Category: Sparks

  • The Bigger Picture … Life is more than me.

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

    The Bigger Picture . . . Life is more than me.

    By Christine Liles

    What I’m about to say is my own opinion and my personal thoughts about Life. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way or believe the way I do. I’ve experienced quite a bit in my life that’s led me to feel the way I do. Life is magical. It’s mysterious and unpredictable but also glorious and such a gift. I will say that I do believe in God. I believe we are all here for a reason. 

    To me, Life is like a chain of reactions. Think of your life. Think of everyone you currently know, everyone who has seen you do something, and everyone who you’ve come in contact with by doing a kind gesture or even a fender bender.

    Take all your life events and imagine all the people in it and what their lives would be like if you never existed. Imagine that you were never born. How much of an impact on those people’s lives have you made? Most of those people will never know what difference you’ve made, but it could be a positive one. I bet right now you are wondering where I’m going with this . . . right?

    For a while now, and I know I’ve mentioned this before on my blog, Living On O2 for Life, I’ve really thought about my life as a whole. The Bigger Picture. I’ve thought about the people I meet briefly and I feel a little guilty that I don’t remember them . . . though they certainly remember me. I think about my family and what their life would’ve been like if I hadn’t been born. 

    I often question myself when I’m out of the house doing my errands, in doctor’s offices, or just out to dinner … Why do people remember me? Sure I use oxygen. But it wasn’t until I went to my pain management doctor, I started wondering about all of this seriously. He looked at my chart with all my health problems and we talked a bit. He said that he saw that I’ve been through so much and I seem to be such a pleasant, vibrant person who can smile despite what I’ve been through. Then, he said that I’ve been blessed, truly blessed. I was truly at a loss for words. This is not me tooting my own horn. I just don’t know if I see myself that way. So, I often wonder why people do see me in such a kind light.

    There are two reasons why I am the way I am. I’ll be the first person to admit to you that I am NOT perfect. I don’t believe anyone is. Though, I tell my husband that I’m perfect in every way. *Wink* I do have days when I struggle with life. However, the core instinct in me wants to spread joy (that’s what I call it) because it makes me feel good and alive and I hope with all my heart that it makes someone’s day better as well. I don’t want to have to imagine what my life would be like if I couldn’t find a reason to smile. So, I wonder sometimes what it would be like if I was never born. And in wondering this, comes the HOPE that I have made a positive impact on someone’s life. 

    Life is more than me. It’s about all of us. We are all interconnected and we need each other.

    My name is Christine Liles and I blog about living on oxygen for life. I’ve used oxygen since I was 17 years old. 

    Note from Marlene:

    Christine shares her stories on her blog, Living On Oxygen for Life. I have enjoyed her blog posts for years. I love her upbeat and sparkling personality. We have never met in person, but I feel like I know her (from her stories on Living On Oxygen).

    About Christine:

    I was born as the middle child of two sisters. Both are healthy . . . thank goodness! Growing up, I was restricted from certain gym class activities; things like running, jump roping, or anything that made me breathe hard from exerting myself too much. What was so great was that my family, especially my sisters never treated me like I was a fragile flower. In a way, that made me stronger inside. Even though I was born with serious heart and breathing problems along with the scoliosis that had me wearing a Milwaukee brace, I was still a kid who rode a bike chasing after the ice cream man, played two years of girls’ league baseball (wasn’t very good), and I was even in a bowling league. I’m sure wasn’t suppose to do all that because of my health but my parents tried to let me experience life as close to normal as possible. There were times where I had to sit out from the fun because it was just too beyond my capability.

    Marlene C

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  • Day Tripping

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

    Day Tripping

    By Karen Handyside Ely

    As we enter the trailhead from Shell Beach, brisk and bracing winds swirl hair and chill bones. Am I crazy, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt?

    We begin our ascent, turning backwards often as we inch up the hill so that we can soak up the panorama that unfolds behind us. Sunshine shimmers on the Pacific, making it glitter as the waves undulate, achingly alive. Light on water, is there anything more beautiful? As we crest the first hill, we stop one last time to feast our eyes. Mine fill with tears. It overwhelms me, this hushed moment in the sea breeze. Immersed in this timeless vista there is such peace in knowing how long this view has been here, and always will be. The echoes of eternity, the promise of constancy. We continue on.

    I’m no longer cold. The climb has loosened my muscles. We have entered a new world as we bid a loving farewell to the sea. We follow the trail that takes us through scrub brush and into a verdant meadow. Periwinkle lupin and amethyst iris stand out in stark contrast to the pale green of the grass. This is a world of muted colors and modest foliage; an in-between space, stunning in its simplicity. The endless sky is open and clear without a single cloud to ripple its stillness… and then we hear it… the screech of a hawk, like the opening hymn in Earth’s grand cathedral. We stop again to absorb the majesty.

