My Favorite Book

13Write about your favorite book as a child. Do you remember the title, the writer’s or the illustrator’s name? Were you reading it by yourself, or was an adult reading it to you? Have you ever re-read it as an adult, maybe to your child, or just for yourself? What was the most memorable episode or character? Did it make you do anything new – maybe to become more adventurous, or change your name and identity, or learn how to read, or write and illustrate a book yourself? The Rise and Write details are here. With letting myself sleep late yesterday, I am doing two this morning.  I clocked this oe at 16 minutes.  feedback welcome.

The pages were already smudged, and the cover tatty when I placed my copy of E.B. Whites Charlotte's Web on the new book shelf in my new bedroom. I don't remember exactly when the book first became mine, but it was before I could read.  In elementary school, each month was the opportunity to purchase books through Scholastic book orders.  I didn't get to order every month, but birthday money, odd change found, and occasional money from my mom and dad, would allow a book or two from the $1.00 section.  This is how I  owned my beloved  book.  I remember one of my older sisters reading it out loud to me and my younger sister.  There were a few pen and ink illustrations strewn throughout the book to help develop the image of Fern, Wilbur, Charlotte and the rat in my head, but they weren't needed.  I could see it all.  I could smell the barn yard and smell the county fair. 

The summer before I turned 13, about the age Fern was in the book, my family moved into a new house, on the same property.  The 13o year old farmhouse was deemed in too rough a shape to try and update the wiring, heating, and foundation. It was to be demolished. The new house was a plain split entry, two bedrooms up, two bedrooms down, practical house.  My younger sister and I still shared a room, and being in the lower half, a natural shelf where the brick foundation  was built, surrounded the outside walls,   This shelf was perfect for books, and I continued to fill my section. Nine years later when I packed up those books to move into my first house after getting married, Charlotte and Wilbur came with me as well. 

I remember reading the book when I was on bed rest, pregnant with my first child, needing to hold the pages carefully as they were coming loose from the glue binding. The book came to our current house, and was read to my two older children until eventually, it just completely fell apart. Each of the kids have brought home library copies.  We watched the movie as a family, much like I did as a child, but I've never purchased another copy of the book.  I would have if the kids had ever requested, but I didn't feel a need for another version.  In writing this I am feeling a mourning for the book.  I mourn that old farmhouse with the creeky floors and outdated minimalistic plumbing.  I mourn my childhood, and more so my children's childhood. I mourn those last minutes of Charlotte's life, and remember my version of Wilbur's sadness in my mind.  But I mourn for just a moment.  It is morning, and it looks to be a glorious day ahead. So, in the immortal word of my favorite book, I greet you reader, "Salutations."

Door Knobs not Head Knobs

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Today's prompt is to write about a door knob. Any door knob – maybe it’s in your room, maybe in a fancy concert hall, or in an antique shop. Is it made of glass, metal, ceramic? What color is it? Is it attached to a door that you are afraid to open, curious to open, eager to open, or are you indifferent? If you never paid any attention to door knobs, write about how stupid it is to even think of door knobs. If nothing comes to mind, invent! The other prompts and other writers tales of the door knob can be found at the Rise and Write page.

I am smiling to myself as I type this, because writing about my door knob or plain door challenge popped into my head even before reading today's prompt.  Here is a typical morning, including this morning.  When I wake up, it is often quite dark in my bedroom.  After my morning stretches and little morning "think", I less than graciously stumble to the door.  Here is where it gets tricky.  I like to sleep with the door shut, but not shut tight. My assumption, even though both my husband and dog may come in after me, leaving the door open, I still expect it to be closed in the morning. I walk precariously with my hand out in front of me, trying to find the door knob.  If I don't do this, I am apt to find that the door is 3/4 opens, and I will run head first into the door, as it swings open to my side of the bed. 

