Category: Sparks

  • The Old Gray Mare

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

    The Old Gray Mare

    By Susie Moses

    After all these years I am beginning to understand that I have to face the fact that old age is getting a toehold. I am not exempt. I am loathe to use it as an excuse, not wishing to define myself by numbers, but the signs are there, harder and harder to ignore. Harder and harder to resolve or fix. There has been a resetting of the bar. Firm reminders that I cannot slow this process down by sheer will.

    I have come to accept certain limitations. It seems I will not be hiking the entire Appalachian Trail after all. It does remain beyond my capabilities, no matter that someone else born in the same year might accomplish that very thing. I face the fact that I have missed my window. Cross that dream off the list. And others, on and on.

    Acceptance does not mean capitulation. I continue to fight the good fight, in search of The Answer. Or at least An Answer. Miracle foods, diet plans, sleep improvement strategies, exercise regimens, body work, anti-inflammation protocols. But the bottom line is, no matter how well we treat them, our bodies will not last forever. They will fail us in one way or another. Physical decline, mental struggle – the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be.

    I see it in daily banter, my cohort joking about various calamities of our advancing years. Or commenting to my daughter about my sense of abrupt aging and waiting for reassurance that it is not so. It is not forthcoming. Apparently, she concurs. I might have been willing to be talked out of it, but it seems we are on the same page, acknowledging the limitations of my years. I am caught up short. I had not expected her to agree so readily. I vow to double down and prove us both wrong. Cleaner diet, more yoga, Pilates, massage, and meditation. I will show her! And myself. But the task seems more daunting by the day.

    I spent the weekend with dear friends just a few years ahead of me. I am alarmed by what I saw. They have capitulated to failing bodies in many ways and I want them to take action! To be proactive, do things to improve their lives. I watched him put on his hiking socks. Sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, it must have taken him ten minutes to wrangle his feet into the woolen tubes. He could barely reach, trying to move up and over his expansive belly, breathing hard and grunting his way, he cursed as the sock got hung up on curling toenails which he can no longer manage to keep trimmed. It was not a pretty picture. His wife commented that we really were not meant to live this long. Our bodies just wear out. But I stiffened my resolve to work towards staying limber and active, determined to avoid the fate of not being able to reach one’s own toes. I will never let that happen to me!

    I reassured myself as I headed out on a brisk morning walk, full of self-righteousness. No need to let oneself succumb to the vicissitudes of aging. Just keep moving I told myself as I strode out, arms pumping. By the time I returned home, my hips had stiffened to the point that I was hobbling up the stairs and wracking my brain to find a remedy for this ridiculous outcome. Tart cherry juice! Good for inflammation! Green tea laced with turkey tail mushrooms. Yoga poses, acupuncture. I may go down, but I will go down fighting, always believing that somewhere in there I will find, if not the fountain of youth, some fix for what ails me. There is an answer somewhere and I am determined to discover it.

    I read a book not long ago which describes aging as a spiritual process. At some point I will have to embrace that premise, that aging is a master course in acceptance, of infirmity, of pain, of loss and ultimately of death. It’s not that I am afraid of dying, just getting old and dependent. So I fight the good fight, understanding I may have to hang up my gloves for good one day and focus on the spiritual aspects of the end of life. But not yet! Not just now. New books to order, new podcasts to watch. New hope to be excavated – magical supplements and elixirs, intermittent fasting, cold water plunging, avoidance of alcohol. Maybe it’s all just a distraction, but I’m not ready to throw up my hands and admit defeat. I am determined to keep my toenails cut and the ability to ease my socks on without strain.

     We’ll see how it goes.

    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 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 spends a good part of each year in Marin County to be near her daughters, but always is drawn to return to her beloved Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia for a fix of East Coast flora and fauna.

    You can read more of Susie’s writing here and here.

    Marlene C

  • The Seagulls Came and I Knew

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

    The Seagulls Came and I Knew

    By Norma Jaeger

    The seagulls came to the back yard. We didn’t live that close to the coast, Portland, about 80 miles inland. We had never had seagulls in the yard before, as best I recall.  But there they were, drinking out of the bird bath, flapping around querulously, and generally making strident seagull noise, breaking the otherwise early Saturday morning quiet. 

