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Friday Write #174
Friends,
Today will be a quick post, because it’s Jon’s birthday and we’re going to go shopping for a bike. He hasn’t had one since the 45-year-old Motobécane he was riding fell apart underneath him two summers ago.
The Motobécane had been given to his father by an anonymous benefactor, a person who simply could no longer stand watching him ride around 1970s California on his ancient three-speed.
The Raymonds are not materialists. Here’s a line from my journal in 2013: “For his birthday, Jon asked me for spoons, a can opener, and to not have to clean the spilled milk out of the cup holder in the car.” I wish I could confirm that he got anything other than the spoons.
“Someone asked me about the long marriage to Joe—42 years—and I reflected that he was the only person in the world I found it always a kick to run into on the street.”
That’s novelist Dawn Powell, one of my true favorites, writing in her journal in 1962. Jon is a different kind of true favorite, and after nearly 26 years of partnership (we never managed to check “wedding” off the to-do list), I’m still super excited when I see him someplace I wasn’t expecting to.
In honor of Jon’s birthday and a gift that ought to be way exciting than spoons, here is a bicycle poem.
Writing prompt possibilities:
—Writing quickly, begin ten sentences with the phrase “I have seen them…” Pick your favorite and turn it into a scene, a poem, a song.
—Write something entitled “Lover or Thief.”
—In this poem, Willard turns the bicycles into living creatures, giving them bodies, postures, a sense of patience… Describe another ordinary object as if it were alive.
Happy writing—
Emily