If you participated in the River of Stones this past January, you might want to consider submitting a stone or two to Fiona and Kaspa’s 2nd annual small stone compilation.

More information available here.

From the Writing Our Way Home blog:

Writing Our Way Home blog: Instructions for submitting to our 2012 ‘River of Stones’ anthology.

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3. Why the Details Matter

I am making some updates to my blogrolls, here and on my home page. It’s tedious, but it’s been on my to do list for a long time. That’s because I really LOVE to read other friends and writers blogs and share their great ideas too.

However, since I’ve/we’ve started morphing to Facebook and readers and Twitter, I’ve gotten out of the habit of adding my friends on my blogroll here. I think I keep waiting for some kind of miracle of technology to tell me it has some kind of Google Search shortcut to find out all my favorite sites and dropping links to them on my blogroll.

Let’s face it: I am sure that widget exists, but I haven’t found it yet.

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So anyway, as I was doing that today, I realized I’d broken my blog. If you are one of those people who reads it at the actual site you might have notice the formatting has changed. I had to dismantle it entirely because a plugin I installed started chomping away at its insides. Yes, that is the technical term.

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Which is fine. I really want to update the theme here, but I haven’t been able to decide what I like yet. All of this has made me forget — ARGH! — what I meant to start by telling you which is that I stopped by Amy Oscar’s blog today. I’d been away from her for awhile, and the minute I returned I was in love again.

The design isn’t all that fancy. It’s just her VOICE I love to hear. She sounds so comfortable and regular. It’s very hard to achieve that in writing. You have to practice being yourself ALOT in everyday life. Another friend of mine — Alma Schenider, who has the great cooking blog “Take Back the Kitchen” — also has this sort of easy voice on her blog. Makes you feel very at home. When you meet Alma in real life, she very at home in her own skin too. I haven’t met Amy in real life, but I bet she’s cool like that too.

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Which is just to say that I keep on forgetting to just chill out in my writing. The month of small stones, though, helped. (Thanks Fiona) And the poetry is helping too.

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Oh, and in case you are curious what’s a favorite topic of conversation at the dinner table around here, I can tell you: it’s llamas.

All llamas, all the time.

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I am happy — so happy — to be participating in A River of Stones for this reason.

It gives me more reason to stop in my tracks. For a moment.

To see the curtains, and remember.

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So in lately I’ve been enjoying the whole idea of “series”.

The “Big Question” for September and December kept me focused on central themes, which was a lot of fun and kept me coming back to the blog and getting connected again with some other amazing writers.

Even though my family keeps me really busy, I’m keeping up the momentum this month. But I’m publishing in a few other places.

You can see my January series over on my main webpage. This month I am participating in a beautiful series created by Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita called “The River of Stones.” I’ve given my own group of “small stones” a title: “What Details Know.”

Please come over and visit me there. I’d love to hear what you think.

Meanwhile, I’ve dusted off my journalism skills and I’m writing some regular feature posts for the Stratford Patch. It’s been lovely to get to meet and know some of my neighbors more closely this way. Thanks to my editor Jason Bagley for supporting me on this.

Oh, and by the by… there is one cool lady I’d like to mention.

Off the subject but definitely worth a look.

In our recently travels, our family met another very cool family, also with four kids. The lovely matriarch of this bunch is Alma Schneider. She’s a foodie, but her business is fascinating: she a counselour who helps people like you and me back from the brink of convenience food. “Take Back the Kitchen” is just one of her super-cool projects.

No related posts.

I set the table with
Clean, cut glasses, Christmas crackers
Flatware. Before breakfast
All the flat edges glimmer
In anticipation.

Do you ever wonder: What the hell is the point of Elizabeth’s blog?

It’s this: details.

It’s a place to read In The Details, as a way to understand ourselves, each other, the world.

“Letters from a Small State” is about “the little stuff.” It’s a place to be with and notice the little things that shape who we are. All those million details. 

So this blog could be about toast racks or or pink drinking straws or a small car accident. And it is. But it is also about how we make meaning from all the stuff we pack around ourselves everyday. Or choose not to.

But why?

