Category: Sparks

  • Winter Solstice 2021

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Winter Solstice 2021

    By M.A. Dooley

    This blessed day when the light returns,

    I stand on the mountain of my home 

    Grounded at 7:59 AM and look up. 

    The round moon wanes floating over 

    Saucer clouds docked in the west. 

    A soft haze hangs between me and my Shire,

    Layered hillocks of veiled emerald, 

    Taste wet and lush as if the drought is over. 

    The sun rises behind a filter of grey

    Cotton balls connected at fluffy centers like 

    Fat caterpillars in the sky. 

    When the time rings for a celestial split, 

    A tear in the cotton,

    A thin sliver of blue blinks open 

    And the sun sears my eyes 

    Carving the womb of awakening.

    I am the field of green softened by one ray,

    I am the strong back of the moon, 

    Light as the wind that whips my tassels

    Reverent as a child witnessing a miracle

    I welcome life and light this Solstice sunrise.

    M.A. Dooley is an architect and writer from the Santa Cruz Mountains, Sonoma County, and the Sierra Nevadas. Dooley has been published in “The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year” and in “Poems of a Modern Day Architect,” Archhive Books, 2020.

    #amwriting #justwrite #poetry #iamawriter

    Marlene C

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  • A Little Louder, Please

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    A Little Louder, Please

    Susan Zahl Bono

    Christmas 2005

    I must be going deaf. It’s the season when yuletide TV ads are louder and brighter than the shows they’re interrupting, but I don’t seem to be hearing their message. December is swinging into its second week and I haven’t bought any presents. Last weekend, my husband wrestled the fake tree into the living room and wrapped it with lights, but if that’s as far as we get, I’m not going to be heartbroken about it. At night with those little lights glowing, I can almost forget the ornaments are missing.

    These are my dark ages. My kids are too old to believe in Santa and too young to make grandchildren. They stopped caring about trees and holiday trappings about the time we gave in to their dad’s allergies and went artificial. As far as their gifts are concerned, there are only so many ways you can wrap money. My husband likes to order his own gifts, and all I really want are my closets emptied and my left eyelid to stop sagging enough to let me see out of it in the morning. I’m not inspired to do much baking. Everyone my age knows about the dangers of letting Christmas cookies into the house.

    A few days ago, a three-year-old took me to lunch. Her mother drove, but the little queen was obviously in charge. Giuliana, dressed like a Victorian monarch in a flouncy skirt and short velvet cape, issued orders from her crash-tested throne in the back seat.

    “A little louder, please,” she said, indicating the car stereo. The queen’s mum, like any good mother, pretended to comply by touching the volume knob.

    “A little louder, please,” our sovereign commanded, with only a trace of irritation in her voice. Soon, such seasonal favorites as “All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” and “Frosty the Snowman” engulfed us.

    I suspect Giuliana’s mother was afraid I would condemn her daughter’s musical tastes as well as her own lack of parental control. On the contrary. The sappy rendition of “Jingle Bells” took me back to yuletides past when my own kids demanded the volume cranked on Dr. Demento’s Christmas Novelties, payback for having tortured my own parents. As a child, my favorite holiday album featured Jack Benny’s halting violin and someone loudly lisping, “I thaw Mommy kith-ing Thanta Cloth.” Little ones really do know what Christmas is all about.

    “A little louder, please,” the Good Queen said again, this time for our benefit. She was having no trouble singing along with a relentlessly cheery “Deck the Halls,” and she wanted to make sure we heard the music, too. Any fool could see that her mom and I were so busy dissecting the past and worrying about the future we were completely missing out on the fa la la la la.

    A wiser woman would have joined in on a couple of verses of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” or “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” I’m sorry, Giuliana. I wasn’t ready to listen.  But it’s not too late. Sadly, my own collection of holiday music is heavy on a cappella versions of “The Holly and the Ivy,” “O, Come, O, Come, Emmanuel” and carols played on antique German music boxes. But maybe if I play them loudly enough, I’ll start to remember what the fuss is all about.

