Jeannine Atkins

I love bringing some green into the house come December, and putting out things that sparkle. But it’s also a time of year when I think about people who aren’t around to share the holidays. Yesterday two men were in our home without their wives. I went to my friend Robyn’s memorial service eight years ago, Pat’s just this spring.

I felt a sort of shadow beside these strong and dear men. Sometimes I write to call up the presences of people I still love. But I try, too, not to allow grief, which rises and falls, to keep me from enjoying the color and life still all around. Pat’s husband will be with us at Christmas. Robyn’s seventeen-year-old just made a movie date with me. These things and many others make me happy. And here’s a picture of my friend Jess who brought flowers yesterday. I’m bringing that enormous bright bouquet into my writing room today.

I’m liking this day after Thanksgiving. The extra plates and cups are clean and seem are even put away. The refrigerator holds leftover turkey and vegetables and a spare bowl of my friend Jess’s chai butternut soup which tastes a bit like dessert – oh, vanilla! She said she made this and the pumpkin pie she brought from the actual tough-skinned vegetables, which made her feel more grateful.

The house is clean by my standards, and the novel I’ve worked on for a few years, with some projects in-between, is kind of done. My standards for that are of course higher than for how much is too much dog hair on the couch. I’m still fiddling with words and dreaming my way into some scenes, but there is a beginning, a middle, and end, something someone besides me might read and comprehend.

Thanksgiving is over and I know there’s a new season right ahead. I got out some cookie recipes and my clippers to start cutting greens. I’m making those lists. And I’m thinking how very little actually becomes “over.” I can move past a holiday on the calendar and put my manuscript in an envelope, but now I’m using the day to look back and peek ahead, and feeling happy for this peaceful time that’s just between.



Harvest wreath made by my husband, Peter

I know it’s been a banner year for pine cones, since I’ve been stumbling over them in the woods, and I know there’s some scientific explanation about the cycles in which they grow, but I can’t tell you what that is. Yesterday Tamra Wight tamra_wight mentioned on Facebook that scientists say it’s impossible to be sad while looking at the sky.

Add a tree, and you can be ecstatic. Here’s what I saw looking up through a pine and an oak. Thanks, Tami! And there look like more blue skies today.




And a little later in the afternoon.

If you know jbknowles at all, you can imagine how many times Jo thanked me for offering to show up at her writing for children class while she stayed home with tea and too many tissues. I assured her it would be fun, and of course it was. What a wonderful group of people, who missed Jo, and praised her, but were ready to hear about ways to experiment with nonfiction. They had so many good questions that I never got to my notes, but I think we covered enough. Ronnie asked if nonfiction writing had a voice in the same way that fiction does. “Let’s look,” I said, glad I’d hauled in a small suitcase full of books. They each chose a picture book biography and read the first few sentences. Ann began with Barbara Cooney’s Eleanor: “From the beginning the baby was a disappointment to her mother. She was born red and wrinkled, an ugly little thing. And she was not a boy.”

They all nodded: yes, this was not the kind of writing you’d find in a newspaper or textbook.

I urged them to check out INK: Interesting Nonfiction for Kids http://inkrethink.blogspot.com/
And I would have loved to do a whole class just on poetry that draws from history, my current obsession, but mostly just pointed to another pile, and left them with a quote from Marilyn Nelson, author of Carver and other great collections: “What I do most and best is track, like a good hound, with my nose to the ground, gathering information and impressions, and piecing together a story shaped like a poem, and with a poem’s ambition.” (interview in September’s Writer’s Chronicle)

Yesterday was social, eating and writing with friends before class, then getting an always-coveted phone call from my daughter, and hearing about Halloween adventures already begun. Tomorrow I’m reading not-too-spooky stories at the library. Today it’s gray again, the dogs are sleepy, and I’m hunkering in to creep toward the end of my long-long-revision. I’m always happy for quiet company, so whether you’re sick or well, I hope you can join me. And don’t mind if I break for a bit of knitting.

My friend Jo-Ann read my recent report about her amazing pumpkin in my blog, then about the Thursday morning walkers, so decided to join us last week. Our default plan is to head left or right from the library where this time of year we walk under yellow maple trees. Jo-Ann has raised her girls in town, but she said this was the first time, except for one Halloween, that she’d walked along the road. Of course you see a lot more than you do from a car, and it’s beatuful.

