This
meme was started by Delores a long time ago. Computer issues led her
to bow out for a while. The meme was too much fun to let go, and now
Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a
movable feast.
Essentially
the aim is to encourage us to write. Each week we are given a choice
of prompts: which can be words, phrases, music or an image. What we
do with those prompts is up to us: a short story, prose, a song, a
poem, or treating them with ignore... We can use some or all of the
prompts, and mixing and matching is encouraged.
Some
of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on
their own blog. I would really like it if as many people as possible
joined into this fun meme, which includes cheering on the other participants. If you are posting on your own blog - let me know so that I, and other participants, can come along and applaud.
This week's prompts are:
- Meet
- Glimpses
- Apples
- Taste
- Memory
- Garden
And/or
- Letters
- Year
- Marvellous
- Ways
- Mother
- Shadow
Have fun.
That first batch is really good. I can see many coming from that selection. Well done, Hilary.
ReplyDeleteHi Alex - mine were for July ... these delightful ones are from EC ... lovely choices - cheers Hilary
DeleteThe Original Dating Ad: Hi ladies! Like my garden? I do manscape just for you! See my rib cage? I take panoramic picture of it for you on my stg pro processing Imac smart camera phone with 5G mega broadbandwidth storage unit. Meet me for glimpses so I can taste your apples after we meet. I cannot grope them before. LOL. I so funny. Find me and we make...memory.
ReplyDeleteHi Robyn ... I sure hope there's someone out there who'll find you - and you can make memory! Great fun to read ... thank you - Hilary
DeleteThat's quite an ad! Well done.
DeleteRawknrobyn: Brilliant. I can just picture him - and wonder just how many apples he gets to grope.
DeleteWell done. I'd be running a mile from that ad.
DeleteXO
WWW
Thanks for indulging my silliness, EC and friends. My apples are pretty big and droopy, but there's only two. Hilary, fortunately, I don't have to read these ads any more. My man has a well taken care of garden too. =)
DeleteLOL, like WWW this add would send me running, but it's well written!
DeletePeople with multitudes of letters after their name tell us that apples come from Kazakhstan and by the year 1500 BC had spread across Europe. Ancient Romans grew them, as did the ancient Greeks. Thousands of years later, and half a world away so did Lisa’s mother.
ReplyDeleteOh, the memories… Crisp, sweet and delicious. Lisa loved them in so many ways. Dried, stewed or baked into marvellous pies. There were at least two apple trees in her mother’s garden but she and her brothers ignored them. A near neighbour’s tree was their preferred scrumping target and they went there often. They thought that they tasted best in the early morning so many of the raids were before breakfast, when much of the tree was still in shadow. The poor woman who owned that tree rarely got any of her own fruit. She saw glimpses of the thieves, but they were quick. And shameless. With the hindsight of years I hope that she and Lisa’s mother came to some arrangement, and perhaps she was given some of the apples rejected from Lisa’s trees. Or the other fruit and vegetables that packed the garden. No parent had trouble at all in getting their children to meet the five a day target for fruit and vegetables. Fruit and vegetables that tasted sooo much better than anything we can buy today.
Wonderful entry EC - and fun to have the history of apples ... and then moving on to the way we use apples today, and the way kids dance around the fences to pinch an apple or two. But I can only agree about how much nicer fruits and veg taste straight from the garden ... cheers and thank you for lovely selections - Hilary
DeleteYou've reminded me of Sweetie's story of the man up the road who had two watermelon patches. The large one was the selling patch, and the small one he called his stealing patch. He knew boys love "stolen" watermelon, so he obliged them with their own patch and they obliged him by sticking to it.
DeleteYou've created a wonderful world for a growing child in this story.
Lovely, Sue.
DeleteOh, the apples in neighbour's garden! ;-)
And now you've got me hankering for apple pie;) Well done;)
DeleteWell done with the prompts; and so true about the produce. Nothing tastes better than "fresh from the garden". (Or "stolen from the garden" if you're a kid.) ;-)
DeleteYes pilfered fruits tasted better than your own. But as everybody had apple trees, and everybody pilfered apples, I think it ended up quite fair. Only exception to this rule was a pear tree, the only one in the neighbourhood, and closely watched!
DeleteOh, and 'scrumping' is the right word for what we did. Thanks for a new word!
DeleteMaybe the kids' mother made a pie and sent it to the neighbour. Scrumping the apples sounds like tasting forbidden fruit.
ReplyDeleteHi David - true to life ... and scrumping is always fun ... cheers Hilary
DeleteNicely done! I just don't have it in me!
ReplyDeleteJenn Jilks: Thanks for visiting - despite not feeling ready to play.