We also struggle with persistently loose and jiggling door knobs in our house. I often feel like I should carry my short little chubby phillips head screw driver with me, room to room, screwing the door knob frame back into place, as a regular accessory. Are we harder on door knobs than other families?  Do normal people do a regular door knob rotation of tightening the screws so they never experience the loose jiggling handle? Our house being of a late 1980's style, has very generic oak doors and brass door knobs.  I would love to have doors with more pizazz and maybe porcelain or the diamond-glass looking knobs.  They wouldn't fit the house though. I picture those in my centuries old London flat of the future, an homage to a scene from a Dickens book.  Until such time, I'll still take my awkward steps each morning, looking for door knob while not putting a knob on my forehead. 

Swimming Pool

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Write about your first experience of swimming. How old were you? Was it in a swimming pool with an instructor, or someone kicked you and you fell into a lake?  Were you with your friends, your parents or by yourself? Did you learn how to swim eventually? Do you love it, hate it, or are you indifferent to it? Visit  Rise and Write for more daily writing prompts,

I don't remember not swimming.  My earliest memories were of going with my mom, or an older sister to the splash pool next to the large pool in my home town.  This splash pool had two square water fountains that turned on in the morning when the pool opened and shut down when the big pool closed. The enclosed  splash pool was staggered so the center between the two spraying fountains perhaps got about 18 inches deep, and gradually less depth as you moved away towards the outside up to the dry side walk that lined the pool. Here is where the babies, the toddlers, and the young preschoolers played. Here is where I also walked on hot summer mornings with my son the first two summers of his life when our first house was only four blocks away. 

As we got older, we graduated to the big pool.  Each summer we would each get a season pass.  The pass was not the credit card variety if today, but a cloth patch that was sewed on your swimsuit.  This pass meant any summer day we had a ride into town, or were ambitious enough to bike the 5 miles in and then back home again, we could be at the the pool. I don't remember taking any formal swim lessons, but oddly, can't recall ever not knowing how to swim, except for the splash pool days.  My mother was terribly afraid of the water, so it was not her that taught us. My dad would have either been working long hours in construction, on the road  putting shoes on horses around the state, or working in the barns, large garden or fruit trees, so was not the teacher either.  It must have been one or more of my older siblings and their friends that helped me and my sisters learn. I don't know who taught them.

Throughout elementary and junior high, I loved that pool. My friends, sisters, and I would try and get there early and seek out a spot not too close, but easy to see the locker room entrance to the pool that let us see who was coming, and easy view to see the diving boards so as not to miss the really good divers.  There were two diving boards at the far end of the pool and the life guards one by one would let kids climb up and dive, or more often cannonball into the water.  There was always a few non or minimal ability swimmers that were goaded into jumping off, knees shaking the whole time.  I fortunately never witnessed anything tragic, but on many occasions I recall a life guard jumping in to help the struggling novice to the ladder. We played games of Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear, Who turned out the lights?, and Marco Polo.  We dove for coins or sticks.  These were real sticks, not the made for pool diving sticks used today.

I loved that pool, and then, overnight, I didn't. I don't know if it was the summer before high school, or the summer even before that when I stopped going.  It suddenly felt juvenile and like the pool was over run with either  idiot little boys, giggling little girls, and  yelling and bossing parents with their kids. We moved to the beach, the strip of sand on the St Croix that separated Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

With my family, once we moved from walking distance, I didn't take my kids to the splash pool much.  We always had a back yard set up that I could fill or add to each morning, gently warming up for use later in the day. My kids had formal lessons at the high school pool, and we swam weekends at the lake. Eventually the community pool, leaking hundreds of gallons of water a day, was removed, and a new 0" depth pool and aquatic center was built. My kids were starting school then and we used that pool a lot.  My youngest still does. I don't know if there are any of these community pools left.  Water parks  seem to have replaced all the ones I was aware of.  They are of  another time, another era.  This pool, as many were, was a product of middle class expansion in the 1950's.  In keeping with other modern times, these pools are too simplistic, not enough wow.  I miss it now, or miss the nostalgia.  Whenever I watch the movie The Sand Lot, the scenes at the pool are my favorite. That was my pool.