    I had returned the night before from an intense, two-day job interview in Seattle.  With the seagulls in the backyard, such gulls and their cries, being ubiquitous in Seattle, I knew I would be offered the job. Because I had become disenchanted with my job in Portland, I was pretty clear I would accept the job. What I did not know, but realistically what I should have considered, based on what I had always observed about government in Washington, was how the decision would ultimately turn out.

    While I thought I was moving to Seattle, what was really going on was a short stop on my way home to Idaho – there, to an unclear future but one that became the best future of all – 22 years ago. 

    Birds, as ancient augurs, have always conveyed both positive and negative omens.  

    It takes time to sort it out.

    Norma Jaeger spent more than thirty years managing and evaluating addiction and mental health programs in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington.  She developed programs for pregnant and postpartum women, children’s mental health programs, and several programs for individuals in the criminal justice system. 

    She was the Program Manager for offender programming at the Idaho Department of Correction for one year leaving to become the Statewide Coordinator for expansion and support to Idaho’s 70+ Drug, Mental Health, and Veterans’ Courts.

    She served two terms on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Drug Court Professionals, and received the Stanley M. Goldstein Hall of Fame Award from that association in 2018. 

    She taught for fifteen years at Boise State University in the Department of Criminal Justice.

    She currently serves as Executive Director for Recovery Idaho, a statewide recovery community organization.

    She holds a Masters’ Degree in Health Administration and is completing a dissertation for a Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Boise State University, focused on procedural justice. 

    She is honored to serve as Executive Producer for “I Married the War,” a documentary film illuminating the stories of wives of combat veterans.

    Believing that writing can be a meaningful pathway of support for recovery from mental health issues, addiction, and trauma, Norma organized “Poetry for Recovery and Writing for Recovery,” a successful online program.

    Marlene C

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  • The Divorced House

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

    The Divorced House

    By Simona Carini

    At the Greenwich Observatory once
    I straddled the brass line in the courtyard
    One foot East
    One foot West
    Heart at longitude 0°.
    Felt familiar.

    Walking around North Berkeley
    I happened on a house bisected
    Yellow on the right
    Gray on the left.
    Felt finely honed pain
    wafting out the divorced house
    East and West facing off at a meridian
    running down the front and a short flight of stairs
    Bright red on the right
    Burgundy on the left.

    Felt like the child going home
    having to decide whether to enter
    the door on the right
    or on the left
    To inhabit my father’s world
    or my mother’s
    Heart at longitude 0°.

    Except home was one apartment
    with one door
    one kitchen and one bathroom.
    One family
    never divorced.

    The mystery of the divided façade
    of my parents’ marriage.
    From the sidewalk across the street,
    the halves conflict.
    At close range
    the shift across the line is not a chasm
    but a shade easily traveled.

    The line they drew between them
    grew into a wall.
    They lost sight of each other
    talking to the wall
    yelling across it.

    I visit two cemeteries
    bring flowers to two tombstones
    balance on the line of compassion
    Heart at longitude 0°.

    “The Divorced House” was originally published in Star 82 Review.

    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 will be 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

  • Wait.What?

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

    Wait. What?

    By Brenda Bellinger

    Mindlessly scrolling through Yahoo News (a time suck, I know), I came across a headline titled “Caroline Kennedy’s first grandchild’s name revealed.” It stopped me cold and aged me a lifetime all at once. I still picture Caroline as that sweet little girl at her father’s grave site in 1963, two days before her seventh birthday.

    A moment that precipitated that image is forever etched into my memory. I was sitting in my third-grade classroom at McKinley School in San Francisco. Our teacher, Mrs. Johnson, whom I recall being about the same age I am now, was in front of the class at the blackboard when we heard a soft knock at the classroom door.

