Free Fall Original

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Headnote: This would have run last week, but Brexit took my attention.

Hello Reader

Got originality?

Today’s post? Not quite my usual free fall. (Which I won’t define yet again) 

Secondly, from Friday, is a piece about me. As you may recall, I never compose a blog post about myself, but this surprise piece was speed written at the Friday Free Fall group, at Alexandra Writers Community Centre (AWCS)

Firstly, from Sunday, are two fun poems. You see, I attend, at AWCS, a weekly Poetry Cafe, run by an authentic fun poet, Laurie Fuhr. (With a drop-in fee) She leads by showing us examples of other poets, perhaps with whiteboard class exercises. I like how Laurie’s original, for I don’t believe there is another such “free fall poetry” group for hundreds of miles. The most fun part, for me, is how Laurie has us write poems, right there in the cafe, in speedy free fall style. Too bad we only have enough time at the end of the class to go around reading only one or two of our poems for that day; how nice to be with other enthusiasts.

Of course we all use our special poet’s pen and paper—except me. My own originality is that I often make my poems rhyme, which is not how modern poetry goes, and that I always use my laptop because the screen helps me to make patterned poems.

Prompt-

We generated a long list of Irish words, then I chose to go with “castle.”

On the emerald isle stands a castle grey

Where the winds rush through from far away

Away in time rushing around the stones

Where green grass blows over long gone bones

About the castle rush little feet scampering

Children outside in their jerseys—no pampering

They lean out from casements, and no they don’t fall

Castles are for the quick, for one and all

Behind the stones spy fairies, they who love the kids,

On the bench are old parents, who pop the lids

Of their Guinness and their sweet cigar cases

While kids look for fairies, and run their races

Simple stones for simple folks

With simple pleasures and simple smokes

As children climb and skip and run

A windy castle is so much fun

We forget old bones below our games

Old bones that once had played the same games

Prompt-

Laurie showed us how a poem can use a series of rhetorical questions

When you see my castle do you think of me?

When you think of a queen do you know of me?

Do you know I had a name, and a husband dear?

And we once had lives, although it’s not so clear.

Can you leap as high as Michael, run as fast as Bridget?

Can you balance on that rock, without any fidget?

Do you fashion cones and pines into some sort of widget?

So like my Michael, and my dear lost Brigit

Do you like the wind playing through your hair?

Do you love the gulls slanting on the air?

Do you thrill to ride on a sweet old mare?

So did I, so did I, racing on a dare

Do you wonder at my life, from my castle’s stones?

Do you wish there still were horses here, greys and roans?

Do you wonder when I join the wind in doing a moan?

It’s because I miss you children, and now I’m less alone

Prompt- 

unwrapping memories

I’ve been thinking lately of unwrapping memories as I read of the dysfunctional family of novelist Pat Conroy. One of his younger brothers, who works with disabled children, really can’t stand to be around the other ones. One of them committed suicide but that was from clinical craziness when he went off his medication. Never do that.

Next month I am taking a two day course at Saint John Ambulance in mental health first aide. This will be right after my one day course in medication refresher for my disabled clients, which will be after my evening staff meeting, and all this will be during the week and a half I booked off. Strange, the money I save by having a “staycation” will go to Saint John, but I really want to know things. My brother still has a big scar, but at least I can stand to be around him.

A survivor I know thought that we can’t remember much because we had boring childhoods. That’s a nice thought. In the movie version of Conroy’s book the mother says the father never hit her. In the book version the boy goes to his dresser, because she always thinks that, and pulls out a bloody T-shirt he has been saving, in the hopes of breaking her denial.

God gives us denial for a reason, so I don’t mind it. When I get rich I’m going to go find my parent’s graves and I will remember only the good stuff. Because life goes on. As long as I’m not being an idiot it’s OK to forget.

I am going to be a Speaker for the Dead at toastmasters and I’ll just have to guess. And if someone asks if I’m speaking for a relative I’ll just reply how can I? Unless I’m a mind reader. Later, if I’m talking to a relative, I will remember to be humble and realize that my memories don’t have to be right. Best to get a second opinion on any that are too silly.

Sean Crawford

At Alexandra Writers Community Centre,

In the “C-space” building,

An old sandstone four-storey school,

Calgary

April

2019

Footnote: 
~ Speaker for the Dead is a science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card that will never be a movie, if only because it’s too psychological to film. In that world it takes no training or certification to be a Speaker, just the willingness to tell the truth about the departed, without whitewashing or darkening. The book won both the Hugo and the Nebula.

