What's Is Your New Book About?

Hey Bloggers!

About a month ago I finished the last book in my Chesapeake Heritage series and decided I was going to take a break and just take care of my blogs for a little while.

Wouldn't you know it? I was tired, worn out, and ready to bawl. Writing four books in just over a year really did me in. If anyone had asked me, I would have said I was going to find some nice, non-literary activities to keep me busy for a little while.

Wrong! I doubt if I had a week off rest and whatever recreation the writer's life affords when I had this dream. It was one of those vivid Technicolor epics that followed me into my waking life.

I knew the title, I could see the setting, and I had a great certainty about how the tale should begin. Long ago, I learned that an impelling message like this had to be honored. There was nothing to do but to quit the spring housecleaning and head for the computer.

So here I am. The words just keep rolling in. Every morning I sit down for my daily dictation. You have to do it. You signed on for the journey after all.

There is one problem. What to do when someone says, "Well, what is your new book about?"

I'm not going to tell. I would appreciate it if you can honor my superstition that it is bad luck to talk about a story not yet completed. Rest assured, I write every day, usually first thing in the morning, right after I read (and forget) my daily horoscope.

When I finish this new book, you will be the first to know. In the meantime, we've got a pretty day going, so keep on the sunny side. Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/

Porching Revisited

Hey Bloggers,

Yesterday I posted an essay about the great American porch and its role in society. Today, Good Morning American did a bit on porching.

Talk about synchronicity. You just don't see people talking about porching that much any more... then all of a sudden the universe hiccoughs and there are porches everywhere.

Like I said, I love my porch. It becomes an extension of my living space every summer, giving me a break from the den where I write all winter long. Don't get me wrong, I am still writing. I just like to enjoy the sunshine and neighbors as much as I can.

The porch also gives me a place to give my houseplants a break from the long winter months in the sunniest windows I can find. I think they like it a lot better outdoors because they grow and gain in beauty every day.

It was neat that Good Morning America recognized the American porch. It just shows that people in this country are going back to the old days when people sat on porches and exchange greetings with their neighbors. They didn't need electricty to keep cool, there were always the peninsula breezes that make the Eastern Shore so pleasant.

If you have a porch, I do hope you use it. It is a wonderful way to keep on the sunny side. Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/

To Porch or Not To Porch

Yesterday spring arrived. The sun was shining and it got so hot upstairs I had to open some windows to let in the fresh air and a little pollen.

In case you didn't know, porch is a verb here on the Eastern Shore. People porch. They sit outside and talk, they visit with passers-by, they enjoy the birds and bees and the neighbor's cat.

I love to porch. There is nothing like sitting outside with my morning coffee and a good book. The sun works wonders on my skin.I feel better when the sun gets into my bones.

I know, we aren't supposed to tan these days, but in the words of an old friend, "You're going to look damned stupid if you get to the Pearly Gates and find out you died of nothin'."

I like that. I want to be like the woman in that poem who would have danced more if she had know how life would end. She would have eaten more ice cream and worn extravagant hats. That's me. I want it all.

So. Spring is here and the porch is waiting. There is nothing like porching - alone or with a friend. So, take time to sit on your own porch if you have one, or go find a friend on her porch. There's nothing like it for staying on the sunny side. Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/

House For Sale, Boat Included

Hey Bloggers,

I was looking through the photos I took last weekend when I got to spend time on Hooper's Island. A few years ago, the island was a place where fishermen raised their family and spent their days on the water catching fish, oysters and the famous Marylnd blue crabs. Today, many of the boats deteriorate in boatyards while those very same families are wondering how they will make out in the emerging world village. There is no work and legislators block fishing for species they fear will become extinct.

There are a couple of small communities on Upper Hooper and Lower Hooper islands. A beautiful causeway connects the two islands. You drive the main route through the village of Fishing Creek, past the Hoopers Island Volunteer Fire Company, Hoosier Memorial Methodist Church and Old Salty's a seafood restaurant seated in the island's old school. Much of Hoopersville, the lower island is untended, the tides eroding the shorelines as boats and houses sink slowly into the wetland.