    Susan Zahl Bono is a California-born mother, teacher, writer, and editor who’s lived more than half her life with the same man in the same house in Petaluma. She published Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative for twenty years. She facilitates writing workshops, including Jumpstart with Marlene Cullen. Her own work has appeared online, on stage, in anthologies, newspapers, on the radio, and in several Write Spot anthologies. Her book, “What Have We Here: Essays about Keeping House and Finding Home” was published in 2014. 

    #amwriting #justwrite #creativewriting #iamawriter

    Marlene C

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  • Silence For The Soul

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Silence For The Soul

    By Sarah Horton

    Silence for the Soul  is our tradition, created to welcome us into the deeper doorways to the heart. It is timed around the changing of the seasons. We gather in silence for a variety of meditation practices as individual as the people who come:  sitting, walking the labyrinth, indoors, outdoors, eyes open, eyes shut, journaling, more sitting. We start with intention and breathing together. We end by coming together in a circle for the breaking of bread, homemade soup, and soft sharing.  

    I have been doing this on a regular basis with two other friends of the heart since the “2012 ending-of-the-world” or simply an ending. This was our new-beginning-offering and continues as one. There will be anywhere from the three-of-us regulars to fifteen other souls to hold the circle of magic and light for transformation and healing. Gentle in our ways of remembering the solstice seasons as they may change; or a lunar or solar eclipse that may occur; or other celestial event calling to us. Diligent in holding the simple structure of silence and care of the spirits that show up at the metaphorical doorways of change, we are all in our own ways sweet and welcoming, sincere and loving, renewed and refreshed at the closing bell.

    We don’t talk about IT much, we just seem to come together at the right times of the year bringing snippets of knowledge and current feelings for what is needed. Our box of candles and signs sits on a shelf in the dark closet awaiting the top to be opened to the light, the candles set around and lit, and the signs strategically placed to welcome all to enter and remain in silence for their time with us in the stillness. 

    Then the soup is served and the breaking of the bread is done quietly; we slowly eat together returning to peaceful sharing with others. There is no rush to put our box back into the closet or bring our newly polished hearts of gold out into the world. And so it is.

    Sarah Horton is an artist living in “the Lost Sierras” with Chris, her beloved, and Lulu, the master Bichon Frise. Sarah is an adventurer into the wilderness of the heart as well as the natural world. She dabbles with paints on large canvases and memoir writings that the nature spirits nearby seem to appear in. Published in several books, paintings shown in galleries, and when called, travels to mystical places in this beautiful world. 

    I’m working on a series of short memoir stories to put in a Box of Memories for my daughter, her friends, our family, and future friends yet to be met. Similar to finding a box of old photographs with scribbled handwritten notes on the back; our memoir stories of people, places, events of celebration and transformations that are written in the personal may impart timely universal wisdom. Stories that may make a difference, lend support, or sooth a difficult or healing situation in our human family. —Sarah Horton

    Marlene C

  • Dinner Lines

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Dinner Lines

    By M.A. Dooley

    Empty lines without a script,

    Two old lovers sit stiff like bricks

     

    Empty lines planked blue wood top,

    Inviting ages of warmth and weight.

     

    Warmth and weight, young bricks cool,

    Purpose wanted held at bay.

     

    Warmth and weight, mason’s hands

    Stack staggered bonds, build a wall.

     

    Build a wall, the server piles

    Flowers, wine, the table splits.

     

    Build a wall to be broken down

    With drink, pleasure, taste and texture.

     

    Taste and texture laughter blooms,

    Edges soften like molten stone.

     

    Taste and texture spills red wine

    Dripping, seeping fills empty lines.

     

    Empty lines, hushed hands held,

    Old lovers’ warmth and weight meld. 

    M.A. Dooley is an architect and writer from the Santa Cruz Mountains, Sonoma County, and the Sierra Nevadas. Dooley has been published in The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year and Poems of a Modern Day Architect, Archhive Books, 2020.

