“Are you telling me those albums I sold for practically nothing at a garage sale several years back are now worth something? Dang, I knew I should have hung onto those.” This was a recent conversation I had with a dear friend.

Now I’m remembering everything I let go. Let’s see, I had the Doors. Remember the line from Break on Through? I found an island in your arms, a country in your eyes? Words stuffed like emotional crème puffs.

There was also Journey, and Pink Floyd, The Who, Stones, Eagles, Moody Blues and Led Zeppelin. Yes, I sold them all. I even threw in comedian Steve Martin’s album, Comedy is not Pretty. Someone pried that one out my hands. I shared the laughs. And the weird thing is, Steve still looks almost exactly the same as when I saw him on stage all those years ago…ha!

These days I’m feeling a little like classic Vinyl myself. Can anyone relate? The kids are growing up and out, yet another daughter recently spread her wings and flew on over to California, and one a couple of weeks before that to Missouri. For the first time in twenty-three years, quiet time has erupted in my world like a volcano.

I’ve had five full days to myself, and after initially feeling like crap on a cracker, I decided to soak the tiredness out of my feet after two decades of running. For the past few days, I’ve slept in, and when I wake swing around in my chair, drinking coffee and watching cardinals at the bird feeder. I’ve scrubbed floors and dusted and put the house in order and it hasn’t moved! One day I rented fantastic chick flicks and watched them in mid-afternoon, while eating extravagant Chinese takeout. In the evenings I’ve written and began to understand how one can get lost in silence, the delicious rhythm and rhyme of it. By day three, quiet slipped on me like a new dress.

Now I’m ready for noise again: family, friends, a little dirt, clutter, the messy business of life.

I miss my children like crazy, but knew full well they would grow up one day. I’m excited for their new adventures and excited for mine, too. I’m happy to still have a sweet, colorful bird in the nest for the time being.

Life is a continuous journey of change. We must learn to connect new dots, to reinvent ourselves.

Classics are superb at this!

Many people collect things, from paintings, to baseball cards, right down to magnets.

I collect memories. Maybe you do too.

We don’t have to shell out much money for those, although some have cost more than others. The limit is the moon. I’ve been chasing down memories for years, and they are now sitting on porches,watching the sun rise. And I’m thrilled they are remembering, lest I forget.

Trains have always fascinated many. Runaway cabooses, passenger cars filled with drowsy diners, or boxcars brimming with wild hobos, transporting all far off to fragrant destinations. Yes, there’s something mysterious about a good train ride.

A few years ago, we took the famous Colorado Narrow Gauge Railroad excursion from Durango to Silverton-fifty-two miles of the San Juan scenic byway. The choices varied on how classed up you wanted to ride, but being the hillbillies we are, we chose the cheapest way, standard class, open air gondola seating. We didn’t want to miss an ounce of scenery and certainly weren’t disappointed with that choice. I can’t say I’ve ever seen such excitement in the eyes of my children. It seems everyone relishes a good train ride.

We hung our faces out open air windows and drank in wind and wild. The train whistle would bellow, black smoke blow, and the tracks twist and turn around yet another mountain, where aspen trees shimmered and rusty colored beavers flapped and swam under leafy forests without footprints of modern life. That day we walked away with soot on our faces but pure nature tattooed on our hearts.

To remember this trip,I bought a splendid watercolor of Durango Station, Engine 473, painted in watercolor by Russell Steel. Appropriate name, don’t you think? I had it framed and it now sits on the mantel, a memory of us, once upon a time, on a Colorado train. If you’re ever in that area, please don’t miss this exquisite experience.

Recently, I saw a program discussing The Chocolate Train. Please get me on that train! My mouth perked at the mention of chocolate, so I had to watch. Would you like a little chocolate with your train?

Switzerland is well loved for its scenery and chocolate. Throw in a train and you’ve got a first class experience called the Swiss Chocolate Train, which operates from June to October out of Montreux.

Running on the Montreux-Oberland-Bernois Railway, this train takes you on breathtaking views of the Swiss countryside, rolling through the medieval town of Gruyeres, also known for their fabulous cheese making.

