Category: Sparks

  • Waking Up on a Spring Morning

    By Deb Fenwick

    On spring mornings, after a long brittle winter, the truth is everywhere. It begins at dawn. Not that I wake up that early anymore. These days, I sleep until the sun is high in the warm sky.

    But I remember thirty years of sunrise drives—drives where a glowing, golden-pink ribbon stretched languidly across Lake Michigan. Like it had all the time in the world. Unhurried. Unlike me.

    The sky had no need to rush to work. To meet deadlines. To prove its worth. From the driver’s seat, I watched the morning clouds, dumbstruck some days, because they seemed to delight in their own essence. Those early morning skies seemed, somehow, to speak to something truer than the life I was living at the time.

    In those days, I didn’t have time for walks where I watched the earth wake up to its magnificent self. The glory song of forsythia bursting into bloom was muted. Of course, there were hyacinths, tulips, and spring snowdrops emerging—calling my name, beckoning me to take pause. But I pretended not to hear them. Even though their joy was riotously loud, I played deaf. I was preoccupied with the slow-strangle-everyday crush of the mundane.

    Learning about the nature of truth and living the dharma is the work of a lifetime. Some say many lifetimes. We can choose a religious faith, a spiritual tradition, a guru, or a master teacher. Take your pick. We can obsess over finding the perfect prayer or the most meaningful mantra. We’re taught that we have to search for truth. We’re taught that it’s elusive and that unless we’re willing to renounce our worldly goods, shave our heads and check into a one-star monastery, we probably haven’t earned it. But the irony is, it’s everywhere once we decide to wake up on a spring morning. There’s an all-access VIP pass. It’s in our pulse. It’s in that redbud branch that’s blasting its neon pink blossoms into the breeze.

    The truth patiently whispered in my ear for many years. Then, it shouted. 

    These days, I sometimes see truth so real that it burns my eyes. Right now, there’s a blaze of life outside my window. Right now, the fragile, translucent petals of lemon yellow daffodils are exploding into spring sunshine. There’s wisteria on the wooden gate. It creeps slowly—just waiting to share its wild purple life force. The dogwood’s unfolding leaves are ever-so-patient in saying yes to the warmth of spring.

    Spring reminds meto say yes to this moment. This one. Right here, right now. Can you believe it? There’s a now. And it’s alive with possibility. What will you do with me? it asks, almost like a dare.

    Look away from your screen for a moment. Poof! That now? Gone. It only lives in the past. A new now, blank-slate opportunity is always being born. What good fortune!

    So for today, I promise to pay attention to my now—to listen to the truth of the sky. I say that in such a cavalier way, right? Like it’s easy. Like the grocery list and the laundry chores aren’t going to derail me. But when they inevitably do, I’ll remember to trust the now and the beauty of the sunrise. Even if I sleep right through it.

    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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  • Hello, how ARE you?

    By Sharmila Rao

    Writing Prompt on The Isolation Journals: How ARE you?

    What happened yesterday evening motivated me to attempt this prompt. I dropped in to meet one of my friends whom I was seeing after a year because of the Covid protocols. She is a cancer survivor and I had gotten closer to her during this challenging journey of hers. We exchanged the usual pleasantries and she replied I am fine, Sharmila.

    I could see her eyes were saying something else though.

    As we got talking about the past year and how it has affected each one us, I told her of the many changes I have begun to incorporate in my life, one of them being giving due priority to myself—something I felt I had seriously lacked all my life.

    The moment I mentioned this to her I was taken aback by her soft almost immediate plea to guide her as to how she could go about this herself.

    Then, swearing me to secrecy she slowly revealed without a pause, the story of her married life and the issues she was facing.

    It seemed to me the fall out of having an insensitive husband and the typical vacuum she and many women face mostly around middle-age. They grapple, often unsuccessful, like she was, as the opposite party denies or lacks the need for empathetic communication.

    Clearly, she was anything but ‘fine.’

    As I walked home, I couldn’t help but ruminate over this. I stopped to ask myself how often had I been able to respond honestly to: Hello, how are you?

