In every fabric of my soul
where fibers weave and thread
where stitching seems quite flawless
there are stains from when I bled
Ah, but isn’t it quite marvelous
to know this quilt has tracked
all my strains and struggles
yet I still remain intact.
Yes, I still remain intact.
— by C. Dennis-Willingham
photo image – quilt of Maya Angelou made by Faith Ringgold
via Fabric
Is my hair in little tangles
Do I laugh when I recline
Do I make my paintings messy?
Then, thank you, yes, I’m fine.
Do I lose my rhythm dancing
on a silvery cloud nine
and laugh since it don’t matter
if you laugh at my benign?
When I forget to wear the “good”shoes
where in fancy restaurant, dine
Can’t I let my toes be happy
while indulging my waistline?
Will you think of me uncouth if,
preferring the bus line,
I talk to random strangers
than the snobby, asinine?
Somewhere in the midst of fake
I have to draw the line
and teeter not upon it
but erect in my design.
And, thank you, yes, I’m fine.
Image credit, painting by Angela Morgan
via Messy
Delma mashes her little nose up against the window of the car. I stay quiet, thinking about what lays ahead, something I don’t yet know about. I try to picture it, a town with gypsum snow under the ground, a town where Dad is happy, a town where….
“Where we goin’, Cono?” Delma whispers.
“I ain’t so sure Sis, but it’ll be someplace good ‘cause looky here, we’re ridin’ in a four-door automobile!”
She turns away from me then and keeps pressing her little nose up against the window until she finally gives in to sleeping on Mother’s lap. At least we are together, Delma and me. It’s just another place that I plan to watch over her. I want to keep her close by, so nobody can snatch her away again. As long as I can do that, it doesn’t make no difference where we are.
The car keeps humming slowly down the highway. I try to sleep but I can’t. Instead, I think about Mr. Ed Rotan and decide right then and there that “Cono, Texas” has a real good ring to it. Cono, Texas won’t just have snow gypsum under the ground and a railroad on top of it. It’ll have oil underground and derricks on the top, pumping night and day. I call them jacks “grasshoppers” because that’s just what they look like when they’re pumping up and down. They’re grasshoppers trying to hop away, but they’re stuck and have to settle for hopping up and down in the same place.
My town will have at least two good cafés that serve T-bone steaks and tea iced in clean tin jars, free to me since it’s my town.
My mind leaves Cono, Texas and I think again on Ranger, the town where I learned how to brush my teeth, where Ma and Pa have a farm and a house that you’ll always want to go back to, where Polo takes me anywhere I want to go. Ranger is about haircuts that teach you about boxing and about boxing that teaches you to keep standing up. It’s a town where a Tiger can stir the ground and make you a little sister.
Oh yeah. The town of Ranger teaches you that goats freeze, but hands burn.
I go back to the comfort of Cono, Texas, off the poor list and high on the hog. I don’t quite know what to expect, but I sure do like this red brick highway leading to someplace new. I’m thinking that everything’s going to be “copacetic,” like bright colorful times might be ahead, like we’re following a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.
But I don’t know nothin’ from nothin’.
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham
photo credit
via Restart
Dad is slumped over on me now; half of his weight is on my right side, my right arm under his. I walk him to his side of the bed hoping Mother won’t wake up and see how drunk he is, see the blood I didn’t get the chance to wipe off his face. He lies down and is out cold. He’s good for the night.
I go into my room and see Delma asleep on her bed. I lie down on mine and stare up at the ceiling. A dim light comes through my window. The half-moon pays me a visit, casts shadows of a kid named Cono who never could beat Hicks Boy.
Well, I guess Dad has met his own Hicks Boy.
I can’t believe I’m not jumping up and down, celebrating. I feel kinda sorry for him, my dad beaten by a cue stick. The same man who, to my knowledge, never lost a fight except for in the boxing ring with Shorty Houghton when I was three years old.
I also feel pretty good that I was there for him, did something for him that maybe he’ll remember. But it doesn’t really matter if he remembers. I will. For the first time, I felt useful to him.
I hear Mother scream. I snap back into the present, out of my daydream. Maybe she’s woken up, has seen blood on her sheets reflected in moonlight, seen the blood on Dad’s face.
I start to get up but the quiet has taken over. I think I might just go back to sleep but the silence only lasts for a moment.
Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper by C. Dennis-Willingham
Image credit
via Dim
I decided to look up one of my favorite words along with my favorite poet. Here’s what I got:
What? Emily Dickinson hasn’t posted anything within 14 days??