In Gruyeres, the train stops for an excursion by bus to a local castle. Sound good so far? You’ll also get to experience a cheese factory. On board the train once again, you’ll head to Broc. The Nestle Chocolate factory is there. You can watch the production of chocolate and sample the goodies. Then buy all you want.

Nine hours later you arrive in Montreux, a sleepy resort town on Lac Leman and home to the Castle of Chillon.

Now how’s that for a train ride, eh? Let’s go, shall we? All aboard!

Before I begin, let me say I’ve missed you guys! Wait, I’ve missed y’all. That sounds right.

Now that summer is here, I hope you’re able to kick back,splash in a river, listen to some music, or just read a good book.

Speaking of books, I did manage to finish that second novel, The Passion Diary. Whoopa! See, I really was working. Finishing the book hadn’t really sunk in until yesterday, when I began constructing that query letter to send out to agents. It has to be wild, short and attractive. Sounds a bit like an old boyfriend, but all kidding aside, it’s daunting trying to sell yourself and your book in a couple of paragraphs. Lady luck-please wish me that.

And speaking of luck, my dear friend and Author, Jeff Yeager, dubbed The Ultimate Cheapskate by Matt Lauer on The Today Show, has created his own luck with hard work and a creative streak that sizzles. His second book, The Cheapskate Next Door debuts today. www.ultimatecheapskate.com

Yeah, he’s no southerner, but I’ll make an exception in his case and here’s why: I believe he could kick tail in a seed spitting contest, and flat do a jig if he wanted, and that’s good enough for me. I do hope you’ll check out Jeff’s lively work for yourself.

Now back to southerners. We know summer has set in here, due to brutally hot weather. When you walk outside before noon and feel as though you’ve been shoved into a sizzling sauna, you know you’ve landed in south Texas. On days I’m not fortunate enough to be in and around the water, I crank down the air-conditioner, pour some iced tea, and listen to Willie Nelson tunes. This original outlaw never fails to satisfy my musical hankering. To this Texan, his voice is velvety as melted chocolate. And I’ve always loved his braids. And chocolate.

Born and raised in Abbott Texas, Willie’s grandparents gave him mail order music lessons at age six. He wrote his first song at age seven and was playing in a local band at age nine. I finally got to see him in concert last year, and I danced around for days, so excited. He didn’t disappoint, his voice as pure and rawboned now as it ever was. Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain is one favorite, along with Whiskey River and Always on my Mind.

I thought of Willie Nelson the other day when I watched my older girls drag in from Summer Fest. They had sat in blistering Texas sun to catch these bands: The Flaming Lips, Girl Talk and Kid Sister. At 11:00 p.m., they got back, worn but happy, saggy pants and sunburned faces, and bandanna’s wound around their sweaty heads.

Of course Willie wears a bandanna. Stay cool!

Testing, testing, can you guys hear me? I couldn’t think of a snappier way to present sound than a recent trip to southern Louisiana.

In New Orleans the decibel levels flew off charts, right along with history, dog ugly and gorgeous as any I’ve ever heard. Even so, I relished the whole Who Dat and Zydeco music and the waitress named Nicole but pronounced Ne-cole. Her inflection piped out like a shot of New York swirled with Louisiana Creole. I kept asking her questions, well, because I’m irritating that way, and because I adored her voice.

“Why y’all don’t vee zeet more?” she finally said, grinning.

Ne-cole, Ne-cole, Ne-cole. A charming sport if I ever met one.

The sounds of New Orleans were spicy crazy indeed. In the streets were drummers, harmonica players and clacky washboard renditions. People were chattering like squirrels, their shoes popping on sidewalks.

In Café Du Monde, we finally plopped down, legs worn and feet aching from traipsing every inch of the French Quarter and miles beyond. I figured I’d earned myself a beignet, snowed under with powdered sugar and washed down with a café-au lait. Spoons were clinking against glass coffee cups while sugar buzzy conversations exploded, and underneath that, the sigh of our pooped waitress, trying to keep up. A fat tip was in order, which made her smile.

