Category: personal essay

The Door to Somewhere

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn personal essay8 Comments

My Aunt Emme and our two good friends—one human, one canine– and I felt a strong need to get away from so-called civilization the other day. So, we went a ramblin’ in Sullivan County, which, if you don’t know, is in the Endless Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania. The residents there have a saying that they live in the Gem of the Endless Mountains.  They got that right.

Anyway, we were looking for some answers to a Quest. Some historically-minded citizens from Sullivan County have developed a History Quest, and you have to travel the highways and bi-ways (mostly bi-ways) of Sullivan County to find the answers to such questions as: “Find the cemetery in Bellasylva. There is a tombstone with two dogs on it. What are the dogs’ names?” So, in search of answers, we toured some cemeteries in Dushore and then made our way to Lopez and the ghost town of Ricketts and on to Jameson City, which would probably not fit anyone’s definition of a city, more like a sliver of a village, but in the old days, it was another story. Anyway, we took a break from our quest and hiked for a couple miles at Rickett’s Glen State Park and then ate lunch at a restaurant, which had this sign out front: Welcome to Rickett’s Glen Hotel, conveniently located in the middle of nowhere.

Eventually, in search of the almost mythical cemetery at Bellasylva, we made our way up to the wilds of Dutch Mountain, where the bear and the rattlesnakes roam. And that’s where we saw the really interesting sights. Trees and trees and more beautiful trees! (But unfortunately, no bears and no living snakes, but possibly a dead baby rattler?)

At one point we had a stare-down with this buck, and I am hoping that he makes it through the next few weeks.

Then we came to a house with a totem pole, of sorts, out front. The totem pole was made of many, many shoes tied together, and I’d really like to know the back-story, but it didn’t appear that anyone was home.

We came to a house with a sign out front that suggested that if we trespassed, we would be shot. We skedaddled out of there.

After a few wrong turns, we found the cemetery at Bellasylva. We found the tombstone with the dogs’ pictures. They were German Shepherds, and their names were (don’t look if you are doing the quest) Ouigie Goldie and Duke Prince.  They must have been buried with their humans because there were two humans’ names on the tombstone, as well. I forget the humans’ names, but I liked it that they thought so much of their dogs that they were all buried together.

Then we came to this door.

It was fascinating, all by itself, this beautiful red door with only the forest behind it. We stared at it for a few moments, and I snapped a pic and sent it to my Snapchat buddies. I labeled it “the door to nowhere” because that is what I had heard it was called.

My brother-in-law soon responded to the picture, “Maybe, it’s the door to somewhere.”

Of course, I thought, it is the door to somewhere. That felt like a revelation to me. It was the door to somewhere beautiful, the forest, which is probably my favorite place to be. On that day, that was my reality. I was in a beautiful place making discoveries with some wonderful people and a special dog.

I think I needed that reality check on this wicked-hard week. I’ve been living too much in my own head this week. The “what ifs?” are dragging me down. Thoughts of the future are scaring me right now.

 But then there is also this door in the woods—the door to somewhere. And somehow, that gives me hope.

Peace to all.

Daffodils

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn nature, personal essayLeave a comment

I’m just going to say this one in pictures because what can you say about daffodils that hasn’t already been said a million times better by William Wordsworth?

If you can believe Wikipedia, William wrote the famous daffodil poem on April 15, 1802, after a walk along the bay with his sister. What could be better?

Here is the poem, if you would like to take a walk amongst the daffodils with William:

https://poets.org/poem/i-wandered-lonely-cloud

Thank you for stopping here awhile.

Mardi Gras

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn nature, personal essay6 Comments

 One upon a time I was a French teacher.

And I must admit, come the grey days of February, I made the most of Mardi Gras. During the week leading up to Mardi Gras, my students and I, first we talked a bit about masks and thought about the various reasons that they are worn; then the students made fancy masks adorned with sequins and glitter-glue, and we displayed them on the bulletin board; we also watched documentaries about the French and Canadian history and the Cajun culture in Louisiana; and we watched (G-rated) YouTube videos about Mardi Gras in New Orleans. In preparation for the Big Day, I would buy a shit-ton (one of the perks of being retired-you can say shit-ton without worrying about the consequences) of cheap Mardi Gras necklaces, purple for justice, green for faith and gold for power.

On Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, I would get up at 4:00 am, make crêpe batter before school, haul it to school along with my electric frying pan, strawberry jam, chocolate sauce, and whip cream, and also fruit and cheese and crackers for those who didn’t eat sweets. The morning bell would ring, and all my classes would “Laissez les bons temps rouler!” We would listen to New Orleans jazz and Zydeco music as I fried crêpes and they munched on crêpes.  I felt compelled to justify the fun by also handing out informational packets about Mardi Gras, along with vocabulary lists of associated French words. After the crêpes were made, I would ask questions from the packets and throw a necklace to the person who could answer a question first, making sure that everyone eventually got at least one necklace. All day the smell of crêpes would waft from my room into the hall, and French students would strut around the school bejeweled with purple, green and gold necklaces. Ok, it might have been a little over-the-top, and it might have driven a few other teachers nuts, but oh well, it was great fun and wonderful PR for the French program, and God knows, French teachers need all the PR that they can get.

But now that I am retired, this is one of the days I miss the most from my crazy, hectic career. Mardi Gras was so much fun! It was a golden day.

Today in honor of Mardi Gras, I am wearing my festive lavender and green tee-shirt emblazoned with “Peace, Love, and Mardi Gras!” that my teacher-friend Heather gave to me one year.

 But no necklaces, no smiling students, just quiet here on the farm on this cold, grey-sky day.

To be honest, I’m finding things a bit bleak this February with so much turmoil, hatred, and sadness in the world.  It worries me.

“Nature’s first green is gold” wrote one of my favorites, Robert Frost.

I was wearing the green and purple this morning, but I went out for a walk with my beloved canine companion.  I needed to find the gold midst the grey today.

I found it, of course. It’s always there.  The Gold is there. You just have to look for it.

Thank you for reading this!

New Name

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn personal essay8 Comments

Howdy! It’s been a while. Recently I decided that I would change the name of my blog. The old name, Gallivanting, has bothered me a bit. It sort of has a silly-old-lady-kickin’-up-her-heels-and-making-a-fool-out-of-herself vibe that doesn’t accurately describe me. Well, maybe sometimes…

I have not been writing much lately, rather I’ve been in a bit of a survival mode…just getting through, as we sometimes have to do in life. 

I thought about giving up the blog. It’s so public. But it’s a place for me to make public one of the things I like to do most in life, write. But it’s so public, and I am a private person. You will never see a TikTok video of me wrestling a python. Or jumping off a cliff in a string bikini.

As I wavered between yes and done-with-the-blog, I wrote a thank-you poem to relatives who have been incredibly generous and kind to my husband and me lately. They loved it; they teared up. That’s all the encouragement it took for me to decide.

Now for the rename:

The word still came to mind; this word can be used as a noun, verb, adjective, adverb, or conjunction. It’s a short, sturdy word, much like me, I suppose. It reflects the me who remains after life shredded the gallivanter.  I picked Still for the new name of my blog. Then I Googled it to make sure it hasn’t already been used. I discovered that Still was the name of 2023 movie that actor Michael Fox made about his life. I went to Barbie this year, but I didn’t see Still. Rotten Tomatoes gave it great reviews. I need to watch it; however, now that I know about it, I feel that Still is Michael Fox’s word, so I searched my brain and my thesaurus for another title. Also, I drew inspiration from Jeopardy, which was on while I was thinking about this.

 Here’s my list of ideas:

Love from the Endless Mountains

Forget-me-not

Still a work in progress

Some words

Sometimes sitting still

Still stringing necklaces

Dancing with words

Dagnabbit

Proceeding at a gallop or sometimes sitting still

What I know

Words on my mind

Yackety-yack

Yackety-yack almost made it, but then I had another thought.

 Love in My Heart and Words on My Mind

It might sound a bit sappy to some. Love in my heart. My sons accuse me of being a hippy sometimes. I was a little too young to actually be a hippy during the 60’s, but if peace and love is where it’s at, let me jump on that bandwagon. Call me a hippy if you wish. I’m all right with that.

