Once upon a time, in a land far away, I participated in a writer’s workshop at a Women’s Project Retreat.  A large part of my reason for being there was the attempt to become an accepted member of the Arkansas women’s community.  Many of the attendees wished I were not there.

We were given the first phrase of the beginning of a story and asked to finish that beginning.  You are invited to do the same.

The first story:  

The second story:  

The following are my efforts, the first one in prose, while the second one became a poem.

And there is a story that goes with them, a story which has never actually appeared in anything but a comment before.  I’m appending it to the end to make it easier to find in the future.

It seems to happen periodically, but with unfixed period.  Sometimes my thoughts are in too much of a jumble to make much sense out of them.  I took a look through the past year’s columns and discovered at least three occasions in which this happened in 2008.  Each time I still managed to cobble something together anyway:

March 28:  Thought Salad

May 2:  Mixed Veggies

Sep 5:  Stone Soup

Hence, I guess, the name of this edition.  Hopefully there is some of the meat required as part of that hobo dish.

The ingredients:  identity, privilege, memories, creativity, pain.  Not necessarily in that order…and sometimes in combination.