MasticadoresUSA, thanks to Editor Barbara Harris Leonhard, has published a new nonfiction flash that can be read tangentially to Scrap: Salvaging a Family. There are four end notes so as you read and find the little roman numerals they relate to the notes at the end, thus the title, “End Notes with Photograph.”
Here’s a new post for my GRUMPY OLD WOMAN files. Yeah, you thought only old men were grumps a la Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon?
OK, I’ll be the grumpy woman so that I can feel as young as I can.
I saw a girl featured on local television for collecting and distributing gifts to others in need. I am not giving more details than that because I am not here to diss her. She is doing a good thing, and I hope that the TV coverage will inspire others to do the same.
So what makes me grumpy? OK, just being totally up front here even if it makes me look, well, grumpy.
When I was in third grade, I got the idea that children in the hospital needed something to cheer them up. I enlisted the help of another girl in class and, with my teacher’s permission, asked the other kids to bring in toys for the sick kids. They did! When I had collected all the gifts, I had to somehow get them to the hospital. My school was about a mile from my home, and on the way with a little detour was the hospital. So one day I walked to school (age eight haha as if I would have let my kids do that) with my little red wagon.
After school, I loaded the gifts onto the wagon. I had to use a big box, and my teacher gave me something to use for strapping. Then I hauled that stuff all the way to the hospital over very bumpy, crumbling, weed-edged sidewalk tiles. I remember I was sweating. At the hospital they sent me and the wagon to the children’s floor. A (grumpy) nun met me at the entrance, thanked me, and sent me away.
That was that. No news coverage. After all it was only one classroom’s worth of toys. But I was eight and other than that very little bit of help from my teacher and my classmate, I did it all myself.
So why am I grumpy?
Is it because I didn’t get more of a thank you? Or that kids today get more praise for doing the right thing than when I was a kid? That my parents didn’t fully understand what I did and talk to me in a productive way about helping others? Is it because I’m old and remembering my childhood and feeling empathy for that little girl? Or is it because only a few months after that we moved away, and I had to switch schools in March, a very awkward time to enter a new school system, school, and classroom? And that the new teacher was horrible? I am having a hard time evaluating why seeing that news story brought back this event in my life and made me feel out of sorts.
If you want to read more about my little red wagon, here’s one in MacQueen’s Quarterly. It was published there two years ago so it’s possible you’ve seen it. Neither the following story nor the hospital toys story are in Scrap.
How I loved that red wagon. You can see it parked behind the car in the photo.
I’m borrowing Auden’s title for his book-length poem that won the Pulitzer in 1948 because contemporary life is even more anxiety-provoking than in the 20th century. Maybe it’s because I’m living in the now, but it seems to me that all our technology has brought waves of anxiety into the lives of . . . well, of most of us.
In my own family most members deal with anxiety issues and some of us–myself included–have social anxiety. I do not take medication for mine, but if I had to go to a worksite every day these days, maybe I would have to do so.
Because of my childhood, I suffered from anxiety early on, but once I was an adult and not living with my family of origin, my anxiety became significantly better. Until the advent of the computer, the cell phone, and the impersonal communication (aided by tech) of every business and medical provider I interact with, that is. Now it’s back as it was when I was a child living in my parents’ home. No, it’s worse.
The American Psychological Association, on its website, describes anxiety this way: “An emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune.” Somatic. That means tension manifests itself physically. Frequently with anxiety we dread the known or the unknown.
When I wrote my memoir Scrap: Salvaging a Family I struggled to find ways to describe the feelings of anxiety I remembered in my memories. The descriptions crop up over and over again, often related to my stomach. My stomach surged, suffered a giant crab crawing aboard, a thundercloud, a hard rock, a gathering wave, was hooked by claws. “Dread began to fill me, coursing its way through my body” (129). Terror, fear, and anger are all directly associated with the stomach in Scrap.
I have anxiety over AI. Many people say it won’t be so bad and in fact is positive. They use the initial fear over every new invention as proof. But AI is different. It has the ability to affect absolutely everything we know, especially facts and ethics.
But it’s hard to live with anxiety pulsing through my limbs every day. So what do I do? I am riding the stationary bike every day, napping, and reading more. The gardener and I plan vacations. I push myself to see friends on a one-to-one basis. And I make sure we set up family time quite often. A dose of my sweet grandson Hudson is a perfect tonic. When I am with him, anxiety slinks out the door.
What do you do for your anxiety?
Filed under Health, SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY, Writing
I am grateful to the Eunoia Review for publishing two of my poems. One of them is quite grumpy but tangential to Scrap. That is “Goulash.” The other one, “Loss, The Word,” is even grumpier. It’s just plain grumpy as all get out.
Feel free to share this post on your social media if you relate to one of these poems.
Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Health, Literary Journals, Poetry, Publishing, Writing
So much has happened lately. I went to the Wisconsin Dells with my family for a week and just got back. I took a tumble while I was there. My third one, hitting my head as usual. I’m ok. Hudson had his best life (for now) there.
On his first plane ride
At the lakeshore, on boats, at deer park, and especially the WAWEE PARK!
We had a baby mourning dove (so cute) rescue at the house before we left for Wisconsin. I hope he’s doing well at Liberty Wildlife!
Kathryn Kulpa of Cleaver Magazine interviewed me about Scrap.
A CONVERSATION WITH LUANNE CASTLE, AUTHOR OF SCRAP: SALVAGING A FAMILY by Kathryn Kulpa
And LatinosUSA-English Edition has published two of my ekphrastic tanka sequences.
