Category: Writing

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - 2 Comments on Rocking B’s

Rocking B’s

At the entryway to Oyster Creek Park, I spotted them.

Grandmother and granddaughter sitting on a park bench, bonding over books.

The thumbnail photo of this bronze sculpture caught my attention when I scanned Sugar Land’s Public Art brochure. Of the ten such sculptures in the city, this is the only one I really cared to see.

Something about young and old, innocence and wisdom, reading and sharing. And the precious grandchildren in my own life.

When I arrived at the park entrance, I found no hints—maps, signage, arrows, etc.—of where this pair sat.

On instinct, my eyes swept to the ten o’clock position.

How did I know to start at ten? Why not eight, or three or…

Intuition? Silly girl, I thought. Be grateful and walk toward them.

Along the way, I spotted alligators and paint-can art. A dog learning to frisbee. A baby taking its first steps.

Picture taking and future blog posts. Of course.

As I walked, the bright-shining sun and a clear blue sky sparkled on my shoulders. Seventy degrees, the phone tells me. Mid-December? Winter begins in four days?

When I finally stood before the Grandmother and Granddaughter sculpture, B’s assaulted my vision: binoculars. book. bear. backpack. birds. bun. bench. braids. boards. buckles. blouse. buttons.

Twelve in a single shot. Why all the B’s? And why did I notice? Is that what real writers do?

I took a second picture of the sculpture.

Clean shot, I thought.

Only at home do I spot the next B. As in sunBeam.

The ray of sunlight was not there when I snapped the picture. I promise. 

When I saw the light, the word followed: Beam.  

My, that sounds like a song. Or a Bible verse. Egad. I digress.

Back to a photograph. We’re up to a baker’s dozen of B’s.

One final B surfaces as I stare at the image. It’s less obvious, but more special.

Bonding.

What happens when grandmothers and granddaughters Be together.

(Offered with heartfelt apologies to my writing teachers).

And now, we’re up to 15 B’s in a single Blog post.

Oops, that’s 16.

What a day for frisky, frivolous fun.

You’re lucky.

No F quiz follows.

Posted on by Ellen Seaton - No Comments on Lollygagging

Lollygagging

All right. I’m here. Writing another blog post. Again, there are no pictures that go with this treatise that explores the life of a writing RoadBroad. Therefore, I will include a few pictures of holiday lights. Enjoy.

I have been lollygagging, dawdling, and procrastinating this week with my writing. My apologies! As you may remember from last week, I was dealing with a torn meniscus. I was on the verge of getting signed up for some arthroscopic knee surgery. But all that changed when I had an MRI on Monday. I no longer have a torn meniscus. Alas and alack, my poetic attempts were all in vain.

What I have is arthritis. That’s it. Instead of signing up for surgery, I have signed up for physical therapy. I have also re-upped my membership at the Y where I can enjoy invigorating water aerobic classes and stationery bicycles.

Arthritis does not sound as fun or exciting as a torn meniscus. I can’t say I got it because I am such an athlete. Is it just because I am getting old? When I was a young child I remember hearing old people talk about their arthritis. They also talked about their lumbago, their dropsy, or having a bad bout of the grippe. All old diseases. I’m going to have to process this and cogitate on it a while.

But don’t worry. I will not write any more poetry about my ailments. Whatever would I find to rhyme with arthritis? Maybe colitis, but I haven’t been diagnosed with that.

While I was dawdling this week, a friend put a word up on her Facebook post. The word was coddiwomple. What an interesting word. The definition is “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination”. Well isn’t that what I’ve been doing with my life post retirement? I am redefining my entire way of being. I march down the road in a purposeful manner while writing, blogging, going to movies and museums. Now I can add physical therapy and water aerobics to my journey.

I am a coddiwompler, because I am coddiwompling my way through this thing called life. When I retired from my day job, I knew certain things that I would do. I became a full-time writer. I have definite goals, but the destination is vague other than living my own life on my own terms and enjoying it. It feels fugacious, but is actually enlightening and transcendent. Plus the word coddiwomple is fun to say. Almost as much fun as fugacious.

Does this writing seem to be a bit of a flumadiddle? I promise it was not my intention to leave you discombobulated. I’m just a logophile which means I am a lover of words and enjoy playing with them.

It was much more fun than sitting around and cogitating on arthritis.

Until next week.….…

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - 2 Comments on Being Art

Being Art

The headline stuns.

How did I not know about an art feast gracing a baker’s dozen intersections across my town?

My ego burns.

