Category: Life

Tent Weeds

Tent Weeds

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

Monday, September 28, 2020

The rabbit-full coyote lazes in the bushes under a brown Cleveland sky where the clouds wear polka dot ties and green belts under a rainbow man that has soot on his sleeve coming from crumbling chimneys where the old mill used to make tires that rarely roll on these less-traveled-by roads.

A used-to-be-cute little girl in a ragged red dress and pasty-pink pinafore sucks at selling bedraggled bouquets to penniless people for a dime. They save their pennies to buy a bouquet for loved ones who have lost their lives to the tiny spiky Covid marauder — a remorseless, pitiless taker.

The girl’s dead plants smell dry: bound in the round with bits of straw found under chicks on ol’ Tate’s land where tents have popped up like weeds. No work. No jobs. No homes. This child lives where the tent weeds grow. More come. More go. Her mom and dad help her tie that which they think might sell to those still well.

It’s hell.

Where Are You From?

Where Are You From?

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

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.
:woman_shrugging:

Changing Names

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

I listened to a Duolingo French Podcast today, and it talks about a young man who discovers that his grandfather changed his surname from a Jewish name to a French name during the war. The young man tried to change his name to his grandfather’s name but was told he could not because of the French laws at the time. * Spoiler Alert*: Eventually, he was able to change his name. Times and laws change.

Our names are particularly important to us – both our first and last names. I changed my first name from Kathy to Kathryn, as I disliked Kathy growing up. There were three Kathys in my grade in elementary school, so I switched to Kathryn in college. Did I change? No. But my name did. And, my identity was now aligned with my name.  I was lucky I liked Kathryn. What if I wanted a different name altogether?

I was lucky I liked Kathryn.

Some women keep their maiden names. Some give theirs up. Most men don’t change their surnames unless, like the person in the podcast, they want to achieve some goal. He wanted to honor his heritage.

Sharp left turn ahead:
I’m wondering if I want to find my bio mom and dad after all this time. I never looked for them growing up. Maybe I want to know who they were, or maybe not. It’s scary. If I did find them, would I change my name? Would I take hers or his? Either way, would it change who I am?

Wait. How can we identify with something we never chose for ourselves? We choose our dogs’ names. We choose our clothes. Our cars. Our friends. We never “choose” our names.

Maybe our names choose us. And we can accept them or not.

Checking Boxes

Checking Boxes

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

I took Seth Godin’s altMBA class. It had been on my list since 2017! Yay. I finally took it. Check.

Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com

I wanted a one-and-done. I wanted the magic ticket from Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. The golden ring on the Merry Go Round. You’d think I was old enough to know that checking a box and doing the work are two different things. I checked the box.

The checked box stares at me. I stare back. We know one of us will lose.
“I have to go on to the next box,” I say.
The box says nothing. Of course. Boxes can’t talk. But, if it could talk it would say, “You know, you’re not done yet.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you have just started.”
The box goes silent, as boxes do. I’m thrashed by a stupid box into stunned, meditative silence. I look out the window. I glance at the floor, my dog, and my computer screen. It’s right. The crazy inanimate lame little box has a brain around the checkmark that taunts me as if to say, “Do you want to uncheck this box? What about putting a question mark here?”

Oh. My. God. Maybe there’s power here. Maybe, just maybe, we have chanced on a tool to cause pause. A tiny flick of a mark on the page can change the way we think about the important stuff.

Checking boxes is fun, but is it right?

Micro-Memoir

Micro-Memoir

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

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.

Possibility

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

I stand at the edge of possibility. It takes my breath away.

Every single moment of every single day, we can choose to be the person we were meant to be. I think it’s simple. Mostly, we have to get out of our own way.

I’m reading The Art of Possibility for the third time. I am convinced that we must commit to being open to the universe, as the authors Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander state. We have to be prepared to receive; able to live in the present; willing to slide through our mistakes on our way to a hope (but not a guarantee) of perfection because we are one of the lucky ones that get to do our life’s work.

I love the idea of a happiness that we can obtain by the way we approach our days. Here’s a great suggestion from the book. Rule No. 6 says,

“Don’t take yourself so seriously.”

What a great concept. Yes, but how do I slow down enough to inhale possibility on the days when I am just not feeling it? I can always start by counting my blessings. I have lots.

Then I will close my eyes and imagine myself on the boat pictured below. It’s always there: Possibility.

light sea dawn landscape
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

Kindness

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

girl lying on white surface petting gray rabbit
Pexels.com

Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. ~  Plato 

 

Kindness. What is it? Is it a thing? No. It’s an attitude. Or an aptitude. Kindness is something we have or we don’t. But if we don’t have it naturally, it’s hopefully something we can learn.

It can be one of those things you learn at home. Your mom and dad might have been kind. Or not. We have some much baggage from our families, don’t we? I know I do. We take the good things and mistrust them. We take the bad things and dwell on them. It’s almost impossible to see how people grow up to be kind, even if they don’t have it modeled for them as children. But they do. Somehow, there are many people who understand Plato’s sentiment. We are all fighting this battle called life. We need to treat each other with the kindness of a soft bunny.

Wouldn’t that be a lovely world to inhabit? I wonder how that would be. I am hoping to find out by starting to be kinder to myself. Selfish? I don’t think so. I think I would treat people more kindly if I had a softer spot for my spirit to enjoy.

Kindness is easier if we’re grateful. For more on being grateful, check out my blog on enough. 

Thank you. Kindly.

 

 

 

 

 

Enough

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

 

photography of body of water
Photo by Willian Was on Pexels.com

I Wish You Enough

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.


I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more.


I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough pain so even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.


I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting.

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.


I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good-bye.

*

I think we need to talk about “enough” today. I feel like our society does not ever have enough. We don’t have enough money. Time. Love. Youth. “Soul.” Well, that’s simply not true, is it? We have all we need. We can choose to have enough of all of those. We may not know it when our bills don’t get paid. Or we are out of time to do the things we want. We may feel unloved today. Or we may feel old. We may not have “soul” as we approach the written page or the musical paper or the dance floor. “I got nuthin’.”  Or “I don’t have enough of what it takes,” we say to ourselves.

That may be true today. But tomorrow, we may have that glimmer. That spark. That patience. Or we may have a way to save or make money. Find time to do what we want. Or we stop to feel a little extra sliver of appreciation for the few things we have. Even an old beat up pair of shoes is actually pretty sweet if we stop to be grateful, and not compare ourselves to someone down the block or around the corner. We may choose to be glad to have any shoes at all. Or feet.

That’s it. We can do so much if we stop, take stock, and appreciate who we are and how lucky we are. Our attitude determines our life view. And of course, everything is relative. We didn’t know we had enough until we wake up one morning and we’re out of whatever “that” was. Food. Money. Time. Because if you don’t wake up, for instance, you are definitely out of time.  But for today . . .

               . . . you have enough. 

 

The poem above is published in my collection, Giving My Self to the Wind.