WRITER'S BLOCK
Now I sit me down to write - My mind's a blank. Oh what a plight!
The deadline's soon, just a few more days. I think, I ponder, but my brain's a maze of ideas here, a brainstorm there..."Soon it will be Fall, the trees are bare."
No. That's too simple; too trite; too mundane!! Think, Dianne! Think!! I'm going insane!!!!!!
Do one about school...or football...or Fall fashion. The one you wrote last told of true love and passion.
Write something different. Try something new! So I sit here and scribble, not knowing what to do.
Jog! I dare not, though I can walk a country mile. Rhyme is NOT my forte'; prose is more my style.
I'll write a few lines and see how they rhyme, and if the editor doesn't like it, HE can write it next time!
(Written in 1995 when I had my own POET'S CORNER in a local newspaper.)
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GOD'S REMOTE CONTROL
The weather has been awful. I never know what to wear. It's a perpetual guessing game: Will it be rainy or fair? Hot or Cold? Sweater or Tee? Damn, this gets old! It plays Hell with my knee!
I search through my wardrobe in utter despair! Long sleeves or short, I wonder. Who the hell cares! It's a foregone conclusion: Nature's on a roll! When will God stop playing with His remote control!!!! (1994)
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CRITICAL FINAL EDITOR'S NOTES
Correcting the Editor's notes is such fun!
Especially when he never listens at home.
So when all is written and printed out,
the Critical Final Editor touts her expertise of the English Language,
and marks in red on all twelve pages!
Sometimes I wonder how I got into this.
There's truth in the saying: "Ignorance is bliss!"
(1995)
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ODE TO A SPRAINED ANKLE
The curtain was ready - the camera was set. I had no program. How could I forget!
I left my post to go down the stair. The backstage lights went down - I hadn't a prayer!
I got to the bottom, or so I thought; made a hard right turn and knew I had bought it!
My ankle turned under, I felt a sharp pain, and I thought to myself: "I'll never walk again!"
So believe me, my Friends when I say: "HARK! DON'T EVER GO DOWN STAIRS IN THE DARK!" (1984)
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WINDY RIDGE
(Written after a vacacion to Oregon in 1983)
A phantom wind blows constantly on Windy Ridge, but there is a strangeness about it. I can be talkiing to someone to the right on me and hear every word clearly spoken. But when I turn to the left and face the Mountain, the only sound I hear is the whisper of the wind, like a muted Banshee, sentenced to moan throughout Eterninty.
Windy Ridge is one of the ashen victims of the eruption of Mt. St. Helen in the Spring of 1981. It is located three miles from the crater on the north side of the mountain. Standing here I feel the hauntinly awesome power of Nature unleashed: a feeling that I am playing Russian Roulette with Mother Nature herself.
It wasn't long ago that this entire area abounded with life. Thick primeval forests once reigned supreme here. Great Douglas Firs, with lush carpets of fern at their bases, towered 300 feet toward the heavens, majestic and mighty. This was a haven for sportsmen and tourists alike, and a veritable gold mine for the logging industry. Spirit Lake was a Paradise on Earth, and the air was crisp and clear - once.
Then one morning the Mountain awoke. From the bowels of the Earth came a great rumble and she let let go her pent-up fury. The very breath of Hell came forth from her mouth, destroying everything and almost everyone whose Fate it was to be in her valley that day. Very few escaped. Many were never found.
The banshee wind blows as I view what was once Spirit Lake, nothing more now than a huge mud hole, damned at one end by hundreds of bleached fallen timbers. As far as the eye can see, there is a great vastness of gray, like the great barren vastness of a lunar landscape. Where the forest once stood, protective of her wards, there now lie thousands upon thousands of dead timbers, like a vast army that has been slaughtered and left to rot on the slopes and valley floor. Their bleached, sand-blasted remains lie where Satan's Breath spewed heat and ash, scorhing the very life out of them.
The ugly mouth of the volcano gapes wickedly at me even now, taunting me with ominous sounds and bursts of steam rising from her bowels, reminding me that she is not asleep, but only napping. This constant reminder of Death and Destruction makes me painfully aware of just how fragile Mankind is against such power.
As sure as God is in His Heaven, the Paradise that was so cruelly destroyed will have Life restored to it one day, but it will never again be the primeval valley it once was. And the wind will continue to blow across Windy Ridge: the eerie, haunting, Banshee wind that whispers: "I am not asleep. I am only napping." (1983)
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OFF THE BEATEN PATH ON THE WAY TO NEW ORLEANS
Ominous storm clouds gathered overhead as we made our approach into Lafayette and thoughts of Auntie Em and the Land of Oz crossed my mind. Call me a scardy-cat if you like, but whirling black clouds, high winds, and driving into a solid wall of rain has always made me a bit skittish. I feel very vulnerable to Nature's forces when I'm on the road. But "Think positive" I told myself. "We'll pass some time at Mum's house until the storm blows through and then head on South." Piece 'o cake - right? WRONG AMUNDO!