So, two days later, I listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival in the car as we headed to St. Francisville, because it would have been a sin not to hear Born on a Bayou if one is going to hang out with gators and Cajuns. And because I’m a Creedence groupie.

Visiting here is like stepping on ancient, exotic soil. Did you know even history has sound? It wails and screams and laughs here in the wind, the birds and bayous.

Three times now I’ve come to this place, trying to grasp a tragic and mysterious chunk of history. Bits and pieces the land has absorbed and yet shouts through the live oak trees. But none makes sense, nor do I condone it. Meanwhile I fancy the people and appreciate the beauty of place. And I remember those without voices and try to honor them with my presence. My heartfelt interest.

The following poem is based on a cemetery we visited while staying on plantation grounds. It was only one visible record, but there are still many loud secrets. Listen for sound in silence.

Fallen Stars

They have gone silent and cold
yet I heard a woman’s voice
in a crows cackle
calling
suppertime…suppertime…suppertime

But that can’t be
sixteen souls long hushed
resting like whispers in black dirt beds
on loud property
they didn’t have time to praise

Days booming with tears and laughter have passed
no more spring afternoons, summer days
snappy fall breezes
or horizons
blazed with red

They lie silent atop a hill now
ringed by a stone wall
gray and chipped
shaggy cedar to ward off sun
and pine silt carpet for decoration

I traced their names with fingertips
when the sun was blooming
and remembered those I never knew
Marguret, Thomas, Mary, Edward, Sarah, Percival
and the others

Then when night turned to coffee
we walked through crispy grass
flashlights beaming
sky flushed with hot stars
now fallen icy atop the hill.

Bonjour Mes Amis- Good day, my friends. Listen well.

Even so, they are rich visual collectors. Two blue, brown, hazel or green mini artists, taking in life portraits, freeze framing them into memory the way paint adheres to canvas. A scoop of bangs across a forehead, inky black like a raven’s wing, dead leaves twirling on bare sun drenched branches or snow swelled on the ground like thick, whirled whipped cream.

I remember seeing my newborn daughter’s eyes for the first time. Like soul windows, new, but ancient and full of penetrating light. When they lay each in my arms, of course in different years, their haunting eyes explored mine, speaking without sound. Why hello dear mama, they seemed to say. I’ve felt your heartbeat and heard your cries and laughter a thousand times. Here you are now. I see you. They knew me and I them. Any mother can tell you how poignant this is. It is something we never forget, this lavish visual communication without words. I promise not to mention babies anymore, but I do love them.

Eyes alone speak of innocence, pain, sadness, joy, confusion, wildness and sometimes evil, all without saying a word.

If we have been blessed with our vision intact, our brain does the work of preserving previous sights into memory. I can still see the metallic shimmer of dollar sunfish, greasing through an Arkansas River, sun catching the star-burst of yellow bellies. And creamy vanilla colored jack-in-the-pulpits, glazing up an Illinois spring forest we wandered through as children. And red-winged black bird eggs, pale blue-green and freckled, cuddled tight in marshy nests.

It’s exciting to use this visionary sense in our writing. Here’s an example from my WIP, The Passion Diary.

Driving through Millview, men with wilted faces sat outside Hunters Gas Mart. On splintered wooden benches some whispered and whittled while others stood, eclipsed by smoke clouds wafting from lit points of cigarettes. The locals referred to the spot as Limber Dick Corner. God help me, I didn’t want to grow old.

Turning down Main Street, earth rose behind ancient buildings, disguised in fresh paint. Brambly blackberry vines clamored up a long row of fence, berries dangling and not yet flushed purple. Trees, heavy with green foliage, clung to hillsides and I wondered what was blending and dashing through not visible to the naked eye.

This is pure visual description and why I wanted to use it as an example. I could go back and add smell-the soil, cigarette smoke, etc…  I could also throw in taste-of the eventual ripened berries, but for these paragraphs I probably won’t.

Hopefully, if I’ve done my job well, sight alone tells you this is a small town with old secrets.

So, my writing buddies, please enjoy every visual treat this week. Remember, seeing is believing…sometimes.

