Cindy on November 7th, 2011
Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree.” — Emily Bronte
I’m not very good at weather predictions, but it’s safe to say that Michigan residents will experience a drop in temperatures in a few short weeks. We’ll be pulling out our weather-proof boots and shuffling (and sliding) through … snow.
Folks who enjoy winter sports might welcome the change; they’ll wax poetic about the elegance of fresh powder on the ski slopes and snow clinging to bare branches. But I’m a three-season gal who likes it warm and colorful: Give me spring, summer, or fall.
The photos in this post were taken on our property in Royal Oak on November 6th. While many of our trees have lost their leaves, some are still ablaze with color, and I can’t remember a year when autumn managed to hang on this long.
There’s always something bittersweet in the change of any season, but fall is especially poignant. Whether you’ve just sent your youngest child off to kindergarten or to college, you sense the inevitable march of time. You feel the urge to get things done while you can. But it’s also wise to remember, as Anna Quindlen pointed out, that “Life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. It is about muddling through the middle.”
Yesterday, I stood in awe in the middle of our front lawn, trying to photograph the cobalt blue sky and the late afternoon sun filtering through the maple leaves. It looked as though the whole afternoon had been tinted with a paintbrush dipped in gold. I want to remember how it all looked — when I’m staring out my home office window on a January morning, and the same trees are bare and covered with snow. — CL
Cindy on September 22nd, 2011
To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not, rich;
to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently; await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common — this is my symphony.” - William Ellery Channing
– Mixed-media collage by Cindy La Ferle –
Cindy on September 12th, 2011
The healthy and strong individual is the one who asks for help when he needs it. Whether he’s got an abscess on his knee or in his soul.” ~Rona Barrett
The past several weeks have been even more challenging than usual. I’m noticing yet another decline in my mother’s dementia and health. It’s time to enlist the additional support and help I’ve needed for a while. Whatever it takes, this month I’ll be researching and interviewing in-home nurses, aides, assisted living facilities, and as many elder-care options as I can find. Meanwhile, I won’t be posting or spending as much time online until I get things in place. Thanks for your patience.
Click here to access an archive of my lifestyles columns on AOL’s Royal Oak Patch.com
Cindy on August 23rd, 2011
My eyes like old glass windows, dusted with lost days, are ready to hold the new light.” — Margo LaGattuta, from “Pretending to Be a Barn”
I found the e-mail from another writer-friend early this morning. It wasn’t unexpected, though I’d learned only two days ago that Margo LaGattuta was suddenly terminally ill.
“Margo died peacefully tonight, surrounded by her sons and sisters and friends….It was quite beautiful and I just know she’s writing a poem about it….”
It’s never easy to lose a mentor or a friend, and the best we can hope for is one last chance to say thank you. Which is why I am grateful to writer Carolyn Walker for contacting me this week — just in time to make it to the hospital to see Margo yesterday morning.
Over the years, Margo became a treasured friend. Whenever we were speaking at the same writers’ conferences, or attending literary events around town, I loved spotting her smiling face and wild bohemian outfits in the crowds of more conservatively dressed journalists and writers who were attending the programs. She always looked every inch the poet — the unbridled creative spirit — that she was.
She interviewed me for her radio show (“Art in the Air”/ WPON) after my first book was published in 1994, and in the process, I learned a thing or two from Margo about book promotion. Later on, it meant the world to me when she agreed to be the keynote speaker at the banquet when my second book, Writing Home, was awarded “Book of the Year” by Think Club Publications in 2006. There was also a time when the two of us wrote columns for the same newspaper, so we’d often chat on the phone when we had trouble navigating the ever-changing seas of print journalism.
But our relationship began as teacher and student. It seems that whenever I was going through a dry spell, or felt lost and blocked, Margo happened to be offering a local creative writing workshop that would shake me out of myself and inspire me to start writing again. In particular, I remember a weekend workshop at Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills, about 18 years ago, which I attended a month after my father died. That same year, the travel magazine I’d been editing for five years suddenly folded — and I had no idea what to do next. I was blocked and sad.