The Bed

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Write about your last trip to a furniture store – or about a memorable one. Was it with purpose or just browsing? Did you buy anything, or did you leave empty handed? What store was it and why did you choose it? Or maybe it was online shopping? Here is where to find all this weeks prompts. 

"Buy something that will last," her mother told her.  As a recent graduate, having lived the last six years in a combination of dorm rooms, over crowded flats, and back and forth in her parents basement, she had finally moved into her first apartment of her own.  There would be no roommates and no family within 200 miles. Her budget was tight, with a student loan bill from obtaining her masters of nearly $600 a month, nearly 1/3 of her take home pay. She filled a U-haul with enough furniture, handed down from relatives, or bought second hand, to adequately set up house. There was one item she needed though, and this she had determined was going to be new and that was her bed. 

Too many years of sleeping on a twin mattress, never being able to feel quite like a grown up, made this want feel more like a need than anything she ever desired. She could make do without a bedroom set, having watched enough YouTube videos and DIY in those months of late night resume writing and job searching, that she felt she could update pieces and cobble together a bedroom suite with what was given to her. She planned on sleeping on an air mattress until she could locate a mattress, box spring, and bed frame. She set out the first afternoon she arrived in her new city, boxes and other furniture left where her friends had left it when they helped her unload.  Timing worked out well.  Two guy friends arranged their own road trip to only take  a slight detour to follow her as she pulled the small trailer.  In an hour, they were unloaded,  grabbed lunch, and were back on the road. 

She had researched and found a furniture and mattress store, a big, multi site company, within 15 miles of her apartment. With a budget of $1,000, which she didn't know was realistic or not, she headed in the door. She was immediately greeted with an eager salesperson, overly smiley, with an aggressive handshake.  She was directed towards mattresses, and was slightly relieved to learn this woman must need to stay in that section, and didn't follow her.  She passed display upon display of carefully  set up living room sets, dining rooms, and whole bedrooms that could be bought in full, and picked up and dropped in any home in America. The new graduate felt a little smug, knowing her apartment, once she was done, would have an eclectic and unique look, and not look like it was thrown up from a furniture advertisement. 

She found the mattresses. A less aggressive man gave her a quick overview of where different brands and types were. He let her know he was available for questions, and would check in, but she should feel free to wander and test.  The choices were staggering with pillow tops, and sleep numbers, and memory foam, multiple variations and price points. She knew she wanted a queen size, having been blessed to find an apartment in a second floor of an old large house, now converted into three apartments, one on each floor.  Hers was a one bedroom, but must have been the master when it was a single family home, nice and large with a big bay window overlooking the shared back yard.  She tested  out a few until she laid on one that was so comfortable, she fell asleep for a minute or two. She got a sock of sticker shock in her belly. Before frame, before delivery, the mattress was priced at $1,499.  Her heart dropped a little. "That is a good selection.  Twenty year warranty, and highest customer satisfaction rating. " said the salesman, who was more aware of her shopping than he appeared. "and this particular set, is going to change slightly, so we are running an unadvertised special at 50% off." 

Remarkable, she thought.  She completed the paperwork, added the frame, and set up delivery for Friday of that same week.  She would have three nights to sleep in splendor before starting her new job the following Monday. She spent the week organizing the rest of her place, creating order out of the chaos.  She used a combination of Target gift cards and money saved for her move to purchases new bedding.  She laundered it, and made sure it was at peak softness for when the bed arrived.  Lacking a head board, she had found a discarded garden trellis down the street, salvaged it after asking the owners, by spray painting a mint green color, and toggled the trellis on the wall where the bed would go. It arrived relatively on schedule, the frame put together with ease. That might she was so exhausted, she didn't even have time to savor her surroundings.  With the first morning light, she slowly reached her arms out wide, first right, then left, and knew she was home.