To me, being in a wild world with so many sights, sounds, odors, tastes and textures is a little like walking down dusty paths of a renaissance festival and being bombarded with the scent of apple dumplings and roasted turkey legs while my ears buzz with pan flutes and tambourines, all as I’m touching velvety lamb’s ears and then hard, exotic handcrafted jewelry. But there is more. Yes, taste, we must include that. How about fresh corn crepes smothered in cream and then chocolate doused strawberries for dessert?

Oh, enough, enough! I’m ready for a festival, how about you? Yeah, I know. It’s still too cold. Until then, I’ll attempt to warm up our rich creamy layers of writing. Each post will focus on a different sense and I might even bring in that rowdy SIXTH SENSE to round everything up. Okay lords and ladies, let’s begin with scent, shall we?

What is that smell?

What springs to mind here are Sunday suppers, pork loin dotted with rosemary, the scent of raisins and stuffing and spice exploding each time the oven door opens.

Aroma’s, rather delightful or not, invoke memories.

If you have a keen sniffer, you might also be able to detect a storm before it arrives. The earth is different then, soil sighing and humidity yelling. Did you know moisture heightens our sense of smell? It does. And were you aware women have a keener sense of smell? They do. As we age, our sense of smell weakens, though. Middle age is peek smelling season. I vote we all stay middle aged. Oh, wait, too late for me.

Did you ever notice that houses have layers of odors? I remember an old farmhouse we lived in, which smelled of plants, laundry detergent, and an undercurrent of all previous owners combined. It’s as though scent embeds itself into walls and floors.

In developing characters and their environments, we can see how smell could be a vivid way to make a story breathe. If we are writing about a house full of men, scents will be different. I’m telling you,I know these things. I have brothers. The masculinity, shall we say, does shout smoke, spice and sweat.

On the other side of the road, where mostly females reside, you’ll find the staggering scents of cinnamon, lavender oil, powder, perfume and candles. Of course there will be fruity odors mixed in and funky, too, depending on whether they keep a clean house and if they cook.

So, if we want our characters to live and remember that they have lived, scent is one worthy tool. It is exactly why, when I smell baby powder, I can be yanked back to a morning, fifteen years ago, baby on my lap. She has just finished her oatmeal and given me an open-mouthed kiss on the cheek, leaving a smear. There is sticky oatmeal in my hair, too, left from chubby fingers grabbing to draw me close. I can still hear her coo at the birds, so early my eyes are barely slit open, but yet I’m chattering to her and overwhelmed with tenderness. Yes, baby powder can snap me back that fast.

Our world is one big, smelly memory.

This week I’m taking my basket of scent and sprinkling it throughout my work. How about you? What particular scent fires up your memory?

When I’m older, I might open a bakery. But for now cooking is just another one of those passions of mine. For all I know, it may be the only reason I have friends. I give them stuff, see. They want my lemon custard pies and raisin cookies and cinnamon rolls. I have a particular friend I call, Chick-a-pee, who is quite enamored with my skills. We don’t exchange birthday presents per se, but every year for her celebration, I make and deliver a mound of cinnamon rolls to her doorstep. She has hung around me for awhile now.

The kick is all mine. Really. The whole process of creating and giving away feels oddly magical. The dough kneading, pounding, lacing of cinnamon and sugar and rolling up, the rising and baking, cinnamon saturated air, sugar, sugar baby. If I’ve had a crappy week, making rolls rejuvenates me. Let me explain. I pound that dough.

Did you just sass me, young lady? Pound. What? I can’t believe so and so did that. Pound. Ug, this weekend I just feel like lying in bed, wailing and eating. Pound. And my personal favorite line, when something has really floored me- what the heck? Pound. Pound. Pound. By the time I’ve finished, my arms ache like a mother but I’m back to my happy self. Yes, making cinnamon rolls does that for me. However, my hips and thighs are not fond of them…ba ba boom! Good thing I like to exercise. And great thing I don’t make them often.

Making pies is different. When I stand in bare feet, stirring custard, I feel like an exotic Italian woman in a Tuscany tiled kitchen with huge windows, watching skiffs on a glassy Mediterranean Sea.

