Tag: #creativenonfiction

Posted in #weekendcoffeeshare, nonfiction

weekendcoffeeshare #175

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

August 23, 2024

Hello everyone and welcome to my weekendcoffeeshare for the week beginning August 23, 2024! Please come right in and join me for a catchup and a cup of coffee or tea. Please help yourself to whatever you like.

If we were having coffee together today, I would tell you that I haven’t participated in the coffee share or in any of the challenges for about three weeks now. Why? Put simply, life got in the way! There have been lots of things, some good and some not so good, going on that has taken my focus (and time) away from writing. I’m getting back in the groove now.

My flower gardens are just about gone for this year. We have four distinct seasons here in my location in the U.S., Kentucky, Upper South. Summer is coming to an end. We’ve even had nights down in the 40s though the days are still mostly hot, even some in the 90s. We have had an awfully hot summer and some of the plants I have traditionally grown have not done so well this year. Others have fared very well. I think climate change will eventually change our growing zones and that is perhaps happening in my location even now.

Here are some of the plants that I’ve managed to grow this summer.

Clematis
Japanese Painted Fern
Rhododendron
Peonies
New Guinea Impatients

They have been nice and brightened up my yard, but the weather has been hard on them. These are not plants that do particularly well when the temperatures are in the 90s every day. Very unusual for my area.

My husband and I have both had some health issues pop up recently. He will have to have some eye surgery in the fall. As for me, it is going to take a specific and very restrictive diet. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, to eat on this diet. I’m already thin and I really don’t want to get any thinner, but I suspect that will happen! Getting older is not for sissies!

I’ve been fortunate to be able to talk to and see some friends and family recently. That always helps everything seem better. I had a small nuclear family, but I have a big extended family on both my mom’s and dad’s sides of the family. I also have good lifetime – and new – friends. We have had a lot of support over the past few weeks.

Sophie, the German Shepherd
Sophie at a nearby state park
Hazel, my little rescued Pembroke Welsh Corgi
Hazel again (enlarge)

These two (very spoiled) four-legged babies have been my salvation over the past few weeks. Sophie is big and protective, but a baby inside. Hazel is just now really coming around after being rescued last year. It’s been hard for her, but she has turned into a sweet, loyal puppy. They lift my spirits when times are tough.

I am redecorating the inside of my house and in the fall, we will paint the entire inside. Redecorating is really an overstatement. I am redoing some things, but not everything. Just decluttering and, in the process, figuring out how to modernize as I go along. So far, it has been a very big job. I worked such long hours for so many years and didn’t really pay much attention to my home. I’m paying for that now by having to put some long hours into my house!

All of this adds up to no writing for the past few weeks. I don’t want to get into that pattern, so I’m back to work on my blog and will be participating more. Not only do I enjoy writing, but it is therapeutic for me. I’m starting to freelance a little, mostly in the field in which I worked for so many years which is finance.

I’ve missed talking to all of you. Thank you for coming to my weekendcoffeeshare!

Thank you Natalie, the Explorer for hosting #weekendcoffeeshare!

Posted in Appalachia, nonfiction

Appalachian Honor Culture

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

The Appalachian Honor Culture is a phenomenon that exists in the Appalachian Mountains, U.S., but also exists in other forms in different geographical areas in the U.S.

Sometimes I think I have lived in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, U.S. for so long that I take for granted the cultural differences that exist here and other places outside these hills.

The Appalachian Honor Culture is one of those cultural behaviors that have existed in these mountains ever since the Native American people here were encroached on by the white European settlers. This culture involves how people of the Appalachians settle their differences.

If a person, particularly a man, in Appalachia is insulted, embarrassed, called out, or shamed in any way, the Appalachian Honor Culture demands that they react either with threats of violence or immediate violence. As an example, let’s say that one man insults another man’s wife or one man comments on any aspect of another man’s life in a negative fashion, Appalachian men react with their fists first and think about legal charges of assault later.

This scenario is played out in Appalachia, especially southern Appalachia, over and over in cases of small, unintended embarrassments to bigger insults and arguments. There is usually no talking about a problem and settling it peacefully. Either violence erupts or something more insidious like the holding of grudges. Appalachians can hold a grudge, and often do, for a lifetime, even against members of their own family. It isn’t only men who uphold the Appalachian Honor Culture. Women do as well.

Let’s take my maternal grandmother as an example. She was, in many ways, a woman ahead of her time, but she was also an Appalachian through and through. There were members of our family and extended family that she held a grudge against for a lifetime. There was seldom such a thing as forgiveness even long after the issue that caused the grudge was long forgotten.

She loved my grandfather with a passion even though they seldom agreed on anything. If another woman, however, tried to make inroads with him, she would have picked up her shotgun and run her off their property without hesitation. Then, she would hold a grudge against the woman forever. This was and still is normal behavior in the Appalachian Mountains.