    We come to a fork in the trail and opt to take the low road. We pass from meadow into forest and are enfolded in a tapestry of vivid color. Cyprus and Pine line the path, and ferns become abundant as we wade deeper and deeper into the jungle magic. We have transcended time, finding ourselves awash in a primordial forest. Redwood trees reach towards heaven, congregating in faerie rings amidst the velvet redwood sorrel. The air has become heavy and we can almost hear the trees breathing in the silence. We have stumbled across a sacred space. We feel like the only two people on the planet.

    Our senses are tenderly bombarded. The pungent, mossy forest floor settles comfortably in our nostrils. The quiet hangs like a blanket around our shoulders, occasionally interrupted by the groan of a tree or the hum of an unseen insect. The sun streams in long rays of filtered light, warming our skin. This grove is a banquet of emerald, sage, juniper, and moss – every shade of green imaginable – all framing the deep glow of redwood bark. We stroll into the empty campground and spread our little picnic on a bench near the trickling creek. We have arrived.

    Karen Handyside Ely was born and raised in Petaluma, California. Upon graduating from UC Davis, she worked in San Francisco and New York City in corporate finance. After a 30-year career as a mom and “professional” volunteer in Scottsdale, AZ, Karen returned to her beloved hometown in Sonoma County.

    She delights in difficult crossword puzzles, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and traveling with  her husband (of 35 years) James.

    Karen has been published in The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries, The Write Spot: Reflections, The Write Spot: Possibilities, The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings From a Pandemic Year.  All available on Amazon in paperback and as ebooks.

    Marlene C

  • It

    By Cheryl Moore

    It’s as slick and slippery as an eel living in a low walled enclosure, searching all the crevices to find bits of debris that didn’t find their way to the long, dark tunnel at its root. It spends most of its days and nights resting against the hard, upper ceiling except at meal times when it is an important assist in processing the food, or when in company its primary function is to express thoughts into language.

    So many kinds of languages it helps to express — the hard, umlauted words of German, the soft shushes of Portuguese or Polish, the rapid clip of Spanish or Italian, even the clicks of Khoisan, and of course, the vast vocabulary of English which has borrowed from all over the world.

    Such a useful organ, the tongue, it may even be aware of when to hold its peace.

    When Cheryl Moore came to California in the early 1960’s, she realized she’d found her home. Then moving to Petaluma in the 70’s, she was as close to paradise as she’d ever be.

    Travel has taken her to Europe and the Middle East. She has written on these memories as well as on the flora and fauna of the local river and her own garden.

    Marlene C

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  • Voices

    By Ken Delpit

    Individual voices are fascinating. They reflect uniqueness.They involve specific characteristics and abilities, both physical and mental. In tone and in lyric, they express specific perspectives and emotions. They can be soft; they can be harsh. They can be musical to some, grating to others. They can be up-lifting, but also down-putting. Voices may not define us completely, but they certainly represent us while the rest of us waits backstage.

    But voices rarely come just one to a customer. Multiple voices can reside in a single person. This is certainly true for writers. Each fictional character, partially invented and partially native, taps into its writer’s own voice box. Voices within propel writers’ fingers, and shape their stories.

    With few exceptions, it is also true that everyone has multiple voices, whether writer or not. Anyone who hides true feelings or conceals real intentions uses a voice convenient for the deceit. Anyone who senses that they could inflict emotional damage may give their real voice the hook, and push a kinder understudy out as stand-in.

    United voices can swell the heart. They project multiplied energy.They promote commonality. They express hope and desire in ways that are much greater than the sum of their individual parts. And in a good way, they reduce us. They reduce us to not-so-different beings, with both interests and purposes in common.

    Then, too, united voices can be daunting. When assembled spontaneously, they can give birth to future planned gatherings. When unanimous in pain, they can startle us into action. When joined in purpose, they can change societies. When unified in anger, they can erupt in revolution.

    Voices. Both calming and rallying. Both music and weapon. Take care of your voice, as you would a fine French horn. Be careful with it, as you would a loaded revolver. And, remember to let it be silent much of the time. Absence of voice can often be the most commanding, and most harmonious, voice in your repertoire.

    Hearing voices” is sometimes a sign of losing it. While that may well be true in his case, Ken Delpit clings to the notion that being fascinated by the many voices that surround and lie within us helps with his writing. Ken hopes to promote himself beyond his technical background (computers, mathematics) into credible and imaginative science-fiction novels.

    “Voices” was inspired by Baba Yetu, Prompt #583 on The Write Spot Blog.

    Marlene C

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  • A Safe Place

    By Kathleen Haynie

    When did I feel safe?