DeleteWell done EC, and thanks for the history lesson. I scrumped in my own time, it was all in the excitement of trying not to get caught.
DeleteXO
WWW
I was munching on apples in the memory garden hoping for glimpses of, or maybe even meet a few, residents to get a taste of the afterlife.
ReplyDeleteHi Mike - oh what fun this would be if it was possible - excellent idea to write about ... cheers Hilary
DeleteGlorious!
DeleteAn early taste would pique the curiosity.
DeleteMike: This is one of your best. I can just see it.
DeleteSue - You're not going to take that back after the rabbit joke are you? Should I copy it for future proof? Who knew someone would know what myxomatosis was?! 😬
DeleteMike: Of course I am not going to take it back.
DeleteBoth sets here: 2nd one ...
ReplyDeleteMy mother's letters were always full of joy and happiness about each marvellous year she lived … now I am following her ways – yet feel I fall into her shadow.
1st set:
My heart was pumping … but he was where we'd arranged to meet .. and through the hedge we could glimpse all the apples on their trees.
We only wanted one or two, to savour their taste as we lingered happily together in the garden.
Thanks EC - lovely words thankyou ... cheers Hilary
Having such letters would be a treasure.
DeleteHilary Melton-Butcher: I love both sets. And so understand about feeling that you fall into your mother's shadow.
DeleteNothing against your second set which is the first, Hilary, but my number one is the first which became the second.
DeleteLovely.
Thank you Hilary for reminding me of my special box and my mother's wonderful letters contained therein. Lovely use of the words.
DeleteXO
WWW
I have to admit ... I'd love to have 'those letters' I wrote about - but that's the way life falls - we end up making our own memories.
DeleteSean - thanks for that ... probably some memories from 'centuries'!! ago ...
WWW - so pleased I reminded you of that precious box - you are lucky to have them ...
Thanks - Hilary
Thank you, i'm working on it.
ReplyDeletemessymimi: I look forward to seeing where they take you.
DeleteThe words fit into a bit about my girls and the dogs.
DeleteThe letters sent by Mother shed some light on the marvellous shadow looming before me, which I now have to decipher right a ways to remove before the year is out.
ReplyDeleteSpacerGuy: Thank you for joining us. Oooh a mystery. I wonder what is casting that marvellous shadow.
DeleteGood luck! Good start of a story.
DeleteThat was close! Only four words more than Mike. ;-)
DeleteHi SpacerGuy - how lovely a mystery - will we hear more? Cheers Hilary
DeleteSitting in the garden, a pen resting between finger and thumb, Mother Memory let him meet his very first love. Oh, the taste of her lips! Sweeter than the sweetest apples. What a marvellous year.
ReplyDeleteSmilingly he tries to return into the realm of letters. Time to find ways and means to round off his story. The shadow of the deadline glimpses round the corner, Sean!
May the memories suggest a happy ending.
DeleteSean Jeating: Mother Memory is a seductress. I wonder whether that deadline will be met, or whether the byways of memory will triumph...
DeleteAh, a newspaper always gets done. Time pressure and adrenaline rush will ensure that the deadline is met.
DeleteI like thinking of him in the garden with the pen and the memory of her lips. Well done.
DeleteXO
WWW
Hi Sean - well done ... definitely evocative memories and then that worry about the deadline looming ahead ... I feel those too. Cheers H
DeleteYuck, deadlines! Always ruining our precious moment., I hope he meets it.
DeleteSixty some odd years ago her memory brought her back to the taste of many a tart crabapple she picked off the trees in the parkway which divided two way traffic. Crabapples were nothing like store bought apples; they were smaller and oh so crisp and tart. Now in her latter years she was sure crabapples would make good pies since they wouldn't be too sweet. In her mind's eye she caught glimpses of the huge spreading crabapples in the Spring, promising their Autumn bounty. She was lucky enough to have a beautiful white flowering crabapple in her garden now and she had planted a companion nearby with pink flowers. Soon the two crabapples would intermingle with the bounty of their blooms and fruit ensuring she'd never be far from her childhood memories so long ago.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
DeleteLinda Starr: I love it - and still mourn a crab apple that someone in our street attacked with a chainsaw.
DeleteCrabapple jelly (with cloves) is a strong memory from childhood. Used on roast pork. And yes, the flowers were something to behold and smell in the spring.
DeleteXO
WWW
Crab apples ... oh the memories - and I'm so glad ours were never cut down like EC's happy memories - apple pies, jellies etc: especially now Autumn is getting nearer ... cheers Hilary
DeleteApple blossoms are the very best. Good for her and well told.
DeleteGreat words, EC, I'm afraid I went to the dark side with them and I used them all.
