Myrtle Brooks
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Decisions
| Posted on August 27, 2019 at 7:10 PM |
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This Friday, my family and I will be traveling from N.Y.C. to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to spend time with loved ones. This includes a return (years later) book signing at a store whose manager and clerk are already like family.
It will be a road trip. Our Grand Caravan can hold nearly a houseful of goodies and necessities. She wouldn’t mind our “throwing in the kitchen sink.” That’s one of the great features of the road: not worrying about keeping one’s suitcases light enough to carry and missing out on some simple pleasures.
This time, for the first time, I do not know our date of return or where we will go after Myrtle Beach. Much depends on my physical stamina: whether or not I’m strong enough to drive throughout the country. The rest depends on when the money runs out! And so, add “spontaneous” to the road experience.
Strength allowing, a drive on an old U.S. highway off the interstate will be one choice. And somewhere outside St. Louis comes a landmark intersection between said highway and the Mother Road, Route 66. Go left, and you’re on 66. Stay straight ahead, and this lesser-known highway holds its own for astonishing slices of America.
“I chose the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference”? Hardly. They’re both ‘roads less traveled by.’ LOL.
The road we choose to travel by will season the path of our life; the one we embrace will make a difference, as will the one we let go.
Now, writing this, I look on my future: all of it unknown including one minute from now, all in the hands of GOD, and ask: Would I want to know everything? Walking through a yellow wood, choosing between paths, should I expect to learn all that lies ahead before I make decisions?
Robert Frost ‘looked down one as far as he could to where it bent in the undergrowth.’ It was enough; the unseen preserved intact, still alive, seasoning and all.
Clarification
| Posted on July 11, 2018 at 8:50 PM |
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Hello again, folks!
Wish to clarify, here, that I do have a publisher: his name is Reagan Rothe of Black Rose Writing.
Nice people. Like family.
They will publish my third book this January!
Cocoons are for Larvae, Not Butterflies
| Posted on May 7, 2018 at 12:35 AM |
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There are times in this life when I (speaking for most all of us) want to withdraw into a cocoon for an undetermined length of time and not be bothered. By anything. The problems arising from it, I have also learned, are manyfold:
A cocoon is the natural habitat for the larva during metamorphosis; he/she spends this time alone with the Creator, a time of solitude, mystery and growth. It is normal, fulfilling and peaceful. But not the end result.
The end result, the butterfly, possesses the present of wings. Mature, he goes to find other creatures with whom to join. An interdependency develops. They feed on pollens and become pollinators. It can be said they have a stewardship towards the earth as do humans.
Were the butterfly to forsake his life-bearing gift it would affect those in his path.
So instead, methinks I’ll behave myself and take short naps, recharge my batteries and fly.
Thattsitt, folks.
Being a Light Means to Brighten Others
| Posted on March 18, 2018 at 1:10 AM |
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Read something beautiful: words from a speech our Postal Service's labor union's National Secretary-Treasurer, Liz Powell, gave:
"Therefore, I would ask that each of you keep in mind that as we continue to stand at the river reclaiming our dream... it is not necessary for us to put out anyone else's light in order for ours to shine. The more light we have, brothers and sisters, the brighter and clearer the path for us all."
A Gift For Irish Day
| Posted on March 17, 2018 at 11:55 PM |
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A Gift For Irish Day (even though it is the 18th) (Hmm... and the font isn't green)
You know the little pickling spice packet that comes with the corned beef? I save it for another time on 3/17.
My mother threw corned beef into one big pot, threw the spice packet in and filled it all the way with water. Later when it was right, she added the cabbage, then the potatoes. Did it myself for years: never fails to be delicious.
One year, I looked up a recipe for the spices themselves and found this one. If you try it, the corned beef will be completely different, a homemade taste because you're doing it from scratch.
The only thing I left out is cardamon: I don't have any. But it doesn't matter much: it is so amazing even without it:
I used 1/2 teaspoon each in equal proportions except where mentioned, but you can make it more or less seasoned to taste (just keep everything equal that should be):
DILL SEED, BLACK PEPPERCORNS WHOLE, ALLSPICE BERRIES WHOLE, CORIANDER, DRY MUSTARD, CELERY SEED (MUST BE SEED), GARLIC POWDER, GREEN CARDAMOM PODS CRUSHED (or if powder throw in a pinch),
A PINCH OF POWDERED CLOVE LIKE 1/8 TEASPOON, 1 LARGE BAY LEAF, 1 SMALL CINNAMON STICK
One More Story in the City of Stories
| Posted on December 17, 2017 at 10:40 AM |
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In "The Bar," Story #4 from "Songs to New York," Timothy's grandmother relates her finding a sprig of eucalyptus, long ago, on the floor at the Imperial Theater during Ethel Merman's performance of "Annie Get Your Gun." She has kept it through the years, and shows it to Timothy, telling him it represents healing to the cities and their inhabitants.