Love in Blue and Gold

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Write about your favorite blanket – or about your least favorite blanket. What does it look like? Is it soft, scratchy, warm, new or old? Is it a gift, a find, a purchase? What do you use it for? If your blanket had a voice, what story would it tell? Read more prompts and other writer's stories at the Rise and Write link.

Love in Blue and Gold

As grandparents, both sets of our parents loved to attend our kids and nieces and nephews sporting events.  They were the bleacher sitters at basketball games, and brought along yard chairs for sitting on the sidelines of soccer, football, softball and baseball games in the younger years before the kids played at the high school level. Minnesota weather is unpredictable, and chilly and wet spring can last well into summer, and early fall coolness can land in August.  We also have the sweltering above 90 days as well.  Grandparents need to be prepared for all sorts of weather so besides the yard chairs, umbrellas, extra jackets, and blankets were permanent contents in their care trunks. 

One year for Christmas my older daughter, with the help of her younger sister, decided to make fleece tie blankets for both her grandmothers.  She decided to do them in our towns school colors of blue and gold, reversible.  If you haven't made them, even a non sewer like me can turn  5 yards of fleece into a beautiful gift since all it requires is a good eye to line up the two pieces of fleece, a strong hand to cut the fringe strips around the border, and the patience to tie the strips to bind the blanket. DD # 2 was of little help, but she was there to ask questions and tell her big sis how much she liked the blanket and she would like one too.  She later also got a smaller one made for her as well from her sister who took the less than subtle hint. 

Both blankets were thoroughly enjoyed by both grandmas. They came out for every sporting event, even the warm ones for extra seating on the grass if there were people without chairs.  They sat on the grandmas laps or bundles around their body on the colder days. In my mom's last couple years, it was harder to get her out of the house to go to the games. If the weather was just right, it was easier. One of the parks my younger daughter played softball at was near my mom's and I could easily push her to the game in her wheelchair, so we didn't have to worry about how close we could park, or making sure there were two adults to help get her dropped off, and then park the car.  My dad was starting to have stability issues himself. She would bring her blanket with her, riding on her lap, as I pushed her to the spectator section.  She was always so proud when she received compliments on her blanket from other grandparents to say, "My granddaughter made it for me."

After mom passed, the blanket sat on a ottoman next to her chair.  My dad starting using my moms recliner, both for the comfort it game him, and because it was sturdier and  easier to get in and out of by himself.  He was rarely chilly, but occasionally, he would rest the blanket on his lap as she did.  

After he passed, two years later, the blanket came back to my daughter, who then gave to me.  I now carry the blanket in my trunk, and on those chilly soccer game days, it comes out to be there just in case I need to keep the cold away.  This blanket is brilliant not just because of it's warmth, softness, and team spirit, but because it holds traditions and memories of my whole family. 

So What Am I Afraid Of?

I am on to week two, prompt 8 of the Rise and Write  challenge. Write about fear you experienced (or are experiencing now). It can be a situation from your life, a fear of heights, of dogs, of closed small rooms or clowns… or a fear of being yourself, doing what you want to do, expressing yourself. Does your fear have a face, a voice, a smell, physical presence? Is it an abstract blob? How does it make you feel when you experience it? How does it make you feel when you look back at it? If it’s a fear you overcame, how did it happen?

What am I afraid of?  Waking up and having no forms of caffeine in the house would be a nightmare to me, and I might have to send the husband on an early morning errand. Caffeine withdrawal aside, there are not too many physical things that frighten me.  I love daring theme park rides, and airplane rides, and tall buildings and bridges.  I have a healthy respect for heights, but no fear, though have no desire to jump from an airplane for fun. I love the water.  My mother who had a good fear of open water and swimming pools, made sure we all could swim adequately.  I have the cautiousness needed when walking alone or small groups in isolated areas and at night, but no fear of being alone. I sometimes am uncomfortable with small spaces, but only if there is poor air flow and no outside view,  and it seems like it will be more than 15 minutes.  It isn't really  a fear, more a physical uncomfortableness. 

