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Wednesday’s Word Flash Fiction: Knitting at Littleton Elementary

I love the quote Anu Garg uses to jump start this week’s theme on Wordsmith.org:

The French writer and philosopher Albert Camus once said, ‘Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.’

Today’s word is:

nescient. adj. Lacking knowledge or awareness.

I tried different strategies to get my story going: word association, breaking down today’s word into others that might spark an idea, trying to come up with a character name using only the letters from “nescient” itself (if only I’d had one more decent consonant). Nothing worked like I had hoped. So, here’s to writing by the seat of your pants!

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Knitting at Littleton Elementary

Joyce’s Dansko clogs squeaked as she turned from the clean black board and scanned the classroom. Twenty-four desks glistened from a long overdue date with a Clorox wipe. Each chair was pushed in snug against each desk. In the reading corner, books were lined up on the shelves in descending order according to height. The bulletin boards were de-cluttered, all those ridiculous xerox copies – of this rule and that rule – tossed in the trash.

Kids needed organization, structure, and only one rule. That’s what Joyce told Marcie after Marcie had gasped and stopped dead in her tracks during their morning walk.

“You signed up to do what?” Marcie’s face went pale.

“Knitting. I’ll be teaching knitting for one week to first through third graders. They’ll be making dishrags.” Joyce smiled confident.

“Joyce.” Marcie took her by both shoulders. “You’re an awesome knitter, but you don’t know squat about kids.”

Joyce took offense to Marcie’s comment. Sure, Joyce was older and never married, but she had nieces and nephews whom she saw twice a year. And, she observed enough bad parenting in the grocery stores. She knew all about how not to parent.

Marcie gestured wildly with her arms. “I know some of those third graders, Joyce. They’ll eat you alive.” She sighed, “what were you thinking?”

Marcie was young, that’s what Joyce was thinking. Just because they were neighbors and walking buddies didn’t mean Marcie knew Joyce that well. Joyce had a look that could make a chatty teenager sink down into the pew any Sunday morning. And, she had a stern voice that could freeze her cat in mid couch-pluck and send her flying under a bed three doors down.

“It’s only a week, Marcie, and I know plenty about kids. I’ll remind them of the Golden Rule, and they’ll behave like angels.” Joyce turned and started walking again.

The Recreation Department told Joyce that the kids loved knitting last year, but the woman who taught it said she was too busy with other projects to teach this year. The class maxed out at ten kids; all she had to do was teach them to cast on, knit, and cast off.

“Okay, but take my cell number in case you need help.” Marcie looked Joyce in the eye. ” And, you’d better bring candy.” Continue reading “Wednesday’s Word Flash Fiction: Knitting at Littleton Elementary”

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Honorable Mention, I’ll take that!

I submitted a story a while back to the “Family Matters” contest for the the literary journal, Glimmer Train.

Most of the time, I submit to journals simply for the exercise of doing so: for the practice of writing a cover letter and the toughening up of my skin when the reply is “No thank you.” I’ve read the statistics for getting published, so I tend to expect a decline sooner than an acceptance.

But, last night I received an email saying my story had worked its way through the judging process up to the “top 5% of over a thousand entries.”

My story was awarded an Honorable Mention (!).

There’s even a formal Glimmer Train document listing my name as proof — my own proof, since I ogled over it, while pinching myself at the same time, to ensure myself this wasn’t some alternative reality.

The names are in alphabetical order, and – lucky for me – my last name begins with a “C.” I’m listed dangerously close to the top, so if you see me driving around town, waving my hand like I was just crowned homecoming queen, you’ll know it’s gone to my head.

But, still…Woo!

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Off Kilter and Out of Season

Every Wednesday, on Writing Under Pressure, you’ll find a post based on Today’s Word (from Wordsmith.org). Past essays, poems, or flash fiction pieces can be found under Wednesday’s Word on the sidebar to the right.

Today’s word:

El Niño. noun. A weather phenomenon characterized by unusually warm ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.

Check out Wordsmith.org’s theme this week – words related to weather. They each make for some challenging prompts!

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Off Kilter and Out of Season

Delores drove to the grocery store with her windows down.

“Mmm.” She shook her head. “In the middle of May.”

In her seventy-two years, she had never known such a hot day this time of year in Minnesota. The weather seemed to flip flop more often than not: hot when it was supposed to be cool and cool when it was supposed to be hot. Just last summer, the rose buds popped out too early and froze before they reached full bloom. The tomatoes didn’t plump up until late September, and they never turned red — at least not until she dropped them in a paper bag with a banana and rolled it up tight.

She showed the bag trick to Amanda next door, the young woman who moved here from the city early last year. Amanda was desperate to grow tomatoes, “so excited to be living out in the country, now!” she’d said. But, she didn’t know the first thing about gardening. She planted the seedlings on the north side of the house, in the shade. The plants still produced, to Delores’s amazement, but then Amanda pulled the fruit before it even had a chance to ripen.

Amanda stood at Delores’s front door one Sunday afternoon in early October – in tears – with a handful of hard tomatoes, sobbing and saying nothing was working out like it was supposed to. Delores wondered if Amanda was upset about more than just the tomatoes.

“Patience,” Delores had told Amanda over a cup of coffee and a box of Kleenex. “These things take time.” Delores patted Amanda’s hand. “You can’t expect everything to work out perfectly in the first season.”

Standing in the grocery store, though, Delores wondered if she were wrong. She gripped the cart as she rolled past mounds of vegetables and fruits picked before their prime, some bigger than her fist. She realized that neither patience nor the weather had anything do with cultivating and harvesting these days. She could buy what she wanted whenever she wanted. But, while the fruits all looked pretty, she wondered about the taste.

When her husband Ed was still alive, he grew his own vegetables out back. He weeded around the cantelope with a gentle hand, taking care not to damage the vines. The melon always felt rough and looked ugly, but it melted in her mouth. He grew cucumbers from seed, which wasn’t easy. There were plenty of seasons when too much rain ruined the first crop. But, Ed was patient and persistent. Even his kohlrabi grew in juicy and sweet.

Surrounded by all those fruits and vegetables, Delores missed Ed. After fifty-three years together, she had grown accustomed to his mood swings. She was fond of the curve in his back, as she nestled up to him in bed. It had taken a long time for her settle – completely – into their relationship.

Years, in fact.

Delores thought of Amanda. She hadn’t seen much of her in the last few months. Delores rolled her cart around the potatoes and onions and back out the door. She stopped off at a bakery and picked up a rhubarb pie: in season, just right. When she got home, she knocked on Amanda’s door and offered warm pie and a little conversation.
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