Practicing Hope

A year and more ago I was finding solace from the political turmoil in the world by tuning in to the physical world around me, surprised by the small but significant delights I found there. Taking these moments back to my desk, the act of writing and drawing about them soothed me, gave me hope. The world goes on. 

After my show of poems and paintings Surprised by Delight was up in a gallery for the spring and summer, I didn't stop noticing, but I fell away from the practice of writing and drawing about these moments. 

Now, in the spring of 2020, as we live in an uncertain present, I am finding tremendous comfort in the daily act of noticing, turning words around, noodling with pen and paint. I am surprised every day when new delights appear, and when words rise up to greet them. I have hope. 

Words the Birds Say:

cheery up cheery up

luckluckluckluck

we        see        you  we        see        you

cheery up up up

My Dog Dreams

My Dog Dreams

My dog dreams of deep grass

a pungent trail

squirrel tails

corpulent frogs

a tasty stick

He's a lion lurking

stalking deer

hunting with eagles

soaring with hawks

He's a coyote keening

for a broken moon

a black bear cub

in his underground room

he's conquering winter

conjuring spring

My dog dreams of deep grass

-sketch and poem,  Anne Ylvisaker

It's Thursday. I'm writing. Buster's in the doorway, dreaming. We're both waiting for spring.

Tiny Collections

I'm on a virtual trip to New Zealand this month as Christchurch Library's Star Author. What fun to connect with readers and writers on another Pacific shore. This week's topic is tiny collections: things writers anywhere, with any amount of space, can collect. Find links to the other entries on this page's Guest Blogs sidebar. 

I am a collector of small things. One of the great things about being a writer is that even a hobby like collecting can be part of the job. Do you like to write? Here are a three collections you could start for yourself.

I’ve been collecting postcards and photographs since my great aunt started sending me art postcards before I could read or write. Hundreds of postcards and photographs fit nicely in a shoebox. Read my last post to discover how collecting images inspires my writing. 

In elementary school I started collecting names. The smallest notebook has space for dozens of names. Characters like LeRoy Pence (Dear Papa), Harold Sylvester George Klein (Little Klein), and Verlon Leek (Button Down) were inspired by names I collected as far back as 3rd grade. Whenever you hear a name that you like the sound of, or is interesting to you, write it down.

And my favorite tiny collection? Words. I keep my words on small slips of paper in an ordinary jar. Sometimes a word just strikes my fancy and I’ll write it down: labyrinth. If I’m feeling verb-y, I’ll go to a cookbook and write down all the action words: mix, stir, whisk, sift... Sometimes I start thinking of a group of words and add a bunch at once. Recently I added words I like saying out loud: Iowa, Ohio, Maori, autumn, iota, swift, oriel, oleo.

I started collecting words with my writers group several years ago. We drew words from our word jars each time we met then each of us would write something using the same four words for our next meeting. 

Every chapter in Little Klein was written using those word jar words. Harold turns out to be sickly so I could  have his mother warm a teakettle day and night. A storm arose when I had to use the word wind. 

If you like to write, I think you’ll have as much fun as I do collecting pictures, names, and words. Better yet, grab a friend and start collecting together. Then watch your writing soar!

Holiday Greeting from the Sea

Dear Readers,

We have all three kids home this week, a sweet gift of togetherness we celebrated with a walk on our favorite beach. There aren't many shells here, so it was fun to find that the ocean had delivered this candy cane greeting, which I'll pass along to you. After studying my Sea Shells of the World Golden Nature Guide, I've tentatively identified it as a keyhole limpet, as much fun to say as it is to spot.   

Wishing you sweet surprises in the days to come, and delicious hours with family and friends. Thanks for reading along this year! 

Cheers from here to there,

Anne

Fall Food Words

from Friday's farmers market:

guava persimmon pomegranate

butternut kabocha cauliflower yam

and my favorite:

romanesco

Coastal Word of the Day

A section of Highway 1 washed out in a landslide yesterday and in today’s Monterey Herald, this description: “The asphalt nearby looked new and no seeping water was seen. Fresh looking rip-rap was spotted mixed with soil that fell from under the roadway.”

Rip-rap! I scurried to my dictionary shelf. I won’t name names, but it took three searches to come up with a dictionary that defined rip-rap. From Webster’s Third International Dictionary, the enormous book that was my Iowa going away present from Kate:

Rip-rap: n 1: a foundation or sustaining wall of stones thrown together without order (as in deep water, on a soft bottom, or on an embankment slope to prevent erosion) 2: stone used for riprap. 

In verb form: riprap and riprapping.