    The door opened and our principal motioned for Mrs. Johnson to step out into the hallway. The room was quiet. Mrs. Johnson returned a few minutes later, just as a couple of the rambunctious kids were beginning to get restless.

    Clearly upset, she reached for a tissue on her desk. “Our president has been shot,” she said, her voice trembling.

    My memory of that day is so clear, still. How is that so many years could have passed since then?

    I’ve been thinking about the major events that have occurred during our lifetimes, particularly during our formative years and how they shaped our thoughts, our plans, our futures. We remember exactly where we were when those key events began to unfold.

    John F. Kennedy’s assassination was one of the historic events that defined the generation of Baby Boomers along with the moon landing and the Vietnam War. Remember the odd/even day gas rationing of the 1970s?

    Gen Xers will remember the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Gulf War. Millennials will never forget the attacks of September 11. Neither will the rest of us.

    Our younger generations are marked by more than their share of impactful, ongoing events including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis and the war on Ukraine.

    It’s not the passage of time I should be worried about. It’s the future.

    Brenda Bellinger’s writing has appeared in Small Farmer’s Journal, Mom Egg Review, Persimmon Tree, THEMA, the California Writers Club Literary Review and in various anthologies, including several of The Write Spot books.

    Her first novel, “Taking Root,” a young adult story of betrayal and courage, is available through most local bookstores and on Amazon.

    Brenda’s Blog is a wonderful compilation of her writing.

    Marlene C

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  • Burgeoning

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

    Burgeoning

    By Su Shafer

    How many petals are in a peony?

    There’s no way to tell from the bud – a closed hand

              holding more than you can imagine.

    They unfold slowly, the way a smile spreads

              before a secret is told.

    Each petal

              a curled finger uncurling

              an alluring promise of beauty to come

              a whisper – just wait, just wait…

    And then suddenly

    It blooms

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

    Marlene C

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  • You Think You Know Me

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

    You Think You Know Me

    By Karen Handyside Ely 

    You think you know me, but you don’t know…

    that I am struggling with a powerful bout of depression. I’ve battled it before. I’ve been in deeper, darker, more dangerous pits. This current episode has rolled over me slowly. Not a storm, but more a dense, thick, cloud cover, wrapping me in the heavy humidity of numbness and ennui, pinning me to the ground with a listless, languid, low-grade despair that makes me want to sleep all day.

    I’m suffocating one breath at a time… in slow motion. This time around, my depression isn’t a raging sea, which has been my usual experience, but an ebbing tide that creeps back over the sand as the fog rolls in to smother the beach.

    I could cry, just writing this, but I don’t. I continue to function, smile, interact. And I try to fight back. I fight with prescribed medication. I fight by restricting alcohol and chocolate – alcohol because it provides temporary, false relief that will ultimately kill me, and chocolate because of my natural proclivity to drown myself in calories, which will also kill me.

    I work with a counselor. It doesn’t feel like it helps, but I know it will. I know I WILL get better. I always have before. My hope has not completely flickered out. I think this is partially a delayed reaction to the covid years, a sort of PTSD, now that the crisis is over (as “over” as it can ever be.) I lived in fight mode for 2 ½ years and managed to keep my head above water, legs propelling me forward. Now my strength and discipline are gone. I’m left with a sorrowful emptiness that I cannot shake.

    For now, I am trying to be gentle with myself. I’m clearing away the unrequired obligations in my life that do not bring me joy. I am de-cluttering the way I live, ala Marie Kondo. I am reintroducing the activities that used to motivate me. I am withholding self-judgement, the hardest exercise of all, and learning to love who I am, not what I do or how I look.

    I don’t think that I am alone. Yes, I have a medical diagnosis of depression, but I can sense the sad fatigue that clings to people around me wherever I go… in grocery lines, or shopping at TJMaxx, in airports and zoom meetings. I think so many are coping, on some level, with this feeling. It hides behind frantic busyness and red-hot anger. It lurks beneath everyday smiles and societal pleasantries. Most of us aren’t incapacitated by it, but the weight of what we carry has become a constant. You think you know me, but you don’t. Right now, I grapple with knowing myself.