In Appalachia, you have a rather odd mix of people who are the nicest people you’ve ever known, the coldest and most stubborn people you’ve ever known, coupled with violence and feuds that could rival any gang activity in big cities.

The earliest settlers of the area came, in large part, from the Anglo-Scottish borderlands, and parts of Ireland and Great Britain with a smattering of Germans thrown in. You may find similar cultural anomalies in these areas that the immigrants brought with them to the U.S.

Posted in #weekendcoffeeshare, Non-fiction

#weekendcoffeeshare162

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Hello everyone! So nice to see you. Please join me for my #weekendcoffeeshare 162. Grab a cup of coffee or tea and let’s sit down and visit.

The highlight of the week for me was the Kentucky Derby. For those of you unfamiliar with the Kentucky Derby, it is known as the most exciting two minutes in sports. The Derby is a race for 3 year old colts held at Churchill Downs race track in Louisville, Kentucky. It draws not only Kentuckians but people from around the world. This year, horses were entered not just from Kentucky and the United States, but Japan and the United Arab Emirates.

Many of my friends, family and I, and all Kentuckians, are into horse racing. I didn’t go to the Derby, but I studied it in advance, and its horses, and thought I had a pretty good idea who would win. WRONG! Mystick Dan, a 18-1 long shot won the race, which is the first leg of the Triple Crown. He is a bay three-year old colt with a fine pedigree. Derby winners and other great horses are in his ancestry including Affirmed, Northern Dancer, Seattle Slew, and Mr. Prospector. It was an exciting three-horse photo finish.

Mystick Dan is the horse nearest to the rail in the above photo.

We love the Kentucky Derby in this part of the world. I’ve visited American Pharoach (2015 Derby winner), a gorgeous, gentle thoroughbred. I also talk about my connection to the 2016 Derby winner. I have even written a piece about the downsides of horse racing (and there are many).

Here is a picture of this year’s Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs!

Do you enjoy horse racing? I’d love to hear your comments!

Until next weekend…..

Rosemary

Thanks to Natalie the Explorer for hosting #weekendcoffeeshare!

Posted in Musings, Non-fiction

Friday Feelings – April 19, 2024

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

If there is one thing I’m good at, it is examining my own feelings. I usually do that when I spend time daydreaming. I’m pretty busy with practical stuff most of the time, but I do give myself time to sit and think – and, I guess, feel.

When I was a young girl and even into mid-life, I was good at sharing my feelings with my girlfriends and partner. As I have passed mid-life and am into my last quarter, I have become quieter about my own feelings and I listen more to others. You can learn a lot by listening. I don’t share a lot with anyone now except my partner. There are a couple of very long-term friends and we share our lives with each other, but not always our feelings.

My feelings about many subjects are complex and multilayered perhaps because as you age, you also gain wisdom. I’m surely not making myself an example of a wise sage or something similar, but I am more able to see different viewpoints and the complexities of situations more easily now than in the past. However, these days, I’m more likely to withdraw than discuss feelings, particularly my own.

My feelings about almost everything feel more private to me than ever before. I don’t know why that happens as you age, but it has to me. Maybe it’s because I know that everyone has their own set of problems and mine are no more or no less important than theirs. Maybe it’s because I realize that most people are just not that interested in knowing me, or any other person, that well. Maybe it’s a trust issue because by the time you approach older adulthood, you know who you can trust and who you can’t. Quite possibly, it’s all of the above.

The people who see me a lot know that I’m different now. I’m not as forthcoming or as open. I hope they realize that it is not due to a problem with them. Instead, it’s how to I seem to be approaching this last quarter of my life.

Yes, blogging is good for me!

Posted in Challenges, nonfiction, Writing

#SundayPoser #175

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Blogging has been an important part of my life since 2016. I’ve been blogging off and on, for eight years. I’ve actually had a career in writing in the fields of finance and business since 1998, but at that time, I was also a college professor of finance. Finance and business are a far cry from creative writing! I juggled the two careers, teaching and writing, until 2008 when I retired from teaching. I became a full-time writer, but I only wrote non-fiction in my field of finance.

For a while, I freelanced for a number of companies and websites. After 2008, I landed several contract jobs and writing actually started to be an encore career for me. I was still freelancing as a finance and business writer. I also wrote a bit on education.

Since I was a child, I had dreamed of writing fiction and engaging in creative writing. I had no training or experience, but I did have a wonderful mentor who helped and encouraged me. When I finally discovered blogging, I thought I could hone my limited creative writing skills by blogging. That was eight years ago.

I’ve had to take some breaks from blogging over the years when I was working a particularly hard contract job that required long hours. I’ve always come back to my WordPress blog and this wonderful group of bloggers.

