November 2016

And one more parade…

Posted on November 27, 2016by sue boardman

It’s been a big holiday for parades! On Thanksgiving morning, my girls and I snuggled up and watched the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. It was the 90th anniversary of one of my clearest holiday memories from childhood. The same no matter where we moved.

Of course the parade, itself, was not the same as I remembered. Lots of singing and dancing. New huge balloons unheard of in my childhood. Bullwinkle nowhere in sight. But, still, the excitement of the crowds. Time with people I love. And Santa. All in that mythical, magical place called New York.

Contemplations Grandmothers

We Gather Together!

Posted on November 23, 2016by sue boardman

I was blessed to grow up with the love of two grandmothers. On my mom’s side of the family, Mary Elizabeth Blandford Algren. Granny. On my dad’s, Elsie Hannah Royce Boardman. Gramma. Occasionally, Gramma Board.

Each of them, in the current vernacular, badasses.

Granny was a wife, mom, and grandmother who worked outside the home in the late 1940’s and 50’s. She looked like a model. Almost like a pin-up girl. She loved dancing and card games and Jeopardy.

Contemplations Grandmothers

Gratitude In This Moment

Posted on November 20, 2016by sue boardman

It’s almost a week until the official US day of Thanksgiving. I’ve started early! When I was a kid, we drove, hours and hours and hours, to Grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. I’ve actually caught myself humming along with our tune for today. Also because I’ve been thinking again about the notion that anxiety lives either in the past or the future, while, in the present moment we are, by many perspectives, all right. I’m trying to stay present in this moment. (Not turning on the news helps!)

Contemplations Grandmothers

Writing is a lot like quilting!

Posted on November 13, 2016by sue boardman

It’s been pretty busy around here, lately. A book launch Thursday. Another coming up the day before Thanksgiving! (Details to follow…)

I scribble endlessly on index cards. Sort. Cross out. Number. Pitch. Repeat, just as endlessly. More things keep coming to mind. More things that really belong in the second edition of Grandmothers Are In Charge of Hope.

It reminds me of collecting fabrics for a quilt. Which fit? Which don’t? What will it take to make a particular favorite play along? Scraps. Fat quarters. Sometimes whole yards (or more!) of things I really love. Typography prints. Spiced with deep purples and oranges and a sprinkle of lime green. I can literally feel it in my body when it’s right.

Contemplations Grandmothers

Here. Now. Actual change.

Posted on November 10, 2016by sue boardman

One of the things that never showed up in all my fantasies about being a “published author” was the part about (Dare I say it?) “marketing”! The visions in my head were all about tea in lovely china cups and cozy windowseats full of pillows or even, for you Betsy & Tacy fans, an old trunk that served as a great desk in the days when sitting on the floor was more of an option that it seems like after six knee surgeries!

Well, as the old saying goes, “Elvis isn’t cutting records anymore,” and if you want people to actually, you know, use what you write to make their corner of the world a bit better, marketing is involved! All of which led me to sign up for a webinar this week that simultaneously frustrated the be-jeebers out of me and gave me a cool new thought to contemplate. (Or at least a more immediate awareness of an old thought I’d encountered before!)

Contemplations Grandmothers

Grandmothers Lament

Posted on November 6, 2016by sue boardman

All over the world, children are crying.
Bleeding children in Syria.
Hurricane victims in Haiti.
Poisoned children in Michigan and the Dakotas and too many places to count.
All over the world, children are crying.
Children robbed of their families by gun violence.
Children robbed of their futures by disease.
Children robbed of their health by toxins everywhere.
All over the world, children are crying.
How do we shut out their cries?
How do we not act?
Are we heartless?