    Marlene C

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  • Dust to Dust

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Dust to Dust

    By Brenda Bellinger

    This post happens to fall on what would have been my mother’s 86th birthday if she were still with us. She passed away thirteen years ago, yet I often feel her presence. Recently, I was dusting a small antique genie lamp that belonged to her mother, my grandmother. Made of white china, its glaze bears the spiderwebbing of many tiny cracks. Miraculously, the hurricane glass and original brown paper shade, though faded, are both still intact. As I carefully pushed a corner of the dust cloth through the curled handle, I thought of all the times this had been done before. Both my mother and grandmother were fastidious housekeepers. Myself? Not so much.

    I wonder at what point this lamp will cease to hold its significance. A time will come when the sleeping genie will no longer be woken by the caress of a dust cloth and the lamp will find its way to the land of the unwanted and unneeded.

    In the 1950s, the Lane Company of East Providence, Rhode Island gave graduating students at the local Catholic school for girls, a miniature hope chest. Mom gave hers to me many years ago and I use it for odd bits of costume jewelry. Amazingly, the cedar scent is still present. As I mentioned in my last post, times have changed. The idea of a hope chest today, though quaint, seems so horse-and-buggy.

    When she and my father first married, they struggled financially for a while as many young couples do, trying to get their footing. One Christmas, he bought her a bottle of Joy perfume by Jean Patou. She so treasured this bottle that she rarely used it. I remember how it sat regally in the center of a mirrored tray on her dresser. I have it now. One more thing to dust. It’s still about two-thirds full, the perfume having aged a deep amber color. Writing this, I paused for a moment to go open it; something I’ve never done before. As you might have guessed, it turned a corner a very long time ago. I’m not sure why, but I’ll keep it a bit longer.

    Memories. Something else to be thankful for when we gather around the table.

    Brenda Bellinger

    Born in Rhode Island, I spent the first eight years of my life in New England. I can still remember the delight of summer thunderstorms and the fragrance of fall in the air as leaves crunched underfoot. My parents moved to San Francisco and eventually settled in the North Bay Area.

    In 1992, a friend asked me to sign up for a writing class with her. I agreed, never anticipating that class would open a new door for me. At that time, my husband and I were raising four boys and I was working as a courtroom clerk. Writing provided a creative outlet I didn’t know I needed..

    For the month of November 2009, I cleared my calendar of all commitments other than work and Thanksgiving Day to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) – a challenge to write 50,000 words in thirty days. Fueled by good coffee and dark chocolate covered espresso beans, I zipped past the goal and completed the first (extremely rough) draft of what would eventually become my debut novel, “Taking Root.”

    My work has appeared in Small Farmer’s Journal, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, THEMA, the California Writers Club Literary Review, and in various anthologies, including The Write Spot: Reflections, and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year.

    Note from Marlene: Brenda’s Blog is a collection of thoughtful and entertaining reflections on what matters.

    “Dust to Dust” originally posted on Brenda’s Blog, November 16, 2021.

    Marlene C

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  • Eye Feast

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Eye Feast

    By Julie Wilder-Sherman

    How I love the ritual of the famliest day of the year. My favorite month and favorite day. So much planning. So much work. So much expense. All of it welcomed enthusiastically by me.

    The long folding table is taken out of the garage, locked into balance and steadiness, then cleaned. The fall-themed table cloth scattered with a pattern of dark green, yellow and brown leaves on a tan background with acorns and pinecones around the edges is spread out on the long table. Napkin rings, the only time I use them, encase the small thick linen face towels of red and yellow, placed in the center of each plate which sits upon gold-colored chargers I bought on sale at Kohl’s. 

    The gravy boat and fancy dishes not used in a year are removed from the cupboards, washed carefully and dried by hand. Wine glasses received at our wedding more than 30 years ago are lifted from the china shelf, now mismatched with pieces gone still make an impressive display.

    The center of the table is dotted with small live sunflowers in short vases, making sure they are low enough for family to see each other across the table. Tiny amber-colored lights weave in and out among the vases traveling down the center of the table. At dusk, when we sit, the lights give off a magical glow around the flickering maroon taper candles nestled into the gold candlestick holders.

