Ann Pattchett’s Bookstore asks, ‘why write?’ when there are so many great writers out there.

It’s in Nashville. Ann Patchett’s bookstore. And as if there isn’t enough music on every corner and bar to grab you by the ears, inside the bookstore there is a recital in progress with a series of singers performing their party pieces to polite applause. More overwhelming than yet more music is the sheer number of books, books, books. The store has half a wall dedicated to Ann’s works alone. Rows of her paperbacks and hardcovers grouped by subtle colors and size are surrounded in turn by Clancy’s and Grisham’s and Patterson’s garish, grinning teeth begging for extraction.

I wonder why I should try to write when there are already so many words and sentences and pages and books to hand. I had just seen a sign down the road—WE BUY BOOKS. Books deftly crafted of stanzas and theses and similes and tropes treated like so much unwanted jewelry for WE BUY GOLD purveyors.

A writing student, after hearing an essay rife with metaphors, asked, “Why do we needs all those riddles?” Good question. Riddles and puzzles—who killed whom in the kitchen with what? What can I possibly add to that looming avalanche of plots and outlines, research and drama that would be new or interesting or insightful? Especially when there are so many superb writers, elegant wordsmiths, more sensitive and insightful than I.

I feel like the guy huddled in a doorway on Nashville’s Broad Street, tapping rhythms on his knee, begging for attention, his hat on the sidewalk for offerings to his minor skills while two doors down, full-fledged musicians play amplified country western with drums, guitars and fiddle behind three-part harmony. And just around the next corner are the recording studios for the actual name artists making CDs to sell after road shows and guest appearances.

I guess it’s all a matter of scale…so to speak. Just because a kid will never be a concert pianist is no reason to give up piano lessons. It’s the moment of creativity that makes it all worthwhile. The Rumpelstiltskin moment of making gold from straw when we suddenly connect unlike or unexpected thoughts and images into something new and original. That’s what makes writing worthwhile, if only for ourselves. As if that’s not enough.

Retired trainer, and writing instructor, Joe Novara and his wife live in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Writings include novels, short stories, a memoir and various poems, plays, anthologies and articles. Read more at https://freefloatingstories.wordpress.com/

 

Pew Research Center called it. Millennials (23 to 38 year olds) are now officially the largest generation in America.

I don’t need to tell you how relieved I am/we should be. The pressure is truly off us, along with the monkey that’s been on our back for twenty years.

What people forget when they speak of the 800 pound gorilla, is that the gorilla also has feelings. Boomers have been the target and the scapegoat for just about everything that’s gone wrong in this country. We rarely get credit for what we’ve done right. Twenty years of that can leave a few scars.

Now, it’s up to millennials to get everything right. Get us out of the pandemic in one piece, rebuild our economy, fix climate change, end poverty, replace our aging infrastructure, and restore our role as a global leader.

No pressure.

I forgot one thing. Don’t pay any attention to the critics, and there will be critics. They will say you’re selfish, entitled, whiny and many more not nice things. Don’t pay any attention to them. You have so much on your To Do list that you cannot waste time listening to people who only want to criticize an entire generation with useless stereotyping.

How do you ignore all the sniping and carping? It’s not easy, let me tell you. It will come from all sides. From older generations as well as your own children. From the media and from authors of bestselling books. You will soon discover that everyone has an opinion for why your generation is a complete failure and huge disappointment. If you start listening to any of this criticism, or worse, take it to heart, it will drive you nuts. Take it from members of the punching bag generation, the bigger you are, the more they come after you.

Remember this most important fact. You are not the point person for your entire generation. When you hear the criticism, don’t take it personally. They are not talking about you. You’re doing your best to be a good, caring citizen trying to make the world a better place. If they don’t get that, #&@% them.

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

It was the thing that many of us did back then. In the 1970’s, much to the alarm of my parents, I dropped out of college and moved in with my boyfriend. My father tried every tactic to dissuade me, even bringing up the cow and the milk, you know the one about why should someone buy the cow when they can get the milk for free? In any case, none of it worked. We moved in together and feathered our one-bedroom basement apartment nest. It helped that many of my parent’s friends’ kids were making similar choices, and in time, they adapted to the situation. My father even grudgingly admitted he liked the guy. Working part-time, I finished college, and eventually boyfriend and I followed the acceptable path – marriage, corporate job for him while I spent time raising our two beautiful children. My parents breathed sighs of relief, relishing in our comfort and success, at least until we divorced 15 years later, but that’s another story.

Flash forward to 2011. My second husband had died; my new love’s wife had met a similar fate. Such are the dishes served at life’s table. I was in a situation where I needed a place to live. He had a place big enough for both us, having raised his two children there. I had decided never to marry again, and he, before we met, had decided the same. My parents were long gone, so couldn’t comment, but my children could. Mom, don’t you think you’re moving in with him too soon? You haven’t known him long enough. His son, still living at home, said Dad, I thought we were going to be bachelors together. How well do you know this woman? My partner’s mother, the only parent still alive between us, hoped for a commitment ceremony, which we briefly considered, but never got around to.