~ I might say that like Conrad’s young brother, I too work with folks with disabilities. Last night at Toastmasters we went around saying what we admired about the person to our right. Sharon liked how I worked with folks with special needs; her son has special needs. Sharon admired how I bring a "special take on things" to our club; she can still remember parts of my speeches from long ago, and she still quotes parts of them, to other people. 

Whimsy for Four

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

Headnote: if you are from China or Japan, probably you don’t like the number four: In the orient, the word for “four” rhymes with the word for “death … a very unlucky number.

Today is for whimsy (humour) . That, and the number four.

Four: My favorite number. Now, you are probably wondering why I like the number four. (Of course you are, work with me here)

As for my numerical favorite, you might think it’s a (swells chest) grownup manly warrior thing: Four is the smallest safe number of battle tanks rolling along a sunny grassy valley. I have happy peacetime memories of walking along uphill from them, because they need protection from anyone in any suspicious clumps of trees on the hillside.

But no, that’s not my reason for loving four, or, for that matter, why I love counting to four.

You might think it’s a (eyes go wide) boyish thing: Of course you recall pirate stories where a ship could only fire one gun at a time, recoiling in smoking succession, to avoid shaking the ship apart: That’s a science thing, for Newton’s third law of reaction. But in science fiction, the space pirate ships only have, count them, four guns. As a boy I read On the Trail of the Asteroid Pirates, book three in the series Tom Corbett, Space Cadet. The invading pirate ship appears over an idyllic prison asteroid that is covered with nice pretty green lawns—hiding the defenses.  

“Meanwhile, the invader continued to blast relentlessly. One—two—three—four—automatic reload—one—two—three—four, reload. Over and over, firing at seemingly peaceful fields of grass, only to strike an armory, space cradle, or supply depot buried underneath the ground.”

Lastly, you might think it’s a (wide smile) childhood thing but actually I missed out, by being born too late: I wish a pretty girl from my hometown had sang her lovely hit single back when I was little.  Without singing “automatic reload,” Feist sings:

“1 2 3 4

tell me that you love me more

sleepless long nights

that is what my youth was for”

Did you know Feist danced in the opening ceremonies for the Calgary Winter Olympics? Her sparkly blue costume inspired her 1 2 3 4 hit music video; her song is almost, but not quite, the reason I like the number four.

Q: The real reason?

A: The not-so-hit music video where Feist wears dull blue denim and sings, “1 2 3 4 monsters walking cross the floor.”

Luckily for me, last year a local disc jockey mentioned the video on air, saying he really, really liked it. So I tried it out—Wow! Now it’s my favorite music video of all time! …Here’s the link for Youtube. (Footnotes are below) You’re welcome.

Sean Crawford

Calgary

May

2016

Footnotes, of which I have only three, not four:

1~If you want to read a little more of Tom Corbett and his pals, see My Blog is Not a Platform archived in February, 2016.

2~Here’s what Feist says:

“So, I’m on ‘Sesame Street’ walking around with a whole bunch of monsters, Elmo and his buddies, a whole bunch of chickens, a whole bunch of penguins, and a number four dancing about. It was just pure joy, simple ridiculous fun, stupid joy. There’s no irony. ‘Sesame Street’ is just a crazy great place to be.”

3~Speaking of Feist’s monster friends, some humans would say that monsters (and fairies) should be clothed, for the sake of common decency.

I answer: What about Political Correctness? Shouldn’t monsters (and fairies) be allowed to have their own culture? A clothing-free culture?” I mean, just imagine if you were a monster. Monster fur is very warm. So that’s why, among adults, I feel no shame at wearing my T-shirt showing a big unclothed fairy. It’s magic: young fairies don’t need clothes because they’re so hot.

Prairie Free Fall

essaysbysean.blogspot.com

I didn’t “go home” for Christmas, no, because now the western plains are my “home.” On my wall art at home the scenes are prairie scenes. No wonder in my weekly Friday Free Fall writing group, over the new year, I did prairie pieces. Here are three. As I’ve posted before, Free Fall writing is where the group has a prompt, and then we write swiftly without much thinking or editing. Then we read aloud to each other. Such fun.

When I was a boy, and even now, people use “pretty” as an intensifier, meaning “very.”

