Category: Sparks

  • Holding Water

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

    Holding Water

    By M.A. Dooley

    I remember the first winery I designed in the middle of a level vineyard.

    Construction began after the vines were removed and the earth was excavated for the foundation.

    A big storm hit the northern Sonoma County and lasted for days.

    At the jobsite meeting, the crew had erected a sign at the edge of a large body of captured rainwater where the future building would go. The sign read Lake Dooley, named after me, the architect. It was funny and I laughed.

    I had great capacity for everything, hard work, men and their jokes, life. My lake would evaporate, percolate, and be drained and no one would ever know of Lake Dooley.

    The spring of 2023 was too full to process. The snow and rain kept falling, the rivers were swollen, the thirsty earth saturated. The valley oaks turned sparkling emerald. Front yards were lush. Lakes filled up. My home state, region, county and backyard was amplified with aliveness.

     All this water was a promise of a future, but some absorbed the deluge and others drowned. The swollen rivers and runoff pushed over the levies and found the low spot.

    Water returned home refilling Lake Tulare, a drained body purposed into agriculture and industry with homes built on her dry bed. The rain and snow melt filled the valley of Tulare to four times the size of Lake Tahoe’s surface. That’s something I’d like to see.

     The Spring of 2023 seems to correspond with my condition. I’m too full to process it all. There’s steady snow fall of activity, but the sun comes out hot and melty and quickly my dam overflows. It’s harder to keep it all within my capacity.

    Maybe I had once been empty like Lake Tulare, purposed for my fertile ground, growing all manner of seeds for harvest. I could always take on more. More work, more play, more interests, but now, I am too full to process the present abundance of my own creation. I’m seeking a way to let the water out before I drown in Lake Dooley. 

    M.A. Dooley is a writer from Sonoma County who frequently ventures to the Sierra Nevada range. Dooley has been published in “The Write Spot: Musings and Ravings in a Pandemic Year” (2021)  and “Poems of a Modern Day Architect,” Archhive Books, (2020)

    Marlene C

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  • Sunsets

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

    Sunsets

    By Joop Delahaye

    Sunsets . . . always beautiful, no matter where or when.

    Blindingly bright in the beginning, can’t look at it, then softening, slipping into the distant ocean . . . the water extinguishing the brightness and the heat and allowing the usual yellows and reds to persist, until they faded to purple and gone.

    Sitting on a bluff at the Sea Ranch, or on Mount Tam’s west slopes, or the southern Oregon coast at Gold Beach, or on the Croatian coast at Sibenik . . . all notable, all full.

    The late rays seemed to have an enhanced power of penetration into the soul, the heart. Replenishing spent fuel rods, battery cells, warming the humors.

    The energy, the short-lasting blast easily pushes open the portals and shines into the nooks and crannies usually forgotten. Usually inaccessible.

    Restoring full utilization of these organs, mechanisms, spaces . . . for a while.

    The last bolt-the last ray that spears across the sea into the ventrum of the being, charges it for the night, however long, whatever season.

    Then, gradual darkening.  Able to face it, not a fearful place. No danger here now.

    The light stored inside creates comfort with the nocturnal.

    Creates peace with the day past, the life behind, the life ahead.

    Moving towards dreamscapes soon.

    Joop Delahaye: Indonesian-Dutch, Australian, immigrant of many years.

    Decompressing/recovering from too abundant writing in his career as a healthcare practitioner. Enjoying creative writing now.

    Marlene C

  • How Photography Inspires Writing

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

    How Photography Inspires My Writing

    By Simona Carini

    On January 18, 2016, walking around North Berkeley, I was brought to a halt by the look of a house: the right and left side were painted in different colors and the overall effect was that of a line bisecting the façade. I took a photo and resumed my walk but kept thinking about the house. At home, I wrote down what I had seen and the musings the sight had stirred, then distilled the material into my first poem “The Divorced House” which was published in the journal, Star 82 Review, together with the photo.

    At the time, I had been writing for almost 10 years, mostly about food and more recently memoir. Poetry was a new endeavor. As I developed my style and voice, I continued using my photos as writing prompts. I still do.

