Bombay Letter Introduction

Posted on February 6, 2011 by literarylee

My work took me and my family, my wife and three children, to Bombay, India where we lived for two years, 1998 and 1999.  This was my first assignment with my new employer and I was flush with the excitement and adventure of being able to live and work in such an exotic, wondrous place.  I poured that excitement into many letters to family and friends back home.  At first, they were just letters, breathless descriptions of the myriad colorful, aromatic, intense life and humanity that was my experience of India.  As time went on the letters became a little more thematic, more essay-like, though hardly less urgent.

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For the Love of Playing with Words

Posted on February 5, 2011 by literarylee

I love words.  They’re fun.  Words are a lot of things to me: comforting, beautiful, entertaining.  They are also toys.  I like playing with words, experimenting with sounds, making up new words and more.  I even collect words, like pub names and epitaphs ( fun and free sort of collections).  I’m going to record examples of all that in this blog just for the fun of it.  Well-written essays and stories are great, but sometimes I just want a tiny, clever bit of literary stuff.  Word play is like popping a piece of communication candy in my mouth, a sweet, creamy verbal truffle, a bite of literary cheesecake.

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The Story of The Life Literary’s and the Daily Sentence’s Conception and Birth

Posted on February 4, 2011 by literarylee

August 28, 2009

Today I rushed to the Kennedy Center to get stuck there during a rain.  Black clouds sailed into view.  Lightning flashed.  The storm approached rapidly, but I made it ahead of the rain.  Naughty fellow, rushing away from my office instead of back towards it, risking spending more than a lunch hour away from work.

I stood under the towering eve on the Kennedy’s Potomac side, rain pouring just beyond me, my mind full of thoughts and ideas, and decided it was time to start writing regularly.  Finally!  I thought, why not approach writing like I tell my wife and children to approach a big job: subdivide it.  Don’t aim for a novel, a short story or an essay. Only commit to write one good sentence per day.  If I write two or two hundred, o.k.  My commitment, however, is one.  The Julie and Julia project blog and movie inspires me.  It tells the story of a stymied writer not writing, depressed, unfulfilled.  She makes a public (blogged) commitment to cook through The Art of French Cooking in one year.  For me, I will write one decent sentence a day.

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Kibosh Accomplished

Posted on February 4, 2011 by literarylee

I said this at work today.  I like the sound of it, especially the nearly matching kib and comp sounds.

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Breaking Soil

Posted on February 4, 2011 by literarylee

I marvel at happy, green broccoli seedlings breaking soil after only three days, but only some of the lettuce is up.  I worry when I don’t see sprouts as soon as I think I should.  Planting seeds stretches my ability to trust something mostly out of my control.

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A Daily Sentence

Posted on February 3, 2011 by literarylee

My decision to write one sentence a day got me writing again.  There was more to it than that, but breaking down the large (or at least, to me large-seeming) task of Regular Writing into very small pieces was an important part of the process.  On August 28, 2009 I wrote my first Daily Sentence, which became the trick I pulled to lure me back to the workshop, and posted it on a Google Site I called (no surprise here) The Life Literary.  I shared the site with a small group of confidantes to give my decision some oomph.

I started a Daily Sentence in that first The Life Literary, looking for a way to make a public commitment to write (even a little bit) daily.  My goal was to give myself a forum to write one good sentence a day and it worked.  I only had to write one sentence a day.  I could have written a paragraph, an essay, or even a novel if I’d wanted.  All I promised myself, however, was a sentence.  And, the extent of the public I invited to read these sentences was my immediate family and a handful of nephews: friendly but real accountability.

It’s one thing to say, “Yeah, I’d like to write something,” and another to actually do it.  I suggest a Daily Sentence as a way to get started.  Just one sentence and you’re done.  It’s a potentially easy way to add a bit of active literary living to your life.
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From The Bride’s Father’s Notebook – Day 1

Posted on February 2, 2011 by literarylee

From the Bride’s Father’s Notebook Introduction

December 20, 2009

Katie and David arrived today.  They were supposed to get here yesterday but the Blizzard of 2009 had other ideas.  Thankfully they were able to get safely to just three hours away, to a good friends house, to eating and drinking and talking late.  We were a little disappointed, but used the extra time to get the place fully battened down for the two-week onslaught before us.

We moved to a bigger place three months ago partly to have the room for these two weeks.  A full 700 square feet, our new home is a palace!  That’s how it felt to us at least, moving from 400 cozy square feet of efficiency.  Our place has a kitchen more than one person can stand in at a time, a dining room (tiny but still a dining room), living room, a bathroom, and a bedroom.  We get lost in that cavernous space.  Still, with Katie and David’s, and Daphne the Cat’s arrival, it filled up fast.  Glad we have four hotel rooms standing by, reservations kicking in later when more people arrive.  Continue reading →

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Spirituals in the Promised Land

Posted on February 1, 2011 by literarylee

October 23, 2004

Hello from Jerusalem,

It was a juxtaposition of image and setting! Did anyone else sense the the irony?

Last night I went to a concert of the Jerusalem Barbershop Chorus, a group of 10 men who sing, naturally, barbershop. One of them is a colleague from the Consulate, hence my attendance along with about 10 other officers. I could stop the story here because to my way of thinking this is a humorous, self-contained vignette. Even the name of the group: the Jerusalem Barbershop Chorus is so unlikely at least at first blush. Replace the word Jerusalem with Indianapolis, or Springfield, or Whereverville, U.S.A. and no one would notice but barbershop fans. But Jerusalem?

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A Hare-Brained Act of Hope

Posted on January 31, 2011 by literarylee

2011 – Last night, January 30, I planted seeds, a hare-brained act of hope.  Green Buttercrunch, Red Velvet loose-leaf, Speckled Trout Romaine lettuces, Piracicaba broccoli, bok choi and parsley, improbable bits of almost nothing, each with a spark of life.  I hope.  I think.  I feel the village idiot, a tad, sitting at a table pressing tiny specks into soil-filled plastic cells with cold, snow-covered January a few feet away outside the window.

I set the flat under the grow-light I bought last year.  In a second flat I’ll plant a second round of seeds in a week or so.  I’m growing lettuce for two to eat, not one to sell, so I’ll space the plantings out.

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Jerusalem Letter Introduction

Posted on January 31, 2011 by literarylee

My work (and my wife’s) took us to Jerusalem where we lived for three years from 2004 to 2007.  My first couple years there I wrote emails, essays really, to family and friends about life in Jerusalem.  I wrote about social and cultural events, things I saw and did, descriptions of visits to historical places.  I really tried to capture the feeling of whatever I was talking about at the time, my reactions and observations of how other people responded to and lived  in this amazing, complex place.

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