Category: Sparks

  • A Memorable Day

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

    A Memorable Day

    By Cheryl Moore

    We had arrived in Mashad, a city in north east Iran, the night before. It is the site of the holy Shrine of Imam Ali Reza, the eighth Imam, a site where the followers of the Shi’a branch of the Islamic faith make pilgrimage.

    The mosque was a beautiful, gleaming white structure with four minarets, one at each corner. Women must cover up with a chador to enter. As I didn’t own one, I had to borrow one, but it only came to my midi-calf, not my ankles, as it did on Iranian women. My pale skin and blue eyes gave me away as a foreigner. I couldn’t just blend in. Before entering we had to take off our shoes and leave them outside on the steps. I hoped mine wouldn’t be stolen, I didn’t fancy walking barefoot on the sun-scorched ground the rest of the day.

    It was beautiful inside, the walls decorated in glowing geometric patterned tiles of dark and light blue, white, tan, yellow, black and green. No human or animal images are allowed. Many heads turned to stare at me as we were swept along around the central Imam’s tomb with the flow of pilgrims. I hadn’t ever been in a mosque before even though there was a tiny neighborhood one very close to where I was living in Tehran. Coming out into the daylight, I was happy to retrieve my shoes.

    Later that day we drove further into the Central Asian steppes to visit an outdoor market where live animals were bought and sold. Turkoman tribesmen dressed in sheep skin and domed hats still used moveable yurts as they followed their herds, speaking a Turkic language unlike the Farsi I was more familiar with in Tehran. For me it was as close as I’ll ever get to the famous Silk Road trade route. I imagined traders crossing these dusty plains day after day with camels, donkeys and their swift ponies, occasionally camping near caravansaries at oases. Such vast open spaces probably unchanged since Marco Polo came this way.

    All too soon it was back to big city Tehran with its crowds, street vendors calling out their wares, and the morning and evening blare of a loudspeaker calling the faithful to prayer.

    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 get. Travel has taken her to Europe and the Middle East, including living four years in Tehran. 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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  • The Clicking of Heat

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

    The Clicking of Heat

    By Robin Mills

    Lying in bed in the early hours of the day, I hear a clicking sound. I know what it is, but what it does is to throw me back to a previous home where the thermostat nudged the heat to come on, making a click clicking as it did. That for years served as my alarm clock. That nudging started the huge monster of a gravity fed heating system that lived in the basement of my 1926 craftsman bungalow. A furnace so large that two grown adults on either side, outstretched arms trying to hug it like a big tree, could not join hands around its massive body. Maybe braise fingertips at best. I had never encountered gravity fed air before. No moving parts. Just rising heat tumbling into the cavernous vents that snaked to the various corners of the house.

    No matter the time of year, there was always a slight singed smell with the onset of the heat. The first few times turning it on at the end of summer and early days of fall, it was dust burning off. That became the smell of fall into winter, cozy in its own way. But even after those first few days, the mornings always had that burnt smell.

    Various people over the years encouraged me to replace the massive beast. Modernize. Get something new. But it wasn’t broken. There was nothing to break. Just hot air rising. What could be simpler. Yes, not the most efficient, but with the flick of a switch I could have warm sweet, singed air engulfing me.

    In my new home, electric, with a heat pump and radiant floor heating, I can’t mandate immediate heat. It takes hours to warm the house. But, in the early hours of the day I still hear the clicking of the heater, and I smell the singed heat. But it isn’t there, only in my memory.

    Robin Mills lives in Petaluma California. By day she is an American Sign Language interpreter. Her non-work hours are spent writing, swimming, hiking, photographing the world around her, traveling, playing in various art forms and swing dancing.

    Marlene C

  • Bittersweet

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

    Bittersweet

    by Lynn Levy

    Better

    If

    The

    Time

    Elapses

    Rapidly

    Stopping

    Weary

    Ennui’s

    Endless

    Tyranny

    Lynn Levy lives in Northern California with her husband, an overly familiar wild scrub jay called “Bubba,” and an enormous wisteria. She and the wisteria are in negotiations regarding ownership of the patio trellis.

    Marlene C

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  • My Pen Tonight

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

    My Pen Tonight

    By Cheryl Moore

    My pen seems to have run out of words.

    Minutes tick by—tick, tick, tick

    But no matter how hard I try

    All starts dry up and say good-bye.

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

    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.

    Chery’s writing has been published in “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries,” available from your local bookseller. Print and ebook available through Amazon. Also available through the Sonoma County Library system.

    Marlene C

  • Jumpstart in Meter

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

    Jumpstart in Meter

    By Ken Delpit

    I wonder if it makes good sense, to do Jumpstart in meter.
    I mean, what’s the point, masking oneself, like a blindfolded trick-or-treater?
    It all depends, I suppose, on the prompts that we are given.
    It could turn out to be mere folly, or crazier still, madness-driven.

    Marlene always says, “Just write,” so just write is what we will do.
    We will contemplate the prompts, one at a time, and stir them into our stew.
    Time will tell us, as our words spill out, no need to pre-distress.
    We’ll know soon enough if we’ve got a yummy meal, or just some metered mess.