    Karen Handyside Ely was born and raised in Petaluma, California. She delights in difficult crossword puzzles, the Santa Rosa Symphony, and traveling with her husband, James.

    Karen has been published in several Write Spot Books:  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 at Amazon and your local bookseller.

    Marlene C

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  • Never Should You Ever

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

    Never Should You Ever

    By Ken Delpit

    Whether it’s

    “Never would I ever,”
    Or “Never will I ever,”
    Or “Never could I ever,”
    Or “Never can I ever,”
    Or “Never should I ever,”
    Or “Never have I ever,”

    You cannot help but marvel
    At what an eternity “Never” is.
    At what a commitment “Never” is.
    At what a delusion “Never” is.

    Few such utterances can hold true,
    When a single exception renders them moot.

    Most such utterances harbor doubts.
    We just cannot help ourselves in our passions.

    Who among us say these things?
    Why, everyone, of course.

    Who among us mean these things?
    Well, everyone, of course.

    But who among us are truthful about “Nevers”?
    Well, some of us are…
    Or, intend to be, at least,
    At the time, that is,
    For the most part, anyway.

    So, take heed at the notion of “Never.”
    Its purpose is rigid,
    But its use is fluid.

    Lest you think “Never” always means forever,
    Never should you ever. 

    Ken Delpit, in moments of introspection, grapples with intentions versus realities. “Nevers” and “Alwayses,” generally well-meaning pronouncements, are sly co-conspirators in life. They come in lots of flavors. They come in myriad weights. They come with varying degrees of truth…, or not. They can be purveyors of principle, and they can be agents of deception, including of self. Ken is happy to have found free-writing for exploring such ponderables, not so much for finding answers, but more for discovering questions.

    #justwrite #iamwriting #iamwriter

    Marlene C

  • Dear Number Five

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

    Dear Number Five

    By Karen Quest

    Dear Number Five,

    If we are to believe the song, one is the loneliest number, but without you, we wouldn’t know where we’d be. I checked you out, and from math to science, to art, music and literature, to religion and biology, you’re everywhere!

    I hope you have fun reading some cool facts about yourself.

    I give you my Ode to Five.

    Starfish are pentamerous

    Which might sound kind of calamitous

    Five appendages have they

    And no matter what you might say

    I think they are quite glamorous.

    It isn’t criminal to take the Fifth.

    Lanford Wilson chose you for the title of his play, The Fifth of July.

    Beethoven named one of his symphonies after you.

    There are 25 one-ounce shots in a fifth of alcohol.

    Almost all amphibians, reptiles, and mammals which have fingers or toes have five of them on each extremity.

    The five rings of the Olympics represent the five inhabited continents.

    All major north-south Interstate Highways in the United States end in 5.

    While not all animals use them the same way, we all have five senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell and taste.

    Five is the most common number of gears for automobiles with manual transmission.

    From rock to rap, there are a lot of fives.

    The Jackson 5

    Maroon 5

    Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

    Ben Folds Five

    Five Finger Death Punch

    Dave Brubeck Quartet’s famous song: “Take Five”

    Always remember – you’re a star – a pentagram!

    Love, Karen Quest

    Since 1998, Karen Quest has blazed a trail in the fair and festival industry as a solo female comedy entertainer with her one-woman comedy variety act, Cowgirl Tricks, and Over The Top Stilt Characters™.

    She is a small business owner with the title of Chief Operating Cowgirl of Giddyup Productions, representing some of the finest family variety entertainers in the business.

    A natural-born educator, Karen has taught acting, improvisation, physical education, and circus skills to ages four to ninety-two.

    Karen’s experience performing at libraries led her to enroll in the Master of Library and Information Science program at San José State University in January 2020, coincidentally, the same month she started Medicare.

    She is slated to graduate in December 2022, and her dream job is to be an Outreach Services Librarian.

    Although she is not fooled easily, she applied to many scholarships that turned out to be shams.

    Karen wasn’t chosen for this $1,500 “Fifth Month Scholarship,” but at least it yielded an essay that was fun to write. 