    All that remains is the food.  Let’s eat.

    Julie Wilder-Sherman began reading books at an early age, encouraged by her mother who would allow her to take books to bed when she was as young as two years old. Raised in a family of readers, writers, performers, musicians, and political activists, Julie followed her dream of singing professionally and met her husband, bassist Jeff Sherman, while singing on The Love Boat. Together they enjoy cooking, eating, reading, and traveling to all corners of the world. Julie remains politically active and helps to manage the Petaluma Postcard Pod supporting democratic candidates, issues, and policies. 

    #amwriting #justwrite #creativewriting @iamawriter

    Marlene C

  • Circles of Life . . . Circles of Death

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Circles of Life . . . Circles of Death

    by Peter Perez

    Just as the sun circles the globe each day, and the moon circles the globe each month, so do we follow the paths and orbits of our lives, crossing and intersecting the family, friends and events that crossroad our voyage.

    It is the choices that we make at those crossroads that put us on our journey and lead us to the next adventure. To be willing to accept your instincts is what keeps life fresh and exciting. And as one explores life, so must we be prepared for the next adventure . . . death. Our ancestors believed that death was the purpose of life and the beginning of the next evolution of spirit . . . in another dimension.

    Embracing Death gives more meaning to Life . . . and embracing Life gives more meaning to Death. It is what we do while we are here that makes the difference.

    Whether you are living to die . . . or dying to live will describe your journey.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    Peter Perez has taken on new lives and lifestyles throughout his existence. His first life was that of an immigrant’s son who used his artistic talents to buy a one-way ticket to New York after graduating from one of the country’s best art schools.

    From fledgling artist growing up in an Anaheim, California barrio, to Madison Avenue superstar, Perez has now metamorphosed back to his cultural heritage to become a renown Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) creator and curator.

    “The Day of the Dead celebration awakened deep personal roots that had been lost and forgotten,” said Perez. “Spanish, my first language, and a connection to my native culture, had been erased at an early age.”

    During a reunion visit to his Anaheim, California high school in 2016, Perez told students about being renamed Peter from Pedro and being forbidden to speak Spanish. His story was especially relevant to the arts students who see Perez as someone from their own background who became a successful artist despite the odds.

    “Be the best at what you do and success will come naturally,” he told the students.

    Perez is responsible for sparking the City of Anaheim’s Day of the Dead celebration. It was, in fact, sparked by the death of his nephew, an Anaheim resident who died in a motorcycle accident in 2009. Initially not embraced by city officials, Perez persisted and, with the help of the Anaheim Heritage Council, Arts Council, Downtown Association and several volunteers, a new tradition was started that has evolved into celebrations being staged throughout Orange County.

    For Perez, the opportunity to paint and explore the life of the dead has resulted in solo shows, group exhibits, and serving as a curator for fiestas, art and altar exhibitions for the largest Dia de los Muertos celebrations in the nation. He has also introduced the celebration to areas in India and Australia. His Dia de los Muertos installations draw rave reviews.

    Marlene C

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  • Illinois Autumn Sunset

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.


    Illinois Autumn Sunset 

    by Deb Fenwick

    Sitting on the back porch after dinner during an autumn sunset requires fleece. Maybe a light blanket. A cup of tea is also a good idea. Don’t underestimate the importance of warmth. 

    Watching pink clouds stretch and yawn as they disappear below rooftops makes you appreciate them more. Don’t get distracted by utility poles that puncture the view. Instead, shift your gaze upward. Tilt your head a little higher to see if you can find an empty patch of sky. Inhale deeply when you do.

    Talking occasionally with your love, leave blank spaces in conversations. Pause and leave room to ponder. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you know every story he has to tell. Don’t anticipate his response. Listen for what’s new as the birch leaves fall. Also, listen for the silence. 

    Gazing out at the garden that’s about to go to sleep, look at everything you have to harvest on your little plot of land. Don’t fixate on the blighted apples or moth-bitten kale. Instead, plan to gather what you can and shift your attention to the maple tree with its burning crown of glory. Vow to remember its beauty when you’re waist-deep into December. 