What the heck?

Just stay with me. I’m not done yet.

Steam is rising from glossy, watery custard, hot lemon and chocolate lava, bubbling, Olive trees shining. Wait… no olive trees. But pies, yes, we have silky pies. Look, I’ve created smiles.

Now to the meringue. Whipping egg whites to resemble perky mountain peaks makes me downright giddy. And that chocolate pie next door is glammed to the hilt with whipping cream spun up like shiny cotton candy, Mexican vanilla whirled in and curly cues, tiny and chocolate glittering on top.

Are you hungry, sweetie pies? Well, I’m sorry. This story is virtual. But if you ever do see a Sweetie Pie Bakery Company, do pop back to the kitchen and say hello. It’s possible I’ll be there, barefoot, whipping cream stuck in my hair. And if you mention olive trees, I’ll toss in a free pie.

I am in love. With shoes. My closet is chock full of pumps, boots, and shiny flats. Every time I see a shoe store I get the urge to yank my car over and partake in the rapture of finding that new pair. Maybe I need a twelve STEP program. It’s about the only materialistic thing I have a problem with and I rationalize this because, by gosh, these shoes DO take me places.

Obviously I’m not alone with this addiction. Go to any shoe store and you’ll catch mysterious women, buzzing around footwear blooming from boxes like sun lit peonies’, then flung and scattered, scattered and flung in a frenzied picking. I once tried on a pair of red heels at Target and a woman next to me oohed and awed until discovering they were the last pair in her size eight. Her creamy complexion then flamed and her eyes turned flinty. For fear of being maimed, I sheepishly handed the pumps over. I mean, if I get thrown in the slammer for brawling over shoes, it’ll be a pair of Jimmy Choo’s.

So, I’ve tried on glossy black pumps and envisioned myself in that silky blue dress, sauntering down New York’s Saks Fifth Avenue, cell phone humming and shopping bags winking and swinging in the sun. A green pair of flats have easily transported me to a pub in Ireland, having a loud conversation with a bloke about the virtues of Irish whiskey. Well, maybe not that. Quite possibly I’d be corralling sheep in a field that I’d inadvertently let out to picnic underneath a birch tree.

Recently I was clearing out my closet (finally) and had every pair of shoes I owned scattered like chunky confetti on the bathroom floor. One of my daughters peeked in.

Daughter said, “Gosh, mom, you have a ton of shoes.”

My tone was defensive. “Say what?”

She added, “Nothing.” Her eyes gleamed, sudden like. “Oh, can I borrow those black flats?”

“Mm hmm.”

With three girls who also adore shoes, I’ve learned to be quite thrifty. None have cost me much over twenty dollars and most, much less. Did I mention I had a shoe addiction?

CLASSIC BLACK PUMPS: This pair has taken me to weddings, where chocolate fountains drip like silky rain. And tiered raspberry filled vanilla cake can never have too much butter cream icing.

WET TURQUIOSE FLATS: I’ve walked down dirt roads of Louisiana history in these; explored plantations along the Cane River and those outside of New Orleans, Baton Rough, and St. Francisville. I also went deep into the swamps and held a baby gator and stroked a river rats head while wearing these. Yes, I did. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

PLAID BOOTS: Plenty of Texas two-stepping in this pair, music loud, dance floor slick with sawdust. I’ve danced in these at the Garner State Park pavilion, too, under a full moon bright as a lit cigarette end,jukebox blaring Ring Of Fire by good ole Johnny Cash. As you can see, they are well loved.

BLUE COMFY FLATS: These are taking care of business shoes-volunteer work, grocery shopping, doctor visits, running kiddo around kind of stuff.

LUCKY SLIPPERS: Got these for Christmas and I anticipate they’ll take me down many hills and valleys of inspiration in the story telling arena. Comfy is the name when I’m at home with my mind on writing. Writers can stay in PJ’s and slippers if we choose and barring a knock at the door and the occasional raised eyebrow of the UPS man, nobody need know we’ve been creating little worlds of our own. Don’t you adore that?

Yes, I have a compulsion for shoes. I admit it. How about you?