    As far as I can remember, only till I was living in childhood.

    I remembered how I was called, “The Happy child” in my family as I was always attuned to the many little wonders of the world around me. I am still sure fairies sit on toadstools!

    It did make me feel special but undeniably a trifle embarrassed, even at that time, for it felt like being singled out under a spotlight for being different.

    Life however took care of that. Sometimes it can work efficiently overtime at the wrong time and so it ensured I was quick to learn that nothing comes for free. And, happiness? Never.

    Lots of water has flowed under the bridge. I swam along mostly fighting against the current, sometimes out of breath and at times even thinking I would drown. I continued to wear the “I am fine” badge. After all that is what is expected of you: be courteous, be brave, be stoic, be mature. Be everything, but yourself.

    And me, the good student, carried on living in the classroom of life till I realized the truth: there were no prizes for the best performance.

    Behind the ‘I am fine’ mask it gets suffocating; the self begins to decay in layers of untruth. Whenever I tried to lift it, only a few people accepted what they saw.

    It reminds me of my father who was an eternal optimist. I remember all so clearly, when anyone greeted him with a regular ‘How are you, he would cheerfully reply, “Can’t grumble.”

    I never thought much about it then but as the years pass by and I find it increasingly difficult to answer, I find his two little words so relevant and imperative to adopt.

    More so in these strange new times when I see people around me who are suffering untold pain and for whom even the next meal is a battle. For us, India does offer a conscience check every so often, even on my daily evening walk.

    The next time around, the answer to “how are you” will be for myself.  A reassuring, Well I AM fine. After all, aren’t I?

    And, maybe just, on an especially grey day I need not hide behind ‘I am fine.’ I can be my true self to the ones who really care to see what lies beneath.

    These are the ones I keep.

    Sharmila Rao

    As a child my father led me into the enriching world of books and my relationship with them continues. I am Sharmila Rao and I live in Western India in Mumbai, a hot, noisy and crowded city, vibrant enough to make you want to live nowhere else.

    A background of Journalism and a degree in teaching the Physically Handicapped broadened my mind and sensitized me to the imperfection of life. 

    I chose to be a stay-at-home Mum and enjoy the growing years of my son. My empty nest is now lined with books (I love the smell of old hardbound ones) and I sit in its warmth embracing the beauty of words.

    Marlene C

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  • The Nyx Café

    By Ron Salisbury
     
    Day stood by our table with her eager smile,
    pad and pen at ready.
     
    “Today we only have two specials,” she said.
    “The first one includes an amuse bouche;
    one hour and a half of good sleep. Upon waking
    you wonder why? Then realize you’re still damp
    from a hot flash. The appetizer is a couple of hours
    when the pillows are too soft, too hard, or both,
    the bed clothes too heavy, cramp in your big toe,
    wondering if you should call the doctor about
    that little pain in your side. Suddenly you realize
    you have been asleep because of the dream you had
    filled with people you absolutely don’t know.
    The main course is filled with noise—traffic, but
    you live on a cul-de-sac, the overhead fan but
    it’s not on, a strange hum from the kitchen,
    the dogs rushing downstairs and you get up
    to check and find them both at their water bowls,
    you might as well see if the doors are locked. Then
    three delightful dreams, three in a row of three
    important things in your life you never finished.
    Dessert is an hour of deep sleep at the end
    to remind you that some people sleep this way
    all the time.”
     
    “Tonight’s second special,” she said, “is much less
    complex, but an intense flavor experience—you just
    can’t sleep. I recommend as a paring, you try
    imagining counting backwards from one hundred,
    the telephone poles wizzing by your imaginary
    ride down a desert road. That thing with sheep
    is totally overrated.  Dessert is also quite simple:
    a parfait filled with the thankfulness that night
    is over.”
     
    “She’s so sweet,” Eunice said, as day left with our order.
    “I’m glad we didn’t get the harpy with a pencil stuck
    in her hairbun.”
     
