Ekphrastic Mama, Author at Ekphrastic Mama - Page 3 of 8

Ekphrastic Mama

15 Posts Back Home

I am the mother of three daughters, each born in a different decade, and three sons in a somewhat closer clump. One "hub" hold us together. This is not what passes for wise family planning in American culture, but as the beat poet Alice Notley wrote, “I didn’t plan my pregnancies. I’m an experimentalist.” When I was writing Ekphrastic Mama for Mothers Creating/Writing Lives: Motherhood Memoir, I took stock of our family span: with one child married, one in college, one in high school, one in junior high, an elementary schooler, a toddler, and now a grandbaby, I was experiencing all phases of motherhood simultaneously. Years later I'm still experimenting with ekphrasis- art that speaks out- and hoping to inspire others in their writing ventures.

Celebrating Birth-days

Writing & Motherhood May 1, 2022

You celebrate your children’s birthdays, your husband’s, and your own birthday, but do you also celebrate you on the day you gave birth? I do. Which means I have 6 extra birth-days a year, and I deserve a bit of celebration myself on every one of them. 15 years ago today I gave birth to child #6 (not in my plans, but then neither was #1, or #5, all girls by the way; the ones we planned turned out to be boys…) I was 47. We went dancing that weekend, because, why not celebrate? And get this party started! Our oldest daughter was pregnant with our first grandchild, who was born five months later. She went dancing with us that night. Today, on the day I gave birth to my third daughter, I celebrated with a spa-bath (triangular tub, lavendar bath salts, time to relax and breathe deep), in the…

Interviews and Other Views

Writing April 28, 2022

Women-On-Writing’s Renee Roberson asked some fun questions that made me think about ekphrasis, the writing process, and the novel I’m working on. They do this when you win a story award. Take a quick break and enjoy The Muffin, with coffee or tea, and me! https://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2022/04/interview-with-lori-lynn-greenstone.html

Things You Might Miss

Adventure Mom February 14, 2022

about your partner… It’s inevitable, I suppose, after being married a certain and very large number of years, like 42 or so– your friends start losing their partners in various ways… They’ve tossed or replaced them, and some have died. So you start thinking of what you might miss about your own partner. I start with his arms around me, the way our bodies, somewhat similar in height, meet each other on equal ground, wrap around, fit together. His stomach at 63 is still flat, almost concave on some days when he doesn’t remember how much food he actually needs… My stomach has no such issues, having housed six children (not in my stomach exactly, I know), and often thinking about the next food fix, but I tend toward not allowing myself to fill out too much so we still fit together well. After this many years, I’m thankful he…

creative process & giraffes

The Laughing Giraffe Draft

Writing February 2, 2022

How an art installation can help you trust your creative process- Do you ever get a vision of something you’d like to create but don’t know the process that might turn your idea into a reality? I envisioned a life-size giraffe grazing on the tree tops in my yard, a spirit animal* with a whimsical neck and winsome body. When we moved from southern California to the Pacific Northwest, where forests meet yards, even in housing developments, I thought about how I might construct one of these stately, elegant creatures to view out my window. The idea first occurred to me when we moved to Bend, Oregon; a local artist constructs larger than life horses from lost and found pieces of metal. My hub was learning to weld so we started collecting rusty objects in hopes of constructing our own sculptures. Collecting and constructing are two different activities; we never…

How Small Prompts Help You Nano

Writing October 27, 2021

And how to use them to keep the story flowing If you write with random prompts, or have, you are probably already a believer- this is the way; write in it. But even a believer falls by the wayside, forgets what tips and tricks have helped them in the past, and resorts to staring at the page or writing what turn out to be dull prose lacking the magic. How to get the magic back? Prompts- but what kind? from where?… I take phrases or words from books I’m reading, the stuff that jumps out at me since I read like the writer I am- looking for anything I can use, anything at all that will move my own story down the finish lane. Where to get the best prompts Currently I keep returning to a little known novel I find fascinating: The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre about how…

Ekphrastic Mama meets Mama Matanuska

Adventure Mom June 5, 2021

Like a huge bird our airplane touches down on the tarmac and soon makes a turn–we are here in Cordova, Alaska, turning away from the mountains and rivers so immense it tries the mind, taking in this northern tundra from above–what specks we are, yearning for meaning, traveling at high speeds, and covering so much ground in a day that we may never catch up with ourselves. Next stop Yakutat; just for fun, the milk-run flight. Grounded for 45 minutes my mind turns back to home where a small urn sits on a shelf with all that is left to me of my mother, but once was arms and legs leading to toes turned into appendages from tadpole-like little pieces inside her mother, my grandmother. As we take to the air again, the image takes shape like a plane ride, the kind that turns upside down and right-side-up again just…

A New Thought for Today

Adventure Mom May 14, 2021

I have lots of old thoughts that circulate regularly so when a new thought flits by I notice it and see if it’s one I want to keep. Today’s thought, early on this Sunday morning Mother’s Day, was about privilege, a hot topic and one I’ve been entertaining in new ways. This new thought took me by surprise, as new thoughts often do, being new. It was a privilege to be my mother’s daughter. Many of you might think these kinds of thoughts quite often; I confess that I haven’t had a lot of thoughts like this, but the thought seemed beautiful to me. I decided it could stay, that I would like to think this way more. It is a thought that serves me well. After it came another I liked equally well, maybe even better: It’s a privilege to be a mother of my three daughters (three sons…

