What if you knew when you were going to die?
Category: About Me
The Coat of Me
What color is my coat?
Green?
No. I do not like green.
But is it magic? Yes.
Wool? No.
Waterproof? Yes, when it needs to be.
Hurt-proof? Yes, when it can be.
(For without water or hurt, we do not grow.)
Warm? In winter or when I want it to be.
Buttons? Yes. Big FUN buttons.
What does it remind me of? My mom.
How does it make me feel? Authentic.
The best thing about it? It is my only coat! I don’t need twelve.
It has an endlessness to it. A timelessness. I wore it young and I wear it old. It is young Kathryn. Old Kathryn. All Kathryns: Daughter. Sister, Wife, Mom. Friend. ‘Nonna’ (grandmother).
My coat is like a second skin.
Aching to not sin.
Or break shins.
It is committed to begin
Living an open, shutterless life on the Island of Gunga Din.
Which is not real, but it could be. Why not?
My coat mon manteau, mon peau (my coat, my skin)
Wakes as me in the morning.
She has beautiful intentions. Her day is hers.
And then, one by one, her buttons fall off. Her pockets tear.
Wait. I was just there.
Where?
There. With dark hair. That was then. This is now.
My coat and my hair have lost their luster. Did the magic coat lose its magic? No. It lost its way. But that’s okay.
Because
It will be back.
Today.
The coats in the top image are from Pexels Free Images. Thank you!
Where Are You From?
I am from the stars. Dust. Silver-striped meteorites blown to bits by a goddess’s rage at being shunned by her lover. He left in the middle of the night the day before yesterday in cosmic time, which could have been before the earth existed. Or it could have been a second ago.
I am from the beach. Sand. Washed ashore with kelp around my waist, starfish nibbling at my toes. My scalp teems with tiny organisms that lived there until now. They try to scamper back to the salty sea, yet their microcosmic feet tangle in my hair.
I am from the mountains. Rock. From high above the valley, I look down on the birdless trees. I am pummeled by the weather. Rain. Snow. Sun. Melt. Repeat. Rain. Snow. Wind. Ice. Sun. Melt. Repeat. . .
I am from Mom’s egg.
And from Dad’s sperm.
I am, I guess.
Foster Kid
It might have been the right thing to do.
Micro-Memoir
I went to a micro-memoir workshop this last weekend at the Southern California Writers Conference. What is a micro or flash-memoir? Short lives? No, Judy Reeves, author and memoirist actually says that mini-memoirs can be anything from sentences to short paragraphs, and combined into works of various sizes from small books to larger works, usually with a theme.
So, I didn’t even know it was a genre. It is! There are tons of people who write and publish micro memoirs. Beth Ann Fennelly, for instance, published Heating & Cooling–52 Micro-Memoirs (Norton & Co. 2017). There are dozens of others. Who knew?
How do you choose a theme for your life? Ah, well, that is part of the discovery, which is the fun of writing. In the pre-dawn hours of your memoir or micro-memoir planning, you use this quiet time to discover your theme. I’m still in the dark, as it were, but the first few rays of sunlight are breaking through, and the threads of my life are beginning to weave themselves into a fabric that I may be able to put on. I may wear them for a while, or I may toss them. The process is the thing.
And the discovery.
Enjoy finding yourself, and then share if you dare, or keep it to yourself for a journey you’ll not regret.
New York Is
New York is:
A state
A city
A harbor
A county
A cheesecake
A cut of steak
A baseball team
A football team
A hockey team
A basketball team
A stadium
A newspaper
A daily
A magazine
A book
A song
A historical novel
A film
A ship
A typeface
A TV star
A pinball machine
A state of mind
But for me, New York is . . .
The
place
where
I
was
conceived
but
not
born.
Loved perhaps, but not kept.
Transported from in utero
To the left coast
To await my fate.
What happened???
I was lucky.
I was adopted.
*
For more thoughts around the subject, please see my May 2018 post: Life’s a Crapshoot.
Kathryn Atkins — Short Bio
Kathryn Atkins is a native Californian. She is a writer, mom, wife, and a flamenco dancer. She loves to play the piano, read, and do yoga.
She has published two books and has been featured in online and print magazines for over fourteen years as the owner and creative director of Writing World, LLC, a professional business writing company. In the early years of Writing World, Kathryn published a column in the Orange County (California) Register.
Her Berkeley BS and MBA have served her freelance business writing company. Her eight-year membership in the California Writers Club has fulfilled her desire to help fellow writers while keeping her own writing skills honed.
Kathryn speaks about the challenge and joy of finishing, and more recently about starting.
More About Kathryn Atkins
Kathryn is a Jack London Award winner from the California Writers Club, (a 501(C)(3) organization founded in 1909).