    Ron Salisbury

    “Since the seventh grade, all I’ve ever wanted to be is a poet,” he said. “It is a great honor to be chosen as San Diego’s first Poet Laureate. This appointment will empower me to represent the dynamic San Diego I love and promote. It will allow me to teach and encourage poetry to an even higher presence than I already do. I want to give back to the city that adopted me, share my poetry with its people and share San Diego with the world.”

    Marlene C

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  • The Hum

    By Camille Sherman

    It startled me. The devices were powered off, the lights relieved of duty. The street below offered no atmosphere or background detail. All is still. 

    I whip my head, crane my neck, squint my eyes. The hum does not become louder, more apparent, more directional. It almost becomes maddeningly softer, like a drop of water has come and diluted its color so its wayward edges are harder to spot. 

    It doesn’t quite have a pitch. I rule out the heater, much more ostentatious when it kicks on to rescue cold feet. I come to terms with the fact that it is likely the refrigerator, reassuring me that it is trusty and functional.

    I put my mug in the sink, grab the blanket off the couch, and slide into bed. Lying there, I realize the devices are powered off, the world is asleep. The low hum is the sound of myself, alone, sitting still.

    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 projects with local artists.

    Marlene C

  • Studio Apartment

    By Deb Fenwick

    She’s ready to set the world on fire. She’s got the requisite credentials: a freshly printed MBA from Wharton and a studio apartment in Brooklyn Heights. Yes, it’s a studio, but it’s a nice studio—spacious with carefully curated accessories. She even has houseplants.

    She can’t get to the gym or her Pilates class right now, well, because . . . Covid. She meets up with girlfriends for gossipy, boozy, Zoom happy hours on Fridays where everyone looks great from the waist up. She even puts on lipstick for the calls so that she can see the after image of her lips on the wineglass long after everyone logs off. It’s proof that she had fun.

    She and her friends are in that sweet spot after college but before the gorgeous weight of marriage, mortgages, and children (in that order) that will bind them to suburban homes with good school districts. 

    Her parents love her. They’re generous. They worry. Mom pays for the cell phone plan, so the least she can do is answer her parents’ texts and call them once a week. She calls her mom and dad on Sundays. Well, FaceTime, actually, because it’s good to see family—to see the moment her mother bites her lip when she hears that the job search seems to be stalled. And then the quick pivot and recovery as Mom forces a bright smile and adds sunshine to her voice, saying, “Something will turn up, darling. It’s Covid.”  Dad will smile silently like the sentinel he is. At the end of the call, he’ll ask if she needs money. She’ll mention that she could use just a little extra this month for groceries. Just until the job thing comes through. Just until things open up.

    When she ends those calls on Sundays, she doesn’t quite feel like setting the world on fire. Maybe just her apartment. The four walls seem to be closing in on her. Late afternoon New York darkness descends and devours any space for breathing.  She’s been here alone for over a year with her well-curated accessories. Alone. It’s the first time she’s ever lived by herself. She bathes, prepares meals, and scrolls in solitary confinement. It’s an endless loop except for the job rejections. Who knew she could grow to hate this apartment and everything in it?

    It was once all she dreamed about. Getting out on her own. Owning New York. Fast-paced work with a hedge fund firm, maybe. Clubs, theater, and dining with girlfriends. A boyfriend. Romance. Not Zoom calls. Not lipstick that she won’t wash off the wine glass.

    Tomorrow is Monday, she thinks to herself. A new week. She’ll follow-up on leads. Check-in on LinkedIn. For tonight, she’ll turn on the small ceramic lamp that sits in the middle of the mid-century modern end table as dusk turns to night. She’ll water two plants with leaves that are yellowing just a bit at the edges. She’ll make a bowl of noodles and stare out the window of her Brooklyn Heights brownstone as frost forms on the windows of the dry cleaners’ across the street.   

    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

  • My Dream Is…

    By Susie Moses

    I dream of living for awhile in a cabin in a thick forest at the edge of a quiet lake, possibly in the North Woods of the Adirondacks or the wilds of Minnesota on the Canadian border, or maybe the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington.  Maine would work too. I will have a canoe, or these days, a kayak, easier to manage solo. 