We headed past houses and meadows, turning toward Mill Brook and an abandoned farmhouse that had moved to make room for the highway. The brook had been changed, too: this is where about two hundred years ago a lot of pottery was made. Now it’s mostly fields of squash. When we headed back, Jo-Ann and I climbed a hill ahead of Bill and Jeanne, but turned when a car stopped beside them. The driver leaned over with a question we learned was: Have you seen two horses?

Hers had escaped, Jeanne told us. Bill added, Though she said the gate had been shut and locked.

The car turned into a driveway before they'd finished recapping the problem. Apparently the horses had just come to see what might be good to eat in a neighbor’s yard. I tentatively asked if I could help, and was relieved when Anita just asked me to hold the lead of one horse while she corralled the other, and thankfully both seemed happy enough to see her. She left her car to pick up later, while leading the horses home.




So was the gate really shut? What kind of horses are these? It could be the beginning of a story, which we may also find more on foot than in a car.

Thanks to those writers who joined me wielding sharp revision tools on Monday. Yesterday I started to clear some of the wreckage and look for ways to fill in holes I left in the first few chapters, work I’ll continue with today. Please join me if you like – Vivian? I know you were sorry to miss Monday -- whether with hatchets or brooms or simply quiet hands. I’m putting on more Irish Breakfast tea, and if we’re lucky, Lorraine has some banana bread leftover. I picked up a loaf of sourdough, and my friend Margaret gave me a jar of crabapple jelly her husband made. (Thanks, Jim!) So pretty I hate to break it open, but I will for you.

And I expect I’ll break from time to time to join my husband in some nostalgia and some forward-thinking as he just sold a business begun twenty-five years ago. We weren’t long married and I was in grad school, paying rent by teaching freshman comp, when Peter and a buddy wrote and drew a comic book called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It became way more successful than any of us dreamed – you know I was the one who worried if we’d ever lose the cartons in the dining room-turned-studio – and so much of the past years has been great. But without the pressure of running the business it became, Peter looks forward to new creative ventures. We plan to celebrate by seeing Where the Wild Things.

Today’s work is about patching in notes scribbled in plot-brainstorming and seeing how they fit. Yesterday I learned how to correct holes with knitting: tug, tug, tug, and weave. Tricky, but possible. Now it's about putting in the right words. Pouring tea.

Our Massachusetts town has some pretty cool agricultural triumphs. Two hundred watermelons from Harvest Farm recently went Hollywood, appearing in Taking Woodstock. Farmer Gary Gemme gave the movie two thumbs up and said his watermelons did a good job. “They were in character.”

The Chang Farm sends organic vegetables and bean sprouts to stores around New England, and is now trying to market schizandra berries, source of an energizing supplement,long used in China, with the more user friendly name of ChiBerry.




My friend artist Jo-Ann Denehy made her first attempt to grow an enormous pumpkin this summer at Quonquont Farm. Despite all the rain, her pumpkin came in at 396 pounds. If you want to see how a pumpkin gets weighed, and its competitors – Jo-Ann’s came in tenth at the Big E fair in Springfield, but the rivals had been growing pumpkins for years if not decades, and truly, some are .. pale -- you can watch this You Tube story.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGBt-Bn1Z8w

Jo-Ann offered me a seed to try next spring. Um, I don’t think my thumb is quite that green.

At eight this morning I arrived at the library to help put books on folding tables borrowed from the church. At three o’clock when Paula came to help pack, and picked up a book, and said, “This looks good,” I couldn't work up much enthusiasm, though early in the day I'm all about wanting to know what people like to read. I’d just helped load a truck to go to Salvation Army tomorrow. Hundreds of pounds of romance novels. Maybe I would have had more fun if I just crawled under a table like Natalie.



Nat also gave us a lot of help, as did her brother and cousins. People left happily with some bargains and treasures. One woman suggested we do this every week. Um, no.

The Whately Historical Society had their Harvest Fair, and I picked up some raspberries, blueberries, and green beans from Natalie’s dad under the tent for Chamutka Farm. You can see on the bag “Picked by Tom and Nat” and Tom carried one zillion boxes, though I don’t think he found one about tractors, which is his favorite subject.



The Historical Society had sold out their apple pies – “we need more bakers,” – I was told by the time I came over, but the Milk Bottle was open for free ice cream from Snow’s Farm.