Today, we enjoy a peaceful cohabitation, with our finances separate but our lives shared. Our children are used to it; his mother no longer mentions the commitment ceremony. Sometimes, though, we get questions from one of our six grandsons. Why don’t you wear rings? Is Gigi your wife? We explain that there are lots of ways to live a life, lots of good choices. My daughter, at the wise age of 35, laughs as she sums it up: You are just two happy grandparents living in sin.

Lee Stevens is a mostly wise elder and joyful writer in Hendersonville, NC

 

You are not going to live forever. We can all agree on that. Yes? Let’s assume you’ve reached the age of 70. A large number of our cohort have arrived there and even exceeded that milestone.

But here’s the big question. What’s your reset? “Reset?” you ask. What’s that?

Your reset is the number you think of when someone asks what age do you feel you are mentally and physically. Sure, there’s 50 is the new 40, 60 is the new 70, but let’s get real. When you wake up in the morning and don’t want to get out of bed, what age do you feel then? When you play tennis for the first time in 2 years, what age do you feel the next day? When you do an out and back 8-mile hike, what age do you feel when you get back to the car? How about when you go to an outdoor concert for some new group and the audience is almost exclusively twenty-somethings (i.e. yours is the only gray hair in sight), what age do you feel then? When you are driving at night and you can’t see the turn you’ve made hundreds of times, what age do you think you are then?

Some baby boomers are just embracing it. They say that they know they are overweight, hard of hearing and eating poorly. What’s the use of trying when you know you’re dying? Harsh yes, but it works for them. Other boomers are fighting it tooth and nail. They exercise, get cosmetic surgery enhancements and act ten years younger than their real age.

Me? I’m just sticking with what I’ve got. Walking and hiking a lot, doing the free weights, trying to eat well and paying more attention to my vitals. As for my reset, I’ve chosen 58. I’m not sure why, but when I wake up in the morning, I know I don’t feel like 40. On the other hand, I’m certain I don’t feel like 60. At this rate, when I turn 80 I will have to change my reset. But I’ll cross that reset when I get to it.

Now I ask you again. What’s your reset?

Jay Harrison is a graphic designer and writer whose work can be seen at DesignConcept. His mystery novel, Head Above Water, is available on Amazon and Kindle. You can also visit his author page here.

Our consciousness is crafted by attentiveness. – Nan Shin

I’m making tuna fish salad for lunch today, on a damp, smokey-gray afternoon. I start by mixing low-fat mayonnaise with olive oil and honey in a large white bowl. Next comes a table spoon of French herbed mustard, for the fine-grained texture and color, but more so to add a tangy bite to the creamy sweetness of the mayonnaise and honey. Then comes a pinch of salt, and then another of equal or greater value of pepper. The salt leaves a round, satisfying finish on the tongue, while the pepper crashes over the taste buds before moving on, the same way an ocean wave curls and crashes into the sand before rolling on to shore. After that, I mix in some sliced green grapes and a handful of slivered almonds or walnuts if there’s still some left in the cupboard. Last comes wild dill, my favorite herb by far.

I like everything about dill – its spicy fragrance, feathery green texture, warm, grassy aroma. Most of all, I like how it complements every thing around it, makes every ingredient a little better than they are by themselves. It works well with butter and sauces and salad dressings and pastas and and soup and fish and anything else. Dill is the first person you would invite to your birthday party, the one everyone hopes sits next to them on the first day of school.

All this takes me an hour or so, much longer than such a basic, uncomplicated task should take. By the time I’m done, the counter is covered with open jars, scattered lids, and powdery trails of herbs and spices and ground pepper. The kitchen looks more like a post mortem Thanksgiving dinner then a simple lunch. Its just that preparing a meal in this way is so much better than my usual process – Miracle Whip mixed with Chicken of the Sea mixed with sweet relish straight from the jar plopped on a lettuce leaf. That way, the tuna tastes more like slightly sweetened anchovy paste, and the lettuce is pale green with blanched-white, brown-curled edges.

Preparing food slowly and attentively, nibbling samples along the way, monitoring the subtle change in character as each ingredient is added, enlarges the process. It transforms a routine task into a journey, the sum total becoming larger than its individual parts. If I do my job well, tonight, when I go to bed and my mind flits like a butterfly between wakefulness and sleep, it will be the satisfying taste of salt on the tongue and bright fragrance and earthy taste of dill that will sing me to sleep.

Before retiring, Scott Peterson was an educator in Mattawan, Michigan. He also taught writing classes at Western Michigan University. HIs essays and poetry have appeared in numerous anthologies and journals.