    Breathing in cool dusk while watching the sky sometimes requires searching for the moon. It’s there, even if you can’t see it. Don’t get fooled by thick clouds or a hidden new moon. Have faith in what you can’t see. Watch nightbirds soar into darkness. They know. And flocks of geese navigating by starlight know, as well. It’s time to leave the golden Illinois prairie. 

    Turn off the porch light and lock the door. You’ll be kept warm when winter comes. 

    Deb Fenwick is a Chicago-born writer who currently lives in Oak Park, Illinois. After spending many years working as an arts educator, school program specialist, youth advocate, and public school administrator, she now finds herself with ample time to read books by her heroes and write every story that was patiently waiting to be told. 

    #amwriting #justwrite #writingfreely #freewrites

    Marlene C

  • Memory of a ‘giorno dei morti’ in Italy

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Memory of a ‘giorno dei morti’ in Italy

    by Simona Carini

    What I remember most about that day is the cold wind. It was blowing strongly, and yet it could not push away the heavy low clouds and wipe the sky clear, so it was dark in the early afternoon. The cypresses lining the gravel path from the cemetery’s heavy iron gate to the chapel swayed as if wailing unconsolably. A group of people had walked the narrow road from the village to the cemetery in a procession led by the priest, Don Gabriele, imposing in his black cassock, which swirled around his legs at the mercy of the biting wind.

    A child then, I was terrified not of the cemetery, which I had been visiting regularly with my father since an early age, but of the elements: the wind could topple trees or tombstones, make pots and vases tumble from columbaria, and if it stopped, the low clouds would weep torrents of rain on us. I had accompanied my aunt Lucia to the ceremony. She was rapt in devoted prayer, while I observed the other villagers and wondered why nobody looked concerned.

    The prayer came to the closing “Amen” and all we could hear was the wind. I thought the shared part was over and I could walk with my aunt to our family’s vault and the stories it held and told, stories I never got tired of hearing. But in a gloomy, bass voice, Don Gabriele started singing over the wind:

    “Dies irae, dies illa …”

    I froze.

    “He’s conjuring up ghosts,” I thought.

    I wanted to run away but could not move. I knew we were honoring the dead and it would have been disrespectful to leave the ceremony, but why did it have to be so scary?

    Never again did I go with Aunt Lucia to the cemetery on November 2nd and in my mind on the Day of the Dead the sky is always blotted out by a mass of pewter clouds, the wind blows hard, and God is angry.

    Born in Perugia, Italy, Simona Carini writes poetry and nonfiction and has been published in various venues, in print and online, including Intima – A Journal of Narrative Medicine, Italian Americana, Sheila-Na-Gig online, Star 82 Review, the Journal of Humanistic Mathematics, the American Journal of Nursing. She lives in Northern California with her husband and works as a data scientist at an academic research institution.

    Marlene C

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  • Dem Dry Bones

    Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page.

    Dem Dry Bones

    By William Frank Hulse III 

                In my hometown, the old hospital is where I was born. The same holds true for almost all of my 1947 vintage classmates. The old hospital was built in 1923 and razed in ’65 when the new hospital was completed. The memories I have of the old hospital and the memories I have of the old high school are sufficiently intertwined that I can hardly separate them. Both places were mighty scary after dark – mighty scary. Both buildings had basements with very little light from outside, so they were scary with shadows and dark corners, if the lights were out – even if it was high noon. There were classrooms in the high school basement – physics, biology, chemistry and home economics and student restrooms. The hospital basement was almost exclusively storage, as I recall. My memory of the hospital centers around three trips there for stitches. I wasn’t accident prone but I was adventurous and didn’t always look before I leaped!

              When we were 13 years, there were three of us who were far past adventurous. We were bold, audacious and mischievous in the extreme. We didn’t break the law but we sure bent it into a pretzel. We were thrill seekers. There was no leader of the pack. One day Larry would have a crazy idea, the next Robert would get an unwise notion – and on the third yours truly would have a flight of fancy and no parachute whatsoever. The only reason we didn’t get in trouble was due to the fact that we were nighthawks, typically on a Friday night.

