Author: sundaydutro
Burgeoning author.
Learning to Can Eludes Me
At one point I had the full home canning kit. The one everyone seems to have at some point in their life, the one that clutters the thrift store shelves for years until it comes back around to being in vogue, or until a pandemic hits. Needless to say, my kit was in pristine condition. All the pieces had been washed, dried, and loving put away for future use. A future which never came, at least, not for me. Not then.
We’ve been living in this new-to-us house for over two years now. There is no home canning set in the cabinets. I was gifted with a bounty of apples and pears though, wondering whatever to do with them all. Wishing that canning kit was in the cabinets while also recognizing it was perhaps not quite the time to start learning, with the fruit already waiting to be used.
A quick Google search said all I needed for pear sauce (think applesauce with pears) was a pot, a splash of lemon juice, and a blender or mixer; three things I happen to have on hand. And so I learned to make pear sauce. All was poured into quart sized freezer bags and frozen. All was cleaned up and put away. All took much longer than I’d have anticipated and tasted much better than anything I’ve ever tasted before.
Perhaps next year, I’ll be ready to can rather than bag. Perhaps.
Wim Hof in My Shower
This idea of soaking in an ice bath, of taking a Polar Plunge, of standing in a cold shower for as long as you can stand it has me obsessed. I read every book I can find on Wim Hof, a fascinating man who believed we all ought to be naked and freezing to enjoy our best health (yes, I’m condensing rather brutally and with a touch of snark). Outwardly, I let the obsession go, inwardly, I’m trying to convince myself to take a cold shower.
It comes up again when Brandon Carter writes a blog about cold showers, a blog I can’t find now but that may still exist in the internet ether. And because I’m a great believer in the Universe putting before you what you need, I pay attention. Clearly, there’s something to this cold shower thing I’m supposed to be tuning in to.
When I begin my new exercise routine of using an elliptical every day for thirty minutes, I come off the machine bright red in the face, soaked in sweat, and so hot. All the hormones of a forty-four year old woman who’s done nothing but sit in front of a computer and type for four months are clashing inside me and producing some alarming results.
I’ll never stop sweating, I imagine, and it becomes the perfect opportunity to take a cold shower. I start the water at a lukewarm temp that will actually entice me in rather than keep me out. I slowly turn the knob cooler as I finish washing hair, then a touch cooler as I finish soaping up, a touch cooler for a final rinse.
It’s not an ice bath, it’s not Wim Hof in my shower, but I’m getting there. And it’s not as horrific as I’d imagined, although I am still waiting for all those fabulous health benefits to become obvious.
A Writing Playlist
This morning I woke with Fox on the Run playing in my head. Yesterday it was an Indigo Girls song. And while I always wake with a song in my head from my playlist, it’s not always a song I’ve heard recently, and usually I can’t move on with my day until I’ve listened to the song to help get it out of my head. I’ve been this way for as long as I can remember.
It started with Paul Simon songs, usually lyrics, “still crazy after all these years.” Sometimes it would be nothing more than a tune, a song without words playing in my mind like a curse, like tinnitus to a tune. For some reason in high school and in college it was often a classical piece, something famous by Mozart. Something everyone would recognize if they heard it, but not something I necessarily listened to.
Writers ask each other about their playlists, share their playlists, encourage one another to keep a playlist to help them get into their writing zone. I haven’t tried it, which shocks me – I love music! Perhaps it’s partly because I do the majority of my writing on the couch, in the dark, at 4:45am while the rest of the family is asleep? True there are ear buds, but then I wouldn’t hear if one of the kids cries out for mama, or the dogs get restless and need to be let out, or if the coyotes are hunting and I need to make sure the dogs are in.
Still, I’m considering making a playlist for the other parts of the day when I find myself in front of the computer needing to edit, needing to write, needing to submit. And I wonder what would be on that playlist. What songs could I listen to that would stay in the background and not take over my writing groove when I’m in one, that may even allow me to go deeper into it?
What songs are on your playlist?