    I can’t remember ever feeling safe. I search. Maybe I felt safe at Ocean Beach—only strangers around and I could keep my distance. A place to run to on the “N” Judah street car. Run from the fighting, run from hurt, run from the anger. Run to feel away, to feel unfettered, to yell at the ocean where no one could hear my voice drowned out by the Pacific roar.

    I could hide in the open expanse of sand and waves and roar and motion and cry, the tears running.

    Running.

    Run into the cold fog, run into the bits of sand in the air, run with the pull of the earth. Drawn into the pull of the receding water, losing itself/myself into the empty of personality, empty of emotion. Fleeing and dissolving into the pull back into self.

    Self-drained with fast breathing, salt saliva falling from the corners of my mouth, legs shuddering. Walk into the empty, let down, rhythm, constant, certain, constantly coming in, constantly leaving and blending, losing.

    Safe in the roar, safe in the pull, safe in the empty.

    Kathleen Haynie. This City Girl turned into a Sonoma County Horse Girl, and then retired from decades as a professional in health care. She is now acting out a latent inclination for the dramatic arts as a drama student and cast member of Off the Page Readers Theater.

    Surprisingly, the journey continues into the newly found delight discovered in written expression. Kathleen felt honored to have her work, What They Did to Alice, performed at the 6th Street Playhouse 2020 Women’s Festival. She has decided that dark chocolate is perfect with a full-bodied red wine.

    Marlene C

  • Dad

    By Susan Bono

    “That’s quite a sack of rocks you’re carrying, sweetie,” my father’s friend Bruce said more than once during phone calls last year. It was his way of acknowledging how heavily Dad’s poor health, hard-headedness and self-imposed isolation weighed on me. But I also took it as a tribute to Dad’s stubbornness and my strength, too.

    “Dumb as a rock” never made much sense to me, since stone strikes me as having its own unassailable intelligence. Its ability to endure illustrates its genius. I have never believed in the ability to factor equations or compose sonnets was proof of brain power, although I shared with Dad the idea that someone with rocks in his head was lacking in foresight and flexibility. Rocks may be smart, but they are slow. Time measured in stone is something else again.

    There were moments during my dad’s dying that were as slow as serpentine, sandstone, rose quartz, chert. His unseeing eyes were obsidian, and the pauses between breaths were long enough to form fossils. But just after that great wave rolled down from the crown of his head, darkening the air around him so his spirit glowed like a white shell at the bottom of a silty river, a tear slid from beneath his closed eyelids. That’s when the sack of rocks fell empty at my feet and I was surrounded by the tumult of released wings.

    Originally published in The Flashpoints 2008 issue of Tiny Lights. This issue was dedicated to the memory of Susan Bono’s father, Morris N. Zahl (12/24/24-3/22/09), whose light guides Susan.

    Susan Bono, a California-born teacher, freelance editor, and short-form memoirist, has facilitated writing workshops since 1993, helping hundreds of writers find and develop their voices. Her work has appeared online, on stage, in newspapers, on the radio, and in anthologies, including The Write Spot series.

    Susan is the author of “What Have We Here: Essays About Keeping House and Finding Home.”

    From 1995-2015, she edited and published a small press magazine called Tiny Lights: A Journal of Personal Narrative, as well as the online component that included quarterly postings of micro essays and a monthly forum dedicated to craft and process.

    She was on the board of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference for more than a decade and was editor-in-chief of their journal, the Noyo River Review, for eight years. Susan often writes about domestic life set in her small town of Petaluma.

    Marlene C

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  • What am I ready to let go of?

    By Julie Wilder-Sherman

    Well, what am I going to do with all these masks?

    Store-bought.

    Handmade.

    Giants-themed.

    Kitty cats.

    Bejeweled.

    Blue flowers with yellow backgrounds.

    Yellow flowers with blue backgrounds.

    Plain, monochromatic.

    Busy, colorful.

    Cloth mosaic.

    A quilt of masks.

    Wait!

    That’s it.

    A Quilt. Of. Masks.


    Imagine millions of masks sewn together like the AIDS quilt, honoring what we have survived and what we have lost. A memorial, a tribute and dedication to what we have endured.  

    I’m ready to let go of seeing half-faces. Of asking people to repeat themselves. At nodding to those speaking, pretending to understand. At straining to hear the muffled words behind the shield.

    I’m ready to let go of images of cops and robbers. Of old movies with lepers, their faces partially covered. Of images of Isis terrorists with covered faces holding rifles over captives kneeling in front of them. 

    I’m ready to let go of the anger.

    The anger.

    The anger.

    He did this to our nation. You know who I mean, and I won’t say his name. He prolonged it due to his stupidity and ignorance and narcissism and . . .

    But.

    Back to the masks.

    I’m ready to let go and make peace with the memory of the masks. 

    I’ll bundle them up, put them in a bag and wait. 