    I start by describing the image, not only the visual details, but smells, sounds, things I touched or that touched me, and/or the situation that led to the photo being taken. While I free-write I may remember something I felt or thought when the image was taken, or a story may emerge. Ultimately, the poem needs to transcend the description to a deeper theme, a shared emotion. What is the story? Why am I telling it? The process may remain a writing exercise, still useful as it helps me focus on sensory details.  

    I usually don’t know where writing about an image will lead me. The bisected house in Berkeley made me think about my parents’ divisions which affected my early life.

    Taking photographs for me is a way of taking notes. A photo helps me remember what I saw and what I felt. As writer I am a hoarder: of sights, sounds, smells, flavors, textures. I gather sensory details and musings and store them for immediate or future use.

    A bench overlooking the Pacific Ocean photographed on a foggy day (so that it appears to overlook nothingness) led me to think about refugees crossing the Mediterranean Sea not being allowed to rest when they arrive wherever the waves pushed them. “The Bench” was published with the inspiring photo in Star 82 Review.

    The cover of my recently published poetry collection, Survival Time, features the photo that inspired the opening poem: It shows the inside of Lærdal Tunnel, in Norway. The poem references the experience of driving through that tunnel and weaves into it the experience of my husband’s cancer diagnosis. At some point the poem describes what the photo shows but in the broader context of the life event for which it is a metaphor.

    “December 31” (originally published in Italian Americana) is about the time I spent the last afternoon of 2018 on the beach of Pismo Beach, CA, bathed in glorious sunset colors, watching surfers ride the last waves of the year, and observing shorebirds. The poem describes them and meditates on breathing and death, as the year is about to die:

    The end

    arrives with our last breath. A long sigh the last

    sound we make. We carry nothing with us,

    not even a gulp of air. Will I, on the final

    exhale, remember kindness in your gaze?

    Simona Carini was born in Perugia, Italy. She writes poetry and nonfiction and has been published in various venues, in print and online.

    Her first poetry collection, Survival Time ,  was published in 2022 by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions. She lives in Northern California with her husband, loves to spend time outdoors, and works as an academic researcher.

    Marlene C

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  • Totally Awesome

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

    Totally Awesome

    By Caitlin Cunningham

    I was an eighties girl. I embraced the radical change away from the disco and traditional rock music that I did not really care for when I was young.

    The eighties brought an entirely new sound that I loved. It was fresh and energetic.

    After I turned twenty-one, I went to nightclubs frequently in the eighties,

    I would dance to every song, not caring who asked me. I just wanted to dance all night long.

    And the outfits we all wore—so much black and neon. Most clubs had black lights that made our colored accessories glow… as well as the lint on our black garments.

    There were a few clubs I frequented regularly, both at home and at college. I remember one place that was a former Safeway grocery store converted to a dance club. There was day-glow paint splattered on black walls. They had giant lighted cubes we could hop up on to dance (for the very confident). The place was huge but always had a line of people outside waiting to get in. 

    Another place I liked had a small interior courtyard with a swimming pool. At night the pool was covered by a Lucite dance floor that lit up. It seemed so extraordinary, and slightly dangerous, to be dancing on top of a pool. There was also an indoor dance floor but being out in the cool air, within a crush of sweaty bodies was always preferable to me. Young men and women in cutting edge outfits and over-gelled, gender-neutral hairstyles, stood about trying to look cool and severe.

    It was a new era, a time of changing viewpoints and the tumbling of the Berlin Wall, the explosion of Mt. St Helens, Reaganomics, and Glasnost. There were battles against communism, against human rights atrocities in China, against AIDS, against the status quo. It was the generation of MTV.  Musicians now competed for prime spots on the network through elaborate video productions of their songs that visually brought the music to life, even using the platform to raise money and awareness for world causes.

    Appearance was everything, both politically and literally. Copying the attire of the top performers was common. Everyone wanted to look like Madonna with her sexy tousled blonde curls, heavy eyeliner and controversial crosses dangling about her neck or Duran Duran with their tight pants, heavily padded shoulders and spiky bleached hair or Michael Jackson all decked out in skin-hugging, bright red leather. 

    It was a dynamic time, a changing of the guard. Everything was extreme. The music, the clothes, the hair and the attitudes. It was a sort of rebellion against the laid back, free thinking 60s and 70s, a generation seeking its own identity.