Not a Runner
I saw an ad for a Wonder Woman run with a puffy blue jacket the participants get for running. It had the WW logo on it and I wanted it. “I could be a runner!” I thought to myself, before remembering that I am not a runner.
I’ve tried running multiple times in my life, always for fitness, never for pleasure. Still, I hold out for the experience of the runner’s high. All I ever get is a red face, a lot of sweat, sore shins. The image of myself as a runner persists, somehow.
The first time I gave up running was right after my brother had seen me running and told me he never knew I was a runner. Me neither, cause I’m not, I thought to myself. What I said out loud was something like, “why not? Anyone can run.” He took up running shortly after and just as quickly stopped. Our genetics bringing us closer than ever, two people who love an idea of ourselves but finally accept who we are.
It seems I only ever discover myself through what I am not. I am not a runner. I am not a veterinarian, a slam performance poet, or a finance person. I am not a Californian.
Perhaps I am a memoirist. That is my current attempt. May we always be attempting to discover who we are, even if it’s by discovering who we are not.
August #100RejectionsChallenge Update
Sunday’s Scrips: September 2023
Writing Prompt Winner: Janet Muirhead Hill
August 2023: Janet Muirhead Hill
“Since My Revolution on the Road“
Since my revolution on the road, my life has changed, but not in the way I expected. My victory was quick and decisive, with few casualties. One would think that would make me a hero. Instead, I am fleeing for my life, hiding when I can, but never knowing who to trust. There is enough money on my head that even a “friend” might be tempted to betray me. So, I’m on my own, hiding in forests and caves, dashing through waterways to throw off the scent of the hounds that are on my trail. And in the moments I stop for breath, I’m left to wonder. Was it worth it, which means, did I do anyone any good? Was I fighting for a lost cause that will never be found? The answer? If I live to find it, I will let you know.
Hill writes from her rural Montana home which she shares with her husband, two cats, and two ponies. She writes for the joy of writing as she learns about life and herself through the characters in her novels and in the random poetry she occasionally pens.
The Lucky Ones
“It’s our song,” I say, and turn the volume up a bit. It’s Kenny Loggins, a man I’ve been told isn’t very nice in person but who I’ve never met, and anyway, this song is the story of my life. Sort of. The way many songs are. Mostly.
We have less than zero dollars as we drown in debt and try to figure out how to make a living when one of us is preternaturally ill and still trying to fix up our home so we can sell it, and the other is trying to mother two children under five years old while keeping up with household chores and launch a writing career.
It’s chaos.
Still, we will drop everything to listen to Kenny croon about the sun shining and that everything’s gonna be alright.
This is the song our band learned so they could play it for us at our wedding. This is the song playing in the background of so many memories – starting in childhood, then parenting, and now spousal.
We’ve earned what lovers own, and now we’re trying to earn a bit of the tangible stuff. I fear the song will lose some of it’s umph when we can afford to sing along and stumble over the “ain’t got money” part. Still, as long as we can harmonize with “I’m so in love with you, honey,” I think we’ll be okay. Either way it’ll bring a tear to my eye.
Dreaming of Home
I’ve been dreaming of home, of place. I’ve been seeing home everywhere, in the creature carved into the shelf, in the stained glass I got at the thrift store, at the witch’s house (“The Castle” my kids called it) in Sculpture in the Wild.
My home is wherever my family is, that’s where I want to be. But my house? My house is a twenty year old double-wide, the sort of thing I was raised to look down upon but have found in truth to be quite to my liking. The roof is solid, the double-paned windows keep the below freezing temperatures at bay, and the unknown finish on the countertops is completely impervious to my rough treatment. It’s kind of perfect for me, a person who is the reason I can’t have nice things.
Still.
I dream of built-in’s, of bookcases that stretch ceiling to floor with pockets of art peaking out here and there. I dream of enormous windows to let in the light and the view. I dream of hardwood floors that don’t contain the stampeding herd of bison that is my children nor allergens. I dream of a kitchen where the food makes itself and it’s always edible…but perhaps that takes the dream too far.
For now, I live in the cookie-cutter house and dream of the day our house reflects our lives in a different way, a natural way, a custom way.
