Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Dedicated to Dad By William Frank Hulse III I was out on the back patio, grilling some hamburgers. After talking to the two dogs next door I sat down at a little café/bistro table my wife arranged as a little hygge spot for us. Out of the corner of my eye I caught movement and turned to see a beautiful yellow butterfly go passing by, on its way to a luncheon appointment I suppose. I smiled at the thought and then, for some reason, my father came to mind. He died 18 years ago but he has this clever way of making his presence known. Sometimes, it’s one of his nifty quotes that he borrowed from Will Rogers – a local hero of ours. Other times it’s his shadow that looms large when I’m guessing what…
Category: Sparks
Memorable writing that sparks imagination.
Network
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Network By Deb Fenwick It’s new and improved! Try it! Don’t miss this opportunity. Buy now. No, not goodbye now. But look at this good buy, now! Amazon Prime straight to your door in 24 hours, guaranteed. And, if all goes well, gig workers will deliver your Starbucks just as your DoorDash lunch is arriving. Thank goodness for the bits and bytes that zoom unseen through your Wi-Fi and into a fiber-optic network that traverses the globe. It’s fast. And you are the master of your point-and-click world. Plants have a dynamic unseen life beneath the soil. In late autumn, perennials slowly go into a state of dormancy in response to cold weather and shorter daylight hours. Gradually, leaves and stalks disappear. Life continues underground, and roots go into a potent winter slumber. In spring, in…
One Wish Now, or Three In Ten?
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. One Wish Now, or Three In Ten? By Patricia Morris Patricia’s response to the writing prompt: Would you rather have one wish granted today, or three wishes granted ten years from now? Given that my dear friend of forty years died last week after a fast and furious 6-week illness, I will take my one wish today, please. No waiting for ten years for anything anymore. There are no ten years guaranteed, especially when, in ten years, I will be six months shy of 70 years old. That is a shocking thing to write, but that is my reality. Having only one wish, the pressure is on. To make it the “right” wish, the “best” wish, the “greatest good for the greatest number” wish. I could game it. I could make my one wish be to…
The Bigger Picture … Life is more than me.
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. The Bigger Picture . . . Life is more than me. By Christine Liles What I’m about to say is my own opinion and my personal thoughts about Life. I don’t expect everyone to feel the same way or believe the way I do. I’ve experienced quite a bit in my life that’s led me to feel the way I do. Life is magical. It’s mysterious and unpredictable but also glorious and such a gift. I will say that I do believe in God. I believe we are all here for a reason. To me, Life is like a chain of reactions. Think of your life. Think of everyone you currently know, everyone who has seen you do something, and everyone who you’ve come in contact with by doing a kind gesture or even a fender…
Day Tripping
Memorable writing that sparks imagination. Lean in. Hear the writer’s voice on the page. Day Tripping By Karen Handyside Ely As we enter the trailhead from Shell Beach, brisk and bracing winds swirl hair and chill bones. Am I crazy, wearing only shorts and a t-shirt? We begin our ascent, turning backwards often as we inch up the hill so that we can soak up the panorama that unfolds behind us. Sunshine shimmers on the Pacific, making it glitter as the waves undulate, achingly alive. Light on water, is there anything more beautiful? As we crest the first hill, we stop one last time to feast our eyes. Mine fill with tears. It overwhelms me, this hushed moment in the sea breeze. Immersed in this timeless vista there is such peace in knowing how long this view has been here, and always will be. The echoes of eternity, the promise…
It
By Cheryl Moore It’s as slick and slippery as an eel living in a low walled enclosure, searching all the crevices to find bits of debris that didn’t find their way to the long, dark tunnel at its root. It spends most of its days and nights resting against the hard, upper ceiling except at meal times when it is an important assist in processing the food, or when in company its primary function is to express thoughts into language. So many kinds of languages it helps to express — the hard, umlauted words of German, the soft shushes of Portuguese or Polish, the rapid clip of Spanish or Italian, even the clicks of Khoisan, and of course, the vast vocabulary of English which has borrowed from all over the world. Such a useful organ, the tongue, it may even be aware of when to hold its peace. When Cheryl…
Voices
By Ken Delpit Individual voices are fascinating. They reflect uniqueness.They involve specific characteristics and abilities, both physical and mental. In tone and in lyric, they express specific perspectives and emotions. They can be soft; they can be harsh. They can be musical to some, grating to others. They can be up-lifting, but also down-putting. Voices may not define us completely, but they certainly represent us while the rest of us waits backstage. But voices rarely come just one to a customer. Multiple voices can reside in a single person. This is certainly true for writers. