donna the Buffalo and more.
Miller explained that Wednesday Karaoke night and Sunday’s Open Mic draw mostly locals, but the people who attend their Friday and Saturday shows come from neighboring counties and states. Some shows sell-out (pre-show tickets can be purchased online). Some nights, Dogtown attendees spill out onto the Roadhouse deck, or into the adjacent Warren Lineberry Park, which has been the site of outdoor concerts.
Dogtown Roadhouse currently has a full menu and a full bar, specializing in craft beer on tap. Along with the local, regional and national bands they book, the Roadhouse has been used for costume balls, community fundraisers, CD release parties, the Floyd Mardi Gras, weddings and more. “I really do believe that this venue has 
been a primary influence in building the music scene in Floyd over the years,” said Miller. She commented that she was happy and proud of the growth that’s been accomplished and stressed the importance of financially supporting musicians for what they do.
Nearby, and within walking distance from Dogtown Roadhouse, the Hotel Floyd hosts a free music series at the hotel amphitheater on Thursday evenings from May – October. This year, the Town of Floyd will also be holding periodic free events on Thursday nights at the Warren Lineberry Park, so the Hotel will direct guests to those events when they are scheduled, reported hotel co-owner Kamala Bauers.
The Pine Tavern continues to present music events. Since the early days of its Sunday night Open Mic, the historic venue has added an outdoor pavilion stage on the grounds. They host an epic annual Halloween Costume Party and frequently feature The Kind, a popular “Hillbilly Psychedelic Folk Rock” band that specializes in Grateful Dead covers. The Floorboards, The Dark Side Project, Morgan Wade, Sway Katz and Hamilton Loomis have all played at the Pine Pavilion in the past couple of years.
The Oak Grove Pavilion at the Zion Lutheran Church was another early venue that is still going strong today. During the warm weather months, amongst a grove of oaks around an outdoor stage, the church has been presenting musical concerts of most every type of music – including Celtic, new age, gospel and rock – and theatrical productions of drama, satire, musicals, and comedy since 1994. Admission is free and donations go to local charities.
On the south side of Route 221, Wildwood Farms and General Store has been hosting live Bluegrass and Old Time music every Saturday for the past four years. Music jams happen every 1st and 3rd Saturday, held outside on the picking porch when the weather is warm. They put on an Old Time Fall Festival (the third Saturday in October) with live music, crafts, a vintage vehicle cruise-in, pumpkins, apple butter demonstrations and all the fall fixins.
Wildwood Farms is known for its daylily garden, which includes over 600 varieties and draws visitors from Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and more during bloom time. They also have a gift shop and kitchen that serves up sandwiches and pizza.
Chateau Morrisette Winery and Restaurant, founded by David Morrisette and located along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Floyd, will be celebrating its 40th anniversary next year. The Black Dog Beach Music Festival is one of its oldest events, drawing approximately 2,000 people every year from nearby counties and states. Every Sunday from June through October there’s music with Sunday Sounds, set on the Winery Courtyard, where jazz, bluegrass and rock and roll are featured. Tours and tastings are offered daily.
People come from all over the world for the Friday Night Jamboree and it’s been written about in major news outlets, like The Washington Post and US Today. But the Jamboree isn’t the only music event that has put Floyd on the map, literally and as part of our region’s 300 mile Crooked Road Music Heritage Trail. Floydfest founders Erika Johnson and Kris Hodges were the original owners of Oddfellas Cantina (now Oddf3llas). When their restaurant/music venue outgrew the space, they started Floydfest, an annual eco-friendly music and art festival on 80 acres off the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Since its grassroots inception in 2002, Floydfest has grown to be one of the most highly rated boutique music festivals in the region and beyond. Headlining acts have included Jackson Browne, Ziggy Marley, Levon Helm, The Lumineers, Bruce Hornsby and many others. They also feature an “On the Rise” patron-voted competition that spotlights cutting edge, up-and-coming bands from the region and around the country.
Building on the success of Floydfest, other annual music festivals have been launched and include Floyd Yoga Jam, Chantilly Farm Bluegrass Festival and Replenish Festival at Burnette Farm (Willis), which blends faith, family and fun, along with high quality music, such as the Grammy nominated band Building 429 and billboard chart-breaker JJ Weeks.
“Whether it’s yoga or dancing, we’ll get you moving,” said Shirleyann Burgess, one of the YogaJam founders. Also held on the Burnett Farm, Yoga Jam features a Labor Day weekend of inspirational speakers, weed walks, holistic health workshops, performance and interactive arts, along with an impressive musical line-up. Whether it’s rock, rap or devotional, the song lyrics at Yoga Jam are always positive.
Chantilly Farm is set to have its 7th annual Bluegrass BBQ Festival this May. They’ll be hosting a free Mountains of Music Barn Dance in June. Last summer they presented a popular Beatles Tribute Band, and this year Cosmic Charley is on the schedule to play Grateful Dead favorites.
Expanding on Floyd’s reputation as a destination for quality music, classical music is the newest musical genre to make its mark in Floyd. Some classical music concerts are hosted by the Floyd Center for the Arts. In 2012, Virginia’s Blue Ridge Music Festival (VBRMF) launched a spring series of concerts held in various locations in town, including a brass ensemble at the Floyd Farmers Market and a chamber ensemble at the Floyd EcoVillage that was conducted by David Wiley, the Roanoke Symphony Orchestra’s director/conductor and VBRMF’s artistic director. The group hosts concerts, weekend series and provides grants and scholarships to support promising area music programs and young musicians.
Floyd is home to some acclaimed musicians and bands. It’s also home to instrument makers, recording studios, and dancers. Contra dances, which are held on second Saturdays at the Floyd Center for the Arts, have been bringing American folk dancing and high quality Celtic music to Floyd for decades. The Blue Ridge Dance Fitness and Dance Studio, home of the Back Door Cloggers, teaches dance classes and performs locally.
“There’s nothing like this anywhere,” said Tracy Elliot about Floyd on Jamboree night. She and her husband Oscar drive from north of Charlottesville about three Fridays a month to dance at the Country Store. The couple, who learned about the Jamboree from the internet, comes early enough to hear the pre-show Gospel Hour. On this night it was Janet Turner and Friends.
Turner has been playing at the Country Store “ever since they let us in the door,” she said. She sings and plays autoharp every first Friday with her band. She remembers learning the old songs before tape recorders were available, listening to the radio and memorizing a song line by line. “It seems like it really hasn’t changed that much because we just stick with the blue grass and old time,” she said about Floyd’s music scene.
Turner’s comment speaks to Floyd’s lasting music roots and to the influence of growing up where music is a part of life. “I’ve always loved music and I’ve always sang ever since I was big enough to. My mommy and daddy’s families both were musical,” she said.
____________Our World Tuesday
___________Shadow Shot Sunday
-The following first appeared with a larger spread of photos in The Floyd Press on September 7, 2017. A slideshow of other photos can be viewed on the Floyd Press website.
There was an impressive turnout for the 6th annual Yoga Jam despite scattered showers and overcast weather Friday and Saturday. Parking lots and campsites were filled with cars from all over Virginia, 
neighboring states, up a down the east coast, from as far south as Florida and as far west as San Francisco and Oregon. By Sunday the sun shone bright and good vibes were heightened.
The theme of this year’s festival, held at the Burnette Farm over Labor Day Weekend, was “Connection.” Attendees were brought together through yoga, music, art, wellness workshops and community. Teachers and bands came from all over the country and regional talents were featured.
Among the over 80 Meditation, Yoga, Movement Arts and Wellness teachers, those from Floyd included Sarah McCarthy, Jagadisha, Jeff Tiebout, Kathryn Ashera Rose, Jennifer Turman Bayliss, Jessica Talley-Haynes. Tommy Bailey, Joe Klein, Jamie Reygle, Thais Abernathy, Katherine Chantal, Sandy Jahmi Burg, Leia Jones, Katie Wells and Dance Afire.
Some of the yoga classes that festival goers could choose from included Yoga of Love and the Power of Chant, Yoga for Dudes, Grit with a Side of Grace, Super Hero School, Embrace Your Yoga Geek, the Way of Happy Hips, Blossoming Heart, Southern Comfort Yoga and more. Meditation traditions included Nada Yoga, Passage Meditation, Vipasana, Sound Bath Meditation and more.
Of the more than three-dozen musical acts performing, Foyd musicians included The Bhakti Kulani Band, bigmama joy, Seph Custer, Richie Ursomarso and The Wildlife, Morgan Wade, Flirting with Chemicals, Little Shiver, The Wildmans and Music Road. 
National Heritage Award recipient, Wayne Henderson played a Friday evening set with musician Helen White. After their set, they spent some time chatting around the Turman family campfire (owners of the Burnette Farm) before heading out to prepare for a gig in Galax.
Conscious global music performer MC YOGI and a Yoga Jam returning favorite was Friday night’s headliner that featured a star shower light show. Elephant Revival was the closing headliner of Saturday’s festivities. On Sunday, several accomplished Floyd bands played the main stage, and Sean Johnson and The Wild Lotus Band, accompanied by an Arts Fire Show, closed the show.
A Labyrinth circle, a giant sandbox, nature walks, dance performances, a paddle board pool, a poetry jam, a glow dance party and the release of the lighted prayer lanterns to the heavens Sunday night were some of the highlights that made Yoga Jam 2017 memorable. – Colleen Redman
More photos: Yogis practiced poses on paddle boards in Mountain 2 Island Paddle Board pool. Mountain 2 Island is a Pulaski-based paddle board company that offers paddle board classes at Claytor Lake and Smith Mountain Lake. In between paddle board classes, kids were invited to paddle for free.
