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!

Monday, April 9, 2012

I was just leaving middle school passing by the high school track, when the kid on the bike flew by and then circled back. Then, he breezed a big circle around me on my Schwinn.  I knew him from school, Tommy Cope! His mother knew my grandmother.  In our neighborhood everyone knew everyone! Tommy said nothing but he was interested, I hoped. I mean, he had circled me twice!  That was a good sign.  Without ever saying anything, he turned, did a wheelie, and looking back flashed a middle finger at me with a big grin on his face.

Mom?  What does it mean when someone flashes their middle finger?  She's patient, in a teaching mode. It's a vulgar expression.  It stands for a bad word. It's short hand for saying the bad word. Usually, if people are too far away to be heard they might flash that sign.  Oh....now I get it. But, why would Tommy do that?  Hmm. Another mystery in an increasingly complex twelfth year of my life.

I had already had a big blow-up with my best friend,  Sandy, about a conversation we'd overheard wherein an older girl mentioned wearing the same belt for three days.  Sandy said they were talking about menstruation ...I thought she was nuts!  What did that have to do with belts anyway. We ended up fist-fighting on a neighbor's lawn!

Nothing was what it seemed anymore.  There were meanings beyond what I thought was being said. Boys and girls giggled and laughed in little groups about things I didn't know. I felt ignorant and out of touch except when I was reading.  Those words were in the books, purposely and meaningfully.  They were speaking to me. No innuendo in Nancy Drew, the Saracen Blade, or the Fountainhead. Or, anything else I read. Or, if it were there, it was not getting in the way of my understanding the story. Or, so I thought.

A week after I 'd seen Tommy, another boy approached on a bike. He spoke, Hi! I replied Hi and he flashed the finger. Do you know what this means? he wants to know.  Sure, I say. (My mama didn't raise no fool!)  Anybody ever do that to you? he asks.  Sure, I reply...just last week Tommy did it. Really! he seems shocked. Where? he asks...Where? I pause. Well, over by the track at the high school, I reply.

It took me a day or two to figure out what he was really asking..... and another day or two to decide maybe everyone else was as confused as I.


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3 comments:

  1. RosieApril 11, 2012 at 3:51 PM

    Mmm. So different now. I remember bringing the F-word home and asking my mother what it meant.

    They didn't tell me. Just that there were some words we didn't say. They didn't get upset and I forgot about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SharonApril 11, 2012 at 6:08 PM

    Yep! And, I never said it aloud or even in my internal dialogue. Not until recently (another funny story for another time.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. JCApril 12, 2012 at 1:29 PM

    i can remember my brother and i practicing a handful of four letter words we had read off the sidewalk on the way home from school.. and getting a mouthful of ivory soap. >.<

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