    It was a totally awesome era.

    Caitlin Cunningham lives and works in Petaluma, CA. She is an educator working with high school students who have mild learning disabilities. She especially loves helping students with math and writing.

    She has two adult children, a son who graduated from Iowa State with a history major and a daughter who is currently a pilot studying aviation and aeronautics at the University of North Dakota.

    She started writing with Jumpstart years ago but stopped when her husband became ill. After his death in 2020, she returned at Marlene Cullen’s urging.

    Returning to the Jumpstart group has been a supportive and therapeutic environment for resuming her writing and escaping her grief.

    Marlene C

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  • A Love Letter to Myself

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

    A Love Letter to Myself

    By Luz Leyden

    I love that you are embracing all the ‘unfortunate events’ you have experienced and are trying to encapsulate them in writing so that you are insulated from them and their effects.

    You are a caterpillar who has formed a chrysalis and you are digesting yourself inside so that you can emerge transformed, free, able to fly, released from your former life and all its restrictions. That process and that bravery deserves admiration, respect, and love.

    I will try to do what is right for you. I will try to steer you towards light, towards enlightenment, towards your real self. I admire your bravery in staying sane through everything you have endured, despite callous provocation. Stay strong.

    Luz Leyden lives in Ireland where she writes . . . sometimes into the early hours of the morning.

    Marlene C

  • Night Knight

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

    Night Knight

    By Su Shafer

    We spend almost every night together.

    I’m not away from home often

    But when I am, I ache

    And I don’t sleep well.

    I am uncomfortable with

    The hardness of strangers

    The impersonal coarseness

    Or aloof purist sterility.

    There is never the welcoming

    I get at home.

    The soft embrace,

    The understanding.

    At home there is no judgment

    Or pressure that I am not doing enough,

    No criticism that I am not enough

    My bed cradles me like a mother.

    I am held in a cocoon of love

    I never want to leave.

    I close my eyes and my bed hums

    A silent lullaby

              Sleep dear one

              Tired caterpillar

              Your work will wait

              Dream of wings

              And drinking flowers

              Wake up the butterfly

    That you are.

    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.

    You can read more of Su Shafer’s writing here:

    Herald

    Burgeoning

    And in The Write Spot Anthologies, available from local booksellers and on Amazon (print and as ereaders):

    The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries

    The Write Spot: Musings and ravings From a Pandemic Year

    Marlene C

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  • Wants In a World of Plenty

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

    Wants In a World of Plenty

    By DSBriggs

    I just want to…

     

    Laugh aloud.

    Stay Alive.

    Keep learning.

    Keep mobile.

    Keep learning to let go.

    Keep loving.

     

    I just want to…

     

    Shout at the Government.

    Shout at prejudice.

    Shout at stupidity.

    Shout at injustice.

    Shout at the mess.

     

    I just want to…

     

    See Children playing.

    Hear laughing.

    Taste warm bread.

    Smell fresh rain in the forest.

    Touch my dog’s velvety ears.

     

    I just want to …

     

    Accept the pain that comes with death of loved ones.

    Accept that I do the best I know how.

    Accept help graciously as I age.

    Accept that my way is only one way of many.

    Accept forgiveness. 

    Accept that some things are unforgivable.

     

    I just want to:

     

    Continue to write,

    and be a committed listener.

    Appreciate where I have been,

    and accept that this is where I am now.

     

    Okay! Okay! 

     

    I also want to…

     

    Conquer dust and dog hair.

    Finish some projects.

    Sort my mountains of paper.

    Laugh daily at something funny.

    Irony is okay.

    DSBriggs is a retired educator. She has lived in Northern California most of her life.

    She still loves to write and has been honored to be published in The Write Spot Collections: “The Write Spot to Jumpstart Your Writing: Discoveries,” The Write Spot: Possibilities,” and “The Write Spot: Writing as a Path to Healing. Available in print and as ereaders at Amazon.

    Mostly she likes to write about her dog and life in the past century.

    Donna has recently added to her want list: more travel and a pen that doesn’t skip.

    Marlene C

  • Rain Dog, a Pantoum

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

    Rain Dog, a Pantoum

    By Suse Pareto

    Dog is bored and restless.

    Rain is pouring down.