Prompt- the thinker

Dear Mom and Dad,

Hi! I’m here in marvelous Moose Jaw, on the pretty great plains. Bit of a joke there, eh? The plains are great, and they’re pretty.

I woke up this morning and lingered in my carpeted hotel room, because I just had to catch the end of the movie. James Bond, in a tuxedo, was in a casino watching a bad guy. And out in the casino lobby were guys in suits like gangsters. Well they were gangsters, they were the henchmen of the bad guy. His minions.

After I put on my Hudson’s Bay Company parka I left the room and exited through the hotel lobby. Nobody had a suit on, just dull blue windbreakers or dull jackets.

I walked down the street going, “Wow, I’m really in Moose Jaw!” The streets are paved with salt, that’s what someone told me. He said this far from the sea, salt is as expensive as gold. The sides of the street have these quaint little berms—no, not salt or gold, but snow. And not a boring pure white, but lots of shades of grey and brown and black. I walked along wondering: If I were a secret agent, where would I go? If I were a glamorous millionaire, what would I do? I walked along and I was stumped. Grey walls of old buildings. Oh, a casino.

There I met the thinker who told me about salt. So that’s what people do for fun here: They think.

Prompt- ice sculptures

If you go to the town of Edmonton, in the middle of January, there they are: ice sculptures. In Churchill square, overlooked by a statue of Sir Winnie, is a number of statues, set in beautiful randomness, glistening and glittering, elves and gnomes, wolves and foxes, and what ever else the local artisans can come up with.

There are lots of artists in this town on the Yellowhead highway, atop the Queen Elizabeth the Second Highway, straddling the Canadian Pacific Railway, surrounded in summer by gorgeous yellow canola fields, where the land dips and sways to wheat fields and cattle grass far away. But here in town the sons of the soil have a talent for art. Some are born left handed, and some are born artistic, here under the northern lights.

Artists can be seen cheerfully crafting their ice blocks with chisels and chain saws, sandpaper and squirts of coloured dye. Artists can be very creative. Not purists but artists.

The artists are watched by passers by, by grad students with beards, children with light sabers in their mittens, and strolling parents. The weather is sub-zero, but no one notices.

At one corner is the ticket center and gift shop. Enter here for an idea of how folks endure the cold: a set of stairs leads the ground hogs down and under the street to a mall, or, the other way, to a subway that will soon emerge to run along tracks to the fair grounds and beyond. Enjoy winter, enjoy sculpture, and art your heart away.

Prompt- wild is the wind

On the prairie, that great inland sea of grass, where the plains stretch out for miles, and the farmers squint, and their colorful children see into infinity, oh, how wild is the wind.

Nature is not a lap dog, not here. Children walk to school bent over wrapping their mufflers or holding their scarves in one hand and watching them ripple in the wind. Childish shouts of glee are grabbed and carried for miles by the rippling wind.

On the Great Plains, where farmers work in sun and hail, where cowboys ride in rain and sleet, nature is a big galumping black dog. Either play with intensity, or have the dog leave you behind. The children who grow up on this land, bracing against the wind, are never left behind. They all wear a toque, a knit cap, a ski mask, or a watch cap—where they watch the wind come rushing over the grass like a mariner on the bridge watches the wind tearing at the waves. Soft eastern dudes once said, “This land is hell on women and horses.” Not if you grow up out here. Children grow to roam like tumbleweed, to be as flexible as willow, as strong as cottonwood. The land abides, under a wild wind.

And when the school is surrounded by cold snow at night, and the gymnasium is an oasis of light and warmth, and the parents are home bundled up, the kids are off to the gym. No one wants to miss the dance! Under the wind.

Sean Crawford

Between the TransCanada Highway and the 1A,

Between International Avenue and the Stoney Trail,

West of Lake Chestermere

January

2016

Footnotes:

~At the Tim Hortons cafe in Chestermere some young men asked me the way to the Stoney Trail. They were from the lower mainland of British Columbia, where the Fraser Valley is cramped by mountains, and the roads are cramped too. How cramped? The TransCanada is so crowded they have to have a special lane, marked HOV, for hovercraft and High Occupancy Vehicles.  And so the boys were really looking forward to being allowed to roar at high speed along a broad clear trail.

~According to a blog analytics, my site has a "strong global presence" so while local readers may take the plains for granted, I hope my far away readers enjoy today's blog post.