Other rip words: rip-roaring, rip-roarious, ripsack, ripsaw, ripsawyer, ripsnorter, riptide, rip track, ripuarian, and yes, it’s in the dictionary: rip van winkle.

Compact

Compact: closely packed or knit together

Another treasure discovered at the Lighthouse Avenue Goodwill today: the entire Oxford English Dictionary plus supplement and bibliography condensed into two volumes. It’s practically travel sized. The type is like ant footprints. For the word doctor alone there are thirteen explanations. And with that fetching little drawer for the magnifying glass, how could I resist? I lugged it to the counter only to discover it was unmarked.

“Flora!” the cashier hollered. I wondered how much I would be willing to pay.

Flora peered at the set through librarian glasses on the end of her nose. She opened and closed the drawer, rapped the box with her knuckles like a melon and declared, “$10.25.”

Sold. 

Treasure

Found at the Lighthouse Avenue Goodwill: 1962 Golden Nature Series book Seashells of the World. In addition to the brilliant illustrations typical of the Golden Nature Guides, this book is a treasure chest of fantastic words. 

Author R. Tucker Abbott, PhD is listed as Du Pont Chair of Molocology at the Delaware Museum of Natural History. Molocology doesn't appear in any of my dictionaries, but malacology is the study of mollusks, likely the synonym, though I like the look of all the Os in molocology.

A few great shell words from the California Province:

Purple Dwarf Olive, Kelp-weed Scallop, Cooper's Nutmeg, Haliotis Abalone, Chiton, and my favorite: Frilled Dogwinkle. If I find a dogwinkle on the beach, I will post a picture. 

xerophyte: a plant that needs little water

Our neighbor, the extraordinary landscaper Dan, gave us this drought resistant plant yesterday. It's a Pork and Beans Sedum. The name Pork and Beans made me wonder what other sedum varieties are called. Here is a selection:

Crazy Ruffles, Postman's Pride, Sea Lettuce, Burro Tail, Witch's Moneybags, Queen's Crown, Hens and Chickens, Dragon's Blood, and my favorite, Chubby Fingers. 

Fandango

Language changes fast in the internet age. The web is no longer simply the sticky home of E.B. White’s Charlotte and twitter and tweet are rarely about bird vocals anymore. Fandango has become synonymous with online movie ticket sales, until today when the word showed up in the Monterey Herald under Fourth of July celebrations.

At the Cooper-Molera adobe there will be historic demonstrations, rope making, leather crafts and fandango.

From Chambers Dictionary:

Fandango an energetic Spanish dance, or music for it, in ¾ time.

Which makes me think of...

Looking at the word vuvuzela this week made me think of one of my favorite place names: Albuquerque.

According to various etymology sources, the largest city in New Mexico was named after a person, who was named after a city in Spain, but the word itself means white oak if looking at Latin roots. If traced from Arabic, land of the cork oak or the plum, and from Galician, apricot. Whatever the meaning, Albuquerque is a great looking word and fun to say. Plus, it's the home town of one of my favorite picture book author/illustrators Jill McElmurry.

World Cup Word

My favorite word from the 2010 World Cup: Vuvuzela. It is the droning horn of the South African games. The sound of the word is better than the sound of the horn itself. Watch as these gentlemen attempt to tame the vuvuzela. 

Poetry Barn

I got an email from the home goods store Pottery Barn recently, but in my bleary morning-eyed state I misread it as Poetry Barn and eagerly opened the message. I hope it’s near Monterey, I thought, already anticipating what I might find inside and going through my calendar in my head to plan a visit. Never has attractive patio furniture been so disappointing.

It got me thinking, though, about poetry and the west and I remembered hearing that my new hometown has an annual Cowboy Poetry Festival in December. Turns out there is also a website dedicated to Cowboy Poetry where, among many other fantastic programs,  a Lariat Laureate is chosen from among the many cowboy poets. 

Lariat is one of the great cowboy words. According to my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology, lariat is an American English word from 1832 meaning lasso, and borrowed from the Spanish la reata, the rope.

We were lucky enough to visit a ranch in south Monterey County recently where we saw the lariat put to use with elegant expertise, poetry in motion.  

Balloon it

A balloon blew into my car today, just as I closed my door. I jumped out to look for its tow - a wailing child - but there was none. So home it rode with me and sits on my desk, anchored by the toy bear key chain it flew in on. Funny, just this morning I was researching balloons, fact checking for the manuscript just launched. The fictional toy balloon gets just a line, barely a notice, but led to me these interesting facts:

The word balloon has been around for nearly 500 years, its origins perhaps from a game played with a leather ball. 

Balloons have been refrenced in books as far back as Swiss Family Robinson and Moby Dick.

Before rubber, balloons were made from animal bladders.