“This is their first Yoga Jam and my second. I recruited them,” said Michelle Ah, a member of On the Go Yoga Studio in Clarksville, Virginia. Pictured with Ah (right), enjoying refreshments after a yoga workout and decked out in YogaJam merchandise, are Dawn Ruiz from Nashville, TN, and Kara Stoltenberg from Clarksville.
Winter Hart of Floyd’s Apple Ridge Farm helped kids of all ages with creek studies. Crawdads and water critters were examined up close.
Yoga Jam Co-founder Shirleyann Burgess could often be seen on her golf cart overseeing festival logistics. Here, she takes a moment to pose Volunteer Staff Coordinator Jessica Talley-Haynes. Talley-Haynes, a Functional Medicine Certified Health Coach with a counseling background, taught a class that incorporated guided imagery and music.
“Love is for everyone,” was the refrain to a song performed by Pennsylvania-based sacred mantra singer songwriter David Newman (left), aka Durga Das.
Adrianne Burke (Namaslay) from Embrace Yoga DC led participants in a yoga class on awakening the animal spirit within.
Acro Yoga classes were held in People’s Park.
The Boogie Down Dance Tent served as a comfortable lounge for enjoying regional beer and wine, having conversation, listening to music and dancing!
White Rabbit Smoothies was one of the newest food booths. Owners, Susan (far right) and Christian Saunders said they are looking for a small location in Floyd and plan to vend their cold and hot smoothies at festivals.
“Two strawberry shortcakes,” said one happy camper to a Roanoke’s Dojo Grille vendor.
See you next year!
1. Like a football game is compromised when the weather is bad, I learned that my poem reading game is affected by cold drizzling weather. I was a little off rhythm at the first annual Poetry Slam at Floyd Yoga Jam, but still it was fun to participate. See HERE.
2. The Yoga Jam program was my bible over the weekend. I kept it close, not as a festival attendee looking to find the next yoga class or band but as a reporter looking for the names of class teachers and bands I was covering for our local paper.
3. Last week I posted on Facebook “waiting for my doctor in an examination room by myself always makes me feel like I’ve gotten in trouble and am in time-out,” to which a friend commented, “If I ever have to wait for a longer time than usual in a waiting room I take all of Band-Aids that are in the drawer.”
4. I saw a few disco balls over the weekend, and if I had felt well enough to stay up for the late night Yoga Jam show with MC Yogi, I would have seen a star shower light show. But I didn’t, so I guess I’ll just look at photos from a past year HERE.
5. The disco ball in the picture above hangs over the Yoga Jam main stage. I also saw THIS one when my 6-year old grandson played us a funny Techno Chicken youtube video. It cracked everyone up (pun intended).
6. And somehow I came across THIS protest of a hundred or so T-Rex’s on the White House lawn and haven’t been able to get the image out of my mind.
7. At one point over the weekend I had a Yoga Jam wrist band on one wrist and a hospital wrist band on the other (after getting an MRI for tracking an internal cyst), which was kind of a mixed message.
8. THIS is how much I love Yoga Jam.
9. It was a weekend of firsts. It was my first MRI. I had breakfast in bed for the first time ever and bobbed for apples for the first time (after my grandson Bryce saw our bounty of picked apples and got the idea). Also, my grandsons incorporated me into their zombie game by casting me in the role of a zombie victim that needed to be protected while I was lying in bed resting.
10. The grandparent equation: My grandkids take the most energy, but they also give me the most energy. How does that work?
11. And I was THIS close to paddle board surfing for the first time. I didn’t because I wasn’t feeling good, but having my grandsons do it for the first time was even better.
12. “The room I entered was a dream of this room. Surely all those feet on the sofa were mine. The oval portrait of a dog was me at an early age. Something shimmers. Something is hushed up. We had macaroni for lunch every day, except Sunday, when a small quail was induced to be served to us. Why do I tell you these things? You are not even here…” This Room by John Ashbery
13. Crimped shoulders crack / Where the cold holds me back / Summer is like a childhood / I’ve outgrown -More from The End HERE.
______________Thirteen Thursday
And that’s no fish tale.
I’m not surprised that it was mostly Floyd dancers who danced on the grass at the Yoga Jam main stage while Floyd-based band Music Road played Sunday afternoon. We, my peers and I, have watched most of the band members grow-up and grow into excellent musicians.
Some of us have had decades dancing together at solstice celebrations, fundraiser dances, on dance floors at the Pine Tavern or Dogtown Roadhouse and more.
I think we passed the love of dancing on to some of our kids…
In Floyd, Virginia is for Dancers.
It’s a family affair.
