Random Connect Points:
Reba's Stories

Today is the 14th anniversary of our “Gotcha Day” with our much loved Dixie. We had her in our lives for almost ten years. She loved riding in the convertible, hanging at the beach, sneaking into the kitchen trash can and sleeping on the furniture. But most of all she loved her people. We miss her every day but she taught us that beloved dogs don’t die, they just give our hearts more room to love another.  Read my tribute to Dixie here.

I started the year trying to resume the discipline of keeping a handwritten journal. This process of deliberately writing by hand has reminded me how it so often results in a flow that’s very different from writing using a keyboard. Research abounds about how hand-writing spurs creativity and encourages memory paths in ways writing using a keyboard doesn’t.  This Fast Company article  references  research that  says p ressing a key doesn’t stimulate brain pathways the same way writing by hand does. “It’s possible that there’s not the same connection to the emotional part of the brain when people type, as opposed to writing in longhand.” This got me to thinking about a poem I’d written several years ago  about writing by hand . Normally I don’t write poetry, but it just kind of flowed out of me in a writer’s workshop. On the first day of the workshop, the instructor said we would be writing by hand. Write with a pen? On paper? Surely, you’re kidding, I thought. I...

It felt awkward in my hand like what I wrote had to be right the first time. Doesn’t everything have to be right the first time? Scribbling with the pen is messy I can’t fix what I get wrong A drop from my tea cup smears the ink a bit It’s messy What if I think of a better way to say it? I can’t delete it once it’s there How do I fix it without being messy? My head goes faster than my hand can write I can’t keep up It's getting messy What if I miss words or lose them to another random thought It’s messy Words are now tumbling too fast Fingers with the pen can’t keep up It's messy My fingers get a little tired from the pen There’s a ridge on my finger It looks messy from leaking purple ink Writing becomes illegible scribble I’m getting lost in this stuff that’s tumbling out It’s getting really messy Ink shows thru from the other side of the page Makes it hard to read through that mess This doesn’t happen with keys It’s ...