Sunday October 10, 2004
Week One Writing Assignments
Write five minutes on each of the following topics:
1. I remember…….
I remember harvest time as a kid. Scrambling over the warm irrigation pipes to reach the mulberry trees and their sweet fruit. Competing with the flies to get the berries. The warm sweetness of a perfectly ripe berry. The best ones were the ones that fell into your hand with the slightest tap of you fingers, but you had to be careful to catch them because they would fall so fast. I remeber the excitement of the first rush of water through the pipes, listening for the skunks and mice scramble throught the pipe to avoid the water. Dad waiting to put the end cap on so he wouldn’t trap any live animals. I remember opening the cap thingies…you knocked them with the side of a shovel to wedge them open. Some popped open easily, some you really had to whack! It made such a unique hollow sound, something I haven’t really heard since. The water from the pipes was so ice cold and tasted so good right out of the spigot on the main well. Mom would often bring buckets out to bring the “good” water into the house. That well went a lot deeper than the main house well and the water tasted a lot better.
I remember the auger set up to take grain from a large bucket on the ground, up through a giraffe looking auger, and into the bins. The bins were really neat. Empty, they had a huge echo, and we could play in the soybeans when it was shallow filled, but I don’t think we were allowed to be in there when it was filling. They had a unique smell to them too…a bit sour
2. Home……..
Big white farmhouse situated between a scattering of trees on a wide open prairie. The driveway is gravel, with a curve as you come closer to the actual farmstead. Surrounded by the fields, the colors would change throughout the season. I can remember spending hours standing on the balcony looking out on the fields of milo. pretending it was my audience and the balcony was my stage.
There was always a dusty, fresh earth smell around the house…a combination of fresh turned earth, rain, and weeds. Inside there were lingering cooking smells…bacon, burgers, potatoes, cakes…the air filled with those comforting yummy aromas.
Hanging on the back door was a set of jingle bells, a remnant of a long past Christmas. Whenever somebody came through the door it made a familiar jangle that let you know somebody was entering. It wouldn’t be home without those bells ringing as you pass the threshold.
3. The day my baby……
The day my baby came home I was so enamoured. I just couldn’t beleive that I could spend the entire day staring at somebody. I just was overcome with him and spent hours memorizing his face. I can remember the warmth of him. He seemed like one big lung because every breath made his whole body move. There really is a particular feel to a newborn, the skin is like nothing else on earth. so overwhelming you feel like you can’t breathe sometimes. I just kept repeating to myself over and over…I am actually a mommy…I am actually a mommy…it just felt so foreign and yet so right to finally have that title added to me. I didn’t even really get up that first day except for trips to the bathroom. I sat in that bumpy, ripped green recliner with the softest little person I had ever met. The hospital had given me a gigantic cup with phrases all over it on “how to encourage your child” or some such, and it became the running joke, when I kept saying the same things over and over to instead tell him “atta boy” instead.
Write fifteen minutes on each of the following topics:
1. The first time…….
2. The kitchen table……
3. Two o’clock in the morning….
Bonus topic/ Do twenty minutes on Roadtrip…… or Newborn…….
