Tuesday, December 07, 2021

Holidays.....


 I enclosed this reminder in our holiday cards last year, and this year I'm again reminded that the Christmas season and beginning of a new year can be rough and confusing for many of us. 

Whether your memories are good or bad, I think there is often a sadness to this time of year, sometimes when we look back to what we had and sometimes when we look back to what we didn't have. 

I was lucky. My Mother made Christmas look easy. She made sure my brother and I had great presents tucked under the tree and she filled our stockings with fun doodads and on any given night she effortlessly added extra plates to our dinner table. She also geared up her cooking and baking. I'm realizing that I am pretty much following her patterns; but in my own way, because I'm also following my Turtle Approach and not letting anything I love doing become a chore. I wonder if she did that too, because I never heard her complain.

This weekend JB and I are hosting our first Girlfriends' weekend in two years. (Damn Covid!) Three of our friends are staying with us in Provincetown, and on Saturday night we're having a greatly reduced version of our Holiday Potluck Open House. This means cooking and baking and drinking and socializing, all my favorites. We've put up a live Christmas tree with old fashion lights and I've made gift boxes that include our home made Kahula.  Last night JB and I frosted our almost famous sugar cookies. We'll end up making four batches because our daughter and son-in-law want two batches and even then they try not to share them with their kids. (smile.)

So all this is to say I'm doing well this season. And to acknowledge that this is not the case for everyone. It's a good idea to keep an eye out and lend a hand to the people around us who would love a card or cookies or a dinner invitation or time to share and listen. And that includes ourselves.

love kj


Thursday, November 11, 2021

Back in Time for the Holidays


 Where have I been?

For starts, I haven't been able to access my photos. Just now, I figured out where they've been hidden. 

I've also been successfully recovering from back surgery. I'm not healed but I'm 90% better and I'll take that.

I've had a fun rollout of my poetry book, and to my surprise, my first book, written in 2008, has had a bit of a resurgence. I've just moved it into Amazon so The Light Stays On can now be available in other countries and as an e-book. I have a family saga novel waiting for a publisher or for me to ultimately publish it myself, but I have more queries to send and more to learn before I decide what to do. 

My time these days is balanced among learning how to promote on Amazon--no small feat with complicated metadata and keywords and advertising options; cooking and baking, with flour all over me and the kitchen; and gardening--planting and pruning and prettying up a small side yard that wants to shine. This is the life of someone who has pretty much retired and then begun a second career as a writer. I'm very grateful.

To my friends here: would you like a Holiday Card from me?  Email me your address and I'll be delighted to snail mail you my best wishes. It's the least I can do to make up for all my absences on this still-beloved blog.

I've begun my Christmas holiday rituals: choosing gifts, crafting surprises, planning a pot luck party, and praying for a truly better world (no small feat these troubling days...)

I hope you are well. xoxo

love kj



Saturday, July 03, 2021

Hot Off The Press!

NOW AVAILABLE!
In Paperback and/or  E-book
through Amazon 
USA & most other countries

 "Love & Other Annoyances: All Purpose Poems for Hard Headed & Soft Hearted Romantics  is Jasper’s second book, which she jokingly describes as ‘my attempt to combine Dr. Seuss and Mary Oliver. “Many of my poems rhyme in a silly way, but many others look at the natural world for an understanding and perspective being human.” 


Love and Other Annoyances is a celebration of love and life but according to Jasper, “I sometimes sneak in free advice on how to manage the many common events that confuse us, elevate us, make us laugh and break our hearts.” This collection of thirty-five poems focuses on Love. Family. Friendship. Work. Guilt. Chores. Passion. Betrayal. And Contentment.


“My poems are pretty simple and straightforward,” Jasper says. 

Those poets who find meaning

In observing the natural winter life:

That is not me. I want rhymes and rhythms.

My comfort comes from underground

where roots are the flowers of the otherworld.



 “This is an experiment on my part,” Jasper explains. “I’ve agreed to give USA and International Amazon a ninety day exclusive, hoping to reach as wide an audience as possible. But I also want to have fun sharing this book, so my first promotional event a will be silly one:***  


***Currently, the following promotional event is available only on my blog.

Buy two or more books

  and write a review

And I will write a little poem for you!

Monday, June 14, 2021

Updates


 Hello from Provincetown, where I am comfortably recuperating from major back surgery that has me hopeful and encouraged. So far I'm doing far better than expected. No gardening, no bending or twisting or lifting for another month or two, but all in all I'm doing well. I put this spinal fusion surgery off for years, hoping physical therapy or weight loss or acupuncture or chiropractic treatment etc etc would work. Now, barely three weeks post operatively, I am in far less pain than I've been in the last three years. So come what may I know I made the right decision. 

I'm also unexpectedly readying to have a collection of my poetry published within a few weeks! This has been sweet and exciting and surprising! I took a break from querying my novel at the same time I began reviewing and cleaning up my writing files, and somehow one step has led to another. The book should be available as a paperback or e-book on Amazon sometime in early to mid-July. My feeling is 'thrilling!'

It's beautiful here on Cape Cod as spring falls into summer. JB and I rearranged our outdoor deck from just a grill and picnic table to the addition of a cozy sectional where I can stretch out and read and relax. It took me weeks to decide on the 'right' patio sectional but I lucked out with a great choice.

