Going Inkless

"The Earth keeps some vibration going      There in your heart, and that is you."            ~  Fiddler Jones,   Spoon River Anthology , Edgar Lee Masters       Spoon River Anthology  was required reading in one of my high school English classes.  I don't know if that's a common choice or if the fact that Spoon River is an Illinois location might have played a role, but I'm glad this book wound up in my path just the same.  It's a collection of poems, each written in the voice of a different "resident" of a small town cemetery.  Over the course of the book, you get the singular glints of individual lives, but also the collective glow of shared stories, and a larger picture of the town emerges.  In that respect, the literature reflects the way the real world works; A community is bound together by shared experience, but we each have our own perspectives and our own stories to tell.  I...

I rarely wear any jewelry but my wedding ring, a simple thing composed of slender gold bands and tiny diamond chips (two of which have been missing since year one.) It just doesn't occur to me to put any on. Though I do have a small collection of jewelry, mostly inherited or gifts, they spend most of the time jumbled in boxes on the dresser. However, a short while ago, when I learned my uncle had been taken to the hospital with heart problems, I decided to wear a particular necklace and it's been with me ever since. Like most of my collection, it has little material value. A plain metal pendant strung on a waxed cord, it bears a single rune, uruz , for strength. My sister gave it to me years ago when I was going through some difficult changes, saying it seemed appropriate and that it suited me. Since then, it comes out of the box every now and then when I need a little boost to carry me through. My uncle's illness was one more discordant note in my world in recent ...