Fiona plants herbs and flowers around my town, and I bought a wreath made with eucalyptus. When she came into the library later, she let me sniff her coat. I caught her talking to her daughter on her cell and she kind of summed up the day: “It’s wet, and horrible, and there are just a few… lovely.. people.”



Yes. When I was getting achy and grumpy from lugging boxes, Jeanne quietly came over to me, said, “This is for you,” and made me laugh by putting The Value of Love into my hands.

My friend Mary and her husband George generously invited me to spend the weekend with them at their house on Cape Cod. There was lots of dog walking – taking Millie and another dog name Louie (not ours!) to the dog beach where there was lots of canine romping, tag, and wrestling. Some quieter moments were spent at beaches where we saw distant whales breach and spout. The splash-over of waves turned immense, awkward seals into grace. Here I am at the observation tower at Race Point. And a view.





On Friday night we had dinner with neighbors. Seven of us decided to meet at a pond the next day for the First Annual Big Swim. We swam across and back, .6 miles. Here are some ducks who greeted our return.



To celebrate, Paul made the most excellent paella.





Now I’m back home and working, trying to keep in mind the sounds of waves crashing on sand.

Here's a flower for she who's so often handing them around. Enjoy the day!

Neither my daughter nor her roommate had to work yesterday, so we went to the Getty Villa http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/villa.html overlooking the Pacific. “It smells so good,” we kept saying, feeling the salty breeze and passing roses and lavender. Colleen said that the first time she came alone she just sat by this pool for three hours. Sounds nice.





Inside were big statues of gods, goddesses, and heroes, as well as a room full of miniatures of such engraved on precious gems. It was cool to be in a museum devoted to ancient Greek and Roman art, rather than to just pass through a few rooms of it. My favorite things were two statues small enough to hold in a hand. One was of a woman hefting a lyre on her shoulder, and swinging wide hips to its imagined music. Another statuette was of an old woman feeding birds. It’s nice to think of the everyday moments while others are setting forth on odysseys or wrestling lions or sacking Trojans or turning into swans.

Afterward we ate seafood, or in some cases chicken (Colleen?) at Gladstone’s of Malibu. The view was amazing, the food delicious, and talented staff bind leftovers in gold foil in the shapes of sharks, dragons, or swans. We looked for a few crumbs on our plates just so we might get one of these in the fridge, but we did too well with the meal. We celebrated Emily’s official word on her new internship; pay was set and she was pleased.



I’m so proud of these twenty-year-olds. Colleen has known since she was fourteen that she wanted to design clothing for movies or theater. She’s starting a special third year program at FIDM, one of just nine people. Em’s had a windier search, like I did, and maybe her dad would have if he hadn’t walked into the wrong orientation room his freshman year of college and felt too shy to leave. At least for now, Emily seems to have found working in public relations and marketing fits her skills for design and communication.

And Emily and Colleen (we miss you, Sara – third roommate who will be back soon) are truly such nice people, fun and sweet. They’re managing life a whole continent away from their parents, and as roommates they look out for each other with challenges re keys, cars, computers, meals, getting up on time, as well as sharing obsessions like Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, movies, and news such as apparently now you can buy just the pink and red Starbursts, i.e. the good ones, all in one bag. I’ve yet to confirm that, but it may be part of the weekend plan.

So much of the communication in my world is through emails, but my friend Pat always preferred the phone. Since she died in May, I miss those almost daily calls. Mostly I listened, and too much were the details of doctor visits and treatments, but I miss hearing them anyway. Sometimes people ask me how her husband Ed is doing. I say I’m sorry I don’t know. He is more an email guy and I shoot him some from time to time but don’t hear much back. I think of him often and wish I knew the basics beyond a summer that must be hard. Does he have any good days at all?

Well I knew he’d had at least one. He’d happened to come by when my niece was storing her stuff here before a year abroad. Under her protests, he helped us unload boxes, and he seemed cheerful as he asked about her trip. He’d come by to deliver two enormous pots of purple petunias that he’d grown from seeds in his greenhouse over the winter. They were gorgeous, and I nursed them along for a few months, but they were scraggly by this week; too many brown vines, though some flowers still bloomed.

I came home from errands on Friday and the hanging pots were a brilliant purple again. Miracle? No. I knew Ed had come by, whisked away the old, and hung two new pots.