I still have lots of unpacking and email catching up and I am SO TIRED. Living with a 2-year-old for a week hahahahahaha.
Filed under #ScrapSalvagingFamily, Family, Grandparenting, Interview, Poetry, Publishing
Sharing a few more photos I found scanning.
There are two micro stories in Scrap: Salvaging a Family about the May 13, 1980 tornado in Kalamazoo, Michigan (pp 90-92 in paperback). It’s sort of a transition period in the book where I am now an adult, albeit young, whereas what had come before in the book was focused on coming-of-age. It’s also foreshadowed by an earlier scene of being a kid in the basement during a tornado warning. Scrap is comprised of three parts, and the tornado is the end of part I.
I mention how my father bought up storefronts that nobody else seemed to want and tried to fix them up just enough to rent them as he had little money to invest in remodelling. I describe a wooden “canvas” hanging on the wall of my father’s store:
What I think is that he makes something usable that wasn’t. He doesn’t have the money to make them beautiful. But every once in a while, he recognizes something that is. Inside the luggage store, he’s hung a board that a painter used to clean his brushes. He calls it his Jackson Pollack (sic).
Weirdly, even though I remember looking up the correct spelling of the artist’s name, I still misspelled it in the book. For some reason, I want it to be spelled Pollack instead of Pollock. Maybe it’s because for all its interesting details it’s still a fake. (If you read Scrap you might realize why the theme of “fake” resonates with me).
Dad’s “Jackson Pollock” on the wall
Here are a couple of photos of the tornado that day.
Gilmore Brothers department store–the entire back wall of the 5 story building was blown off
ISB Bank building–all the windows were blown out
Beetley Pete has let me take a space on his blog today to share a story a bit related to Scrap: Salvaging a Family. It’s a story my father and uncle told me (together) when they were 85. My uncle and my parents were visiting me at the same time, and they were getting into unearthing memories. This one is about the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and there are photos from the early days.
When I read Willow’s prompt for #TankaTuesday, I was intrigued. She asked us to find an old photo that holds a memory and write a tanka about it, focusing on words that evoke the season.
Since I am scanning old photos, this prompt seemed to fall right onto the paper for me ;. This photo was taken in July 1969 at our lake cottage. That’s my mom standing there in the middle of the photo.
I really wanted that focus on the goose and mom looking at it because geese are more aggressive than ducks, and I’m sure she was worried about the goose around all the children.
About the goose: I’m willing to hear arguments that it’s a duck, but I don’t think so. It’s neck is longer, it’s much bolder, and the beak is a different shape. You can see the goose in the last photo here, too.
Here are more photos from that day.
my brother feeding the duck
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Sorry for shouting! I’m just excited. Here’s the link:
If you haven’t read Scrap: Salvaging a Family I hope you will. And if you have, I hope you like it and will share with others who might like it or find it helpful, especially with generational trauma, family dysfunction and abuse, or writing outside the boundaries of genre.
If you’ve written a review for Scrap and are on BookBub, the book will show up there soon–it’s pending approval. I’d appreciate it if you could copy your review over there!
Years ago I was writing posts inspired by the Dawn Raffel book The Secret Life of Objects. My magical music box, one of the objects, has shown up in Scrap. I still own it, too! Actually I wrote about it twice on this blog. The first time was to introduce the music box. At that time I didn’t know what music it plays. The second time was after I discovered the song it plays: La Paloma.
You know what I just realized? I’ve never let Hudson hear or even see the music box. He spent the night last weekend and then was here all day yesterday because school was closed. He’s almost 2.5. Can you believe it?!
I’ll have to share the music box with him. He loves music, and I want him to experience it as I did.
Yesterday we went to storytime at the library (lots of exercise for Grandma as story is more like “story” called movement), got lunch with chocolate milk, swam (with Grandpa), played with Mickey Mouse playdough (his favorite character is not the usual for kids today–it’s Minnie Mouse!), played the piano, and painted. Of course painted. He insisted and kept bringing it up. He paints with acrylics on canvas so it’s quite a mess. But another beautiful painting was added to his portfolio.
Like so many, I feel a real affinity for the poetry of Sylvia Plath. She’s my favorite poet as Shirley Jackson is my favorite prose writer and Remedios Varo is my favorite artist.
For my MFA explication I wrote about the Plath poem “Fever 103.” I still love that poem which so well captures that feeling of having a high fever without really talking about fever or being ill.
For my PhD dissertation, each chapter was focused on one female poet and one type of identity. For my Plath chapter I wrote about performing gender.
Later, when I began to write more poetry, I could feel the influence of Plath’s poetry on me.
Most inspirational for me was how candid and direct her poetry sounds. And under the surface, I suppose, was her search for who her father was and how he connected to her. These features really guided me in writing Scrap: Salvaging a Family. But they also helped in creating this collage for Raw Lit, Issue 9. The Making of a Daddy which relies upon the imagery from two poems Plath wrote about her father: “Daddy” and “The Colossus.”
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“Spare, precise, and quietly devastating, this is the kind of memoir that stays in the body long after the reading is done.”
That’s what the editorial review at The Book Review calls my memoir.
The Book Revue – 5 Star Review
Here’s another favorite paragraph:
“Her prose has the economy of a poet who knows exactly which word is doing the work and which ones can be cut. She has a remarkable ability to locate enormous emotion inside small, specific objects and moments, a trait that is genuinely rare and that gives the book its distinctive texture.”
