Inspiration: Rituals/Traditions. We generally all tend to certain rituals or routine acts that seem to have a sort of comforting rhythm, a familiarity. Often these involve traditional details and props that help smooth the edges of the moment. Our daily lives are full of universals: those “aha” types of “yes, that’s something I do, we all do,” those resonant acts that take us through a moment. It might be as simple as bathing in a tub – we swish the water from side to side, distributing the water temperature till it feels just right and we can lower ourselves entirely into the tub. It might be that moment at home plate as we screw our bodies into that stance and haul the bat up and in ready position for a swing as we connect our eyes to the ball in the pitcher’s hand. It might be the never-miss taking of your child’s hand at the curb as you set across the street. It might also be an almost ceremonial act, wherein you play an expected role in an expected environment, following the protocols passed down generation to generation. This prompt may find both the ritual that rings familiar yet also puts you uniquely in the middle, making this both typical or familiar as well as unique to you and your perspective.
Process: List a few rituals/routines/traditional acts in your day, in your life - perhaps 3 or 4 - things in which you are an active participant. Find a listening ear and jabber with that person about 2 of those rituals/traditions. Let that person jabber about his or her rituals/routines that percolate up in the discourse. (I am a firm believer that discourse prior to writing is a powerful prewriting act). Settle on one ritual/traditional moment that seems to take the lead in your heart and mind. Make a list of as many words and phrases that come to mind as you can, recounting all the "stuff" that is present during this moment - concrete things that help this moment take shape. In a separate list note the repeated comments that might surface. Add colors and sounds that are part of recreating that moment. Play with all your sense. Traditions typically matter most to those who come before us. Yet, as you step into the tradition, let yourself unwrap and become a part of the moment... or not! It may be that you grate agains the ritual, finding agitation instead of comfort in a tradition laid before you. Have fun with this. Your poem might unearth a comforting scene. On the other hand, it may expose a tradition that needs to break its hold.
Here is my attempt
Macaroni Salad
I am twelve years old,
Sitting in the kitchen during a summer afternoon
My dad
Home for the weekend
Cooking macaroni salad
Water bubbling in the pot
Blub blub blub blub blub.
Steam is rising and
I momentarily push my face into it,
Feeling the heat waft up and wrap itself
Around my face
My ears
My cheeks and eyes
Feeling the vapor
And the warmth.
He’d give me a plate – we didn’t have a cutting board
Just old plastic McDonald’s plates
From my Aunt
Carrying deep incisions from the summers of macaroni salad
Vegetables lined up like soldiers
Green olives,
Celery,
Onions,
Green Peppers,
sometimes Cucumber
It's three degrees hotter as my dad opens the kitchen window
And you can hear the sound
Of celery
As it is cut on the plate
Thwack. Thwack. Thwack.