Linda K Sienkiewicz

Writing life, line by line

Chalkboard Messages

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The Start Last year, as the pandemic slowed life down and caused us to physically withdraw from one another, I dragged out a cheap chalkboard I'd bought for book shows a few years ago. On it I wrote messages for my neighbors and others who walked past our house, and put it on my front porch. I hoped to create a sense of camaraderie while we hunkered down. I believe in the power of small … [Read more...]

Delivery!

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First job My husband Don laughed when I brought the Target delivery into the house this morning. "I was doing that over fifty years ago," he said. Delivering groceries, that is, from a butcher shop in Garfield Hts., Ohio. The funniest thing is that he was just fifteen years old. This was my first time getting my order brought to the doorstep. I was happy. Two hours after I placed the … [Read more...]

Is the Pandemic messing with your teeth?

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Clenching, grinding and pushing: I bet you didn't see this coming: an increase in dental injuries attributed to the pandemic. Dentists report a big uptick in patients grinding their teeth and broken or chipped teeth. Nearly 60% of Dentists say they are seeing more patients who grind their teeth, usually an indicator of stress. My friend's dentist told her, "It's all the stress with Covid-19 … [Read more...]

Had enough of These Unprecedented Times?

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Please stop saying that: Every year since the mid seventies, Lake Superior State University in Michigan's UP takes nominations for overused, misused and useless words to dump. The goal is to "uphold, protect and support excellence in language by encouraging avoidance of words and terms that are overworked, redundant, oxymoronic, cliched, illogical, nonsensical and other wise ineffective, … [Read more...]

Blizzard: a poem

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Blizzard by Linda Pastan the snowhas forgottenhow to stopit fallsstutteringat the glassa silk windsockof snowblowingunder the porch lighttangling treeswhich bendlike old womensnarledin their ownknittingsnow driftsup to the stepover the doorsilla pointillist’s blurthe weddingof form and motionshaping itselfto the wish ofany object it toucheschairs becomelaps of snowthe moon could bebreaking … [Read more...]