{"id":11512,"date":"2022-04-14T06:57:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T13:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=11512"},"modified":"2022-04-06T08:58:54","modified_gmt":"2022-04-06T15:58:54","slug":"divine-candy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/divine-candy\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Candy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer\u2019s voice on the page.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Divine Candy<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>By Sandra de Helen<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>On Route 66, Dead Man\u2019s Curve<br \/>our house with an outhouse on seven acres<br \/>with no running water,<br \/>no candy store in sight.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We ate the eggs our chickens lay,<br \/>beans, potatoes, and greens<br \/>Mom picked in the woods.<br \/>No sweets except on holidays.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Grandma baked pies,<br \/>Aunt Mame made candy:<br \/>Chocolate fudge, peanut butter bars,<br \/>and her heavenly divinity.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Billowy clouds of white sugar,<br \/>studded with walnuts Mame herself<br \/>picked out with her prized nutcracker set.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Black walnuts the family gathered together<br \/>to gather from alongside gravel roads<br \/>of the nearby countryside.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Once each year every small family<br \/>within our larger family<br \/>were gifted a decorated box<br \/>of Aunt Mame\u2019s treasured sweets.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>We rationed them, made them last<br \/>by savoring each bite with the mindfulness<br \/>we\u2019ve long since forgotten.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Only my sister and I are left to recall<br \/>our Aunt Mame and her gifts.<br \/>No one thought to ask for her recipe,<br \/>and no family member makes divinity.<br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/sandradehelen.com\/wp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Sandra de Helen<\/strong> <\/a>lives and writes in Portland, Oregon. She is author of the Shirley Combs\/Dr. Mary Watson mystery series, set in Portland; Till Darkness Comes, a thriller set in Kansas City, Missouri; and four collections of lesbian poetry published by Launch Point Press.<\/p>\n<p>Sandra is a member of the Golden Crown Literary Society, Dramatists Guild, Honor Roll! and International Centre for Women Playwrights.<\/p>\n<p>Follow her on Twitter @dehelen<\/p>\n<p>Follow her on Instagram @dehelen<\/p>\n<p>Check out her<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dehelen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"> Facebook<\/a> page.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer\u2019s voice on the page. Divine Candy By Sandra de Helen On Route 66, Dead Man\u2019s Curveour house with an outhouse on seven acreswith no running water,no candy store in sight.\u00a0 We ate the eggs our chickens lay,beans, potatoes, and greensMom picked in the woods.No sweets [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1474],"tags":[1739,1190],"class_list":["post-11512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sparks","tag-sandra-de-helen","tag-writing-freely-just-write-writing-prompts-the-write-spot-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2ZG","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11512"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11518,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11512\/revisions\/11518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}