    I will arise as the sun emerges, put on a jacket and knit cap against the morning chill, and insert myself into my boat for a silent tour of the shoreline. As I watch the light spread from the horizon, changing colors are reflected in the low-lying clouds as the sun burns off the fog. My lake will be sparsely populated, no jet skis or motor craft of any kind, just self-propelled canoes or kayaks, and at that early hour I may be the only person out and about. I will gently dip my paddle into the flat surface of the silky black water, creating gentle ripples, but almost no noise other than the sweet sound of dripping as droplets dribble off the oar.

    I will float quietly among lily pads and reeds observing the world come alive.  Birdsong, fluttering wings, the kerplop of a frog, the delicate splash of a smallmouth bass seeking an insect. And if I am lucky, the call of a loon. The world will be my oyster. I can be a voyeur of nature’s great bounty as the day begins. It will be my meditation.

    I will paddle for about 40 minutes, feeling the stretch in my upper arms, delighting in the simple exertion of slicing a path through the stillness. I will be filled up with noticing, with taking stock of what surrounds me, of becoming aware of the busyness, the fullness of nature that envelopes me here once I have given myself over to paying close attention.

    When I return, I will strip off my outerwear, down to my basic red tank swim suit I had put on under my warm layers, and I will dive off the end of the dock into the chilly waters.  “Bracing,” I will hear myself think, recalling my father’s words on summer mornings of my youth when a pre-breakfast dip in the lake was a requirement before pancakes and sausage. After my quick swim, more of a plunge, really, as it is too cold to stay submerged for long, I will wrap myself in a thick terry cloth towel as I run to the outdoor shower to stand under sheets of almost too hot water to stop my teeth from chattering.

    Then, dressing in warm clothes again and enjoying a hearty breakfast with lots of dark thick hot coffee, and after tending to any business or domestic details which must be seen to, I will gather a stack of books and settle in the Adirondack chair that sits on the crest above the lake. Pine trees tower overhead, the smell of sap surrounds me, a result of my footsteps on the pine needle-strewn path.

    This is nirvana. The only physical exertion required will be to move my chair to follow the warmth of the sun as the light dapples through the trees. Later in the day, as the temperature rises, I will reverse this process to keep the chair in the shade. I will take breaks from reading to undertake a longer swim in the afternoon, stroking all the way to a neighbor’s raft several houses down, where I will emerge to lie on the warmed boards as I soak up the heat from the strong sun overhead.  When that becomes too much, I will dive back in to the clear water, its minerally taste on my lips, eager to get away from the slight creepiness of whatever it is that lurks beneath the raft, among the rusty barrels that hold it afloat.

    I should make this dream come true. I should arrange this. It is a simple experience I seek. Nature, solitude, fresh clear water, many books. Quiet and peace providing the space for watching and seeing and taking in, interrupted only by bats that invade the cottage, the black flies that draw blood at the hairline, the mosquitos and no-see-ums and the damned geese that leave their white droppings all over the dock. The mice that skitter around the kitchen, the flying squirrels in the attic. The realities of living in a rustic abode in an unspoiled environment. I will have to share with the beings that preceded my arrival. It’s all part of the package.

    Susie Moses is a generative writing junkie, enjoying the process and dreaming of actually doing something constructive one day with the piles of papers and notebooks she has that have accrued, that are spilling out of closets and off shelves and out of drawers. 

    But for now, just getting words down on the page is an accomplishment and a delight. She has spent the year of Covid in Marin County to be near her daughters, but at some point, will have to tear herself away to return to her beloved Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, at least for a while.

    Marlene C

  • Sindee reveals her secret

    The Chronicles of Sindee

    Volume 6:  Sindee reveals her secret

    By Su Shafer

    The moon was waxing, getting near to full. She could feel it growing in the night sky. The soft fluttering of wings inside, near her heart. Every night they grew more insistent and she knew that tomorrow night or maybe the next, they would take over: she would change.