    I’m loath to leave this comfy bed,

    but walk we must, says she.

     

    Rain is pouring down,

    the road is sodden and feckless.

    But walk we must, says she,

    up to the woods we go.

     

    The road is sodden and feckless.

    The hills are wet and slick.

    Up to the woods we go,

    Dog barks in great delight.

     

    The hills are wet and slick,

    rain drips from leaf and stick.

    Dog barks in great delight,

    “Water slithering, sliding everywhere!”

     

    Rain drips from leaf and stick.

    The gullies run fast and wild,

    water slithering, sliding everywhere,

    it’s like the earth has burst.

     

    The gullies run fast and wild,

    Dog nips at water’s tumble.

    It’s like the earth has burst,

    she frolics and romps quite madly.

     

    Dog nips at water’s tumble,

    gamboling down the hill.

    She frolics and romps quite madly,

    there’s never been a better day.

     

    Gamboling down the hill,

    a whirling dervish made of mud,

    there’s never been a better day.

    As rain keeps pouring down.

     

    A whirling dervish made of mud.

    It’s time to end our walk,

    as rain keeps pouring down

    my soles and hat are sogged.

     

    It’s time to end our walk.

    I whistle loud and firm.

    My soles and hat are sogged,

    but never has my heart

    felt so lithe and light.

    Suse Pareto writes and lives in western Petaluma, California with her dogs, cat and husband.

    A pantoum is a poetic form derived from a Malaysian verse form in which the 2nd and 4th line of every verse becomes the 1st and 3rd line of the following verse creating interwoven quatrains.

    Pantoum rules and pantoums on The Write Spot Blog:

    Create a pantoum

    Barbara’s Braid

    A Pantoum for Constance Demby

    Marlene C

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  • Smiling

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

    Smiling

    By Jenny Beth Schaffer

    Smiling, after a certain age, is an act of boldness and an invitation to danger because already there are enough lines and wrinkles in your face that the very last thing you want to do is aggravate the problem. Because as everyone knows perfectly well, each smile takes a tiny toll on the elasticity, the buttery lacquer of your already anxious countenance.

    It’s a high-risk situation, this smile or not smile gambit, one requiring the weighing of the pros and cons, and typically you have just milliseconds to make the decision. Look no further than Wile E. Coyote to understand the consequences of split second decisions. 


    Someone passes on the street, a stranger perhaps, casting the sunshine of their toothiness in your direction. What. Do. You. Do? It calls for a response and it’s clear that turning to them with a bland facelessness, with the cold chill of a nothing response, dead in the eyes, limp in the facial muscles, would be, well, a rejection. Rude. So rude. And it might provoke violence.

    Those of you raised properly are more likely to automatically smile back without thinking this through. The automatic, unconscious response of  the nice person. The well-bred person. One who has finessed and lubricated numerous social interactions through practice and because it was beaten into you. 

    You’ll pay later. You’ll look like trolls, like the shrunken apple head dolls my friend Jennifer makes with the kids in her kindergarten class. Cute? Yes. Attractive? I don’t need to answer that.

    Meanwhile, as a woman, you’re constantly told that you’re prettier when you smile. “What a lovely smile you have,” a complete stranger exclaims when you’re waiting for your pills at the Kaiser pharmacy. She has an incredible complexion, creamy and smooth, her eyes like giant buttons against the blank scrim of her face, just as they were when she was a toddler. Her hair, with the smallest touch of grey in it, reads as a halo against the harsh fluorescent lights casting their hellish blue glow over the sad line of people wending their way toward the irritable pharmacy assistant. Perhaps this stranger’s name is Jeanne. Or Lisa. Whoever she is, she’s setting you up and you need to be watching out for this sort of thing constantly. 

    However confident you are that you’re reading this situation accurately, that this is someone simply being friendly and helpful and perhaps — although this is a reach — paying you a compliment, know that you are headed down the wrong road.

    This is just simple mathematics. The more you smile, the deeper the rivulets of loss and hopelessness you carve into your presentation, into your publicly displayed self-image. Your war chest. They are counting on this. The Jeannes, the Lisas, the Margarets, the Brittanys, the Leslies, in the cold calculus of their day to day strategy, they are mounting their campaign of war. They are deliberate. They are impeccable in their planning. They are generals. They are single. They want you out of the way so they can sweep through the territory, pillaging, doing violence, and stuffing the spoils into their rucksacks.