    Someone will have the fortitude and talent to weave these cloths together and create something beautiful and meaningful out of something so horrific and ugly.

    San Francisco native Julie Wilder- Sherman is a long-time resident of Petaluma, California. She 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. Julie would “read” them until she was ready to go to sleep. To this day, Julie reads every night before turning out the lights.

    Marlene C

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  • Post-Pandemic Songs and Second Chances

    By Deb Fenwick

    After fifteen months, it’s time to soar. A hundred, a thousand, millions of voices are calling, inviting us to share in a common song. There’s a brilliant bright light and an invitation to hope after all the darkness—to hope and to imagine possibilities. It’s a resonant call to lift off and soar. And it originates from that other place. 

    It’s a place of community where we remember our interconnectedness. It’s a place where there’s an agreement to work together to make something that transcends what one individual, no matter how magnificent, can do on their own. It’s a place where you work toward something with others, and it takes on its own magic. You can see it in a choir’s chorus or a road crew building a bridge. It’s there as an emergency room team saves a life, and as food pantry volunteers pack boxes. It’s that place where energy is transferred and transmuted as it moves from one heart to another. It’s a place where there’s enough joy to lift a spirit, raise a roof, and change the vibration of the planet, all at once. 

    This new phase can be our song. It’s a second chance. After all the darkness of a global pandemic we squint, almost in disbelief, as we lift our faces toward the light. Yes, we’ve made it. Even if we stumbled through losses no one could predict. Even if, some days, we felt like giving up as we struggled with shades drawn. Now, we can choose to work together to lift ourselves and others higher. Because we’ve traveled through dark times, we reflect and remember. We honor those who didn’t make it by vowing to love more, forgive fully and listen deeply. All we have to do is look and listen because there’s harmony present when we look to the light and listen to the music. Thank goodness for every second chance and every song that makes a heart soar. We’ve made it.

    Writing inspired after listening to “Baba Yetu” sung in Swahili by the Stellenbosch University Choir.

    Deb Fenwick is a Chicago-born writer who currently lives in Oak Park, Illinois. After spending nearly thirty 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. When she’s not traveling with her heartthrob of a husband or dreaming up wildly impractical adventures with her intrepid, college-age daughter, you’ll find her out in the garden getting muddy with two little pups.   

    Marlene C

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  • Vigil

    By Kathy Guthormsen

    Vigil

    I hold vigil by the campfire

    Watching dry logs send sparks dancing into the twilight, the west coast version of fireflies

    My prayers winging their way to you

    No more hot tubs under palm trees

    No more drinks with paper umbrellas

    These are distant memories wrapped in protective quilts

    I ask the fire to transform me into smoke that drifts upward

    Tendrils reaching, searching for you

    Forever just out of reach

    I had to let your body go

    But I hold your essence in my still beating heart where I will keep you safe and warm

    As long as I am here

    “Vigil” was created using Prompt #580 on The Write Spot Blog.

    Kathy Guthormsen

    Growing up in Skagit Valley, Washington with its verdant farmland gave Kathy an appreciation for the promise and beauty of nature’s bounty. The Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges and old growth forests offered the magic of things unseen and fostered her fertile imagination. Kathy’s work has been published in The Write Spot: Memories, The Write Spot: Possibilities, The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing, and The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings from a Pandemic Year. All The Write Spot anthologies are available at Amazon.

    Her Halloween story, “Run,” was published in the Petaluma Argus Courier in October 2020.

    When she isn’t writing, Kathy volunteers at the Bird Rescue Center in Santa Rosa, California, working with and presenting resident raptors as part of their education and outreach program. Walking around with a hawk or an owl on her fist is one of her favorite pastimes.

    Kathy lives in northern California with her husband, one psychotic cat, a small flock of demanding chickens, and a pond full of peaceful koi. She maintains a blog, Kathy G Space, where she occasionally posts essays, short stories, and fairy tales.

    Marlene C

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  • Morning Sign

    By Camille Sherman

    I glided a knife through an avocado this morning and thought, if I open this avocado and it turns out to be perfect, it’s going to be a great day. I opened my little fortune to see the happiest unblemished green smiling up at me. I ate in front of a vase of peony tulips that have opened so wide they look like lotus flowers, weighty enough to bend the top of the pond, but not enough to break it. I consider the crumbs, dust, and flower petals faintly mapping my floor and relish the open day ahead with which to sweep and wash. A fresh to do list will be poured with a second cup of coffee and the prophecy of my lovely day will continue to unfold its sweet pink petals.

    Camille Sherman is a professional opera singer from the Bay Area. She trained at The Boston Conservatory and the San Francisco Conservatory of music, and served as an Artist in Residence at Pensacola Opera and Portland Opera. She currently lives in Portland, where she continues to sing and develop artistic projects with local artists.

    Marlene C