3 x 3

On Thursday night, Kathy gave us this prompt: write down three images from your day.

Apparently my mind had a bit more than three that needed to be placed on the page!

1. The brightest, clearest blue you’ve ever seen, puffy white clouds streaming across the sky above the deep green of the pine trees to be rushed away within minutes as the gray clouds of a storm roll in for the day.
2. Sitting down at a small table in an elementary school classroom trying to explain to my son’s teacher that my son has no barriers, everything that is happening around him, hits him as deeply as if he himself was involved – how do you give him a defensive wall? and why would I want him to stop feeling towards those around him?
3. Walking into my warmly lit house, the warmth and love enveloping me after I just spent an entire day trying to pretend that nothing that was said had anything to do with me, it’s just a job, it’s just something that I do to earn money. It is not my life.
4. Seeing another Shutesbury herbalist in the store and she said to me, ‘oh, I’m surprised to still see you here! I thought you were going to take some test to go back to school. And by the time I got to the end of my conversation I finally realized that yes, I will be able to pass those damn MTEL exams the next time I take them!
5. Wondering why on earth that my brain forgets that every month my body feels like a balloon full of jelly.
6. Thinking, oh my gosh! within a week I will be able to wear my wedding ring again! I haven’t been able to do that for years! But I still do not understand why the other two rings that my husband gave me still fit perfectly – how does that make sense?
7. Looking at the cookies and thinking, I’ve already had a chocolate raspberry croissant and almost an entire bag of dark chocolate covered pretzels, should I really be eating more chocolate? And while we are on the subject of excess, just how many cups of coffee, chai and steaz have I had today? I really should have gone for a cup of calming tea, but the call of the coffee was just too alluring …
   
8. And, yes, for those of you who are wondering, I am avoiding writing anything for the story. I have no idea why, other than the fact that my world has been in chaos for the last two weeks, but honestly, at this point, when is my world NOT in chaos? And shouldn’t I be used to the random acts that fate likes to twist into my path? Shouldn’t I be used to the blind corners, and leaps of logic? One would think so, and indeed I was beginning to think that that would soon be the case, but apparently it is not because I am still awaiting for that time of peace and bliss when everything makes sense, and my world exists within the dimensions of my own personal view of the universe and the only random acts that occur to me and mine are ones of gratitude and kindness.
9. One of these days I’m going to go on one of those fancy smancy writing retreats in which I do nothing, for days on end except write something for the story. In some ways it’d be great if I could do that up at Temenos, but knowing that everyone is all just down the hill from where my cabin is may not work out as well as I want it to, and then there’s the thought that that really is the best way to do something like that – it’s close, it’s secluded, and mostly importantly it’s cheap! Summer would definitely be best since I have almost no tolerance for being cold and while I have finally learned to start a good roaring fire it may not be that much fun to be solely responsible for my heat source, so summer it is, but wasn’t I going to hike to Mount Monadnock next summer? I suppose it’s possible to do both, but the question is: do I hike the trail alone? Or do I ask someone to go with me? Ooh! Maybe I should hike that trail as a birthday present for myself? Hmmm … Wonder if my husband would let me ditch him and the kids for a few days to do that? Ooh! I could even get some writing done then!

what matters?

a wood stove AND firewood to set alight

gallons upon gallons of drinking water

candles AND a box of matches

a good book, or three, or four to read by candlelight

as the world goes quiet and dark for the night

these things are what matter

these things are what can be held

in a moment

in a series of moments

longer than a breath can be held

longer than the time it takes for a child to fall asleep

in a moment

all is gone

and nothing

and everything

will be the same again

until the matter is over and done

until the matter comes round again

to form another twirl

along the spiral

until nothing matters again

16 things i learned from the halloween storm

1. My body can survive without good coffee. It’s not happy about it and that first cup of fogbuster was absolutely amazing! But free coffee at work is not the beginning of a terrible day.
2. If we ever get wind of another storm coming our way: we need do the dishes! ASAP!
3. Gallons and gallons of drinking water would have been much appreciated.
4. The world looks so different without electricity.
5. If not for lack of running water and a flushing toilet, I could live happily without electricity.
6. There is something beautiful about the world going dark and quiet for the entirety of the night.
7. Next time I will use my computer’s battery power for writing, or reading a book on nook, rather than cruising around facebook to see who was hit by the storm.
8. Having cupboards full of dried goods is no help when you have no heat source for cooking.
9. A block of cheese, some nuts and dried fruit make an excellent meal!
10. Bags of snow are a wonderful cooling agent.
11. Melted snow makes an easy and abundant source of toilet water.
12. Maple syrup buckets make an excellent container for storing snow.
13. In addition to cleaning the dishes, we should also boil all the eggs in the house, and cook up all the fish in the freezer. Such a sad thing to toss out all that food this morning :(
14. Ready- made meals can actually be really tasty!
15. Making videos of the kids and taking pictures of the storm only acts as entertainment as long as there is hot cocoa mix in the cabinet.
16. I make a damn good hot chocolate on the wood stove :)

dawning lights

every picture has a story
to be told
to young or old

every picture holds the future
within the eye of the beholder
expounding truths
dispelling lies
to those
who are willing
to listen with
open ears
welcoming hearts
the truth heard
resounding in
dawn's early light
darkness will disperse
to hear this new verse
of solitude and joy
for the writer to employ
an entire mind's eye
among letters of remorse

a fatal error?

ok, so, i know this type of thing is completely inappropriate, and as many critics will tell you, this is not allowed, but since i have yet to publish anything, other than in a school newspaper, i am doing this regardless of what any critic will advise ... i am going to write about writing!
i have been working on a new story for almost a year now. this new one does not involve much death, there are no vampires to be seen and the two main characters have something a little more intimate happening than friendship, while i do not know quite what that is yet, i do know this: it is NOT a vampire novel and the events of said story line will always prevail in the favor of the two aforementioned characters .... eventually.
now, the reason for the gross diversion of tactical writing could have been due to many things, but the main reason is this: my vampire novel was becoming my life.
every song i heard on the radio held some relevance, every person in my life reminded me of some character, every movie i was watching had a vampire in it, every book i was reading had a vampire in it, and yes, even customers became the basis for some attribute of my characters, and i was even beginning to think of myself as a character! EVERYTHING began to hold some relation to the story.
now, some of you may think that this type of immersion is a good thing. it means that the story is truly within you and the flow of the plot is moving along, and viola! you have a wonderful piece of work! sadly, i have found this not to be the case, and in truth, i think it became more of a hindrance than a motivator.
so, after printing out my draft in its entirety (over 300 pages) and giving it to a dear friend to read, i ditched it.
at first i had thought that i just needed a little break, a few weeks while she took a look, but the weeks soon became months, and months soon became a few more months, and i soon found myself on the other side of the story .... and suddenly a new set of characters came along and decided to settle into my creative space for a while.
the while turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months ... and, yeah, you get the idea ... i suddenly had another story line to work on and the characters of my vamp novel went into the background.
the truly amazing thing about this, is that they did not return until i gave them the ok.
none of them were anywhere to be seen until my mind realized it had been almost a year since i had printed out the draft, and that's when the main character came back to me, and she made me realize something scarier than any vampire novel that could ever be written - claudia is me!

light time

when something

gets taken away

when something

misses its mark

when something

blocks the light

nothing can get through

there is no shine

there is no shimmer

there is no light

there is no shadow

there is only darkness

there is only despair

there is only deceit

there is only defeat

there is only time

patiently waiting

to shine through

the darkness

to shine through

the shadows

of yesterday’s sorrow