Where do stories come from?
Rosemary: Antioxidant, immune system booster.
Thyme: Fights colds and flu, immune system support.
The title for the short story “Rosemary’s Thyme” in my book “Roads Unravelling” was inspired by my love of herbs. On my daily walks along the river, I noticed something growing in the eaves trough of an old house by the shore. I began to imagine the kind of character who might pick that unusual spot for a garden on purpose. A quirky grandmother emerged in my mind’s eye, but her granddaughter, Rosemary, quickly elbowed her way to the front of the stage.
It’s sad to see the garden disappear as the last of the leaves fall from the trees. But I still enjoy the harvest through the winter via the herbs I gathered and dried in the fall: Bee Balm, cat mint, lavender, thyme, sage, mint. There’s nothing nicer than catching a whiff of a dish in the slow cooker seasoned with fresh herbs:
Stuff a small roasting chicken with:
2 garlic cloves
3 sprigs of rosemary
1 lemon sliced
Place breast down over 3 cubed potatoes and 4 cubed carrots in a slow cooker. Cook on low 6-8 hours until juices run clear.
It’s interesting that cat mint, which gets our feline friends revved up, has the opposite effect on humans. In fact, Herb of Herb’s Herb Farm in Cambridge Narrows, tells me that just stripping cat mint leaves off the stalks for drying puts his wife to sleep. Nature’s remedies are full proof.
Starting in December, I’ll be posting excerpts from some of the stories in “Roads Unravelling” starting with “Rosemary’s Thyme.” So fill up the slow cooker, sit back in your favourite chair and enjoy.
The Power of One
I am pondering the power of one woman writer to make a difference in the world. Are words truly mightier than the proverbial sword?
Eve Ensler, the creator of The Vaginal Monologues, is continuing her work with rape victims in the Congo. Her organization V-Day, in conjunction with Unicef, has organized a platform for women in over 90 villages to come and speak about what has happened to them. They have given these women a voice, a venue to use words to shape this horrific experience, forcing men, the officials and the international community to hear and acknowledge and act so that irrevocable change can occur.
For more information on V-Day:
http://www.vday.org/contents/drcongo
Here are Eve Ensler’s impressions after a visit to the Congo in August of 2007:
http://www.glamour.com/magazine/2007/08/rape-in-the-congo
The Globe and Mail published an article on the conflict Saturday. Sadly, little has changed since 2007:
October 18, 2008
KANIOLA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — In Kaniola, they have coined a new term: reviolé.
Re-raped.
At the Catholic parish office, on the cramped and crowded ledger pages where they list rape victims, at least half the names appear more than once: women who have been victims of sexual enslavement or public gang rape by rebel groups or the Congolese army; women, 30 in an average month, who have come to the parish to get help reaching a hospital to repair their injuries; women who have been healed, come home and a year or two or three later, been gang-raped again, during another small surge of the conflict.
The youngest victim on the list is 6. The oldest is 74.
To read more:
Is a wet blanket haunting your writing?
All the writers who’ve attended my retreat Answering The Call, know I’m an avid fan of Julia Cameron’s Artist Way books. Her writing never fails to ground me when I become overly anxious about the creative process. I used to lug a ton of her books there in a duffle bag and hole up with a fistful of pens, hot green tea, Paula Red apples and reams of foolscap. Let the Shadows Fall Behind You was birthed in a tiny unadorned room containing a single bed at the end of a silent hall on the second floor. A statue of the Virgin Mary stood outside the door, which I found comforting when one of the nuns who runs the Villa told us it was haunted. I spent hours propped against pillows gazing out the window that overlooked an ancient evergreen, whose dark branches slowly rose to the foreground, gaining inky definition each night as the sun slipped behind the hills.
Last week I met with my friend Sara to talk about getting together after Christmas to discuss Walking in the World one of Julia’s new books, as we each start a new project. The novel I’m writing now is set in the 1930’s and, of course, the critic inside my head keeps harping that I shouldn’t be writing about an era of history I didn’t actually live in, and that I’ll probably get it all wrong. Coffee with Sara was just the spark I needed to accept that voice and get back to the drawing board anyway.
Do you have a wet blanket haunting your writing? If so, you might enjoy this snippet on YouTube of Julia Cameron speaking at Wisdom House February of last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__0XbfkOXVc
Good-bye wet blanket.
Best
Kathy-Diane