Isn’t a 26-year, artsy resident — one who’s also an avowed news junkie — supposed to know all about the who and what of Art where she lives?

I share my discovery with fellow RoadBroad Ellen, who mentions that similar traffic-signal art boxes stand across Houston. My mind wonders — is there anything Sugar Land has that the bigger, bossier sister city, 22 miles northeast, doesn’t?

My ego sizzles anew. Town pride smokes in the same skillet.

A Google search confirms Houston and Sugar Land are among hundreds across America that have repurposed ugly metal boxes into talking points for travelers stuck in traffic. The effort began at least 15 years ago in Connecticutt. Leave it to the Yankees to be so clever. And yet…

What a delightful way to turn unsightly man-made mechanics into eye treasures for the stuck, the delayed, the bored! 

Ignorance morphs into curiousity which yields opportunity.

A day later, it’s time for an Art Box Scavenger Hunt.

First find is Judy Hope’s Tweet, Tweet, Sweet. Her melange of birds, hiding under this overpass, speaks to me. Freedom. Happiness. Peace. And color!

I dub the next stop “Blue Belle.” Not for that Brenham confection up the road. 

Vivienne Dang’s Lady in Blue looks outward, dreamily, yearning of a bright future.

Her face rests directly atop the traffic box door. I wonder is that how she opens up — only at eye level? 

The sea of blue in which the entire image sits mirrors the background sky. Are we all sitting in a similar sea of blue?

The bees arrive down the road.

I offer thanks these insects are not this large in real life.

Why does this box scare me even as it lures me closer?

Mike Doan calls his creation Bizzy Beeze, praising the vital role played by honey bees in the farms that circle the Sugar Land community.

I realize an odd truth. The Bees have this blog post. Hmm…

Next comes Blossoms. That’s my title Artist Nataliya Scheib titled her creation, Butterfly Garden. 

I see only flowers. Zoom in and you’ll find butterflies by the dozen, darting to and fro among the color-filled panorama of flowers.

This is the only traffic box I touch. Can you guess why?  

The final box I visit yields a single Butterfly.

Joy Chandler’s creation of Sweet Transformation highlights the plight of the endangered Monarch Butterfly, supposedly native to Sugar Land.

This lone image echoes Freedom. Joy. And the approaching Spring. The background of pastel circles add a sweet, supportive pallet.

I smile, standing here at the last traffic-box art installation.

Birds. Blue Belle. Bees. Blossoms. Butterfly.

Don’t forget Boxes. As in Traffic-Box Art.

The theme emerges: B Art. And now you ‘get’ the title of this blog post.

But what it all means? Alfie, do you know?

Me? I have no clue. But I will drive back down Highway 90A before long. 

Eight traffic boxes await review.

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - No Comments on Recording a Reading Revolution

Recording a Reading Revolution

I love books, as evidenced by this corner of my house:

Again, I’m a planet outlier.

Publisher’s Weekly bemoans a 20 percent decline in fiction sales. Only one year out of the past five have sales climbed. Thank Harper Lee’s 2015 book, Go Set a Watchman. 

All the reasons for declining fiction sales equal sensible logic:

More competition for entertainment hours and products.

More closings of brick-and-mortar stores.

Fewer book reviews.

Shorter attention spans.

Even audiobooks are displacing the printed novel. Mike Shatzkin, a noted publishing industry guru, calls it words-to-be-heard vs. words-to-be-read.

What’s ignored in the worrying noise is the price we’re paying by not reading.

Be it television, video games, the World Wide Web, streaming books, and other entertainment options, we’re actively rewiring both our brains and bodies. Few of us pay attention to the consequences, either short or long-term.

Photo courtesy Amazon.com.

Writer Maryanne Wolf takes a look in her fascinating (ahem, non-fiction book), Reader Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World.

Wolf cites varying studies that blame the widespread screen explosion for our collapsing attention spans, declining imagination and thinking skills, worsening physical health, and strained relationships.

One of the first studies came out in 1998. Linda Stone, of the Virtual Worlds Group at Microsoft, possessed frightening prescience when she coined the term “continuous partial attention.” 

Stone referenced children specifically when she created the term. Twenty years later, she’d no doubt label us adults with the same syndrome.

Tag me guilty, too. But only when I’m not reading a book. In that printed landscape, my attention laser-focuses to imagine a world only I can see. 

Delicious creativity and control! Fun and fulfilling, too!

Yet, these recent books and magazines frighten me about this road we’re on. There seems an almost willful ignorance for behavior and consequences. In confronting these effects, there’s information and messages to share, heed.