It is based upon the sprig of eucalyptus I found as a child in the lobby of one of the Lincoln Center halls during a concert; which I kept in my bureau drawer.
This morning, I stepped out of my Brooklyn apartment to pick up the Sunday News and a few groceries at the bodega next door. On the sidewalk was a large sprig of eucalyptus made of plastic and spray-painted in gold. Not giving away my age or anything (smile), this would be c. 53 years later. One more of thousands of stories in the city of story.
New Author Interview for The Geyser Girl
| Posted on December 13, 2017 at 12:35 AM |
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This is the link for Author Jessica Scott's recent interview of me, in which we discuss The Geyser Girl of Yellowstone Park, how I brought this baby to the birth after a long-ago conception!
http://www.jessicascottauthor.com/?p=542
Thanksgiving Day Year-Round
| Posted on December 11, 2017 at 4:50 PM |
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Hello, All!
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I am thankful for friends as you, who take time out of your busy lives to visit: Many thanks!
I am thankful for the angels, 2-footed and 4-footed, who bring love, light and joy into the lives of others. Meeting them is receiving royalty. Emanating them is 'setting the lamp upon the lampstand.'
I am also thankful to be a New Yorker, born in Manhattan's New York Hospital when it was considerably smaller than now. After spending my first two years in Jackson Heights, Queens, I grew up in Yonkers, and then my family and I moved further upstate.
I did not miss New York, not right away, not consciously. But the recurring dreams I described in Story 4, "The Bar," are those I experienced in real life, living c. 75 miles from Manhattan. Like Timothy Green, I did not understand why I kept dreaming about subways, buses, high-rises and barriers preventing my return to the city who is written upon my heart.
There is one exception: the dream about the bar itself, I had after I returned home to New York. Every description in the story is as accurate as I can remember, including the woman who approached me outside the bar questioning the meaning of life and love, up to the sun and white mist streaming through the windows. (After that point, I expanded the storyline.) To this day, I do not know why I dreamed it. Did I comb Broadway in the Upper West Side in search of the bar? Oh, yeah.
Speaking of Second Chances
| Posted on February 27, 2017 at 12:20 AM |
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WOW! An astonishing glimpse into The Mind of God. Was reading an article quoting Colossians 3:10: "And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." And something touched my heart and mind concerning that 2-syllable word: "renew." Why "renew?" Because, renewing something or someone implies a past existence. A baby is born new. Not renewed.
I looked the word up in the dictionary and it does imply a former state, a restoring to a former state. So... if we were born in imperfection, what former state is Colossians speaking about?
It is this:
GOD is Love. HE loves His people so much, that when He looks at us, He sees who we would have been if we had been born perfect, if none of this mess had happened on this planet. HE sees us as we were, virtually, in perfection. And through Christ, by HIS Spirit, HE raises us to that level one step at a time unto HIS perfect kingdom.
If that isn't love, I don't have a clue what is.
Home to Roost
| Posted on December 30, 2016 at 7:00 PM |
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Howdy, Folks! Happy, Happy New Year.
Well, in case you didn't know, this city gal with the Western heart is still a city gal. So, in honor of my first home, New York City, I've
returned to an old manuscript, Copyright 1995, which I shelved until I felt ready to do it justice. It's a book of ten stories about
miraculous events in the lives of everyday people like me. I've nicknamed it: "Tales from the Bright Side (as opposed to that
wonderful "Dark Side" TV series)." So... what happens in 21 years' time? These stories I worked on during my lunch breaks as a
Postal clerk, some of them on the overnight shift? A lot of hard labor. Every word needs weighing. It has to count. It's amazing to
learn how I've matured as a writer and editor. It will take time, all of it precious like the polished gems I intend to set in print. It was
188 pages. Now it's 181. And I've just started. Now don' feel sad, Lil' Darlin's: my heart has a permanent reservation west of here: no
changing' that. But I've come home to roost.
