17/30, Living Traits Poem

Our Hosts

Annie and Gayle found each other in the media center of a smallish middle school in Taneytown, MD.  Through a series of sarcastic comments and candid discussions, they became close friends.  Annie has moved on to another school, and Gayle has retired, but they stay in contact to maintain their careful balance of cynicism, optimism, and despair. Annie lives on a farmette in southern PA with a variety of animals and a husband who is a fireman. Gayle lives in a large house built in 1927 with six cats, two dogs, and her husband of 40 years.

Inspiration: Living Traits

J. Ruth Gendler published “The Book of Qualities”, a series of essays/ character sketches in 1984.  She brings the lifestyles of the characters and emotions we think we know to a new life–one that brings them, living and breathing, into our world. 

“Anxiety is secretive. He does not trust anyone, not even his friends, Worry, Terror, Doubt and Panic … He likes to visit me late at night when I am alone and exhausted. I have never slept with him, but he kissed me on the forehead once, and I had a headache for two years …”

― J. Ruth Gendler, The Book of Qualities

 A few examples:

Fear “has a large shadow, but he is quite small…”

Loneliness “wears his isolation around him like a gray sweatshirt thrown back across hi shoulders”

Despair has “stopped listening to music.”

Courage “looks you straight in the eye…knows first aid…is not afraid to weep…has made the journey from loneliness to solitude”

Beauty “will dance with anyone brave enough to ask her.”

Excitement wears orange socks.

Pain’s “voice is hoarse from crying and screaming…if you face him directly, he will give you a special ointment so your wounds don’t fester.”

Anger “sharpens kitchen knives at the local supermarket on the last Wednesday of the month.”

Blame “keeps a pharmacist’s scale at the corner of his desk.”

The goal is to select a character trait or an emotion and give it a back story. How did they get to be who they are now?  Fill in the details–what they wear, where they travel, who they hang out with. Have fun with the creature you meet and get to know them a little better. Take it past the formal definition of personification into something bigger (or smaller…) than that. Make them into a living, breathing, quirky individual.

There is no prescribed format–have at it and have some fun. Annie and I found that choosing an emotion, mood, or characteristic that was currently in our lives made it easier for that character to erupt into existence.

A couple of traits lists, in case you need inspiration (I did!)

• http://ideonomy.mit.edu/essays/traits.html
• https://characterlibraries.com/character-first-education-qualities/

Gayle’s Poem

Relief

Relief is slight and fair skinned;
a dusting of freckles
across her nose from her last picnic.
Her soft brown curls are pulled up in a messy bun,
and she wears no makeup at all.
She has a shy, sharing smile.
She enters the room quietly,
Often passing notice for a while.

Relief was the youngest in
a family of six raucous brothers
in a small house
full of hubbub and shouts.
Sports equipment was everywhere.
Relief came along just in time to save her mother’s sanity.
She knows the value of quiet,
and offers it whenever she is able.

Relief sometimes watches secretly
from behind a curtain,
Careful not to be greeted too soon.
Relief’s unwelcome cousins,
Despair and Disappointment,
are always close at hand;
Relief hates the way
they gloat when they triumph.
Relief knows that she
can be displaced at any moment if things go awry.
It is better to wait until they are finished
to begin her work.

Relief is asked to so many events that
she is forced to turn down invitations..
She feels guilty,
because she knows people need her.
But there is only so much she can do with her time.

Relief has moved more times than she can count.
She moves wherever she is needed..
She always paints her apartments in shades of pale greens and blues,
so that each new place is home
She owns few belongings, carefully placed and easily packed up again.
Her boyfriend, Comfort, would like a few more pillows,
but doesn’t mention it. He has learned to appreciate her quiet joy
and the way she shares it with him.

GJSands

Annie’s Poem

Tired

Tired wears her husband’s dungarees
and stained oversized tees shirt to the grocery store,
Her hair pulled back in a ponytail with a rubber band
that will surely pinch when she tries to rip it out tomorrow.

For breakfast, Tired stands by the stove, heating up milk for her oatmeal.
It’s a simple pleasure of her day,
But the milk overheats and boils over the pot,
leaving a foamy film behind.
She half-heartedly wipes it up with a threadbear dishcloth and thinks,
“It’s okay. I’ll clean the oven this weekend.”

She shuffles outside in her fluffy slippers,now flat and grayish,
To gather logs for the woodstove from the porch,
The blasted thing has almost gone out again.
The wood leaves a splinter in her hand,
That she removes with her teeth,
Because the rusty tweezers ended up down the barn
When Constance, her now fuzzy old nag, had a tick last summer.

Tired’s lined face has a frowning brow,
And an unamused look, left behind from years of life
That put a little bit of crust around her once soft and hopeful heart.
But when she smiles at an old friend at church,
Or her dog when he brings her a musky old old bone from the woods,
Or the birds snacking on at the feeder that she keeps half full,
There is an undeniable warm twinkle in her eyes.

She attended the public schools across town,
Always a hard-working, mediocre student,
Trying her best to impress the adults in her life,
But never earning anything higher than a “B.”
Though, once, she won a special award for best attendance.
She wore her best dress to the assembly,
But right before, spilled orange juice down the skirt.

At church, Tired opens ears to hear the Good Word,
And let’s them surround her like a warm blanket,
Putting her worries down for just a little while.
When it’s time to sing, she opens her mouth
And her soul comes shimmering out and the lines disappear.
Regretfully, the organ stops and it’s time to get back in the old pickup,
And ramble back to chores after a simple ham sandwich for lunch.

After a day that’s slightly monotonous, but not totally bereft of joy, it is nightfall.
Tired hopes the dreams won’t make her mind run in circles
While her body tries to rest.
It’s the one family trait she shares with her cousin, Exhaustion.
Damn the genes.
Climbing under the old quilt with little holes from both age and the mutts,
She closes her eyes,
Exhales,
says her prayers while her husband snore on,
Her back anxiously awaiting it’s morning dose of Alieve.

Suddenly, as if awoken by an electric jolt,
Her eyes fling wide-open,
For she forgot to shut the gate,
And the cows have run down the street.
A Cumberland