Patron and host Heather Blakey is always encouraging her writers, young and old, to work with collage in their writing work. I've experimented with it a few times, making a giant collage that helped me focus my goals for a year. When I had achieved what I wanted, I took the poster down.

Now I have another challenge in front of me: I'm moving again. The boxes are stacking up, and sometimes I wonder if there will ever be an end to it. Then comes the day when we will load up the truck, drive to our new -- smaller -- home, and unload, unpack. A new beginning, all over again. I've known for a while that my husband and I would be moving. Still, now that its almost time to actually get up and go, I find that I am sad. I've put down roots, even in this short time. I'll remember this old place as the home I shared during the first few months of my marriage -- and I've been very happy here.

To help ease the transition along, and make me feel more at home with all my belongings tucked safely in boxes, I collaged a special journal to use during the move. On the back of an ordinary notebook I glued pictures that say "home" to me -- a house scene, part of a garden, some chairs arranged as if awaiting a cozy conversation, a couple of tea cups and statues. When I see this, I tell myself that even though the apartment is a disaster of the moving process, it won't always be like this. Sure, when we get to the new apartment, things will be disorganized for a while. But with a little time, effort and love, it will become a good home.

Its helped me to be able to look at the collage I made, and remind myself of these things.

Gone Fishing -- (A Guided Imagery)

Wet scales, sharp-smooth. The gasp of wiggling that proves we all have the instinct to fight for life both attracted and revolted me. There was something in that flesh, firm yet gelatenous and slimy, that held and an answer for me.

The problem was that I still didn't know the question.

Yet that gaping mouth seemed to speak to me; the tiny jaw clenched and unchelnched as the eye rolled around. Almost as if it were not merely a fish, but an old seer peering into the mysteries beyond the veil of time.

If only I could understand the question, all the answerss I longed for would be confirmed by this strong being I had pulled from another world by my own hand.

Singing in the Kitchen

My husband and I received a new bread machine as a wedding present. In the two months we’ve owned it, we’ve only been able to make two edible loaves.

My husband made the last loaf, and it was a complete disaster. I think he must’ve gotten the yeast wet (a big mistake with bread machines – it kills the yeast, and the dough will not rise.)

I sent an e-mail to my parents, telling them of our bread woes. My mom replied with an order for cookbooks, some bread recipes, a website on bread machines, and some instructions on the use and storage of yeast.

My dad replied that it was probably because my husband didn’t sing to the bread, so it didn’t know it was time to rise.

“There are two times to sing,” he said. “In the shower, and when you’re cooking.”

I remember being a little girl, sitting in a kitchen chair on my knees so I could watch while my dad made spaghetti. He’d take a fistful of raw noodles and crack them in half with a yell like a kung-foo fighter. As he went through each step of the process, he’d tell me about the best way to strain away the grease, or why you should run cold water as you dump out the boiling water so the steam doesn’t scald you.

But most of all, I remember him singing. They were always silly little ditties he’d make up on the spot, unrhymed for the most part, with a simple catchy tune. Sometimes they would be about a particular step: “Now we dump in the noodles, stir and stir the noodles . . .” But often they would be about anything that came to his head while cooking.

After my grandmother passed away, my Papaw came to live with my family for about two years. In the mornings, I could hear him singing softly to himself as he made coffee and poured his cereal. I realized that was probably where my dad had picked up the habit.

It wasn’t until I moved away to college that I realized I had picked up the family tradition. A roommate jokingly pointed out that she could always tell when it was me in the kitchen, because I would sing these silly songs.

As family habits go, I could’ve done a lot worse. Somehow, its very comforting to stand in the kitchen of an evening, singing as I make supper for my family, knowing that I am carrying a spark of hidden creativity passed from generation to generation.

The Smell of Old Memories

I was writing a letter to my Papaw with an old pen. I’m surprised it wasn’t dried out, because its been shuffling around with my various things, moving from place to place, lying unused in the bottom of cardboard boxes and school-issued desk drawers for at least four years.

I got it free as part of signing up for some give-away that I never won. The barrel is thin, white with pale blue writing, and a nub that sticks out just a little too far. I never use it because its awkward to hold, causing me to write slower.

But it was the only pen I could find when I decided to write my Papaw; all the good pens have either been put away in proper places from which I was feeling too lazy to fetch, or snitched for purses, backpacks and pockets. My husband is a great one to keep pens in his pockets, and he always looses them.

It didn’t matter if it was a slow-writing pen, as I was writing to my Papaw. For my writing practices, I always use a pen I can glide across the page with like ballroom dancers at a competition. I hate to be hindered with slow, precise movements when I’m trying to catch my thoughts before they float away, never to be seen again. But for this endeavor, writing more slowly was best. It made me write the words larger, carefully formed, easier for his tired old eyes to read. And I found myself thinking more about the solid weight of each word.

As I was writing, I realized the ink, old and cheap as it was, smelled faintly like peppermint. When I was little, I loved peppermints. And Papaw has always kept some in his pocket, rustling in their cellophane wrappers, gladly dispensing them to any of us grandkids who might stop by after church on Sundays.

When she was alive, Mamaw believed peppermint was good for the stomach. She always had the thick, round, pink ones, in the bags you buy two for a dollar. She kept them by her side all the time, and thinking back on it, I realize that even then, when I was small, she must have been suffering from the stomach cancer that eventually killed her. She’d slip them to us on the sly, when our parents weren’t looking.

So it seemed right to me, to have this old pen, and write my Papaw about how much I missed him, in this place that’s too far away to stop in for a visit, and sneak a couple of mints.

The Agony of Discarding Books

"Be a little careful about your library. Do you foresee what you will do with it? Very little to be sure. But the real question is, What it will do with you? You will come here and get books that will open your eyes, and your ears, and your curiosity, and turn you inside out or outside in." --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Journals"

I recently emptied out a whole cardboard box full of books that was in the basement of my parents’ house. They were an assortment of books stored up over several years; many of them had been given to me by the grandmother of an old friend, when she had to move out of her house into a retirement home. I kept more of them than I intended to, and now I struggle to find room for them on my shelves. But there were many that I did get rid of. For me, its just hard to give up a book.

Which is the more difficult goodbye – one read or unread? A book that has been read and enjoyed becomes a friend. You’ve learned from it, been moved by it – a book I qualify as good always changes me in some subtle way, so that I am not the same person I was before reading it. How can you simply abandon this channel from one soul to another, ever to be consulted and enjoyed again?

Yet the unread book holds mystery and potential. Something great, as yet undiscovered, could be lurking between those unassuming covers. Knowing there is an unread book on your shelf is a silent challenge. It beckons, and provides you with a measure of safety and reassurance – there is always that book, there, waiting. It can be grabbed on a moment’s notice, to be packed surreptiously among other travel essentials, like your toothbrush and a change of clean underwear.

Though I often find myself traveling with old friends. In times of stress and uncertainty, they are relaxing and somehow calming. And best of all for the distracted mind, the plot is already familiar, so it is more easily set down and picked up again later.

I suppose ideally, I would be able to keep forever every book that fell into my hands. But if I did that, I’d need a separate home just for my books.