    Prompt one says: What bothers me…, I don’t care…, I’m tired of dot-dot-dot.
    So, right away, we must gaze inward, and put ourselves on the spot-spot-spot.
    One thing that can be tiresome is overuse of ellipses.
    But truth be told, I’m as guilty as most, oft’ with the “and so on” tipsies… 

    Or, maybe I can find a rhyme in things I care not about.
    But then again, who wants to take in some testy writer’s careless blowout?
    Or perhaps, fluency may lie in what bothers me the most.
    Though, it surely would confuse, were I to make a bouncy meter morose.

    Prompt two asks, innocently enough, what it is that’s nagging.
    It’s hard to answer, when there is so much, but might I be humble-bragging?
    Or, what I really want to do might spark a burst quite wordy.
    Though, honestly, I’m just plugging away, trying to get to ten-thirty.

    Prompt three wants to know about those who might be my role models.
    It’s a marvelous idea to ponder, but a thorny prompt to coddle.
    For, were I to list those who’ve inspired, and cite them in report,
    I could not possibly do them justice, and I would come up stupid short.

    So, what am I to make of this, this Jumpstart done in meter?
    Well, if I’m real, I’m surely no Ogden Nash, but more like Walmart greeter.

    Ken Delpit is, in chronological order, a son, a brother, an Argonaut, a Bruin, a software engineer, a husband, a father, a technical writer, and, Ta-Da!, a grandpa (aka “Poppy”). But hold the phone: Now that he is retired and freed from the odious burden of doing real work and being responsible, he has embarked into the wide-open adventures of creative writing. Ken welcomes the freedom and spontaneity of Jumpstart workshops, the inspirations that they inevitability evoke in participating writers, and the warm camaraderie of all.

    Marlene C

  • Identify with Trees

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

    Identify with Trees

    By Cheryl Moore

    Looking at the Chinese Zodiac, I don’t find an animal I can identify with.

    Why are there only animals? Why not plants?

    If there is a living thing I mostly identify with, it is a deciduous tree.

    Trees are tall, stand upright.  They reach up to the heavens; I am tall, upright (at least most of the time).

    I reach up to the sky doing my morning exercises.

    Trees are more silent than most animals—no barking dogs or yowling cats, trees only whisper when they sway in the wind.

    Their annual cycle ranges from quickly budding in spring, like childhood, then full glory in summer like the energy of early adulthood, until their final flash of color, ageing until their bare branches in winter resemble skeletal bones. A bit rough perhaps, but in a loose sense, how I identify.

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

    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

    Chery’s writing has been published in “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries,” available from your local bookseller. Print and ebook available through Amazon. Also available through the Sonoma County Library system.

    Marlene C

  • From The Roots

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

    From The Roots

    By Su Shafer

    I need to let go of the uncertainty

    That I am anything else but a dragon.

    Just a little dragon

    A little wood dragon

    Hatched from a little crystal egg

    As green as the nest of moss it was laid in

    Carefully built in the cool leaf mould

    Gathered in the crook of Granny Maple’s

    Gnarled old roots.

    There is a fire in my heart

    But wood dragons are careful

    Creatures of the trees

    Where fire is seldom welcome.

    Shy as a brown creeper,

    Hiding in plain sight,

    Few people see me

    And the ones who do

    Can hardly believe it.

    Su Shafer is a creative crafter, fabricating bits of writing in poetry and short stories, and other bits into characters that appear in paintings or sit on various bookshelves and coffee tables. She lives in a cottage on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where the tea kettle is always whistling and the biscuits freshly baked. One never knows who might stop by to share a rainy afternoon. And all are welcome.

    #justwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting

    Marlene C

  • MissUnderstood Me

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

    MissUnderstood Me

    By Julie Sherman

    Not all dragons are fire-breathing, terrifying, scaley, menacing creatures. Folklore and fairytales have given us a bad name and have ruined our reputations.  

    Some of us are quite nice. Some are even meek. Some are mothers who just want to care for their young draglings in the dark, clammy caves of our homes.  Others are literally party animals and want to romp and roll in the mountains, scratching our backs on the rough terrain.  And most of us are kind. 

    Many of us go around helping other dragons fend off bully dragons who flap their immense, scabrous wings close to other dragons’ faces and blow smoke through their enormous nostrils and balls of fire through their mammoth mouths.  We are descendants of pterodactyl and t-rex, so we get our wide mouths from the latter and our flying chops from the former. But we are not all nasty, dangerous monsters.

    One day I was minding my own business, clomping around the bluffs by the white-capped seas, taking down a few trees along the way, and I saw two humans on a large red cloth mat lying in the sun. They had a small dog with them and it started barking wildly staring in my direction. I did not eat the dog. And even though I don’t like dog, I did not breath fire on it.

    The two humans shielded their eyes from the glaring sun and looked up. There they saw my curious face tilting this way and that as I stared at them. They shrieked and screamed and made such a fuss.  I was just looking.  I guess my smile appeared to convey that I was ready to breathe fire because they scrambled to their feet and began running away, leaving everything behind them, including the dog and red plaid mat. I didn’t do anything but watch them. One of them tripped, but the other just kept going.  I would never have done that. We are actually very much like elephants in that we help our kin get out of mud pits and sinking sand when our wings are exhausted from the struggle.  