ReplyDelete---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mother was just a dim shadow now for it had been close on ten years since she disappeared. He’d catch glimpses of her now and again in the apple orchard. But he thought it was wishful thinking from his memory.
It was their special place, in the spring with the heady smell of blossoms, in the summer when they would monitor the growth of the fruit and in the fall when they would harvest bushels and sell them by the side of the road outside the small farm.
She always took her time, picking the first perfect one for him to taste.
He had a few letters, post marked New York of all places. But they, too, had stopped. They were worn thin as a cobweb from his handling.
He was twenty now, ten when she left. Papa never answered his questions as to why there were far too many whys around her vanishing. So many ways they could have looked for her but didn’t.
Ten years, he thought, it had taken him him this long to add up all that had been staring him in the face.
The terrible fights, the fact she hadn’t taken the car ten miles away to he railway station but had walked in the hot sun, the fact her closet still held all her clothes along with her suitcase. His father digging way off beyond the garden in the apple orchard after midnight the day of her disappearance, unaware his son was looking down at him from his bedroom window, unaware there was a marvellous full moon overhead.
Papa and his black moods. His silence. His guilt? He took out his cellphone. He’d lay her ghost to rest. He called the police.
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XO
WWW
Wisewebwoman: I hope her ghost can be laid to rest - and that he finds peace. I am wondering about those wafer thin letters too. An accomplice?
DeleteExcellent short story!
DeleteReally well done and sadly probably true for some women.
DeleteEC, yes, I had thought of that but the story became too long in my mind, the envelopes had been opened and he knew he had an aunt in NY, sister of his papa, so years later he calculated his father had removed his aunt's letters and substituted pretend letters from his mother before re-sealing the envelopes.
DeleteXO
WWW
Well, it may be dark, but you did it and very well. C. Lee McKenzie
DeleteHi WWW - that was dark ... and as we know true on occasions ... it's the kids that suffer though ... sad, but sadly occasionally true - well told. Thank you - Hilary
DeleteThis was wonderfully written.
DeleteExcellent, and very sad.
Deleteyes, dark, but well written. I hope for a better future for that poor boy.
DeleteWisewebwoman: Dark but intriguing and you used the prompts so well.
DeleteHave a lovely day.
I totally forgot it is Wednesday and hadn't even thought about the words. Now here I am scribbling them down.
ReplyDeleteRiver: I look forward to seeing on Friday where they have taken you.
DeleteThe stories here are all so good.
ReplyDeleteGood words and stories..
ReplyDeleteMargaret D: Thank you.
DeleteThese prompts are so thoughtful and make a good story. Great job! And LOVE the stories submitted.
ReplyDeleteTeresa
T. Powell Writes @ https://journalingwoman.blogspot.com
Thanks Teresa - I hope you'll join us ...??
DeleteTeresa: This meme is a heap of fun, and I am amazed each week at the stories triggered. I am echoing Hilary and hope you will join us some time.
DeleteHe was an old man now, wise in spirit yet dealing with a body broken by too many dangerous adventures, exciting though they may have been. He wandered through his garden, picking an APPLE from a low branch. He could hardly wait to TASTE it. It brought back MEMORIES of the time he had become hopelessly lost in an unexplored area of Peru, and subsisted on fruit for almost a week, and if there was a larva inside so much the better – a little protein helps the body in so many WAYS. Just a week ago he had read the MARVELLOUS book by Suzanne Simard, “Finding the MOTHER Tree”, codifying what he had known instinctively all his life. He had GLIMPSES of, intimate contact with, ways of life that have subsequently been destroyed by the ravages of so-called progress, a euphemism for greed if ever there was one. It was in the YEAR of the Rat, in southeast China, he got to meet the famous scholar and explorer, whose name now escaped him (English names were hard enough, let alone Chinese names written in Mandarin characters). They corresponded for almost twenty years afterwards, and it was one of the saddest moments of his life when he had to abandon ship in the Indian Ocean due to a fire onboard and there was neither time nor opportunity to retrieve the LETTERS which went to the bottom with all his other possessions. The SHADOWS are lengthening and soon the total darkness will arrive, but there will be no regrets. It has been a life well-lived.
ReplyDeleteOh I'm so sad he lost all those letters. And yes, "progress" is a euphemism for greed. Progress to what I often ask myself when I see the word.
DeleteXO
WWW
Hi David – thanks for the recommendation across the Suzanne Simard's book … I must read it. Fascinating way you've woven the story into China and the high seas when he'd had to abandon ship … losing 'his life' … especially those precious letters.