    The instructions were:

    May is the fifth month of the year. Write a letter to the number five explaining why five is important. Be serious or be funny. Either way, here’s a high five to you for being original. (250 words or less).

    Marlene C

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  • My Secret Cottage

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

    My Secret Cottage

    By Kathy Guthormsen

    I open the back door to dew sparkling in the morning sun and hints of rainbows shimmering in the lingering mist. They let me catch a fleeting glimpse before their magic fades. Goosebumps raise along my bare arms as I race through the grass and turn to look at my wet footprints. The sun will soon erase this evidence of my footsteps. I won’t be followed as I skip through an imaginary forest to my secret cottage at the far end of an enchanted glade.

    Rabbit hops along next to me hoping for the reward of a carrot. Cat slinks across the trail, hunting. She’d like to catch Rabbit, but he’s bigger than she is. And wilier. I raise my hand to shade my eyes and turn in a circle. Do I hear something stalking me? I look up and see Eagle soaring through the blue watching after me. I wave and continue along my path.

    My secret cottage is just ahead. An abandoned pump house my father moved to our back yard. He made window boxes and added a covered porch. I swept cobwebs and evicted spiders. Dad carried out a child sized table and chairs. I brought toys and plastic dishes. This is my place. Where I hide from pirates and make friends with birds. Where I hold parties for my dolls and my much-loved teddy bear. Where I serve mud soup and rock cookies. Where adult voices are not heard; adult eyes are not allowed.

    My cottage has faded into the mist of memories. The pump house is small, now derelict, with peeling paint and a warped plywood floor. But I can still visit in my dreams.

    Kathy Guthormsen is the creator of “The Story of Jazz and Vihar.”

    Her writing has been published in several The Write Spot anthologies.

    These books are available from your local bookseller and Amazon.

    You can meet Kathy, and possibly Poe and other birds:

    May 21, 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm: Children’s Museum of Sonoma County, 1835 W. Steele Lane, Santa Rosa, CA

    Date to be determined:  Copperfield’s Books, 144 Kentucky St., Petaluma, CA

    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.

    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.

    She maintains a blog, Kathy G Space, where she occasionally posts essays, short stories, and fairy tales.

    Marlene C

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  • Delicate as a Hummingbird’s Heart

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

    Delicate as a Hummingbird’s Heart

    By Noah Davis

    This past Saturday, the fire burning on the north side of the river jumped a ridge and lit another hillside of drought-stricken timber, sending a plume so high that the air turned red with the seared skin of Douglas fir and larch.

    At 5:30 that evening, in the diner booth across from my father and me, a young man and woman, both with shiny, smooth cheeks, sat drinking their waters in small swallows. He wore a collared, white button down with jeans and scrubbed cowboy boots. Her skirt was blue, like glacial streams, and her straight hair was the color of stacked wheat shafts when the sunlight isn’t choked with smoke. His bangs were still wet from the shower, comb marks straight as irrigation ditches. She ran her hands over her knees. He thumbed the crease of his collar. She had to lean in every time he spoke.

    Years ago, I’d have thought this was a quiet, brave thing, here in our burning world: two people making themselves lovely for each other. But now having realized that the world has ended so many times before, this young couple’s effort became that much more vulnerable. Something as delicate as a hummingbird’s heart.

    In the last week, a hundred million trees had perished before the girl leaned close to her mirror and blinked on mascara. In the last month, thirty skies had been choked to gray before the boy raised his hand to knock on her front door.

    Noah Davis’ poetry collection Of This River was selected for the 2019 Wheelbarrow Book Prize from Michigan State University’s Center for Poetry, and his poems and prose have appeared in The Sun, Southern Humanities Review, Best New Poets, Orion, The Year’s Best Sports Writing, and River Teeth among others. 

    Davis earned an MFA from Indiana University and now lives with his wife, Nikea, in Missoula, Montana. 

    Originally posted on River Teeth April 4, 2022

    #justwrite #iamawriter #iamwriting #iamapoet

    Marlene C

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