putterings       503   <   504   >   505       index

the pen ran dry; what it said
 

                                        loud above the putt-putt-puttering engine and much too deep   ₁
                                puttering in the backyard, nursing his ferns   ₂   blue.
                        Not much to the patch   ₃
                and no one could read what it said. I don’t even know if I could read it.   ₄
        Oddly, the pen ran
dry; puttering at the tiny sink   ₅
 

sources —

  1.       Just now Baffin’s death weighed heavily. I knew I should tell Adele about it, but I couldn’t bear for her to find me sentimental. Better to stay silent awhile, to keep the memory safe. Be grateful Baffin isn’t suffering, I told myself. I coveted death as much as I feared dying. Too much of a coward for suicide, I wanted to disappear suddenly, irrevocably. This lake could be the perfect exit.

    At the end of our rather short and completely uneventful voyage, the boat bumped against a tire-padded dock. To display my courage, I let Adele disembark first. “See you at 5:30?” our captain inquired, his voice loud above the putt-putt-puttering engine and much too deep for a twelve-year- old.
          “Sure.” I waved casually. “5:30.”
          Cold. Breezy. The afternoon was a different country from this morning. Adele stretched her arms wide as she ran toward the trailhead.

    Valerie Miner. Range of Light (2014) : 111
    google books preview : link
    borrowable at archive.org : link

    from back cover —
    Set in the High Sierra of California, Range of Light is a drama of friendship and memory as rich and intricate as I he landscape of its setting. Adele and Kath are friends from high school uneasily reunited for a week’s hike through the mountains after an estrangement of twenty-five years. On the surface they could not be more different — Adele, a professor of history with a husband and children living on the East coast; Kath, an unemployed community worker, a lesbian caring for her parents in California. Each will complete a transforming odyssey in the suffused and brilliant light of the Sierra. Range of Light is a compelling meditation on friendship, intimacy, and forgiveness.

  2. Cora picked up Ally’s photo album again. She was curious about the way her sister-in-law had ordered tha adult photos. One section on George. One on Ron. And this next section on Pop. Maybe Ally was also puzzled by how their family fit together.
          Anyway, here was Pop — fifteen years ago? — painting the back bedroom. He looked aggravated, tired, in charge. And here was Pop puttering in the backyard, nursing his ferns. Cora turned the page to a photo of him sitting between baby Edie and baby Tommie, darlling little girls. (She had to admit Tommie was a little sullen. Maybe Pop was right about her.) Here was Pop at Mom’s grave: Aunt Min stood stiffly to one side, holding a pot of coral geraniums. Cora paused, thinking she had promised Fran they would drive up to Torrence and visit the graveyard. The next page showed Pop aboard ship: lying on his bunk with a bottle of beer. Standing in the galley with his mates. Posing on deck with an American flag blowing behind him.
          The black coffee was beginning to eat her stomach, so she rummaged around for breakfast. His refrigerator was a dump.

    Valerie Miner. A Walking Fire (1994) : 158
    google books preview : link
    borrowable at archive.org : link

    somewhere described as a “King Lear” story —
    Cora Casey, a Vietnam War protester who left the country, returns home 20 years later. While her brothers fought the war, Cora burned a building and fled to Canada, wanted for arson, an act for which she was disowned by her father. Now he is dying from cancer.

  3. Aside from the gym and work, she sticks close to home, sometimes puttering in her fertile garden when the sky is blue. Not much to the patch, just lettuces, two tomato vines, carrots, onions, peppers, peas, zucchini, and a pot of zinnias. She loves sitting in the shade on hot nights watching ice slowly melting in her lemonade.

    Valerie Miner. “Quiet as the Moon” in Bread and Salt (2020)
    google books preview : link

    Indonesia, and some Bahasa Indonesia juga, muncul dalam cerita ini —
    “I promise to keep a close eye on you from Surabaya, but Abdul needs urgent attention from his malaikat pelindung.”

    There’s a GA (guardian angel) in the story.

  4. Deborah Anna Luepnitz, Schopenhauer’s Porcupines : Intimacy and Its Dilemmas : Five Stories of Psychotherapy (2002) : 48
  5.       Anna was writing a series of sonnets about gardens... Fearful of losing the elusive muse, she kept her eyes on the page. Oddly, the pen ran dry, and as she lifted her head to find another, she noticed Lydia staring into her window as she absently swung the broom back and forth along the basement steps...

          “Right, then, said Anna, taken aback by Lydia’s rudeness, disinterest, shyness. “I’ll just leave the door ajar while I fiddle in the kitchen. Make yourself at home, when’ you’re ready.”
          Puttering at the tiny sink, she was struck by how big the girl had appeared on the stairwell — four inches taller than her and maybe twenty pounds heavier. This was her first long glimpse since that confusing evening of space-heater instruction.

    Valerie Miner. “Percussion,” originally in Prairie Schooner (Fall 2003), included in Miner’s collection Abundant Light : Short Fiction (2004) : 97-114 (102)
    google books preview : link
    borrowable at archive.org : link
     

20 December 2024