I write stuff down. writer • humorist • activist
Below is a writing prompt from June 2020: ‘what are you sick and tired of?’ One year ago my list was endless. This year, in honor of the 4th of July, I’m posting this look back to see how far we’ve come. Because we’ve come far. We have a long, long way to go, but we are moving in the right direction. * JUNE 17, 2020: I’m sick and tired
Kissing myself full on the lips in the bathroom mirror was a learned skill, one I was quite proud of as an angsty tweenager, until I discovered many decades later, apparently not everyone did this. I assumed everyone practiced these all-important milestones – a coming-of-age-first-kiss, just me and my mirror image, doing our homework so if and when the time comes, I’d be ready. I was not. Perched on the
Instead of milk and bread before a storm, I rush to Newtown Color Center for paint and spackle, hoping to fill my time and thwart the impending pandemic before it strikes hold and renders me useless. They match a gallon to the original color, Serene Sky, to brighten a dull family room, and I’m off, to spackle dings left by nooks and crannies that come with rooms well lived, cover
The church pews are filled with country folk in their Sunday best, even though it’s a Friday. Some of the old-timers wear clean coveralls, some their Sunday pants, belt, and suspenders, pulled up way too high, white tube socks revealing boots fresh from the barn, maybe a collared-shirt, tucked in tight like they just visited the restroom and no need to re-tuck for the rest of the day. Or at
She wanted a cow the way someone who grew up a million miles away from a farm wanted a cow. “They’re so cute,” she mooed, riding shotgun while driving up and down the hills of Route 20 in Upstate New York. Real upstate, not downstaters version of upstate. Tri-state New Yorkers think anything outside Yonkers is upstate, but there’s a whole lotta acreage between the Hudson River and Lake Ontario,
*Written over a year ago, when masks were “advised” and socially distancing encouraged. Everyday people were beginning to listen, yet COVID was considered by some main street deniers a figment of our overactive imagination. For locals, this was at Caralluzi’s Food Market, Bethel, CT. * I maneuver the one-way aisles, six feet apart from scardy cats in front and behind me, methodically grocery shopping. I’ve turned into a futuristic human
I never saw it coming, becoming the old lady on the block. Circle of life and all, I get it, but some neighbors got it before I did, calling me ma’am. Asking if I was saving the treehouse for the grandkids. Wondering if I wanted to sell the mower. When I moved to number 5, first house up the knoll on the left of a dead-end drive filled with empty
Most houses have doors, and these doors have locks, and these locks have keys, or should, to keep those inside safe and provide peace of mind that life is secure. “Did you lock the house?” was never a question asked of me no matter where we lived. Doors have keys to lock them shut, keep people out, keep others in, and although the front and back doors where I live
An irreverent storyteller with a foul mouth and big heart, Kathryn Mayer (aka Kathy and/or Kate) is a writer, humorist, and (former) activist writing out loud with humor and grace about little life moments with big ripples, including the space between parenting and aging parents, social issues, angsty reflections of midlife, and, sigh, gun humpers. Still. Sometimes a big deal, sometimes not Mayer is a national award-winning columnist, according to the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and her essays have been recognized as Voice of … Read More Here...
kate[at]kathrynmayer[dot]com
xo Kate