There are lot of properties for sale on the island, places that are being sold because so many of the watermen and their wives are moving to areas where there might be more work.

The true depression is on the faces of these displaced workers, some of whose family members have plied the Honga River and Fishing Bay for hunreds of years. A number of homes on the island have been sold to people who can afford to live and work elsewhere. Some of the houses are simply abandoned.

Sadly, many of those abandoned houses are simply waiting, their empty windows staring out across the waters, a boat slowly sinking into the marshy yard that stays wet throughout the summer because the lawn has not been mowed.

I want to say a prayer for the ghost houses and the unloved boats. It doesn't seem right, but perhaps the greening of America will restore the fishing and bring those fisherment back to the waters of Fishing Bay. One can only hope.

That's all for today, keep on the sunny side! Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/

Driftwood

Good Day Bloggers,

Did you ever really look at driftwood and the quiet beauty of the wood?

I have an idea that while we often think we are in charge of our lives, the winds of change are scouring and shaping us into new and different beings.

When I look in the mirror, I see an old woman. My features have blurred and my hair can't decide how to behave. Unlike men, who can grow beards to disguise the troubles life has etched on their mugs, I can only tie back my thinning tresses and look upon the countenance time gave me.

Inner beauty does not seem to come through the mirror, and so the question of who is fairest of them all becomes moot. All one can do is to hope that the metamorphases of age reflect a beautiful and instructive life.

Driftwood, after all, echoes the past life of a tree that blossomed in spring and harbored the mockingbirds and jays and owls that called to me in day and night.

I hope the next person sees me as driftwood, stripped to the quiet beauty that remained hidden in my youth, and that the tide washes at my feet carrying bits of sea glass and shell to wear in my hair.

Ghost Houses

Good Day Bloggers,

This past weekend I spent a couple of days on a nearby island at a friend's house. We wandered about, picking up sea glass from the windswept beach, admiring the emerging plants in Linda's gardens, watching the drama as two two osprey males courted one femals, and poking around ghost houses.

I have always enjoyed riding in the countryside and looking at abandoned houses. I want to know why someone left a perfectly good house to rot into the marsh. I want to know what happened. Did the owners die? Did they move away to find greener pastures? Did they have kids in the city who got to busy to go to the country and keep the house up.

One of the things Linda and I did over the rainy weekend was to watch movies. It was cozy in her living room with the stove going. Outside the wind moaned through the screens, and the bay was the color of pea soup gone bad - with occasional patches of agitated white froth - surely better to watch than to experience.

One of the flicks we watched was a movie called Grey Gardens, the story of a ghost house. Mother and daughter (Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore) sank deeper and deeper into disfunction over the years in this presentation of what turned out to be a true tale of the fate of two women who somehow allowed a beautiful 10 bedroom mansion to turn into a rubbish-strewn hulk shared with maurading raccoons and feral cats- and how they were rescued by the late Jackie Bouvier Kennedy .

There was just such a house on the island I visited this weekend. The lawn was overgrown and marshy from not being mowed regularly, and while the windows all were draped, one could just make out precious trinkets and a grand piano waiting for a mistress who will never return. The photo above shows one of the abandoned porches, chairs at ready for a hot afternoon drink with friends. (In this case, the owner is sick, and the house waits for her death - and perhaps a new owner.)

So, this time I learned what happened at the ghost house to cause it to fall into disrepair, although it is a stretch to say no one lives there. An osprey has built its nest on the chimney, so hope remains.

So. That is the story for today. I am going out to admire my own gardens and do my best to stay on the sunny side. Hope you can too. Terry

Terry L White -Author of the Chesapeake Heritage Series
"Travel Through Time With Terry"
http://www.terrylwhitesblog.blogspot.com/