But after that weekend workshop at Cranbrook, I felt as if the fog had magically lifted. Margo helped me find new ways to express my grief, and best of all, I got back on my proverbial horse and rode off to one of the most productive periods of my writing life.
I know I’m only one of hundreds (or thousands) claiming to be moved and changed by Margo’s “Inventing the Invisible” workshops, not to mention all the students she inspired in her college English classes over the years. Her encouragement launched countless writing careers. And, of course, we all deeply admired her poetry, newspaper columns, and essays. Shocked by her sudden passing, many of us are asking: Where will we find another Margo?
I am going through another rough period now, as my widowed mother is slowing drifting down the foggy river of dementia, and requiring much of my time and care. Once again, I’m at a creative impasse. When I arrived at Margo’s bedside at the hospital yesterday, I desperately wanted to say: “Margo, I need your advice again.” Instead, I simply thanked her for everything — for introducing me to some of my favorite poets, including Billy Collins and Mary Oliver and Margo LaGattuta. I told her I was grateful for all the times she helped rescue and refuel my creative soul. I also told her that Billy Collins had just come out with a new book of poems, and that I didn’t think they were as good as his earlier stuff. She was unable to speak, but she smiled.
Tonight I’ll pull down Margo’s books of poetry from my shelves and reread my favorites. Here is one from The Dream Givers (Lake Shore Publishing; 1990). It’s an early poem that, for me, conjures the light and spirit Margo brought to her work, her students, her creative life:
I CAME BY A RIVER
and the journey flashed
through me like a light
year. Some electric sound
got me moving from
the original place over
mountains and dusty
windows outside of time.
I became a small shadow,
something anyone might have
missed. I began spinning
deep in tomorrow’s orchard.
I came by a river
and the water keeps rising.
I came to begin something wild.
(By Margo LaGattuta; 1990; Lake Shore Press.)
– Top photo: “Morning in Vinsetta Park” by Cindy La Ferle; 2010 –
___________
MEMORIAL POETRY READING
Celebrate Margo and her poetry Wednesday, August 31, 7 – 10pm, at the Lido Gallery in Birmingham. Bring ONE of your favorite Margo poems to read aloud to honor her memory. This event is free to the public.
COMMUNITY LIFESTYLES REMEMBERS MARGO
The September 5 issue of Community Lifestyles, where Margo published her popular “Word in Edgewise” columns, will be devoted to her memory. This issue will include a new piece I wrote, detailing Margo’s influence and impact on the metro-Detroit writing community. Watch for the issue online or in your mailbox if you live in the area.
Cindy on August 16th, 2011
Draw a crazy picture,
Write a nutty poem,
Sing a mumble-gumble song,
Whistle through your comb.
Do a loony-goony dance
‘Cross the kitchen floor,
Put something silly in the world
That ain’t been there before.” — Shel Silverstein
Yes, I’ll admit that I love a good poop joke. And I love it when I stumble on something that tickles my funny bone when I least expect it.
Walking to the local Trader Joe’s for groceries today, Doug and I discovered the sidewalk commentary, at left, printed in newly poured concrete. Clearly, somebody’s inner child was gleefully responsible for this. It made me laugh so hard that I had to come back to take a photo after the morning shadows shifted away from the sidewalk.
I’m now inspired to look for a “fresh discovery” that makes me smile — no matter how small — every morning when I go for walks. No matter how old we are, we all need reminders to stop taking everything too seriously, right? — CL
– Photo by Cindy La Ferle –
I’m not very good at weather predictions, but it’s safe to say that Michigan residents will experience a drop in temperatures in a few short weeks. We’ll be pulling out our weather-proof boots and shuffling (and sliding) through … snow.
Yesterday, I stood in awe in the middle of our front lawn, trying to photograph the cobalt blue sky and the late afternoon sun filtering through the maple leaves. It looked as though the whole afternoon had been tinted with a paintbrush dipped in gold. I want to remember how it all looked — when I’m staring out my home office window on a January morning, and the same trees are bare and covered with snow. — CL