Check out this video to see why we couldn’t stand still, and look for my story and photo spread on Yoga Jam, which was attended by people from all over the country, in an upcoming Floyd Press. / Our World Tuesday
Hanging on the line
Not enough sun to dry
Gray breeze through my sleeves
Blows early September
Crimped shoulders crack
Where the cold holds me back
Summer is like a childhood
I’ve outgrown
_________Colleen Redman / Poets United
1. The contrast between the thistle’s beauty and its untouchable prickliness reminds me of an oxymoron, like “terrible beauty.”
2. Waiting for my doctor in an examination room by myself always makes me feel like I’ve gotten in trouble and am in time-out.
3. Not only that, but I want my blankey cause it’s always cold in there.
4 My poetry book, Packing a Suitcase for the Afterlife, is on Amazon now. Some of the poems are paradoxical. Informed by the past and grounded in the present, they draw from the inner life where humor and darkness intersect. Like dreams, and like life lived with wakeful attention, they have more than one layer of meaning. – See a further description and review quotes HERE.
5. Our Thirteen Thursday poet friend Ron from Scrambled Not Fried gave the book a vote of confidence. I like to imagine his words as a back-cover blurb: “ got my copy yesterday & devoured it instantly. I’ll be eating it again today, this time with an attempt to savor it more slowly. Then, I plan on having it for a late-night snack before I go to bed. What I’ve had so far, though, is framiculously delicioso!!!”
6. THIS “Liquid Shard” art installation (now on my bucket list) is made from holographic mylar and monofilament and stretches 15,000 sq ft. across a Los Angeles park, rising and falling like a mystical giant, slithering through the wind.
7. I like art installations that stretch the limits of reality like I like good science fiction movies.
8. So I got my first CT scan. It felt like an alien abduction examination. I had to hold back my laughter when a Hal-like piped in voice said, “Breathe Deep, Hold Breath and Breathe.
9. A picturesque old Rockport MA fishing shack, known as Motif No. 1, that I photographed while in Rockport may be the most painted building in the United States — if not the world. It has also appeared in movies, as an award-winning float, on magazine covers, on a postage stamp, in a 1960s Winston cigarette ad and as a Kentucky bourbon bottle. Rockport’s boosters shamelessly promote Motif No. 1 as a tourist attraction. Other coastal cities and towns shamelessly steal its image as their own… Why ‘Motif No. 1?’ Built around the time of the Civil War, its prominent position at the end of the pier made it a natural backdrop for artists painting harbor pictures. Finally in the early 1930s, while critiquing a group of students’ pictures, several of which featured the little red shack, Lester Hornby, using a term often employed by French students to describe frequently painted sites, exclaimed, “What – Motif No. 1 again!” His fateful words stuck and since then the little red shack has been referred to as “Motif No. 1.” – From the New England Historical Society. See pictures of my visit there HERE.
10. Cotton Candy, screams from amusement park riders, bright flashing lights, a strong man hammer and bell strength tester and a “drown the clown” joker were all part of the classic Marshfield Fair scene. Someone wanted to guess my age, but I didn’t want to draw attention to it. Some of the game barkers use recorded messages now. The big stuffed animal prizes are the same. – More from We Have a Winner Here! HERE.
11. Rockport, Manchester (where Manchester by the Sea was filmed) and Gloucester (where The Perfect Storm was filmed) are all in the same county, and Marshfield MA, where my sister lives and where I stayed during my vacation, has been the backdrop of several films and is home to a few stars, which makes me wonder if Steven Tyler from Aerosmith and actor Steve Carrel ever run into each other. They both live in Marshfield.
12. In the last fling of summer / bleeding hearts flutter / Ladybugs hug / and butterflies stutter / songbirds lament / the last rush of lush / while hummingbirds hover / over leftover nectar … Read this poem in its entirety HERE.
13. Retired is better than flat tired or tired.
______Thirteen Thursday
I grew up in amusement park town, so going to the Marshfield Fair while in my home state of Massachusetts was like a homecoming. I have so many memories of the Paragon Park of my childhood but it was closed and torn down in 1984.
One of my claim to fames is that in all the years of growing up near Paragon, I never went on the Roller Coaster. “You couldn’t pay me enough to go on that,” is still my common ride refrain.
Cotton Candy, screams from amusement park riders, bright flashing lights, a strong man hammer and bell strength tester and a “drown the clown” joker were all part of the classic scene.
Someone wanted to guess my age, but I didn’t want to draw attention to it. Some of the game barkers use recorded messages now. The big stuffed animal prizes are the same.
I call this “Nelson Goes Hunting.”
This one is “Sherry not riding the ferris wheel.” Neither of us like heights, speed or spinning.
But speaking of spinning, I was the only one who got up and danced to this band. Who can resist Space Cowboy by The Steve Miller Band?
________Our World Tuesday