Blogging and reading other people’s blogs never bores me. We have some wonderful professional writers here in our community whose work I thoroughly enjoy, along with other writers who write more for fun. Some have made a successful career from their blogging. I have a wide variety of interests so reading and writing on varied topics is suitable for me.

Blogging has also given me an emotional outlet. I’m an introvert, so talking to people is occasionally difficult. I can say everything I want to say through writing and blogging.

Thanks to #SundayPoser!

Posted in Appalachia

Where is Appalachia?

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I live on the fringes of Appalachia and my roots are deep in this region of the United States. I live in a university town in northeastern Kentucky. Appalachia has rough geographic boundaries, but it is largely a cultural region, as opposed to a geographic region, of the U.S. In many places, Appalachia is difficult to access because of geographic impediments. The region is located in the Appalachian Mountains. Roads are few and the roads that are there are curvy through the mountains. In some places, the roads are not well built and are prone to washouts and mudslides. The fact that they run through mountains doesn’t help.

If you look at the map above, you can see that the Appalachian region includes all of West Virginia, almost half of Kentucky and Tennessee, most of Pennsylvania, one-third of Ohio, and the southern slice of New York. In the south, it touches Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and includes portions of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. Appalachia stretches from New York to Mississippi and encompasses 206,000 square miles where roughly 26 million people live.

It is a large region of the United States and even though parts are sparsely populated, the whole has a sizable number of people residing there.

Posted in #weekendcoffeeshare, creative writing, weekendcoffeeshare

#weekendcoffeeshare 77

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

#weekendcoffeeshare

Please come in and grab a cuppa! I have several different brews of coffee and a couple of tea blends – a green Japanese sencha along with my ever-present cinnamon blend and a wonderful orange pekoe. If we were having coffee today, I would first tell you about the lovely family reunion I attended beginning early in last weekend and extending through part of the week..

The reunion was for my mother’s side of the family that originated from eastern KY, a part of Appalachia. The roots of my mom’s family began there in the years before the Revolutionary War and some of us still live there. This reunion was really in honor of my only remaining aunt who turned 90 a few days ago. A very vital, active 90. She’s amazing. When her daughter asked what she wanted for her birthday, she said she wanted to go home,,,,home being here in Kentucky. So they planned a trip and brought her home. I had not seen her in eight years, so I really enjoyed seeing her.

On Thursday night, we all had dinner together at one of the restaurants in the city in which she is staying. The closest large city to me. The whole family didn’t show up but a very good representation. It had been a long time since I’d seen most of them, so it was wonderful to catch up. Then, on Saturday, we all went ”up in the country” to where my grandfather’s beautiful farm used to be. I have a cousin who still lives there at the old homeplace. Some of us cooked a spur-of-the moment dinner but we did have the traditional green beans and cornbread plus more. Almost everyone was there although there are a handful of family members lost to us. At least, I feel they are lost to me, but I guess that happens in most families. I could only stay for a few hours, but it went very well and many in the family got to relax, talk and enjoy the day even though it was stormy. The house is in the picture below and you can see the big wraparound porch. We hung out there, and in the house, most of the day.

@Rosemary Carlson

This is a picture of our old homeplace in eastern KY. It was built by my grandfather in 1901 and this is where he raised my mother’s family. This is also where we just had our family reunion. The house has been upgraded and restored. Our reunion here was a great success!

This was probably my 90 year old aunt’s last time to come back ”home.” She lives near her daughters in a wonderful retirement center in Scottsdale, Arizona. The cousin who lives in this house is also elderly at 84. Chances are slim that she’ll ever be able to host us again even with help as she has some ongoing illness issues. Sad for me, as this is where my roots are and it always feels like home.

Other than the reunion, Hubby and I have been busily preparing to have a new roof put on our home. What a big job! We have storm damage to the roof, as do most other people in my area. We may have to wait weeks and maybe months, but it has to be done before winter. Building materials, although dropping in price now, are still expensive so the estimates are coming in for the roof way on the high side.

I haven’t had much time for creative endeavors amidst the reunion and the roof on my home. I’ve only been able to do a little writing recently, most of here on this blog. I have read a few really good books and as we all know, reading is essential for a writer. I try to read many different genres and styles. My next project, which may have to wait until cooler weather, is a fantasy story for young adults that I am working on. It’s set in medieval England, but more about that when I dive back into it.

I’ve always been a political animal and I find myself very interested in not only American politics right now (which are a mess) but also into worldwide politics. The next two years will be a fascinating and scary time for American politics. I’m considering starting another blog where I would write only about politics, mostly opinion pieces but fact-checked to the max. What do you think?

We are probably not traveling this summer. We waned to travel some, in a limited area, in the US in our RV. But with high gas prices (at least high to us), we’ve decided not to. It would take $500 to put gas in the RV once!

