Ruins and Castles

Ideas are the stars here. The author is everyman in this case, everywoman! Seemingly prosaic subjects reveal the essence of one particular life, often assuming a fictional quality. These memoir pieces, written over the past four decades, conjure the future and delve into the past. They relive moments of loss and joy, for which the title, Ruins and Castles, is a metaphor. What is astonishing, is the universality of these revelations. Readers will find parallels in their own lives. In varied genres prose, short plays, poetry, a tale for children ideas are treated diversely with humor, philosophy, sometimes introspection. Prose include: works based in stark reality, compassionate stories, yarns of fantasy, visits with nature. A sensitive account of rescuing a warbler is meant to share with young children. Poems recall love, recreate fleeting images, turn an otherwise cold recounting into a repetitive pantoum form that ignites feelings. Short plays include a spoof from the Garden of Eden, a mystery farce of infidelity, a take-off on theatre royalty. This book is not presented sequentially. We need not read cover to cover, but are free to choose at random, by title from the Contents, or by opening the book at will. No overblown prose here. This is spare economical writing. Deeper insights into aging are discovered with successive readings, peeling back layers of perception. Find a brief refreshment returning to a shorter prose, or a poem remembering a loved one that resonates with your own loves. Turn to a farcical play for a visual foray into lost romance. You may want to return to a particular piece, in the way we revisit a Sinatra standard, because it speaks to some part of us that craves revisiting. At the close, encounter a brief autobiographical reflection of the author, through the people and places that influenced her life. We meet a happy guide through long years of positive living. It s remarkable how extraordinary a life becomes when that life is examined. Writing has the power to breathe wonder into every chapter, illuminating the common qualities that make us human.