Having a blast hiking at Beacon Rock on Mother's Day with daughter #3

A New Thought for Today

Motherhood May 10, 2021

I have lots of old thoughts that circulate regularly so when a new thought flits by I notice it and see if it’s one I want to keep. Today’s thought, early on this Sunday morning Mother’s Day, was about privilege, a hot topic and one I’ve been entertaining in new ways. This new thought took me by surprise, as new thoughts often do, being new. It was a privilege to be my mother’s daughter. Many of you might think things like this quite often; I haven’t had a lot of thoughts like this, but the thought seemed beautiful to me. I decided it could stay, that I would like to think this way more. It is a thought that serves me well. After it came another I liked equally well, maybe even better: It’s a privilege to be a mother of my three daughters (three sons too, but today, as…

Lore- the gift

The Embossed Journal

Writing January 24, 2021

In the mail today a gift arrived, wrapped and tied up with a silky ribbon, a leather-bound journal with a name on it—Lore. It differs from my given name by only one letter, but somehow this e in place of the i makes all the difference— Lore embossed in gold on soft, sumptuous leather so beautiful I’m afraid to write in it. A sea of fears swims beneath the act of writing. I explore these fears, along with their attendants– procrastination and overwhelm– in my journals. How and why they persist this far into the journey makes for messy writing, but I’m making progress. However, I don’t want to make a mess of this beautiful new journal. Generally, I buy spiral-bound notebooks on clearance and cover their bright college-rule colors and info with bits of collage. Or I find cut-rate journals at stores like Home Goods and Ross so that…

Walking Away

Adventure Mom November 20, 2020

Small plane goes off runway and crashes in San Diego County; pilot walks away. https://www.newsbreak.com/california/fallbrook/news/2101199393210/small-plane-goes-off-runway-and-crashes-in-san-diego-county-pilot-is-able-to-walk-away?s=oldSite&ss=a3 My friend sends me this snippet on e-mail, a thin connection to our past lives from ten years ago when I lived in the village near the runway where the small plane went off and a man walked away. Later, this morning when I am out running—a carpe diem act done during a break in the frequent PNW rain—that runway unfurls itself in front of me, my steps paved by that snippet. A first kiss from my then future hub happened at that airpark where the runway runs short. I hoped to never marry, but I couldn’t pass up someone who kisses like that, beneath low flying planes. Years later, my hub’s father learned to fly, his long-time late-in-life dream launched off the end of that too short runway. At different times, we all went…

Look who's looking at you!

How is NaNo Serving You?

Writing November 6, 2020

At the end of a very interesting first week of NaNo, how are you feeling about your writing? It has been an up-and-down week for me, but it’s ending on a high note. I hope you feel the same. Here are some of the ways I’ve gotten myself back on track when enthusiasm or motivation lagged. First, I looked at my thoughts- what was I telling myself about the writing (and the life going on all around me)? Awareness of my own thoughts, along with knowing that I choose my thoughts has enabled me to 1) accept myself and my thoughts, and 2) choose thoughts that serve me. So, for example, this week when I thought writing was drudgery and the world around me felt like a mess of uncertainty and upheaval, I acknowledged that sometimes life just feels that way. Actually, we have negative thoughts about 50% of the…

Make Nanowrimo Work for You

Writing October 14, 2020

NaNoWriMo has been part of our family vocabulary since 2009 when two of our sons, ages 12 and 15, each wrote 50K+ novels while schooling from home. I was finishing an M.A. in Lit./Writing at the time, with no spare moments to craft a novel, which made me envious. Since then I’ve done NaNo off and on with limited success (and created a version for memoir- MaMoMeMo- May is Motherhood Memoir Month… http://mamomemo.com/2018/04/welcome/, a place where you set your own goals…). None of the novel messes I’ve generated during NaNo have become what I’d call a finished novel; think of a ball of yarn, 50K yards of it, in need of serious untangling. It’s easier to start fresh with new material. When I’m a slave to word count, I churn out an ugly mess, though I do make some interesting discoveries. And I hone the habit of putting words on…

The Daughter of 21 Years Ago

Writing & Motherhood June 15, 2020

I have three daughters, born in three different decades, all with the same father, but very different from each other, if for no other reason than they were each born in essentially separate generations. Each daughter thinks she had a different upbringing than her sisters, and I suppose that’s true. In fact, the youngest one never lived with the oldest. And the middle one never lived in the house or state where the youngest one has spent most of her life. And we are different parents in our 60s than we were in our 20s, with better resources, but also more challenges, like a pandemic. On birthdays, the daughters often compare gifts–what they remember of the gifts they got at the same age. It’s mostly done with a good bit of fun. The daughter who is 21 today is sure the youngest has gotten more than she did at her…

In the Midst of Chaos, a Sacred Moment

Writing May 31, 2020

I was out walking on a trail near our house this morning, putting one foot in front of the other, when I looked up and saw four sets of big eyes looking back at me. A small herd of young bucks stood less than 20 feet away. I came to a slow stop and said a hushed hello. They stared, alert. I stared, in awe. Below and behind them the Columbia River flowed to the sea. Above us a hawk circled. My step count stayed where it was for over ten minutes while I watched them watching me, their short sets of antlers looking fuzzy and harmless. Earlier, a former co-worker’s post on Facebook convinced me that I should watch the footage of George Floyd’s death. I couldn’t get past the first time he said he couldn’t breathe. I know he calls out for his mother, and as a mother…