Three P.M. - back on the road again. (Isn't there a song by that name?) We slipped a cd into the loading slot of the player and sang along with The Nylons and the soundtrack from "Big River". Traffic was moving along at a pretty good clip, the storm front had passed through, and the sun was shining again. It was going to be a beautiful drive into New Orleans after all. I pulled out my new book OLD SONGS IN A NEW CAFE that I had just received for my birthday and commenced to read. Robert James Waller (BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY and SLOW WALTZ IN CEDAR BEND) is a master of the written word. Every sentence, every paragraph is a painting in words. I laugh. I smile. I cry. I can't help it! I'm an incurable romantic; a sentimental slob. (I'm a Gemini!) It was only when I reached for a Burger King napkin to mop the tears (which by this time were flowing freely down my face and dripping off my chin) that my husband took notice. About the same time my daughter asked if I was okay. I could only nod my head in a silent "yes" while I continued to sob and mop the tears that refused to stop flowing. I snatched another napkin. When finally asked what was wrong, I sheepishly replied through the flood of tears: "He just described the morning he had to have his cat put to sleep." More tears! (We're talking a seriously soggy napkin!)
We had gone about eleven miles when traffic came to a virtual standstill. Stretched for at least a mile ahead of us and as far back behind us was a solid, two-lane line of cars, trucks, vans, tankers, and a sprinkling of motorcycles - all of us with places to go and things to do - being funneled off Interstate 10 by a nice, friendly faced (and smiling) State Trooper, to take a dreaded detour through one of those "out in the middle of no-where" towns. We passed a "good ole boy" local deputy who motioned us through an intersection, past a local fender-bender (which probably happened while some towns person was trying to figure out what the hell was happening with us), and another local yahoo (a long-haired Frenchie) who motioned us past that...but no one was bothering to tell us where to go or how to get there! Suddenly, all of us who had formerly been crusing pleasantly down I-10, were now wandering aimlessly through a dodunk little town with streets named YA YO ANGELLE, DUP DOM, and NORTH BARN (as opposed to SOUTH BARN, I guess).
Have you ever played "Follow The Leader" when NO ONE knew where they were going? Just ahead of us we saw another van turn right onto a narrow little road lined with Jim Walter homes. (If you don't know what those are, you don't live in the South.) The van followed by the Toyota pick-up from North Carolina, followed by us, another car, a truck from some anonymous no-name company, followed by a few more cars all turned onto the same little road. Yep! You guessed it! A dead end street. One by one, like synchronized swimmers, we fanned off into empty driveways, backed up, (waving and smiling to each other if you can believe that), back-tracked to the initial intersection, and asked the nice little deputy where the hell we were supposed to go. (I'm sure he would have been glad to tell us at that point!) He politely informed us that we had to get back on the Interstate, go BACK to Lafayette (eleven miles, remember) go to Opelousas and take Highway 190 to Baton Rouge. It was at this point that I decided to make a written account of this little added side tour while it was still fresh in my mind. During a short pit stop in Opelousas, we discovered that the reason for the re-routing was a nasty accident on the Interstate involving two cars and a tanker. For the next hour or so, we bumped and bounced down a well worn, long traveled, four lane Highway 190 through Krotz Springs, Lavonia, Raceland, and other little settlements, passing road signs pointing the way to Fordoche, False River, New Roads, and St. Francisville. Something deep within me wanted desperately to veer off 190 and go to the bed and breakfast at Oak Alley or Rosedown Plantations, but a reality check (and teh fact theat the plantation beds are too short for my extra-tall husband) told my wander lust that my sister-in-law was anxiously awaiting supper upon our arrival into New Orleans. By the way, we DID use the car phone to call and tell her that we were going to be "just a tad bit late! "Maybe we can do the plantation thing another time," I told myself as I turned back to the business of writing, which wassn't easy on that @#$%&* bumpy road!
Eventually we came to Port Allen and our escape route back to I-10 and civilization. The Mississippi River with her muddy waters, Lykes liners and barge traffic, never looked so good as we crossed over into Baton Rouge...and RUSH HOUR! TRAFFIC! EMISSION! CONCRETE! (Lots of it!) No more swamps; no cypress trees, sprawling oaks or magnolias in lush green pastures or on old home sites; no egrets, cow birds, or red tailed hawks. I gazed out the windows of our van at the blur of people hurring home after work, billboards, office buildings, apartment complexes and condos so close together one could spit into their neighbor's window if they wanted - all so totally removed from the remoteness of the swamps and the quiet, easy ways of the country...and I told myself, with a private smile: "Having to go a little out of the way now and then isn't so bad after all." Sometimes it takes getting off the beaten path to put our lives back into perspective again." (June, 1994)