I guess I started to really winnow down my blog topics to focus on the IDEA of details when I realized I needed practice writing about the details. I wasn’t too good at it. I’d often spend too much time pontificating, rather than noticing.

For example, maybe I might notice a man’s shoe, and then write an entire blog post about how that shoe affected how I thought about that man, and who I thought he was. Not only that, but what that meant to our culture.

Except that I did it all upside-down.

I’d preach my proclamations — about the man, about myself, about the world — but I’d forget to really think about THE SHOE.

The shoe, after all, is where the thought began. It was a kind of microcosm of IDEA. The shoe took me into “small state” — a series of linked theoretical and cultural conclusions and ideas that change, forever, my idea of “shoe.” But the shoe was NOT the idea. It was the place it began.

A detail is sometimes a thoughtless beginning.

What’s Coming up….

In January, I start a new series, on The River of Stones, 2012. I’m calling it “What Details Know.”

It will be a series of “small stones” published here, and also shared on ny blog at The Stratford Patch.

I hope you enjoyed the December series on the dream of Holidays… If you have any feedback, feel free to contact me anytime.

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You can be a detail masher yourself. Anytime, here on my blog. I always warmly accept submissions.

In January, join me and lots of other beautiful people, on The River of Stones.

To join Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita’s River of Stones, all one does is:

1. Notice something properly every day during January.
2. Write it down.

Small stones (like the one written above), according to Fiona Robyn:

“Small stones are everywhere, all of the time.  All you have to do is pause and let them appear.”

Take the pause in January to read or write a small stone.  Be a detail picker.

And be in a Small State.

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You can read more about How to Write a small stone, here. And follow the completely wonderful Fiona and Kaspa on Twitter.

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This is the second to last post in my December Series: “If Only in My Dreams.” See you back here on Dec. 31 for a recap.

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Number four child was TRYING to whisper in Jolly Old St. Nick’s ear at the Santa Village when she was interrupted.

Elf: “WHICH PHOTO PACKAGE DID YOU BUY?!” the elf barked at us.

Me: “We haven’t chosen one yet,” I said. “We wanted to get in line before it got too long.”

Elf: “WHAT?! Well, you each sat on his lap so you want FOUR photo packages, right?”

Colin:  ”Uh, actually we were going to have them all sit together–”

Elf: “So, what, you WANT to buy FIVE photo packages?”

Us: “Well, er, uh, um –”

Elf (tapping foot): “I can SEE Daddy over here being all SNEAKY with his iPhone when he’s not supposed to be. Why don’t one of you get over here and pick one of of the photo packages. Because Santa’s got a LONG line of people and only 25 minutes until lunch.”

Beat. I exchange glances with Santa. Number 4 is smiling like crazy and whispering in his ear.

Me: “Excuse me. Can my daughter please just talk to Santa for a minute?”
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Dear Stamford Town Center Mall and Snapfish,

You are on the Naughty List. For sure.

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This post is part of the December BIG QUESTION Series, “If Only in My Dreams.”

What’s your dream of the holidays? Or how has that dream gone horribly wrong?? Tell us in the comments!

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In which I tried to explain to the kids that our little “artificial” tree is actually “real.”

Existentialism 101

Me: We are putting up our tree this afternoon.
Kid 1: Is it a real tree?
Me: Well, yes, it is a real tree. A real tree in that it isn’t imaginary.
Kid 1: No, I mean, does it–
Kid 2: She means is it the kind with the needles, no.. wait, I mean
Kid 3: The kind that grows out of the ground! That we CHOP DOWN!
Me: Like the one we got when we went to Jones Farm.
Kid 1: I didn’t like that. It was too cold.
Me: The tree we are putting up today is a real tree. A real fake tree.
Kid 2: NO!! I mean, a tree, that like has smell!
Me: I am sure the tree we are putting up today smells. Perhaps like chemicals or petroleum byproduct.
Kid 4: Wha?
Me: Let’s put it this way: The tree is really, real. It will really be in our house.
(Silence)
Kid 3: When can I open presents?
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Another lovely post in my December “If Only in My Dreams” series. Read more!

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What is the rush, Rima asks?

What is the
haste to make waste of
Autumn?

