Blog Manifesto

Blog Manifesto


This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Teaching Rosie To Drive

It was a lovely day in January in 1973 on a side road down in Florida on our honeymoon, when I looked over at my new husband and said, "Teach me to drive. "  I didn't really mean that very minute, but he pulls over to a driveway and swaps seats with me.

Our 1958 multicolored camper van screamed hippie to the world.  It didn't have front seats, we had laid  plywood across the span and made a bench seat out of old couch cushions.  It was only 6 volts, so you could use the headlights or the windshield wipers but not both at the same time.  In the dark, you had to pull over if it was raining.  In slow speeds, it didn't put out enough heat to keep you warm, so we had used sleeping bags in the freak storm that had hit the East coast.   On our way down from Boston, I had resorted to reaching out and breaking ice from the windshield by hand while we were driving.  I don't think I would do that now...

So there we were on a side road, with Danny going over a shifting pattern.   First is forward, Second is back, Third is over the hump to the right, and Fourth?

"NO NO NO. Don't do that!"  he screamed as I put it into Reverse from Third.   The car shuddered and squealed and so did he.


Okay okay.  Sorry , sorry!

Again.   we are in the middle of the lightly traveled road.   First gear.  Driving... faster,  Second Gear.   A car swerves around us.   Go FASTER!    Third gear, got the foot work going good.  no grinding.  ...

Go on. Faster.  This is a road...  Go. GO.    Sweaty hands pull back into Fourth.

"NO NO NO. Don't do that!"  he screamed as I put it AGAIN into Reverse from Third.   The car shuddered and squealed and so did he, only this time the car stopped shaking before he did.

Okay, Okay.  I said,  I'm turning OFF.   And I put the car back into First.  Second... Third.

We are going 35 miles an hour..  getting time to shift again.   I'm staying in Third.  Sorry.


"You can't stay in Third, there are cars on this road."


"Then I'm turning off.  "

"Okay Turn Here.   Slow Down.  Not that fast. OMG  Not that fast!"  He's flying around on the bench seat.  I'm fine.  He slides back to his side.

Downshift! Downshift!  Slow down slow Down..  There's a little bridge ahead, it fords a canal.   One lane, no sides,  "OMG  slow down."

I fly over the bridge,  triumphant,  Takes some air on the other side where it dips down.

He reaches over and pulls the Parking Brake.  We collapse forward right in the middle of the road.


"I thought you said it was unsafe to stop here."


Let me drive!

Fine!

Fine!









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