We are having a very hot, and now humid, summer. Here are some photos of my flower garden to end our coffeeshare time.

Rose begonias @Rosemary Carlson

New Guinea Impatients @Rosemary Carlson

I’d love to hear about your weekend!

For #weekendcoffeeshare

Posted in JusJoJan Challenge

#JusJoJan – Jan 3 – My Blog

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“My blog” is our #JusJoJan prompt for today and that makes me smile. Why? I never dreamed I’d be a blogger! I started this blog in April of 2016. I can’t believe it’s been that long ago. When I started it, all I knew is that I wanted a place to write. A safe place to write on a daily basis. I fully intended to write in the same vein in which I’d always written. Non-fiction. Most likely in my field of business and finance. I hadn’t written much for awhile and I was going to polish up my skills to start selling my articles again. I did, indeed, do that for awhile. A short while.

There were things that I didn’t know. I didn’t know I’d find a community of writers here on WordPress. I didn’t know I’d read other people’s really awesome blogs. I didn’t know I’d become interested in participating in writing challenges. Most of all, I didn’t knnow I’d become interested in writing fiction. Fiction? Me? I had just spent thirty years doing academic writing. Terse and restrictive academic writing. Non-fiction – big time. Writing by formula to some extent. How do you jump from academic writing to fiction? It turns out it was not easy.

I had started writing, and getting published, as a child and then as a teenager. Then life and the 30 years of academic writing happened. My initial efforts at writing fiction here on my blog were terrible. Just awful. I started reading everything I could find about writing fiction. I started reading some of these awesome blogs. I gradually started getting more comfortable. I’m still not totally comfortable with fiction, but I’m better. I can knock out a non-fiction article very quickly. Fiction is a different deal. It takes awhile, lots of effort, and letting myself feel. Something I’m not very good at doing. Fiction involves creativity which I had not tapped into in a long time.

So, there you have my journey here with my blog. I’m not finished yet. I still have fiction skills to build. I’m even moving into different genres that I’m finding I enjoy. Magical realism anyone?

Posted in Blogging, Challenges

#JusJoJan – Jan2 – Prompt: One Liner Wednesday

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”Talk to the ones who can hear you.”

Have you ever talked to someone and, suddenly, you realized that person wasn’t really hearing you? At the very least, they didn’t understand what you were saying and were just being polite? If you’re going to talk, talk to people who hear you. Really hear you. Your words are wasted otherwise.

We all have different kinds of friends and family. Some are more casual. Some are closer. The only ones that can really be closer are those who can hear you. Hear the meaning and feeling behind your words. Otherwise, it’s a superficial relationship.

I’ll tell you what I usually do. I usually let the ones who can’t hear me talk to me. If they ever stopped to think about it, they would realize they know almost nothing about me. Nothing of any importance anyway.

If you try to talk to the ones who can’t hear you, you’ll just be frustrated and you’ll grow to resent them. It’s not their fault nor is it yours.

Posted in Non-fiction

Hidden – #writephoto

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I wish I could have spent the last ten days hidden among the wild things along the bank of the stream behind my home. Having been confronted by a terrible tragedy that can happen to any of us as we make our way out in the world, it’s made me wish for the greenery of summer to hide me away and the babble of the brook to keep my ears from hearing.

A severely impaired child and a grown-up young man lost their mother ten days ago. A man lost his wife and almost lost his own life. That little girl almost lost her father as well. A family lost a daughter and a sister. The world lost a beautiful woman. A community lost a friend and a participant. My street lost a neighbor and I lost one of my next-door neighbors.

We lost her to a traffic accident. A severe one and something that could happen to any of us. It was violent and her death was instant. In the blink of an eye, so many lives were affected and her life was snuffed out forever. We don’t realize how our lives affect so many others.

It’s made me do some real thinking about the fragility of life and how we take our lives for granted. We waste time, days, even hours and minutes, that we shouldn’t waste. My neighbor walked out her door never dreaming she would never be back. I’m sure much was left undone. Things she wished she’d said and done. She didn’t know time was coming to an end for her. Most of us don’t. Many of us procrastinate doing the important things. Telling people we love them. Making arrangements for people we care for. Spending more time with our friends and family.

There are things in life which you wish you could unsee and unhear. I wish I could unhear the news about my neighbor. I wish I could unsee the look in her husband’s eyes when I saw him today. Still in shock but with pain deep inside. So many people’s lives will never be the same.

As for me, these are the first words I’ve written since I heard the news. My fingers and my mind have been frozen. I think of the poem called “The Peace of Wild Things” by Wendell Berry and wish I could be at that babbling brook behind my house and that I could unhear the terrible news about my neighbor.

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief… For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— “The Peace of Wild Things, by Wendell Berry