I brought in my groceries and opened the fridge, which smelled deliciously of basil. There In the vegetable bin I found a lovely cauliflower, a few shiny green peppers, zucchinis, and a purple cabbage. I took some chicken from the freezer and started thinking about supper. There wasn’t a note, but I knew Ed was doing what he’s done so many summers. I won’t know exactly what’s in his heart and mind, but I felt glad to know his garden is growing. And grateful he is sharing its bounty.

Yesterday was a perfect sunny day and I’d been invited to a barbecue by my childhood friend Joy. Her family were like relatives to mine. In summer we shelled green beans or husked corn on their steps, while white sheets, smelling of Tide, hung from the clotheslines. We were sometimes allowed to play under these as tents while we drank lemonade. We collected tiny blueberries in Dixie cups by the lake during that hour after lunch when we weren’t allowed to swim.

Joy took some of us out in a boat and we talked about her mother who died this spring. She spoke of taking her out this boat last summer where she had a terrific time, then driving her home, and asking her, “Mom, what did you do today?”

“I think I was in my program.”

“No, we rode in the boat.”

“Joy, I think you did that.”

Marguerite forgot a lot of things, but never how to laugh. And she made sure she got dessert, asking lots of questions about maple walnut ice cream, which sometimes became a meal, throughout the day. So when I headed to the barbecue, I made a lemon cake. Joy showed me her mom’s old measuring cups, with the measures extremely faint, in her cupboard. One of Marguerite’s peers told me of going over her mother’s recipes collected from people now long gone, most of which were tagged with women’s names. I listened to an ancient scandal, wondering where this story was going, and it ended with the recipe that had once been Jane’s Chocolate Cake being handed down as Bad Jane’s Chocolate Cake.

Marguerite’s grandniece, one of three twelve year olds at the barbecue, made this lavender colored cake, her first attempt with piping (notice I sprinkle on confectioner’s sugar and some berries; frosting is hard!) Purple is M’s favorite color – notice dress – so why not frosting? This was practice for a cake she plans to bake for the county fair next weekend. I hope she gets a ribbon, but can you imagine her looking any prouder?

When my husband left this morning, he said, “If you don’t write at least a chapter today, something’s wrong.”

I was sitting on the porch with a view of blue sky. That might not mean much to some, but in Massachusetts this summer of 2009, we haven’t seen nearly enough blue. The breeze was just a bit cool. Perfect. And there’s a low hum of bees from a tree outside the porch. I know it’s a bad time for bees, but here they are in pollination heaven.

And the pressure’s on for me. A chapter. Well, in chapter as metaphor:a bunch of words we might loosely call a chapter. The bees and I don't count or measure, but we're getting to work. Hear the hum?

Two years ago when my daughter was still in high school, when working at my computer I enjoyed seeing Emily’s IM name and those of friends appear in my buddy window. I’d like knowing she and they were somewhere. Most of those names have fallen off; now they’re more often on Facebook, which I haven’t joined (yet). But the other night I heard the old beep-bip and got an invite from Em’s friend Zach for lunch. He and Deepa were still home from college and well, a little bored. We made a plan to meet, which made my daughter across the country a wee bit jealous even if she’s got a job and classes and fantastic weather keeping her in LA.

Em texted me: Mom, you’ve got to blog about your lunch. Okay, so my life is otherwise writing and tearing up drafts, walking the dogs in the woods, watching out for goats, and talking to stray toddlers in the coop. Yes, this was a highlight, and, Em, all of us kept wishing you were there. We got a passerby to take our picture.



Deepa said: most of us seem to be doing what we wanted to be doing. Or something like it. They reminisced about shenanigans of yore, and commented that they’re less energetic these days: they study, they watch TV. Some of the crazier gossip seemed to involve shenanigans of parents. Zach showed me the picture of the puppy he’s been watching for his friend Scott. Ooooh, I said, but beyond cuteness, Zach didn’t seem wildly delighted. His one comment was: he chews a lot. And when I asked what he chews, Zach looked dour: people, for example.

It was fun to see two twenty-year-olds who I’ve seen grow up, or grow up-ish. I loved hearing the stories but a favorite moment was simple. When we were arranging the date, Zach texted: What time is good for you? My heart beat hard. Those of you with teens know these are words you don’t often hear. Thanks, Zach, thanks, Deepa (always and forever thoughtful) Xoxxoxoxoxo

Today in the post office I was reminded that when you’re writing, it’s not just what you say, but what you don’t say. My neighbor who lives down the hill but through some woods picked up her mail and asked, “Has Stinky been bothering you lately?”