    We suffer too.  We sigh. We exhale flameless. We have our soft side, yet even after millions of years, we are so tragically misunderstood.

    Julie Sherman is a long-time Petaluma resident who enjoys writing, reading, music, travel, and attending live theater. She is the mother of opera singer Camille Sherman and music producer Emily Sherman, and has been married for 35 years to bassist Jeff Sherman.

    Marlene C

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  • Inflatable Snowman, A True Story

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

    Inflatable Snowman, A True Story

    By Su Shafer

    Across the street, the inflatable snowman is down

    laying on its side in the dirt by the porch

    its head still turning back and forth

    back and forth, back and forth

    looking from the cold black ground

    to the heavy belly of the leaden sky.

    It’s still smiling, but the smile seems 

    tentatively directed right at me

    silently saying

    “Hello?! No arms, no legs — 

    I’m not getting myself back on that porch!”

    and wondering why 

    I’m just standing here 

    Staring at it laying there 

    half deflated and helpless

    It starts to snow, 

    the only sound is

    the little motor in its head

    whirring, worrying 

    how bad is it going to get

    down here on the ground?

    Still smiling but desperate now.

    Why does she just stand there?

    She could lift me up

    she could knock on the door 

    and let them know

    It’s Christmas, for Christ’s sake!

    Who is going to save the snowman

    from the snow?

    Su Shafer is a creative crafter, fabricating bits of writing in poetry and short stories, and other bits into characters that appear in paintings or sit on various bookshelves and coffee tables.

    She lives in a cottage on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington, where the tea kettle is always whistling and the biscuits freshly baked. One never knows who might stop by to share a rainy afternoon. And all are welcome.

    Marlene C

  • Dream Weaver

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

    Dream Weaver

    By Sarah Horton

    I dreamed the world was a place of love and harmony . . .

    Dream Lover . . . What dreams may come

    You are my dream lover – thinking of my love, my sweet heart . . . (song pops into my head)

    Dream

    The snow is falling . . . hard.

    The air is thick with it . . . in my nose.

    I wander on the path while the winds blow. 

    I slip, and almost lose my footing. 

    The pathway is blurred from the flakes and wind blowing.

    Soon, there is no side view or peripheral vision.  

    Instantly, only one foot in front of the other and I think— if I keep moving it will clear. 

    Clearly, I now step ahead — one foot, then another, and another.  

    My nose is running, the cold freezes my cheeks as the snowflakes continue to gather and melt on my eyebrows — dripping down into my eyes.    

    Blinking, here I am, here I am . . . step by step . . .  one foot then another . . . into the dark and bitter cold just a breath away.  

    My breath turns to tiny crystals, and the snowflakes are landing on my tongue now.  

    Running out of air, I try to take a deeper breath.  

    My throat is frozen in the process.  

    Shorter, shorter, crispy, short breathing as I slow down to just standing.  

    Swirling all around me is the sound of the wind as it brushes past my ears and disappears into the darkness.  

    Like a moving whirlpool of air, I am in the vortex . . . standing still . . . centered in my heart, pounding, waiting, louder pounding, waiting, and more waiting.

    The wind, now roaring harder,  picks up and pushes against me in my front chest. I turn my body and it hits me on the side — feeling my neck cold, exposing skin as the scarf I wear blows off and disappears into the darkness. Whoosh!

    Is it the sound — my attention moving to my feet, I move a quarter-round again —only to be blown forward from the wind hitting my back this time . . . hunching my shoulders, and feeling the air move up my neck under my hair and into my hat.— no hat now,  again . . . bracing myself, hunching and waiting, waiting, waiting . . . the next big blow . . .

    Waking up, I find myself nestling under my covers, with my naked skin against my lover’s chest.  

    Relief breathing out a full breath. I open to his warmth and touch. We kiss. We breathe into each other’s openness, being the love and the heat we share. Open to the warm and moist touches all over my body, opening and softening. I feel the solid curve of his muscles, moving and touching me, the tips of his fingers exploring my inner worlds of love and aliveness. Melting into one with each other as we soar high in the safety and warmth and darkness of the night.   

    Oh dream weaver

    I believe you can get me through the night

    “Dream Weaver” song lyrics by Gary Wright

    As an artist, Sarah Horton is constantly inspired by the natural beauty that surrounds her in the ‘Lost Sierra’ Nevada Mountains and Lake Tahoe wilderness.

    Her passion for photography has led her to capture stunning vistas and fresh mountain waters around the world, while her love for painting has allowed her to bring her own unique perspective and creativity to her large canvas work. 

    As a writer, she is able to dance in the gap between the intuitive right brain and the practicality of the left brain. 

    Sarah lives north of Lake Tahoe with her sweetheart, Christopher Burton, and her dog, Lady Lulu. Her decades of life experience culminate in the simplicity and joy of appreciating sacred time in silence and creativity.

    She welcomes your visit to her literary artist blog and enjoy the visual art there as well.

    Marlene C

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