Not Dark Yet…

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Neighborhood, Writing

It’s nearly nine p.m., a July summer night. I’m sitting out in our garden on one of the new chairs that go with the new table where four can comfortably sit, even eat—en plein air entertaining finally and at long last. It’s actually quite nice to have a large enough table. I put hydrangea in a vase in the center and even with my sunset clutter—telephone, two magazines, a glass of white wine—there’s still plenty of room to breathe. Even my pink and orange oilcloth from Corvallis days fits. Maybe this will become my new summer writing room. Especially this time of day when the sun is nearly down and there’s no glare on the iBook screen

 
Read more…

Banned Books in a Memorial Day Parade

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Travel, Writing

We are headed to Whidbey Island in Washington State on Thursday via Port Townsend. The Ioniq5 gets its first electric road trip test and then some! We will motor the Olympic Peninsula then travel by ferry to visit with dear friends after half a year of not much travel, health crises, assorted this and that. There will be a parade in Coupeville on Saturday I believe and we are going to march in it along with other volunteers who celebrate and promote the public library and all of its good works on that island. And I am going to sport my clear backpack full of books that far too many want to ban. Margaret Atwood. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Toni Morrison. George Orwell. The 1619 Project. Harper Lee. Toni Morrison again

 
Read more…

Preparing To Be Dazzled…

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Gardening, Musings, Neighborhood, Writing

We are still a week away from the official vernal equinox, when the sun crosses the celestial equator making its way to the north. I just learned from a Duck Duck Go search that spring arrives a half-day or so earlier than usual because 2024 is a leap year. It will be dark when it finally hits, just after eight p.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Unlike today, the first bright one after what felt like a forever of gray and cold and windy and wet Pacific Northwest days. Walking around, celebrating an afternoon of sun, the streets are muddy, littered with fallen branches, matted leaves along the curbs and in the storm drains—the detritus of a winter that had its moments of harsh and formidable patches, that ground me, for one, down, made me want to hide inside with book after library book…

 
Read more…

Crafting an Ars Poetica

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Poetic Form, Writing

Maybe it is a truism that all poets should at one point in their evolution as writers pen an ars poetica, a poem that explains or meditates on the art of poetry itself. Is this simply literary navel-gazing? An egocentric exercise in defending one’s own predilections, eccentricities, and writerly tics? Perhaps all of these questions could be answered with a resounding yes. But, for me, I still find value in attempting to wrestle with the “why” of poetry, the “how” of the poet herself. Even if the answers do and should evolve over time. …

Read more…

Coloring the Days

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Wisdom, Writing

I have begun the annual winter rainy season task of cleaning stuff out. The file drawers are mostly done so now I am on to folders of this-and-that saved over the years for what reason? So I could use what I had stashed in writing of my own? Something I stumbled on that was written nearly twenty years ago: a four-part essay series called “Things to Come” by Michael Ventura…

 
Read more…

New Year and the Undoing

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Book Report, History Lessons, Musings, Writing

End of the holiday season so swiftly upon us. Ornaments wrapped, stored in the growing inventory of empty Garrett’s popcorn cans. Glass icicles removed, laid to rest in a metal, candy-caned tin tied with a sateen bow. Strings of red beads, garland, back in their indigo blue box. Light strings unclipped and tied with twine until needed again next year…

Read more…

Yellow Dahlia, Glass Beads

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Musings, Writing

White-gray afternoon, waning days of December, heading toward the end of 2023. Light rain for the next hour, tapering off to a slight drizzle. Every now and then, the wind stirs and the branches of the Japanese maple as well as the slowly bronzing leaves of snow-leaf hydrangea in our front yard garden have their turns at being riled up. At Leadbetter State Park, hiking on Tuesday…
Read more…

Upon the Return/Slice of Heaven

Nancy Flynn Apostrophe Blog Archive, Gardening, Home, Musings

I wake to rain. I am on my hands and worthless knees. I pry and pare back twinflower leaves, free the groundcovers: kinnick-kinnick, thimbleberry, and native wintergreen. Dig and prune. Command the dahlias to grow aligned with their bamboo stakes. My fingernails are crescents of dirt. All I care is to breathe, hidden beneath the reach and lean of these tall, tall western Oregon trees. Last night in the rain, the emperor gong rang…

Read more…