Okay, we’re neighbors, but besides partner and children there are dogs, cats, 28 (at last count) chickens, roosters, peacocks, goats, and horses. I’ve kind of lost track of everyone’s name and didn’t want to ask. Besides, no one had been bothering. I just said, “No.”

“That’s good,” M. said, “because Stinky was chasing Uncle Wayne on his tractor, and Bobby in his car, and he got into the neighbor’s garden.”

I was nodding at other escapades until she said, “And he sometimes gets the other goats to follow.”

So Stinky is a goat. And when I was walking my dogs today, and M. was checking the fences, I got a little more information. “He’s really just stinky four months of the year.”

I’m tempted to cram everything I can into a first sentence, and then spill more in Chapter One. But I was reminded, as I was wondering exactly who had been chasing the tractor, that readers have imaginations, and it’s good to let them work.

I was going to start this blog with some talk of why our cat might be as reclusive as he is, something to do with dogs ruling around here. But then, once again, the blog started to be about the dogs, who are so much more charming, really, and… well here I go again.

The last time my daughter was home, she said, “The cat is getting fat.”
“He doesn’t run about the way he used to. He’s just putting on a little weight.”
“Fat,” she said.

Then when I took him to the vet today – his second scheduled appointment as he managed to elude both me and my husband on the first one – the vet asked if there were any problems.

“No. Maybe he’s getting a little more sluggish,” I said.

“Laid back,” the vet corrected me.

Which really does sound better. So when the cat strolls and drapes his long rather large body from the chair, I’ll try to be reminded of the value of relaxation. Zen cat.

And… congratulations to Kristine at http://bestbookihavenotread.wordpress.com
who won the contest to read Mary Pearson’s marypearson ARC, The Roads Between. I’m sending it off to her today. Kristine is a reading teacher and like so many a fan of Mary’s The Adoration of Jenna Fox. I look forward to what she’ll show us from mid Ohio!

Sending good wishes and prayers to Amy historymaven tonight and tomorrow.

June can afford to send not just flowers, but peace, your way.

So after the a/c guy leaves, and I'm all ready to feel like the peaceful homemaker/writer or something, I go to the cellar where water is trickling down a wall and into boxes of Christmas ornaments.

I call Cory, who comes back and determines the leak is from the outdoor hose he used to wash the unit. He was very glad the leak wasn’t his fault, which I can understand. I called the plumber who called back and assured me there would be no more damage now that the hose is off, and he’d come next week.

Then Frank said he was recently at my in-laws, where my father-in-law told him, “Whenever I’m feeling a little down, I go into the basement and look at the good job you did there.”

Okay, it was a bad day what with waiting and mopping and random grief, but the thought of my father-in-law contemplating excellent pipe work in the basement and feeling cheerful, that cheered me up, too

Oh, it’s thankful Thursday, and I’m sitting on the porch watching hummingbirds loiter in their busy-winged way around the honeysuckle, the sluggish cat curled nearby, and a smelly dog near my feet. My walking friend Mary bought a shirt last weekend that was down a size from her usual, and she is feeling determined and fit, fit, fit. Yesterday she made me walk both morning and afternoon.

I’ve found my novel waiting for me after a few weeks when I could mostly just write in my journal, clearing out my head, and I’m grateful the novel is there, that it waited, and doesn’t look tired to me now.

I’m grateful for my patient and understanding friends, too. Sending cheerful and understanding messages here and through the mail: offers to talk or listen or eat eclairs. I’m grateful for my daughter and movies and a pedicure before she returns to her more glamorous, if sadly dog-less, domain. I’m grateful to my husband for sticking around and feeding me blackberries.



I’m happy to hear about the books of friends coming out, and read a great interview with Jo Knowles jbknowles about writing for smart teens that you should read, too. Follow the link to http://hipwritermama.blogspot.com/2009/05/sbbt-writing-true-with-jo-knowles.html and you can write a note about when you last felt carefree, and win a chance to win Jo’s first novel and an arc of her next one, due out soon. Thank you, Vivian, and Candlewick Press for offering the prizes!