Wishing each of you a blessed grateful season ahead. Love kj

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Help!


 You may remember this. I asked for impressions and suggestions about love and then I put the responses all together.  This is one of my favorite graphics.

I have a feeling my blog is not allowing some or all comments. Would you kindly let me know if you're unable to leave a comment here? My email address is karenjasper@comcast.net.

Meanwhile, all is well here except I'm having long avoided back surgery in Mid-May. It's about time and I'm hopeful I'll be able to walk the beach and walk downtown and stand to my heart's content. I feel good about it, despite a longish recovery. 

These days are writing days for me. I'm compiling a trade book of my poems and determining how best to publish (or self publish) my family saga novel. It's a good life here: JB goes to her studio and I write and we marvel that we're one block from the beach. We've been vaccinated. Hope floats!

love kj



Friday, March 05, 2021

Rollercoasters



I've begun cleaning out my computer files and I've come across a memoir I put aside a few years ago. It brought me back to probably my earliest blog post, written in 2006 at a time when I saw and experienced life a certain way. I'm still pondering what has and hasn't changed in my thinking, but I do know I still don't mind taking a risk or two. How about you? 

 My Blog Entry 2006

Whatever is exhilarating is also risky, kind of like riding a roller coaster with your hands above your head and your feet so flip-floppy they won’t help you brace, especially during that first long wild dip, when your hair flies behind you at lightning speed and you can barely hear your own screams because they are folded into the chill of the collective scream, all the way down, until you level out waiting for the next rapid rise and fall.

        True, there’s a steel bar across your lap that holds you to the seat, makes sure gravity will not pick you up and plummet you into mid air and sudden death, but let’s face it: you want to ride that roller coaster that way—reckless and reflectively—so you hand over a piece of yourself without knowing the ropes, the same as if you choose a backcountry trail without provisions or a map; you do it that way and you’re taking your chances that you'll know what to do when the danger rush comes flying at you, when there’s no time to think and certainly no time to plan.

            You know it makes more sense to size things up, take your time and venture slowly, get familiar with what's known and what isn't. You know It’s better to not be surprised when you are not prepared, to keep the rudder steady, to drop Hansel and Gretel corn kernels behind you so the path stays familiar. But then again when you know your way, you’re not surprised, and when you’re not surprised, you’re not deep in the thrill and the rush ride that’s lost to you is not exactly small.

Isn’t that why sooner or later you come to admire people who just throw their arms up and go with it and venture forth, no map, no plan, no umbrella, no kernels of anything except the wild stallion within them, why you react with amazement when they decide to let loose, finally, fully, foolishly, yes, but who’s to say the benefit won’t be the lovely freedom of unleashed passion, newly minted wonder, a way of moving in a sometimes flat world, a level of deciding that transcends and transforms everything that’s come before it?

Don’t most of us envy people like that, wish we could do it that way too, at least sometimes? Don’t you want the earth to move, the foundation to shake, the stars to explode right in front of you, to throw you off your feet and high into the air in one explosive bolt? Really now, Don’t you?

I knew a woman who traded in her compass and her raincoat for the thrill of the open road. She burned her house down and everything in it one October morning and she never looked back. When she ventured forth, she was anchorless, weightless, unencumbered, clueless, totally wide and open and fresh and full. It was like her heart had split itself down the middle, pulsating with its own raw recklessness, spilling forth love dust everywhere, no fences, no ambivalence, no back doors, not a molecule of second guessing. She slid onto that roller coaster seat and for two years she rode up the track and down, letting an unfamiliar and totally exhilarating passion slap her face, toss her from side to side, spike her right off her seat. Vibrant images and new possibilities flew by her with lightning speed, new colors and new…….

But…

...That passion sometimes overtakes, not just exhilarates. Have you learned that hearts can roam free and wild for only so long, before they need to slow down, level out, open up and wide, yes, but did you know that hearts prefer a clean cut that expands and not explosives that blast?

Because when your heart explodes, shards blow and fall everywhere, and you might spend years picking the blown apart pieces, trying to put them back together rightly. That is what happened to this other woman I knew. It took her a long time to stop looking to find and repair all those pieces. It took her a long time to learn about balance and safety and steady sails. But she did learn. But too, every once in a while she is back on that roller coaster, whoopy-ing her way through wild arms in the air ride, letting the wind take her again, leaving her umbrella and compass in a back room somewhere.


Thursday, February 25, 2021

Hello!


 The last time I posted here, little did we know the Covid 19 virus would be so devastating. This week JB and I got our first vaccine shot and as I knew it would, it's given me some hope that this can be the beginning of the end of this world-wide tragedy; meaning it will hopefully be easier to move life in the direction of 'more normal.'

I've been pretty much holed up at home, but I live in such a beautiful place, with an empty winter beach one block from home. It's mostly been okay, except I miss my daughter and son-in-law and my four grandkids. But soon.... 

My cooking skills have increased significantly. It's about time! These days I'm also  shopping my completed family saga novel, hoping an agent will pick me up. I'm not sure if that will happen, but I'm motivated to stick with the no-fun process of sending out queries and sample chapters. 

I am forever said that blogging has flickered out. I will always miss so many past blogging friends. Heck, we shared our lives almost daily. I wish those of us who remain, even periodically like me, everything good. I'll keep writing, and if and when my book get's picked up, I'll be shouting from the rooftops right here!

love kj