Stone Warm

by Gail Balentine

She bought it because a gargoyle’s face, while ugly to some, was a collection of character lines etched by the chisel of experience to her. Similar creatures have observed men and their habits for centuries. They did double duty on towering churches like Notre Dame in Paris. They scared off evil spirits and acted as downspouts for rainwater.

         She placed it on that small, empty table on her porch right beside the front door and smiled at the idea of scaring off evil spirits and maybe a salesman or two. Added bonuses were that the stone did not need to be watered, did not complain of the heat or cold, and provided a unique conversation piece. What more could one ask of a small statue?

         Somehow, though, as the months passed and it sat there, listening when she groaned about the weather or muttered about dragging her tired butt off to work, the stone seemed to absorb warmth. Then, at the end of one particularly grueling work day, she retrieved the mail, looked down at the statue, and began talking to it. “Let’s see - two ads, two bills and the 27th L.L. Bean catalog so far this year. What do you think of that, eh?” She paused for a response - maybe a raspy chuckle? - but even when she got nothing back she noticed that her step was a little lighter as she went into the house.

         It went along like this until one day when she and her mother were sitting on the front steps and her mother suggested it was time to get rid of “that ugly little rock”. She started to respond but quickly stopped, suddenly realizing that her gargoyle had, somewhere along the way, gone from an “it” to a “friend” in her mind. She wasn’t sure when or how it had happened but she felt it. She hugged her mother and said: “He’s with me and he’s staying.” Her mother recognized the tone and said no more. To make up for the gaffe, that winter a knitted scarf for the creature appeared and they both laughed as she tied it around his oddly shaped neck.

         These days, as she talks to him on her way in and out of the house, she also pats his head. For outdoor parties she highlights him by placing a lantern containing a lit candle beside him; and when the weather turns bad she moves him back a little or brings him inside for protection.

         Her little scarf-draped stone man who quietly sits and listens but never questions, complains, or demands provides a quiet, pleasant moment in her busy life. What more could one ask of a friend?

*****

English Class

by Terri McFadden

The English language is marvelous to behold. The vocabulary, at perhaps 750,000 words, is the largest of any language. Although its root Anglo-Saxon is firmly Germanic, Latin, French, Spanish, Old Norse and ancient Greek all have contributed to its development. Much of the change from Anglo-Saxon to Old English in the early centuries came from war and conquest. The Viking invasions of England in the 9^th century simplified and merged Old Norse and Anglo-Saxon, as fighting changed to settlement. In 1066 the Normans brought their version of French to “Angle-land”, becoming the language of the upper classes. We have beef from the French boeuf to talk about the food on the table. We don’t say we eat cow, for that was an English word for the animal on the hoof – lower class labor versus upper class dining. These distinctions would have been obvious centuries ago. Time has blunted and blurred and we simply accept vocabulary and usage.

Conquests of a different sort can be seen as technology advances and in turn changes how we speak. The rapid changes are obvious to those of us born in the mid-twentieth century. Although we still ‘dial’ to make a phone call, rotary dials are long-gone. People still read the paper in the morning, even if they are looking at a screen. Many words have come into the language in the past 50 years, as a result of the quick change of technology – video, internet and e-mail are all relatively new additions to the language.

The rapid addition of words is nothing new for English. Five hundred years ago a similar technological revolution changed how we speak. Over time these changes have become obscure. It’s fascinating to see how words used in printing became integral to English.

The European invention of the printing press transformed western societies. (Moveable type was invented in Asia many years earlier.) Prior to Johannes Gutenberg’s invention of moveable metal type, few books were published. Those that were published were written for scholars and generally in Latin. After 1440, printing presses spread rapidly all over Europe, enabling the mass production of books and other written material. The press encouraged the use of native languages, pushed middle class education and the ability to read.

What is fascinating is how the language of the printing press itself became part of spoken and written English. The wooden frame that held moveable type is a phrase, from a Greek word meaning speech. Eventually the word became used to mean a brief expression containing a single idea. If you’re clever enough you can quoin (coin) a phrase. The quoin was a metal device that tightened the phrase in place. Completed sentences were put into a chase. When it was time to print, it was time to cut to the chase – which in time came to mean get to the point. The printer hoped to make a good impression on the paper, and we hope our first impression is a good one. The synonyms, stereotype and cliché, are printer’s terms from English and French. They refer to frequently used phrases kept at the printer’s disposal so that he didn’t have to keep setting them in type. They came to be used to depict conventional, rather than creative, ideas. Mind your p’s and q’s is quaint term that was a staple of child rearing for generations. The term came to mean be on your best behavior or be careful of what you do, because in the printer’s tray the ‘p’ and the ‘q’ were next to each other, look alike and were easy to mix up.

Technology today is changing our world as fast or faster than the world of the 15^th century. We can only imagine what today’s words will come to mean as our amazing language absorbs and redefines, just as it has done for all its history.

Calling All Writers

We are now accepting submissions to our weekly blog!

Guidelines

Genre: Fiction, Poetry, Memoir, Essay

Length: 600 words or less

Send to: winterstreetwriters5@gmail.com

Submissions must be sent in the body of an email or attached as a word document. 

We are accepting original and unpublished work, however,

 copyright and publications rights will remain with the writer.

Should your piece be selected you will be contacted and given a date for publication.

All pieces published to our blog will become part of our archives.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Journey to Journaling

by Beth Alexander Walsh

I wasn’t much of a journal or diary person when I was younger. My writing as a child consisted mostly of poetry and stories. I think I steered clear of journaling mostly out of fear that someone else would read my thoughts. What would my mother think after stumbling upon my secrets? Would my older brother relentlessly tease me about my musings or even worse share with his friends? My fear of course was unwarranted. My thoughts as a child were innocent, and I wish I had put them to paper as evidence of my perspective back then. My teenage years were full of rebellion and mistakes and my mother would have been apoplectic had she been able to read all about the shenanigans I pulled with my friends. Still I wish I had written about that time in my life and the feeling of fearless invincibility one day to be followed by unrelenting doubt the next. Later as an adult I would journal in fits and starts, never really committing to the process, mimicking unfulfilled New Year’s resolutions. I even purchased a five- year journal where I had to complete one line per day only to have weeks (and sometimes months) of blank pages. Any notebook I had after that was filled with random thoughts and ideas.

Last year I stumbled upon Bullet Journals on the internet and purchased my first book. I bought the necessary pens, stickers and stencils to make it fun and appeal to both the writer and crafter in me. I have been active in journaling ever since and have started my second book in the new year. My bullet journal is a combination daily calendar and task manager. Every month starts with a page that contains something positive done and something to be grateful for each day. I have a page keeping track of all the books and authors I have read with a reading goal of thirty books for 2019. I have pages with dream destinations, restaurants to try, goals for the year and 30-minute jobs around the house that I can proudly cross off when completed. There are lists for holiday parties, gifts and vacations that I can refer back to. My day to day calendar consists mostly of to do lists, but also becomes the place where I paste concert tickets, stickers and post cards of places I have been. I, of course, have a large section that I use for writing ideas and another for our Winter Street Writers group. At the end of every month, I take a moment to reflect on those pages to be grateful for all the positive things that have happened and maybe learn from the not so positive. Preparing my journal for the next month opens up new possibilities. What will be written in all those blank spaces? In essence my bullet journal has become the book of Beth; a place that is only for and about me. It has been a great tool for accomplishment but more importantly a chance at self-reflection.