Well Because (Life is Hard)
family
Nostalgia
She would be 66 years old today. Instead, she is frozen in time at 17 and I ….
I sit with what I have left of her – a lot of cherished memories, a handful of photographs, her purse, her wallet, her 45 records and her old scrap book.
𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘣𝘪𝘳𝘵𝘩𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳. 🥂
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On This Day ….
On this day forty-eight years ago…
In the spring of 1977 I was in the early prime of my teenage years; she was in the latter prime of her teens.
Life was stretched out before us like a long, hot summer with an endless amount of options- of opportunities and roads to be traveled.
Could she imagine that [on that beautiful spring day] that she’d never see summer?
I don’t think so, I know I couldn’t.
Did anyone predict a (legally blind) man would be driving a little too fast in a residential area?
No, none of us could foresee the future on that dreadful day of the accident.
Nor could we ever have envisioned the short days ahead.
The hazy hours of hope and disbelief and denial until …
Until there was nothing left to do but mourn.
Oddly enough (or not) I still mourn.
The grief is not near as raw and not quite as heart wrenching as it was forty-eight years ago.
It’s more like a constant dull throbbing you learn to live with and usually ignore …
But sometimes it sneaks past the smiles and laughs of grandchildren, family and friends.
Sometimes the grief creeps in among life, among the daily routines…
and all I can do is sit with the bittersweet memories.
This personal little tidbit is what inspired the writing of Odd Man Out, a short story that can be found in the collection Once Upon a Dead Gull. Or read it in the larger story collections of More or Short Stories & Such.
Except from Odd Man Out
My mother used to say I never met a stranger. I reckon she was right but that didn’t keep me from feeling like a foreigner.
I was the peculiar child that didn’t look quite like the others; a raucous summer born among winter babies. I cared too much and cried too easy and sometimes I forgot that I wasnt everybody’s mother.
Happy Friday Y’all
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NPM 2025 (Full Moon and Little Frieda)
It was NPM 2014 when I first shared Ted’s poem about his daughter. In that post the husband and I had another enjoyable conversation about the tragedies that surrounded the man.
You should give it a read.
But now I present to you….
Full Moon and Little Frieda
By Ted Hughes
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket –
And you listening.
A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.
Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath –
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
‘Moon!’ you cry suddenly, ‘Moon! Moon!’
The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.
Ole Teddy published a book of prose and poetry to his first wife [and first wife to die by suicide] in Birthday Letters not long before his demise.
Lord, help me not judge. I have lived a less than stellar life, my own poetry is evidence.
Write On!!
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Favorite Animal?
What are your favorite animals?
People. I like people.
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This Heat – Lawd! (Tuesday’s Tell All)
We humans get impulsive and short tempered when we get hot, literally and figuratively.
Science says when the body overheats, it needs to spend energy to cool itself down, that response can come from the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that helps people self-regulate.
That explains why people are more impulsive and less likely to think before acting.
I’m not sure if that’s what happened to Savannah Dawn and her mom, but something made them snap.
“Mama had worked up such a sweat the glue melted leaving her eyelashes dangling at an odd angle to her lids. She tried to dislodge them but after a few failed puffs, she snatched them from her face without blinking. They landed like two dead caterpillars at my feet. I quietly picked them up and stowed them in my pocket.”
Excerpt From
Savannah Dawn (Unconsecrated Visions)
Janna Hill
This material may be protected by copyright.
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Remembering Princess Leia (#TBT)
I was thinking of Leia today. She was a dog my daughter rescued from euthanasia & left with us on the farm.
Her crime? I’m not sure other than being an undesirable white shepherd; a black sheep that sullied the breeding pool.
Leia was oftentimes mistaken for a husky because of her beautiful icy blue eyes. I never cared, I simply thought she was beautiful.
We could never make her understand the boundaries of the 10 acre farm – she felt sure it extended to a half mile radius.
Finding the photo of a book cover with her (playing the part of Gus) left me a little nostalgic.
It’s oddly amazing how animals touch our lives. …Our hearts.
In loving memory of Princess Leia.
I’ll see you in the clouds one day.
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Old Photographs #TBT
I ran it through Snapchat and laughed all by myself. 😂
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What’s New? (Tuesday’s Tell All)
What’s new?
Is nothing and a lot an appropriate answer?
Well it will have to suffice.
Let me first assure you I am not in a funk nor am I suffering from writer’s block.
On the contrary, potential stories abound!! I say potential because none have made it past my imagination.
In the garden, the grocery store, in front of the television or at a restaurant….
The list goes on forever.
So this morning as I was rocking and sipping my coffee (without spilling a drop), I asked myself,
Self, why haven’t you written a damn thing ??? No new books, not even a short story… Not so much as a blog post since April, and by the way you failed miserably at supporting NPM.
I pondered the question while I kept rocking and sipping, listening to the birds, watching the butterflies in the Mimosa tree and waiting for a response.
Finally self answered. Well, (in no chronological order) let’s see...
You got older and slower so multi-tasking got a little harder.
You had a birthday and Mother’s Day that went on for weeks-because you have some awesome ass kids.
You had Covid twice…
Your oldest brother died and it is still a painful and fresh wound…
You focused on family…
Remember a large portion of last year was consumed when the home had to be gutted and restored due to the flood after the freeze. And the fishing shack had to have all of the pipes replaced due to the same freeze.
The economy has put a strain on your finances so you’ve had to seriously reconstruct your retirement- and even put the fishing shack up for sale.
You chose to spend a significant amount of time mentoring and advocating for others because you know how it can be…
You spend a lot of time “working” at the pond and in the yard and gardens. But honestly you “meander” as much as you work.
Your dog died and you got a new kitten….
After listening to self for a minute, I said Oookay, and I didn’t feel too bad.
But then the selfish self had to wonder… am I still relevant? Not that I base my self worth on my writing but… you know.
So I typed my name and search-engined myself.
Great. At least I still appear in the www sphere.
But I found a piece of me in a place I had not heard of.
Fnac. F what?
Est-ce que tu parles français
Lord no. But I have been known to fake it.
So, in a nutshell that is what’s up. Or down.
If you don’t hear much from me it is safe to assume I am probably wandering in the woods or on the beach or working on a story even if it is in my head.
Stay well. Be happy.
XoXo
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Crazy Conversations (Just Another Dull Day with the Family)
I haven’t posted a Crazy Conversations in a long time so here is a short video to make up for it.
Cotton, peas, your friends, your seat, your nose… There are a lot of things you can pick. Family isn’t one of them.
Disclaimer: Life is crazy, people are crazier and my family… well they get the crazy award if there is one. I
The Real Janna Hill in 