    If you fall prey to this, you will prematurely age and take yourself out of the competition for the available romantic partners. And this is what they want. They want the good ones for themselves. This is evolutionary biology.

    I know, I know. I know your protests, I’ve heard them all: this is just brainwashing from beauty magazines and infomercials and very insidious, strategic ad placements on Twitter. This is part of the capitalist machine. This is a pack of lies, engineered in the boardrooms of Sephora, Maybelline, in the homes of all the Kardashians — every single one — and in the outposts of obscure European countesses and baronesses shilling makeup and acupressure facelifts. I’m not going to try to stop you. You do you. You stay in denial. You carve your face up one interaction at a time.

    And then you will be alone, and at your very poorly attended memorial the anemic clutch of mourners will talk about how beautiful you were on the inside.

    Jenny Beth Schaffer is a physical theater artist and a writer living in Oakland, California. 

    Marlene C

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  • One Shrug for Chocolate Chip and Two for Peanut Butter

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

    One Shrug for Chocolate Chip and Two for Peanut Butter

    By Robin Mills

    Olive made her way slowly down the aisle. The Canyon Country Store was older than even her grandma. It had been there when the road that snaked up and over the hill from the valley side to the city side was just dirt. The floors creaked, oak rubbing oak.

    When the 3:00 bell rang, most kids piled onto the stubby-nosed yellow bus, the small kind, not the long sleek yellow bus with rounded edges. There were not enough kids up in the canyon to warrant a big bus like that, so they got the small version. But Olive preferred to walk. It gave her a chance to look at things and even occasionally find something another walker had unknowingly dropped.

    And when she got to the Canyon Country Store, she would usually just look at the doors with people going in and out. In, empty handed and out with a brown bag or two, full of food. She wished she could come out of the store with a brown bag of food. She also knew that would likely never happen.

    But today, she let her curiosity get the better of her and pushed through the swinging glass door. To her left was the cash register and some friendly enough looking man as old as her dad standing behind it. “Afternoon”, he said, half lifting his hand in a wave.

    She reciprocated with a half-lifted wave and wondered if he could see right through her and knew she didn’t have a cent to spend. But then convincing herself he knew nothing of the sort, she headed to the first aisle, straight ahead.

    Boxes and boxes, cans and cans. Labeled in different colors announcing what they held. She let her hand lightly touch one, then the next, finally dragging her fingers along them like the keys of a piano.

    At the end of the aisle was a shelf of cookies, each in its own see-through bag, sealed shut, staring up at her. They looked so good, she could see the sweet in them. The sign perched on the edge of the shelf told her she would never have the pleasure of tasting one, so she just imagined the first bite she would take of the soft, doughy, chocolate chip cookie, crumbs raining down on her chest.

     “Do you think they are as good as they look?” The voice of the man as old as her dad said.

    She didn’t know if she should nod or shake her head, so she just dropped her chin and her eyes towards the floor.

    “Well they are.  I love ‘em.”

    She nodded, then waited, assuming the next thing he’d do would be to grab her arm and escort her out the glass door that had only recently swung open to let her in.

    “Which one do you want? Chocolate chip or peanut butter?”

    Olive shrugged.

    “OK. One shrug for chocolate chip and two for peanut butter.”

    She couldn’t contain her smile, and shrugged once.

    “Here you go. Enjoy.” he said, extending his hand, palm up, with a beautifully plump chocolate chip cookie perched in the middle. She raised her eyes just enough to see, then plucked the see-through bag from his palm. He turned, headed down the aisle and slid in behind the cash register, as if he had never left.

    She turned slowly and walked towards the door. He raised a half wave and smiled. She did the same. Then left.

    Robin Mills lives in Petaluma and writes with Jumpstart. She has worked as an American Sign Language Interpreter for 40 years and when she is not doing that, she is an avid swimmer, hiker, and an artist. Her current mediums are photography, polymer clay and fused glass. If you ever need a distraction from the things you should be doing (and let’s be honest, who doesn’t) you can see her photography at TheRobinMills.com

    Marlene C