Even so, I cross my fingers, remembering what’s happened with music. Printed books could travel a similar road.

Remember LP’s and turntables? They’re back, and popular, for reasons I don’t comprehend. Records over CD or streaming tunes? Clunky equipment over flat, round disks or no plastic at all? Pray tell, why? 

Amid my semi-Luddite questioning, possibility arises.

Once can become twice. 

Music now, books next?

Copyright, GrooveBags.com.

Meantime, I read, wait, and check my mailbox.

Shoes inbound promise a coming retro-revolution. 

Our world needs more fiction, published. And read. 

A broad can hope.

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - 2 Comments on A Bag, A Man, A Card

A Bag, A Man, A Card

To live well, we must see.

But some days, life demands listening, too.

Consider yesterday.

At the grocery store, I laid my blue recycled bag onto the short conveyor belt. Beneath the bag scooted a pair of soup jars, cornbread muffins and bananas, plus a bag of greens. Dinner.

I turned to my purse. On the phone, I tapped the grocery app then reached for my wallet. I heard a male voice and looked up.

The checkout person — millennial, I assumed — repeated his question, “you like books?”

I smiled.

Compadre! I love when this happens!

“Love them actually.” I shook my head, wondering why he had asked me the question. He held up my bag, returned my smile.

My grin broadened. His friendly blue eyes returned kinship. On the conveyor belt, his hands slowed. Both palms now clutched the bag of greens as if they offered secret treasure. I looked to my left. A growing line behind me. Here we go.

“I write books, too,” I said and, without pausing for his acknowledgment, volunteered, “My first novel, it’s in progress. Agents awaiting completion.”

“Really?” his eyes alit with new interest. “What’s it about?”

My mind raced. What do I tell this reader about a book targeted at older women, female readers who’ve lived longer lives than his, many who’ve raised children and worked for older versions of himself? 

A brain flash. Elevator pitch then the blog. I sped-talked through my novel plot then soared to here, the RoadBroads blog. I was on the road here at the grocery store.

“You might check out my blog.”

He cocked an eyebrow. My left hand clawed through my purse, scrounging for a RoadBroads business card. Holding one aloft like an envious prize, I elevator-pitched the blog.

(An explanation for non-writers: an elevator pitch equals a short summary of a story-in-progress. The concept riffs off the image of a writer and agent riding an elevator together, giving the former only a few quick floors to tell her entire novel to the latter.)

Mr. Checkout took my card and listened to my generous pitch. WIth kind eyes and matching generosity.

In our brief exchange, he taught me much.

When you listen, you see people, discover opportunity, and, sometimes, find a fellow reader.

Translation: listening builds Life.

Plus, we’re never too old to learn.


A day later, I wonder: did the grocery store exchange begin with my t‑shirt? Pardon the sloppy selfie but consider the sentiment.

Like listening, words matter, too. Now. More than Ever.

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - 1 Comment on On the Radio Road

On the Radio Road

The glory of a road trip is its implied permission to slow down and see.

Even quickies allow a glance of both.

First, I beg your advance forgiveness. This post is intensely personal.

Yesterday involved a quickie trip, four hours by car north to Kilgore, a small east Texas town near the Louisiana state line. There, at the Texas Broadcasting Museum, DH joined 17 other inductees into the Texas Radio Hall of Fame.

Big honor, big deal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dQtG38hfjw

This first-ever RoadBroads video is worth your viewing time. Objective? Of. Course. Not.

Truthfully, 55 years’ work in one industry—radio and television—across four states and six cities merits celebration. In today’s world, where do you find that kind of dedicated work and unending passion? 

Our present-day rush-rush-rush world celebrates the opposite: speed and superficial over slow and deep. The 240-mile drive forced me to experience the latter.

The heavy blanket of morning fog hovered across fields that resembled where I grew up. Those Texas Panhandle wheat fields told me to leave. Now they spoke of memory rising in solitude.

The mist of this slow Saturday sunrise, sight offered hope, oddly.

Afternoon and a drive back home to Houston changed the view. A different kind of hope.

Something about the sun insistent on cracking with light, Cohen-like. Clouds. Breakthrough. More hope.

I smiled, understanding unnecessary.

In between these trip bookends, the day became a trip down memory lane. Like DH, I worked in radio/TV news in a previous life. We used equipment like this every hour on the hour. We dubbed it The Board.

Translation: it’s one piece of equipment, used in the dark ages (aka ’70s to early ’90s) of radio to communicate with listeners like you. Standing before The Board in a now-silent control room , my fingers twitched at my sides. Ancient muscle memory reactivated. Palms flattened against my thighs. My mind returned, smiling at the The Board, to the studio in Pampa—or was it Lubbock? Austin? Houston?