    The fluttering inside made it hard to sleep. Sindee lay awake in her crib, staring at the patterns in the lace canopy. Stuffy was quiet beside her, but she didn’t think he was asleep.

    “Stuffy, are you asleep?”

    “No. Are you?”

    “Obviously not,” Sindee replied, annoyed. She sighed. Stuffy wasn’t the brightest sometimes, but given his tiny dinosaur brain, what could she expect?

    “I guess I should tell you something,” Sindee went on. “Something important, that I’ve been keeping secret.”

    “Oh boy, a secret!” Stuffy chirped, flapping his little flipperesque T-rex arms.

    They both turned on their sides to face each other in the crib. “I want to know all your secrets!” Stuffy said breathlessly. He was very excited.

    “I guess you will since you live here now,” Sindee said. “I hope you won’t be scared.”

    “I’m a T-rex, King of the dinosaurs! Nothing scares me!” Stuffy replied indignantly.  

    “Good. Because tomorrow night, when the moon gets full, I’m going to change into something …” She paused for dramatic effect, “else.”

    “YOU’RE A WEREWOLF!?” Stuffy cried.

    “Certainly not!” Sindee huffed. “I’m a were-moth.”

    “Oh,” Stuffy said, frowning.  “What’s that?”

    “I’m not sure. I think I’m the only one. One night, when the moon was full, I started feeling really funny. Then I noticed I was getting fuzzy all over and these beautiful green wings popped out and well, I just started flying! I thought it was a dream at first, but it’s happened a few times now, and it’s no dream.”

    Stuffy stared at her gravely. “Gosh. That sounds kind of painful, but also pretty neat.”

    “It is. Not painful, I mean. It happens so fast! One minute I’m just lying here, the next minute I’m flying around.”

    They both fell silent for a moment while Stuffy processed the information. “And this happens every full moon?”

    “Yes. And I can feel it’s going to happen again tomorrow, so I thought I’d better warn you.”

    “Oh.” Stuffy’s eyes went wide as a thought struck his tiny brain. “Do were-moths eat baby dinosaurs!?” he squeaked.

    “Don’t be silly! Moths don’t eat dinosaurs!” she admonished. “Mostly they just seem to flutter about.”

    “Whew!” Stuffy sighed. “Sounds cool.  Can I do it too?”

    “No, you’re a dinosaur. You have to stay here. And be fierce,” she added, seeing Stuffy deflate with disappointment. “And guard the crib.”

    Stuffy perked up again. “OK. I’ll be good at that.”

    Sindee looked at her chubby friend with his stubby arm flippers and plush fabric teeth. “You are very fierce,” she said. “Wanna cuddle?”

    “Always!”

    Su Shafer is a creative writer and sometime poet who lives in the Pacific Northwest, where flannel shirts are acceptable as formal wear and strong coffee is a way of life. There, in a small Baba Yaga house perched near the entrance to The Hidden Forest, odd characters are brewing with the morning cup, and a strange new world is beginning to take shape . . .

    Marlene C

  • Letting Cancer Change Me

    By Carol Harvey

    Eight years ago, I lay in an icy cold medical room, convinced that my presence there was a case of mistaken identity. I’d had a routine mammogram a week before and thought nothing of it. I was annoyed when I was called back for a second mammogram on the first day of my daughter’s spring break. We had plans to do something fun that day. This was not it.

    Immediately after the inconvenient mammogram I was steered into a biopsy room. I chatted with the doctor and radiology tech during the procedure and they answered my naive questions. I then explained that I couldn’t possibly have cancer because I was a self-employed single mom. In just a few months I was going to be an empty nester. Cancer or any life-threatening illness was just not part of that plan. Besides I felt fine.

    Right after I said I can’t have cancer, I noticed a teeny glint in the doctor’s eye and the tech mentioned that her mother was a 25-year breast cancer survivor. That’s when I knew. I had cancer. News flash. Cancer does not care about your other plans. Cancer does not follow social etiquette and wait for the best time to interrupt your life. Cancer made its own plans for me.

