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March

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light and winter in the shade.”

 Charles Dickens, Great Expectations (1861)

—Jan Goldyn—

March’s Fresh Start

Windy weather days

Sunny robin mornings

snow on the crocuses

Daffodil’s yellow glory

Spring peepers on the hillside

spark joy in the hearts

of winter people

who now emerge

to enjoy nature’s fresh start

March Update—

“March — in like a lion, out like a lamb!”

This saying was displayed in the hallway of my grade school, February through March. I guess they didn’t want us getting our hopes up!

Children can tend to think in black and white, so I assumed the saying was totally accurate. Yet, I thought to myself, what if March comes and goes in the exact same way — either a lion or a lamb.

I decided to keep track. If my results disproved the hallway’s saying, I would approach Sr. Bridget James and advise her of the false claims her school was exhibiting.

The first time I did my experiment, March arrived like a lamb — sunny with a light warm breeze. How I hoped for March 31 to also put on a fresh spring-like display.

I was disappointed.

Riding home that afternoon I watched the sleet-like snow hit the bus windows. I stepped off into a stinging north-pole type wind.

Still, I had no plans of giving up my investigation.

The second time around, March 1 uncovered a nor’easter that hit the state hard. No school. Well, I didn’t really want March’s entrance and exit to include a frigid storm. Even though I enjoyed the snow, even I yearned for the sound of robins and the sight of dandelions.

But in order to prove my theory, I was willing to take one for the team.

March 31 came on full sunshine. The grass was greener, the patch of daffodils by the creek was blooming. I couldn’t help but be happy.

I’m not sure how long it took for my experiment to contradict the saying pasted to the school walls. I don’t remember if it ever did.

What I do try to remember is that, like the month of March, life throws us an assorted bag of surprises. Just because we receive mud-puddle hurdles one day does not mean we will not see a bright Forsythia bush just around the corner ♥

March Sneak Peek

-Excerpt from Julia Prequel to Coal Town Girls--

Julia placed her ivory cape-back coat over her shoulders. Her mother was sewing in the back bedroom with her sister Helen, her father downstairs on his cot by the wood stove. Carrying her silk stockings and T-strap heels, she stepped quietly through the upstairs door and down the front steps. The October night gave her a damp earthy greeting – it pulled her memories towards the woods and the gathering of roots and weeds.

Francis.

* * * * * * *

I am so excited to be working on my Prequel — Julia. You’ve all given me such super feedback on Coal Town Girls! Those of you who have grown up locally have been sharing your excitement at seeing the landmarks of your youth (or your present!) showcased within its pages.

Coal Town Girls started with a seed planted in a young girl’s mind by two remarkably strong, funny, witty friends who shared their stories of growing up in Hollsopple, Pennsylvania. The little girl was me and the women were my Mother Joan and her best friend Mary — friends from the ages of five to ninety-two!

Now, with Julia, I’m taking a journey further back in time to the people, places, struggles, triumphs and dreams of those who came before Joan and Mary. I can’t wait for you to join me.

Jan’s Reading Nook

Throughout history, our ancestors gathered around fires telling and soaking in the magic that is “story.” This primal need continues and has not left us! I love to share thoughts on nuggets of literature I’ve been enjoying and exploring. For me, a main focus has been historical fiction, literary fiction, family sagas. Although all genres have their own jewels.

Brooklyn

— Colm Toibin —

It seems appropriate in the month of St. Patrick to feature a work of an Irish writer.

Brooklyn is a perfect coming-of-age story. We see Eilis Lacey’s typical Irish lifestyle in the 1950s. She works in a grocery shop and lives with her mother and beautiful, confident, sister, Rose.

When a local priest offers to sponsor Eilis to emigrate to the United States, we come to see her struggles with homesickness and fitting into the new world.

A beautiful love story develops between herself and an Italian boy.

News from home jolts her, though, as she learns that her sister has died.

What we see is a an honest, heartwarming, and at times heart-wrenching tale, well worth the read.

“Only once, years before, had Eilis been to seven o’clock mass and that was on a Christmas morning when her father was alive and the boys were still at home. She remembered that she and her mother had tiptoed out the house while the others were sleeping, leaving the presents under the tree in the upstairs living room, and coming bak just after the boys and Rose and their father had woken and began to open the packages. She remembered the darkness, the cold and the beautiful emptiness of the town.”

Toibin takes the ordinary and brings it right into our hearts, where we experience it’s charm.

Coal Town Girls

Coal Town girls was an idea that bubbled up over the years and finally found its way to paper. My mother, Joan, and her best friend, Mary, were often found on our back porch, telling stories of their youth -- the town, the river, the people, the adventures, the sadness's, the joys. 

Each month I’ll try to highlight a tidbit of history from Coal Town Girls!

—-Excerpt from Coal Town Girls—-

A raven-haired boy with no-good all over his face strutted down the railroad tracks, hands in pockets – the waist of his knit shirt tucked precisely into his finely pressed wide-leg trousers. “Whatta you want?” Mary snickered as she watched her stone bounce a quadruple.

“Oh, nothin’, Mary.” Smokey Maskula’s sideways grin betrayed his benign comeback. “But I'll make ya a bet. If you jump off Black Bridge into the crick, I'll jump in with all my clothes on.”

Joan’s artistry came to an abrupt halt as Mary climbed to the top of the railroad passing with the ease of a cat skirting an electric wire. Joan figured if Mary had nine lives she had surely used up eight of them already.

Knowing the river as intimately as the sofa upon which she lay her head each night, Mary, in her rust-colored swimsuit, stepped lightly off of Black Bridge and plunged into its waiting crevices. Smoothly, the cat then shook her mane and glided to the shore. Joan exhaled.