I backtimed to meet the network clean. Fingers hovered above the cart’s green “start” button, right thumb flat against the mic lever ready to go live, bladder squeezing tight for an overdue break, and lips ready to pronounce another station ID: “KPDN, Pampa, Texas. 740 AM on your radio dial. It’s eleven o’clock.” 

I swear I heard the station jingle in my ear, through non-existent head phones. My mouth even whispered the time. In my memory, the network sounder blended in and the join was clean. “Yes!” I whispered.

Later, I saw these rabbit ears atop the now-tiny-looking television. Do you remember?

Change rules. Then and now, it always has. Even when we don’t like it.

Perhaps we can embrace that truth, beginning with slowing down. Going deep.

Seeing. Remembering. Celebrating.

Special memories. Special days. Special people.

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - No Comments on Breaking RoadBroad News

Breaking RoadBroad News

Change is good. Especially when it involves the RoadBroads.

We’re growing. Ergo, a new tagline created for our blog:

Women writers. Ordinary journeys. Extraordinary stories.

Check out the look on our first official blog business card:

That view offers only half the story. Flip the card and you’ll find the full color, glossy image. Recognize that logo? The bonus on this side? Your favorite blogger’s name sitting in the upper right-hand corner.

This image actually shows our individual business cards stacked as one long piece of paper. A certain blogger has yet to figure out how to split .pdf images in WordPress. Sort of like her problem with blog pictures overall.

C’est le vie: so much to learn. 

I’m never bored. Grateful.

Next step in our blog growth is to “seed” these cards. The concept comes from authors placing their books in locations where potential readers (ahem, make that translation = fans, buyers, etc.) will find them. 

I call the best seed sites discovery places. Possibilities include:

- Coffee shops

- Airport terminals

- Bookstores

- Women’s stores 

Other ideas? I’d love to hear! After all, we’ve got two big ol’ boxes of these beauts to spread far, wide, high, and low. Think I’m joking?

Six months post-blog launch (to the day — love that unplanned synchronicity!), we RoadBroads aim for a bigger world. We expand our reach. After all, what awaits us — roads to travel, women writers to meet and greet, adventures to relive here with you. 

Who knows what comes next?

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - No Comments on To See or Not to See

To See or Not to See

It only took 34 years. To need a new front windshield for my car.

Blame four rocks smashing into my windshield. A trio in the past month alone. Could that be a record in America’s fourth largest city?

Years? Rocks? Days? All smacking into a single pane of auto glass?

It’s repaired now but I wonder how long this perfection will last. I considered not replacing the windshield at all. With my recent track record, was it worth it?

Consider another factor.

It’s been a spring, summer, and fall for endless car repairs. New tires. New brakes. New shocks. New struts. Restored air conditioning.

Traveling nearly three thousand miles across three states, plus mountain driving in summer heat, would impact anything and anyone. Add to that 60K miles acquired across seven years in Houston’s humidity atop her pothole-laced freeways.

Besides, every car needs routine maintenance. Even more results from the adventures of a committed RoadBroad who must venture out weekly to gather her blog posts.

But this kind of cash makes for a hard swallow. These repairs exceed 16 months of car payments. What I completed four years ago.

I wanted to leave the windshield as it was. Ugly, yes. But it’s only glass. Ugly, ugly glass.

Look for yourself.

See the jagged crack on the lower left? Swing your eyes to the far right. Spy the dot of pebbled glass? That’s the Hillcroft rock.

Out of range are the remaining pair of cracks. The worst split the windshield’s top quadrant like a boxer’s uppercut.

I felt confident of my do-nothing approach. Then the heavy rains came.

Caught in a blinding downpour, the freeway’s dotted lines vanished before my eyes. I white-knuckled the steering wheel and glued my eyes to the roadway, bird-dogging for other blinded drivers. The windshield began to mock me. Its four cracks widened, expanding, before my terrified eyes.

It’s expensive to be a RoadBroad, I decided. New windshield got fitted two days later.

Meaning-Me decided to reframe the issue.

Maybe now you’re free. To see clear and clean the road that lies before you. 

Then my eyes whispered, reminding me of July’s summer laser surgery. A sudden onslaught racked them, too. It was a bout with spider vision, aka PVD. That’s short for Posterior Vitreous Detachment, a common, surprise malady afflicting the post-60 crowd. A second whisper chimed.

New glass. New eyes. New view.