I promise you that when I write my words, I try to start from a place of love. I try to make whoever reads my words feel some humor, feel some happiness and maybe some sadness, feel something of the beauty of the earth, as the hymn goes. I’m not really into controversy. God knows there is enough of that in this world. So, there you have it.

Words are always on my mind. I love words: love to read, love to listen to books, love to think about words. Love to do Wordle.

And love is the place where I’m coming from. I hope you feel it.

I’m still here, in case you were wondering.

And in case you are still reading, a thousand thanks!

My Mount Kilimanjaro

On By Jennie Lee CastrogiovanniIn personal essay13 Comments

The thing about writing a blog is that you, you meaning I, I write for myself mostly. I write because it’s what I have to do sometimes. Sometimes I write to amuse myself, sometimes to make sense of things, sometimes to challenge myself, sometimes to conquer my sadness. The last essay I wrote was to do all of those things.

            Sometimes (this afternoon), I’ll have a thought while I’m raking the leaves, and it won’t let me go. Then I’ll fling down the rake and I’ll tear into the house and wring out my mind without even stopping to take off my coat. Other times I have to force myself to sit down at the computer. Still other times I say the heck with it and continue raking the leaves while talking out loud to myself. Good thing I live in the country.

            Having explained my egocentric reason for writing my haphazard blog, I also admit that I am thrilled when I see that people have read my words.

            There is a darker, shaded green, side to me that thinks, damn, why can’t I get 100,000,000 viewers like Taylor Swift or Stephen King probably does? LOL! Laughing through my tears of envy. Why can’t I be like those cute little kids on Instagram who say something funny or cliff -dive or something and suddenly they are an overnight sensation?

            I try to walk away from this petty self, but you try to walk away from your uglier self, and eventually you run into the barrier that is your own skin every time. And then you turn back and take a peek at your daily WordPress stats. No views today, rats!

            Or, like today, four views! Hooray! And they are from the United Kingdom. Hmm! Who in the United Kingdom is looking at my humble blog? Could it be…? Prince, no, KING CHARLES? Or Camilla? Or maybe Elton John? Adele? Who knows?  I don’t. I’ll just assume.

            Anyway, when I retired a year and a half ago, another teacher asked me what was I going to do next. Any big plans?  He told me that his brother’s first goal upon retiring was to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. Holy smokes, I thought. I have no desire to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. For one thing, I am afraid of heights, and from all accounts, it’s pretty tall. My next thought was, well, I do have a climb to make, the treacherous climb up the stairs to my attic where a hellscape of old school projects, discarded clothes, and many, many wicker baskets await rediscovery. I will make that climb, I will purge that attic of all the detritus of the decades, and then I will breathe the rarified air in triumph.

            A year and a half later, and it hasn’t happened yet. It’s still all there, waiting to be conquered. Did I mention my daughter’s ten-year-old wedding bouquet that is hanging from the rafters? Still there, all dried up.  I’ll probably get to it.

            So far, I haven’t really started training my border collie to be a therapy dog yet either. She can sit though. And shake.

            Nor have I gotten in the best shape of my life. I’m still a little bit of a fatty. But I’m now a bit of a fatty who does Yoga. Don’t try to picture that.

            I have come to a realization, though, that I do have a personal Mount Kilimanjaro. My Mount Kilimanjaro is my writing.

             I have made some progress on that path. I’ve kept writing this haphazard blog, I’ve written a eulogy, I’ve written a little children’s tale about a hound dog. I’m writing my Storyworth Memoir, but, alas, I’m slightly behind–by 20 chapters or so. Do you know what Storyworth is?  It’s an on-line enterprise where the mysterious Storyworth people send you a prompt every week, and you answer it or write a chapter of your choosing. When you are done, at the end of a year (plus three extra months if needed, thank God!), they send you a hard copy of your memoir.  You have written a book! This is something a thoughtful loved-one might order for you for Christmas, thank you, Mariah. You know I mean that! I’m doing it in my own procrastinating, easily-distracted-by-a-snowflake way.

             I’m on my way through the foothills; I’m writing!

            Anyway, on this week before Thanksgiving, I am very grateful to you, yes you, whoever you are, who has taken the time to read this little ditty.  A million thanks. You probably didn’t even realize that you made my day just by reading my words.  And if you actually happen to be King Charles, Cheerio, Sir!