    When I was diagnosed with cancer on that otherwise lovely spring day in 2013, I could not have been more unprepared. I was not in an at-risk group and lived a relatively healthy life. I never thought about statistics as personally relevant. Yet here I was, about to become one of the 1,660,290 people who would be diagnosed with cancer in 2013. A daunting stat and a startling reality.

    There was a seismic shift in my world that day and in the months that followed. I knew cancer would change me, if I was lucky enough to survive it. I knew I didn’t have much of a choice in the “live or die” part, but I wanted to have a lot to say about living in the meantime. I knew surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and additional treatments to address the side effects of the original treatments would be tough. At best, there would be a new normal. I was determined that my new normal reflect my values in a more substantial way than my pre-cancer life did.

    I didn’t quit my job and move to a foreign country. However, I also didn’t quickly rule it out. Later when my brain resurfaced, I thought about what made me happy and gave me purpose. I considered how I wanted to spend the unspecified, but now strikingly finite amount of time that was the rest of my life.

    During active treatment, there were very real physical and emotional constraints as to what I had the time and energy to do. For a while, walking to my mailbox was effort. Naps were a given. I prioritized mindful relaxation. I focused on my breath and let my mind embrace peace. My to-do list became simple: take the best care possible of myself every day. Surprisingly, I didn’t stress about what else needed to be done. The get-stuff-done part of my personality gave way to a focus on healing. I had to heal in order to get stuff done. Further into treatment, as I regained energy, I thought about what I valued most. I made sure I was giving my limited energy to those things first, whether it was time with loved ones, being in nature, or expressing my creativity.

    In addition to numerous choices about treatment and how best to nurture myself, I had to consider the overarching question of how I was going to “do cancer.” Was I going to isolate, connect with others or find someplace in between. The quandary was obvious in basic questions such as: Who do I tell? How much do I say? Who do I ask for help? How much help do I accept? It seemed there were no decisions that didn’t loop back to the same question. I had to choose how much to allow my family, friends and community to care for me.

    Ouch! As an introvert, it was uncomfortable, even painful, to be open about my cancer and need for help. However, I decided that the introvert in me was going to have to suck it up. Out of necessity, I ultimately made my situation known. I was overwhelmed with support and kindness. I am convinced that the love I received, and my gratitude for it, were deeply healing. I return to that gratitude often; it continues to be a salve for my soul.

    Beyond my circle of friends and family, I pondered how visible to be in the larger community as I underwent treatment. Wig or no wig, was one such question. I felt passionately about not hiding as a patient and later as a survivor.

    When I was newly diagnosed, I needed to know there were others. I wished I could have walked into my neighborhood grocery store and known that among those picking out organic produce, were others recently diagnosed and survivors of one, five and thirty years. I needed to know there were others who had transitioned from emotional paralysis to living with cancer or after cancer. The presence of those dear ones and strangers gave me hope. I knew hope to be healing and that fact would later compel me to be a visible survivor to others newly diagnosed. I allowed cancer to push me out of my comfort zone and to be an advocate for all survivors. I started by writing about it and offered to talk with others, newly diagnosed. I learned the power of saying the words “I had cancer” in front of friends and strangers.

    Not everyone is comfortable talking about cancer. However, there is a growing openness. I have benefited from this candor and want to add to the conversation. I am grateful for those, who when told of my diagnosis, disclosed their own long-ago diagnoses. Survivors are out there. More than I knew. They gave me hope by merely existing and telling me they were there. I believe I empower others and pay that hope forward by sharing my story and being a visible cancer survivor.

    Over the past eight years, I’ve come to realize that even though cancer forced me to make many decisions, they all came down to one. How much space was I going to give fear in my life? Just saying the word cancer out loud can be scary. I have developed a deep respect for the damage cancer can do on so many levels. However, respect doesn’t mean I will allow cancer to scare me into silence, inaction or avoidance. At the start of my cancer journey, I decided if I was going to be roughed up by cancer, then I wanted to choose how it changed me. I didn’t want to be the same person I was before cancer, but not because I was dissatisfied with who I had been. That wasn’t it. I wanted something to show for having walked through the fire. I wanted a sticker! For me, that sticker is the ability to choose to be an extrovert (at times) in service of an issue for which I am passionate.