–
Part of “If Only in My Dreams,” the December Series of The Big Question.

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I heard: “Big Sur is calling to me” and here’s what happened to me.

I immediately felt the grey, El Nino winter that that I spent in California, in 1999.

I was working in a restaurant in Kansas City at the time a place that was renovating. All the staff was given 6 weeks vacation, unpaid.

So I planned for it, saved up money the way that single people can do– just enough– and bought a one-way Amtrak ticket to San Francisco. I had a cousin to stay with. And a college friend. And my first-ever laptop.

In the weeks, I hung out in Berkeley, writing things that got saved in the hard drive of a laptop I don’t own anymore. Also on floppy disk. Once I  printed onto dot matrix at some point too. My feet froze in the Starbucks as I wrote.

It was a psychological break from work for me that I hadn’t ever taken before. I was free to wander around… in my writing and in the day.

Unfortunately, most days were drenching cold rain.

On the weekends, I found my way to be with my friends Mallie and Adrian. We drove north and stayed in cheap hotels. Walked barren beaches and watched dogs chase men in wetsuits into the surf. We argued and ate. She dropped me back in Berkeley again for the weekdays, to come and find me again on the weekend.

More writing at the library table, and wandering around San Francisco alone. Then the weekend again and roadtrip.

We meandered south, where we found the sun. We stopped in Santa Cruz and walked along a funny boardwalk and up onto the cliffs, watching the wild surfers below us.  We went on for miles on two-lane roads through old Western towns that are hidden like real fossils. Stopping at bar that was rough hewn and soaked in beer and pops up in my memory like a movie scene.

We kept going, by the artists’ caves packed into the trees along Highway 1, and the little surprise restaurants in the middle of nowhere, overflowing with people and paperbacks and coffee stains.

We found our way to Hearst Castle Road, and timed it so we could take the tour. Stared at the abandoned and gleaming bowling alleys like they they were diamond rings sitting on a can of tuna in the supermarket. The castle on top of the hill that people wanted to be haunted with fame and glory was just draped in fog and stony silence.

We wound our way back up the first highway. Stopped in Carmel for lunch and felt cheated by the  diamond choker vibe. A strangeness of glamour tarred the wildnerness.

Another weekend we went north again. Into the redwoods, walking without anyone else. Only the rain and dead leaf carpets. Trying to adjust our sense of proportion. And our sense of alone.

In between the weekends, to solidify the strangeness, my cousin introduced me to a red-headed boy. And the boy took me on a date. To dinner in North Beach, San Francisco. And then to that wonderful, narrow bookstore where the Beats lived.

The boy took me out again, and then surprised me by finding me beautiful.

In weak moments, the sun winced its way out from the clouds.

Otherwise, the rain poured down. We had to kiss in a doorway to stay dry.

After another week, I stared at Bridal Veil Falls at Yosemite, my nose frozen, but far enough from the coast to be in the sun. Wishing to be back in Berkeley, the way girls in love do.

Then the train and the goodbyes and the wishes to stay and promises to come. And photographs — traded — all before the cell phone era. And I don’t remember the train home, even though I took it there.

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I feel like I’ve never had a home, you know? I feel related to the country, to this country, and yet I don’t know exactly where I fit in… There’s always this kind of nostalgia for a place, a place where you can reckon with yourself. – Sam Shepard

When we leave this World behind, it moves on

All the simple mundane bits of life become beautiful

Places we craved to escape seem suddenly magnetized.

Windows reflect back at us like empty faces filled with regret

In past views, illogical love morphs to quiet obsession.

And remembering becomes ritual passed on to naive hands.

All our childhood plays out in front of us, like a record we want to repeat over and over. Could the notes ever sound sweet again?

Memories live in rooms wanting to be aired. If we share the stories with others, they are bound to fall like foreign language.

So we set our heart's recollections free in safer outlets. There they hide like horcrux.

No matter where we fly, we are never free of memory.

 

Nostalgia is a seductive liar. — George Bell

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This post is part of my September BIG QUESTION series, asking “What Does America Want?”. Thanks for thinking, asking, answering, and reading.

All photos in this post are original, taken on iPhone 4 and altered with Hipstamatic.

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