Bed rolls were once called balloons, especially among loggers, and to "balloon it" meant to pack up and leave camp. 

Surf Words A to Z

I walked at high tide yesterday and the ocean was heaving and rolling, enormous waves crashing against the cliffs. Along the swells, a scattering of dark figures. Sharks? I thought. No, surfers, waiting to hitch a ride. At home, I searched the web for surfing words and came across this surfing dictionary. A sample from a to z (minus x):

ahu, bammerwee, chuf, duckdive, endo, floatwaller, gremmy, hennalu, isobath, jivel, kootzy, lexidex, muku, narb, ollie, paralax, quasimoto, redonculous, shibby, tapioca twizzler, upwelling, velzyland, waldo, yardsale and zimzala.

I'm not ready to pick up a board or put on a wet suit, but I am in favor of any hobby with its own dictionary. 

waving from the coast

Three weeks ago my family and I and all our belongings crossed Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada into California spring. I went from a lifetime of living on an inside piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the country to one of the outside edges. I can’t get enough of the ocean, the sea, the briny, the drink. 

Two lists of wave words from Chambers Compact Thesaurus:

breaker, roller, billow, ripple, comber, foam, froth, swell, surf, tidal wave, wavelet, undulation, white horse. 

brandish, flourish, flap, flutter, stir, shake, sway, swing, waft, quiver, ripple, surge 

Farewells

Certainly a stamp collection would have been simpler to pack and cheaper to move than my accumulation of reference books. But it's too late now. 

We're loading our wagons and heading west from the bread basket of the world (Linn County, Iowa) to the salad bowl of the world (Monterey County, California). These days are full of farewells and at Cooking Club Wednesday there was a party game (thanks, Beth!) which included the challenge Name five things you will find in Anne's purse. Among the responses - a thesaurus. Um... (depending on the bag) yup.

And from the amazing Kate, the gift of this enormous Webster's International Dictionary. The kind with the little letter tabs, black and white line drawing illustrations and brown speckled edges. It weighs 12 pounds. Too big for nightstand reading material but I love it. 

From WID, random definitions of the word farewell (a word which, by the by, originated 800 or more years ago) 

a wish of happiness or welfare at parting

aftertaste (the coffee left a good farewell in his mouth)

and farewell-to-spring: a summer-flowering annual herb cultivated for its showy flowers.

Does it get any better than this?

Thanks, Lauren Stringer, for pointing me to Visual Thesaurus, an online wordie paradise (promised land, nirvana, heaven, Shangri-la, Eden). Word mapping is addictive (habit-forming). And the column Fresh Ink is a...well...fresh (novel, original, new; also invigorating, bracing, refreshing, brisk) take on language. Don't miss the entry on Crash Blossoms. There is a word of the day, word lists made from chapters of books and speeches (or make your own), lesson plans, contests, and more. I am partial to traditional, hard cover reference books, but Visual Thesaurus may be my new favorite tool (implement, instrument).

bumber...what?

I used the word bumbershoot in an email today and discovered that it is a regionalism. I love finding words, like independent stores, that can't be found in every state in every strip mall and coffee shop.

According to DARE, bumbershoot (umbrella) has been heard most places east of the Mississippi, beginning back in 1896. It is a combination of bumbrella and shoot, from chute. Some of its delightful cousins include: blundershoot, brumbershoot, bumblershoot, bumbleshoot, bumpershoot, bumptershoot, and bumshoot. Then there's bumbersol, combining bumbershoot and parasol and its relatives bombersoll, bumbasol, bumbersoll, and bumpersol.  

And finally, from my favorite thesaurus, Chambers, two more umbrella words: brolly and gamp. 

Stay dry, everyone!

Winter is the Warmest Season

It snowed last night - less than an inch, but we're in for a heap more over the next couple of days. I broke out the thickest, longest, puffiest of my winter jackets this morning when I went out to shovel. It made me think about my favorite winter book, Winter is the Warmest Season by Lauren Stringer and one of my favorite winter pictures, Great Grandparents Andreas and Maria snug on a sleigh in their cozy chin to toe coats. 

From Chambers Compact Thesaurus, coat:

overcoat, greatcoat, redingote, car-coat, duffel coat, fleece, fur coat, Afghan, blanket, frock-coat, tail-coat, jacket, bomber jacket, dinner-jacket, donkey jacket, hacking-jacket, reefer, pea-jacket, shooting-jacket, safari jacket, Eton jacket, matinee jacket, tuxedo, blazer, raincoat, trench-coat, mackintosh, mac, Burberry, parka, anorak, cagoul, jerkin, blouson, cape, cloak, poncho...

And my favorite: windcheater