    The changes I made continue. I don’t assume that time will always be on my side. Since my diagnosis, I endeavor to pull myself off autopilot whenever I find myself there. I pause and listen to my heart and then act with intention. Or at least that is what I aim to do.

    I am now eight years out from my diagnosis and treatment. The traditional five-year post-cancer mark was both precious and meaningless. Much of cancer research only tracks five-year survival rates. It is simply a line in the sand. There is little evidence about six or twelve years, so as a cancer survivor, you take what you can get. Statistically the chance of recurrence after five years is less, but the risk is lifelong. That is why I enthusiastically celebrate every “cancerversary” as another year I can choose to live with less fear, more intention and a curiosity about how life might further change me.

    Carol Harvey is a marriage and family therapist in Northern California and a retired Sonoma State University lecturer. She began writing a few years after her cancer diagnosis and hasn’t stopped. She loves making blankets out of old jeans and wool sweaters and yard art out of found objects. She facilitates a free weekly online cancer support group that uses reflective writing techniques. She can be reached at carolharveymft@gmail.com

    Marlene C

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  • The Inner Critic Tar Pit of Doom and Despair

    By Su Shafer

    Beware the trap that writers often fall into: The Inner Critic Tar Pit of Doom and Despair—the black hole of fear in your head that says you have nothing new or exciting to say or that even if you are personally excited by what you’ve written, it’s not good enough for someone else to read or hear. 

    The Tar Pit of Doom and Despair is a creative quicksand that will sink the soul right out of your writing, further feeding the fear of mediocrity. The only way to escape this pit is to get out of your head. 

    I’ve found doing timed free writes is a great way to do this. When your time is restricted, you don’t have time to obsess over a word or a phrase and there simply isn’t enough time to polish. There is something freeing and reassuring about that. 

    And having a time limit ensures that you can’t get too invested and that what goes on the paper is raw, organic, and unraveled from the sinister inner critic with its conformist ideals.

    Play, don’t be afraid to experiment. Use creative prompts to catapult you out of your comfort zone. Don’t try to control or stop what wants to come out. It’s surprising and delightful what valuable nuggets and insights show up. 

    Be brave and share your work with others. Other people come to your writing with their own perspectives and will often pull things from your writing that wouldn’t otherwise occur to you. Sharing your work is the only way to get over your fear of sharing your writing. And when you’re not too invested, you can accept both complements and criticism and learn to use them constructively.  

    Most importantly, just keep writing.  Do whatever it takes—invent ways to keep your pen scribbling on paper. 

    Just keep writing. 

    Su Shafer is a creative writer and sometime poet who lives in the Pacific Northwest, where flannel shirts are acceptable as formal wear and strong coffee is a way of life. There, in a small Baba Yaga house perched near the entrance to The Hidden Forest, odd characters are brewing with the morning cup, and a strange new world is beginning to take shape . . .

    Note from Marlene: There are over 568 writing prompts on The Write Spot Blog.

    Choose one and Just Write!

    Marlene C

    ,

  • Clichés

    By Camille Sherman

    What is the scientific process

    Of transforming a thing

    Out of reverence and relevance

    And into cliché

       

    Is it a simple question of quantity

    The stomach ache that follows

    Empty candy wrappers

    Fanned out before tiny costumed bodies

     

    Is it great expectation

    A push for originality

    An inner motor disdained

    By what’s been done before

     

    Perhaps boredom or impatience

    A haughty bristle at the suggestion

    That there is something new to gain

     

    We’ve seen it all before

    Said it all before

    Thought it all before

     

    But when no one is looking

    And we sneak a furtive glance at the stars

    Or steal the scent of a passing flower

    Or well at the first notes of a love song

    Our sweet clichés will rise again

    Unoffended that we were too cool

    To remember why they were worthy

    Of perpetual repetition

    To begin with

    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