When I hear my inner voice(s) whisper like this, I listen. Even if it’s woo-woo. Or simply mental. Who cares?

Now I can see.

I’m ready for the road.

Posted on by Melanie Ormand - No Comments on When Old Becomes New

When Old Becomes New

A delightful discovery this morning: three new trees planted along my daily walk path.

The sight stopped me in a near-stumble. I jerked my head to the left, staring before snapping this once-in-a-walk image.

Questions pounded my brain walls:

How long have these oak sprouts been here?

What made our tree police suddenly shout “Green!”

Did last week’s U.N. climate change report finally awaken city fathers?

Perhaps you remember the breath-stopping removal of four trees from this same walkway last summer.

A mid-July lightning bolt had zapped one oak tree, splitting it in two. It was a beautiful, natural strike. Destructive natural art remained. Tears followed.

Suburbia struck back in a wood frenzy, removing four trees in response to Mother Nature’s single zap. Where I live, we don’t remove damage. We play Whack A Tree. To ensure nothing stands in weather’s way, we haul in the Big Equipment and ground down the leftovers - all the way down to nuttin’, baby. 

In my new man-made walking ground, I sought, and found, a gift: Starfish Bevo. See it/him? A horizontal figure on the right up there. Oak ground bits resembling quinoa. My new morning breakfast?

For weeks, I checked my little tree star every day. Then New Normal became Sidewalk Path. I forgot Loss.

Imagine my glee this morning as I stumbled onto this New New Normal.

Upon looking closer, my smile broadened.

Starfish Quinoa has a buddy. Shade.

Mornings like this urge me outdoors every dawn. Five mile walk, six a‑m start. 2372 walks since April, 2012. Yes, I counted.

I walk daily to remain healthy.

Today reminded me of a second reason: to see. When I opened my eyes — really opened them — I saw new life and second chances. 

Right around the corner surrounding a trifecta of trees.

How personal, meaningful can a little daily walk become?

Posted on by Ellen Seaton - 3 Comments on Witch!

Witch!

Who were the witches,

Where did they come from,

Maybe your great, great, great

Grandma was one!

This is a snippet of a song that I learned years ago when I attended a women’s camping trip in the Texas Hill Country. I don’t remember who wrote it or when it was written. This is all I remember of the song, but I think about this every Halloween. Actually it is my interest in women’s history; including the history of witches and the Salem Witch Trials that has really sparked my interest in Halloween for many years. Anyone who is invited over to my house around October 31st gets my lecture on how witches were persecuted women. Yes, back in the old days (Really.…old days.…days even older than me!) women were subjected to torture and hanging if the local cow’s milk went bad or farmer Brown’s crops didn’t grow. Many women were killed because of the suspicions of others. I wish I had a broomstick I could ride around on today. Not only would it be better than Houston traffic, but maybe it would solve my fear of flying in planes!

Of course one would hope that after that dark period in history, humanity would evolve. However, please tell me if you have ever heard of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, Mary Ann Evans, Karen Blixen, or Joanne Rowling? They are all women writers. Maybe you are familiar with their pseudonyms; George Sand, George Eliot, Isak Dinesen and J. K. Rowling. Even Louisa May Alcott started her writing career by publishing under the name of A. M. Barnard.

 Back in the day, women had a lot of trouble getting published. It was easier to write using a male pseudonyms or initials so the reader could not tell the author was a woman. It would be nice to say that this was not the case any longer. Alice Mary Norton died in 2006 having spent a career writing science fiction and fantasy works under the name of Andre Norton. One of her works was called Witch World.

Women artists have also had their troubles. There was a time when women weren’t allowed in art academies or art guilds. They were sometimes seen as mentally ill because of their avant garde life styles and independent natures. Sometimes they were merely shunned, because they were too different from those in polite society. One sculptor, Camille Claudel, spent the last 30 years of her life in an asylum in France because her mother and overly religious brother kept her in the asylum and wouldn’t allow her to return home.

I love almost any form of art. I love taking the art history class at the Glassell, Women in Art. I also love to write. Do these facts make me a witch or does this make me crazy? No, that’s not a trick question and I won’t put a spell on you if I don’t like your answer. (Probably.) I have been called a strong and independent woman; which I consider a compliment.

Consider the image below:

Do you think this is a picture of a male figure or a female figure? How can you tell? How does sexual identity change your impression of this critter? Does it make a difference in how scary this image is?

Halloween gives me so much to think about every year. I review my list of positive female role models and hope that I have been a positive role model to some of the women in my world.

Until next time.….….….