              I’ve probably failed to mention the fact that my Dad’s dad, my grandfather for whom I’m named, was the high school janitor and a bus driver. Granddad knew more about me than he let on because I’d ridden on the school bus he drove for a year. I behaved – to be sure. Granddad didn’t brook any nonsense even from his favorite grandson. That would be me. I inherited Granddad’s gleam in my eye and a propensity to laugh from dawn to dusk and then some. Sometimes, I would help Grandad clean the school. I wasn’t looking for a job – I just enjoyed being around him. When he got back from his bus route, he’d go back into the high school and give it a once over before the next day’s activities.

              Being in the high school after ‘business hours,’ I figured out two or three different ways to do so – even when Granddad wasn’t around – especially when he wasn’t around. I’d been known to smoke in the boy’s room but hadn’t ever been caught. I figured I was bulletproof so I told my nighthawk pals we should invade the high school one night. We didn’t have vandalism in mind – we were just intrigued by being someplace we weren’t supposed to be. One Friday night, a senior with a large dose of ornery took a cow up on the top floor. He left hay and water but that cow roamed the halls for the whole weekend and dropped manure deposits about every 10 feet. School opening was delayed that following Monday while Granddad and I cleaned up after ol’ Daisy. Nobody thought it was funny – everybody thought it was hilarious. Most of the teachers and Granddad pretended to be upset but the truth is it was a heckuva prank.

              My memory is a little fuzzy here but I think the three of us brainstormed a prank to top the cow in the high school. It might’ve been my idea but Robert and Larry have graduated from this life and are probably smoking in the boy’s room in heaven. Bless ‘em. But back in 1960 we were full of enthusiasm for one particular prank. We wanted to ‘liberate’ the skeleton in the biology lab. We named him Mr. Bone-jangles. At first, all we wanted to do was bring him out for a weekend – a furlough of a sort. But try as we might, we couldn’t figure out a way to get old’ Davey Bones back into the high school biology lab. We knew Mrs. Ahrend would be calling the FBI and Scotland Yard to help recover her lab partner. Getting caught by the authorities – that would be bad. And for me, having Granddad and Dad find out I was involved would be a fate worse than death. So, just for the record and in case they’re watching down from one of Heaven’s fishing ponds, “It wasn’t me.” I’m just reporting the facts as best I know them. Sorry, Larry and Robert, but you’re on your own.

              Davey Bones somehow ended up in my basement. To this day, I’m still baffled how it happened. I was certain Mom and Dad wouldn’t find ol’ Bone-jangles because he was back in the darkest corner of the basement where my aunt and uncle’s non-essentials were stored. They had moved to Oregon and had planned to retrieve the goods when they came back to visit.  I think their junk may still be back in that musty corner. They’ve been gone for 20 years now but they might need that stuff – you just never know.

              On Sunday afternoon we put an old shirt and trousers on Davey and found two perfect blue marbles for his eyes. About 11:00 that night we all snuck out and retrieved our pal and took him up to the hospital and ceremoniously left him on the front steps. We had made a placard and put it on his lap. It said, Rest in Pieces. The skeleton was back in the biology lab later that week. Three years later, Mrs. Ahrend was our biology teacher. She looked right at us but warned the entire class to expect fire and brimstone if Mr. Bone-jangles ever went AWOL again.

              The old days were nothing short of amazing. I was careful not to tell my son about our shenanigans. He didn’t have the sense God gave a goose and that was like father like son.      

    William Frank Hulse III is a native Oklahoman, born and raised in the Indian Cowboy Oilman community of Pawhuska. He began his college career at Central State College in Edmond but enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1968. While serving in the military Frank completed his undergraduate degree with the University of Maryland. Upon his return to civilian life in 1975, Frank was employed by Phillips Petroleum Company for almost 30 years. Since retiring he plays guitar and writes.

    Note From Marlene: You are welcome to comment on this story on my Writers Forum Facebook Page.

    #amwriting #justwrite #creativewriting

    Marlene C

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