DeleteAs you mention he's had a good life and that shadow will encompass us all at some stage. Loved this – thank you … cheers Hilary
David M. Gascoigne: I ache that he lost those precious letters and applaud a life well lived. You will be totally unsuprised that I agree with your protagonist (and you) about progress. It too often IS a synonym for greed.
DeleteIt's hard to lose those precious mementos, but in the end it's a life well lived that matters.
DeleteWhen reading [...] the ravages of so-called progress, a euphemism for greed [...]
Delete... immediately I felt reminded of that already as a boy I found the word 'progredi' fascinating because of its three meanings: 1. to go forward, 2. to progress, 3. to go too far, to overshoot.
Just as interesting I found that I was apparently the only one interested in the third meaning.
Thanks for once again a fine read, David.
A well written story of a life lived to the full. I hope he and his mandarin friend meet again and discuss progress beyond the veil.
DeleteShe strolled through the garden, serenity surrounding and welcoming her. The taste of memory and apples on her tongue. Her time was short on this earth. Ere long, she would meet her beloved, catching tantalizing glimpses of what waited for her beyond the veil. "Soon, my darling. Soon."
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by your use of the word "veil" as it is used in Ireland as that area between the living and the dead. A deeply meaningful place.
DeleteXO
WWW
Hi Sandra - yes so true ... we do know what's ahead, when that time is near ... as you say "soon ..." well done - thank you - Hilary
DeleteSandra Cox: This is beautiful. And I love your use of veil.
DeleteBeautifully done.
DeleteBittersweet story, well written!
DeleteSeeing Garden as one of the words. I've lived in the garden too much of late. The battle between me and weeds, well I'm losing. I keep trying, but...tiresome work indeed. My frustration level is growing, and I think my age is showing in the battle.
ReplyDeleteSandy: I hear you. How I hear you - and I need to get out into the garden again soon. Not today. It is raining. Give yourself a break and enjoy all that you have achieved.
DeleteIt's not easy to battle the weeds, i think one friend of mine has given up from what i see in his garden each week.
Deletethe new "wild gardens" movement is your friend!
DeleteWonderful stories here. I have enjoyed all of them.
ReplyDeleteDeniseinVA: I am glad to hear it.
DeleteThanks Sandy and Denise inVA ... glad you've enjoyed participants' stories - cheers Hilary
ReplyDeleteTwo Haiku
ReplyDeleteGlimpses of apples
When we meet in the garden
Taste the memory
and
Letters from Mother
Her ways of light and shadow
A marvelous year
Carol Kilgore: I hope you can hear my applause. Haiku scare me and I love yours.
DeleteThank you. Haiku is my favorite form of poetry.
DeleteLovely!
DeleteCarol Kilgore: Colour me awed.
DeleteWOW!
DeleteCarol - how wonderful to read ... so expressive - thank you - Hilary
DeleteCarol Kilgore: These have lovely imaginary. I like the first one the most.
DeleteHave a lovely day.
The lists are full of endless possibilities. I love the treasure chest of comments. Excellent. Happy IWSG Day!
ReplyDeleteJoylene Nowell Butler: Thank you. You are so right about the treasure chest of comments.
DeleteThere are some interesting flash fiction pieces for these words today!
ReplyDeleteC. Lee McKenzie: There are - which is always true of this meme.
DeleteI hope to provide my WFW on Saturday the 6th of August.
ReplyDeleteGranny Annie: I look forward to that.
DeleteHils, Excellent choice of words. They practically write their own story.
ReplyDelete'Lo, EC.
Sandra. sandracox.blogspot.com
These are EC's words ... mine were last month ... but always fun to see EC's chances ... cheers Hilary
DeleteSorry I'm late. Here is a little haiku:
ReplyDeleteMemory glimpses...
We meet in a lush garden.
Apples taste sin-sweet.
Anstice Brown: I love it, and as I said to Carol Kilgore I am always super impressed at people who can master haiku.
DeleteRe my site, I have a strong malware protection so not sure why it would say it's dangerous, maybe they are talking about me... hahaha
ReplyDeleteaussie aNNie: There are now two blogs that my security system objects to. Sigh.
DeleteNothing wrong with Aussie aNNie's blog, I just checked it out. Just say yes or no to the security thingies, you should be able to override them.
DeleteCharlotte (MotherOwl): My security system hates aussie aNNie's blog - and wiswebwoman's too. I have to jump through rather a lot of hoops to get to either of them.
DeleteI forgot to tell you, but I did get to use the words: Words for Wednesday
ReplyDeleteCharlotte (MotherOwl): I saw them - and delighted in them too.
DeleteHere's my take on the prompts: Fiction: Rent a demon, although it's rather late.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the prompts.
Have a lovely day.