I do experience anxiety when in certain situations that go longer than I had mentally prepared myself for.  These are mostly family gatherings and parties, or an isolated situation that whacks me in the face when I had prepared for something else. This may be an oxymoron, but I do think people can be filled with anxiety when a situation gets beyond their control, and also be spontaneous.  I like days and times when there is no set agenda, I just need to have  a certain degree of control over the spontaneity, and know I have a back-up plan to move on if it isn't working for me. This is where the family stress comes in when I am  faced with  situations that are overly controlled by someone else. 

I used to have a fear of being  or getting lost.  Before the age of cellphones and GPS, I carefully mapped out my routes, got directions, found landmarks. I would get so flustered if I couldn't find the right place, and tiny variation in the correct directions  confused me. Part of the change has been in technology and part has been my work and having to be here to there and a few places in between, that I just had to get over it. Loving travelling and experiencing new places was another way I have not let the fear of being lost stop me from going places I've never been, without fear that I wouldn't find my destination, or my way back. I had  a minor dose of anxiety when the bus system in Paris was shut down on half the city, and we were on the wrong half, trying to get to the train station for a 7:00 departure.  I calmed myself down though and figured we could find a cab, expensive but doable, take the next hour train, or worst case, stay a night in Paris.  We ended up taking a cab, as we had made it closer to the station with a combination of walking to just in range for the bus, and taking that bus as far as we could,  the cost was only 10 Euros. Now, I look at these minor blips in direction as good stories. 

Before I Really Get Up...

It has been a good week of diving intot the world of prompted writing.  It is Day seven of  Rise and Write and here is my prompt from Natalia.  

Write about your morning ritual. You wake up… then what usually happens? Write about how your body feels, what you think about, what you like to do, to eat or drink the first thing in the morning. It does not have to be about you. Write about your character if you prefer – What is their morning routine?

Before I really get up...

Rarely do I need an alarm clock to wake up.  I set one every night for 5:50, but on most mornings, weekends included, I'm wide awaken thinking about the day before the beeping thing goes off.  Sure, I eventually open my eyes, stumble into the bathroom to douse my face with cold water, and head to the kitchen to get that first cup of coffee. However, the morning  think is probably my true ritual.
  
I have been told by some this is a source of my anxiety.  "You need to just get up ad get going.  You think too much therefore you worry too much." This was said by a friend on a recent walk after I shared some recent morning ponderings. I admit it.  On months when my husband's commissions are low, I wake up an do mathematical calculations in my head as to whether or not the funds in the check book will cover all the bills. I recalculate vacation costs, and then fret if we really can afford to go.  In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I do a running checklist in my head on who I have or haven't yet shopped for, what I purchased, and then second guess if I selected the right things. I think about my kids, their current life and their future. I get a mix of joy and apprehension because the job market, even in this improving economy, has been tough for them both.  

But then, I also use this quiet reflective morning time to work out solutions to nagging and sometimes real problems.  In the dark, I can think through various scenarios and think through worst case, and often I've worked out that if worst case happened, I'd be able to deal with situation. I debrief in my head about conversations or situations, and see what could have been done differently, or what my next actions will be. 

Once I have decided to get up, I first do a series of stretched in my bed. I roll my ankles, my hips side to side. I draw each leg up to my chest, one at a time, and then both together. Then I find that cold water for my face, and that hot cup of java for my  mouth and soul, and I start my day. I must add though, that this past week has altered my morning.  My think time has been my Rise and Write time. It is early to think if there is a change to my outlook not having this silent time in the dark.  Perhaps that is what writing for oneself is, just thinking on paper, or on a computer, or in a cloud.