And then I thought of how we rekindle our own imaginations – through the eyes of children, of course.
Then, I thought of Shel Silverstein.
But this is my all-time favorite:
And, by the way – Just because Emily hasn’t posted in a while doesn’t mean she’s not alive.
see more here
via Imagination
Let us congregate together
to reach a common goal
of liberty and justice
to make the people whole.
Secure the budding children
the elderly and homeless
the rejected and the lonely
will no longer be an onus.
How hard is it to link our arms
to agree and thus succeed –
to reach solutions with accord?
It’s very hard, indeed.
images credit
via Congregate
You know what DID kill the cat? Fear. Fear encrusted the cat like a toxic blanket. Because of this, the cat, stuck high up in a tree, could not come down. He was paralyzed and not curious enough to see what would happen if he tried.
Curiosity encourages us to learn, to explore, to question. Curiosity leads to knowledge.
No one has ever said so, but I wonder sometimes if my questions make people think I’m nosy when I’m actually inquiring and attempting to gather information.
Answers gives us knowledge and truth sets us free.
So, be curious and climb down from that tree.
And, if you need to hang on for dear life, do it while standing firmly on the ground.
via Encrusted
photo credit
Although my body has never been flexible (can’t blame age for that one) I like to think I’m flexible in my thinking. But not always.
My opinions on important matters have remained constant – my position on gun safety, on child advocacy, on human rights.
And many things I used to love I have put on a shelf – Bikram Yoga, pilates (well, not too much love for that one), Italian lessons, playing piano, playing a djembe, oil and acrylic painting.
Not writing. I will always write. Now, however, I am focusing on children’s stories instead of novels.
I am learning more about photoshop, embroidery, Netflix.
One thing I know for sure: Change is constant.
And damn, I love that about this world.
Photoshopped for my children’s book, What Happened to Ten, a work in progress.
via Constant
Scooter and me walk to the swimming hole. He’s playing the blues harp, but even his sour notes don’t distract me from thinking about my birthday. Without Mama, it wouldn’t be a birthday anyway. It would be a few friends, a cake and presents without promise. Now I have to talk to The Secret Keepers, Miss Helen or Miss Delores. If they know where Mama is, maybe they can send word that I refuse to turn twelve without her.
Excerpt from The Moonshine Thicket, by C. Dennis-Willingham
via Present
I grabbed my little sister’s button nose and held out my hand to show her my thumb tucked between my two fingers.
“Cono, I’ve done told ya I was too big fer that!” Delma yelled and stomped her little feet in the dirt.
Instead of kicking me in the shins as usual, she picked up a stave from the ground and hit me right square between the eyes. She could tell by the look on my red face that I was madder than a hornet.
“Ya better start runnin’, Delma Jean, ’cause I’m comin’ after ya, and I’m gonna whoop ya!”
She ran those deer legs of hers right straight to the outhouse and got there just in time to lock herself in.
“I’m gonna push this outhouse right over on ya, Delma Jean!” I said, banging on the old cedar door.
I stood outside that smelly outhouse, listening for what she was gonna say next. Then I listened some more. When I didn’t hear anything, I said, “OK. Well, when ya come out, I’ll be right here waitin’. Then ya can see this knot between my eyes that’s growin’ into a real-life unicorn horn.”
I thought for sure she’d come out right then to see for herself. But she didn’t. I tiptoed away and went on about my business. I pretended that my new horn was a badge of courage, which I guess it was if you had yourself a little sister like Delma.
I can’t say for sure how long she stayed in there, but she knew that I wouldn’t spank her. And, of course, I’d never push a stinky old outhouse over with her in it.
Delma showed up for our quiet suppertime more clammed up than usual. I put an elbow on the table and used my left hand to hide the goose egg on my forehead. I didn’t want Delma to see it any more than I wanted Mother and Dad to. Then with my righthand, I ate my supper in silence like everybody else. Several times I caught Delma staring between my fingers trying to get a peek at my bump.
Later that night, Delma told me she didn’t mean to put a horn between my eyes. I told her it didn’t matter, that it didn’t really hurt anyhow.
By the next morning, my badge of courage was almost completely sucked back into my skull. Even though nobody else could see it, I reckoned it was still in there somewhere. And that’s where I decided I’d keep it from then on, next to the other ones I got elsewhere.
— Excerpt from No Hill for a Stepper, a novel about my father growing up in west Texas during the Great Depression.
image credit
via Courage
Carolyn Dennis-Willingham 