What Do You Remember?

To remember: to be mindful about one’s past, with intensive force.

To be mindful:  to go to your wild places, savor life, and write. (This definition is by Lisa Lanser Rose.)

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This month, we Gloria Sirens are devoting ourselves to some of our best-loved words. As you will see, I don’t always go with the grain, but this rant does turn to praise.   

 

“Mindful” is one of the words that rub me the wrong way. It seems to be timid; I am not. It seems to be pale green, the color of wispy sprouts grown by a slight person in his or her perfectly-behaved organic backyard garden, each tender organism painstakingly planted and growing at a measured pace; I am not pale, I’m not green, I’m not perfectly behaved, I am probably up to my knees in chemicals, not that I’d care, and I don’t need anyone to take care of me. This word seems to be minding its own business; I’m a curious cat and a natural gossip. This word and I have nothing in common, so it’s not surprising that I don’t like it, not even as a friend.

 Read more…

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Statute of Limitations – A Short Story by Paula Whyman

If it weren’t for Pogo and Ann, there might have been no trouble at all. They were part of Mike’s old life, which Ginny had loved when she first met him back in college, but when they married, she outgrew it and waited for Mike to do the same.

Homme de Plume: Men in Print

“So even though I bet you think this song is about literary sexism, it isn’t. It’s about feeling trapped between two sickening options: either the system’s stacked against me because I’m a woman, or only a third of us write as well as men (and I’m not one of them).”

Not So Minor Characters: The Beats’ Female Voice

“I’d learned myself by the age of sixteen that just as girls guarded their virginity, boys guarded something less tangible which they called Themselves. They seemed to believe they had a mission in life, from which they could easily be deflected by being exposed to too much emotion.”

An Ideal Husband? My May-December Romance

I did something I never thought I’d do, and I wrote about it on The Gloria Sirens.

The last thing I thought I would ever do is get romantically entangled with a man 25 years older than me. But here I am.  Here we are.  I used to think of it as “sick” when I saw couples like us together.  I’m sure I said that word.  I’m sure there are those who’ve said it of us.

Read the rest here.