Category: Time

The Coat of Me

The Coat of Me

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

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?

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:

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.

Age

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins
How old am I today?

“Age doesn’t matter.”

Les Snead, General Manager of the Rams talking about then 30-year-old Ram’s Head Coach Sean McVay

Let me start by saying I am not a football junkie. In fact, I largely limit my viewing to the Super Bowl.

But as we find out, the Head Coach for one of this year’s Super Bowl teams, the Rams, was 30 years old when he was hired. He is now a whopping 33. So let me say this about that.

Age is a number.

A state of mind.

I could be seven.

I could be ninety-nine.

When I wake up.

I can choose. It’s free!

I can be an age.

Or.

I can be me.

© 2019, Kathryn Atkins

Be you. I’m already taken.

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. 

Leave Room in Your Suitcase

Posted on by Kathryn Atkins

apple book break color
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

So, did you think this post was going to be about travel? Great. It is. But, it’s not.

Hopefully, we are all going somewhere. However, we are not always going on vacation. Or going out of town. Or going on a safari, per se. We are, however, traveling through life. We need to have our suitcase packed, our selves ready, open, and available to step, fly, jump, and fall forward into the next place. Our metaphorical bags should always be packed, as in why slow down to throw in a toothbrush when the next adventure may have toothbrushes waiting for you at the other end? Or better yet, we won’t need toothbrushes there at all. Our teeth will automatically be cleaned by busy nanobots grinning as they scrub, singing happy tunes, and making you happy to boot.

So while the suitcase should be ready to go, it should have room to add stuff. We want to leave space in the suitcase of our minds to put in cool new ideas, experience an image in a way we’ve never done so before, or taste a new aroma, or savor a different apple with a cool name like “Jazz” or “Envy.”

We save a spot for experimentation.  We can pause in the quietness to read an author we wouldn’t have tried without the clarity that white space in a suitcase brings. We can “hear” a not-my-usual color; “wear” a not-my-kind of music. (Not typos: Hear a color and wear music were on purpose.)

I invite you on your next journey to leave room in your suitcase. In fact, I will leave room in mine, too, and maybe we can meet in the middle.

 Always keep a bag packed!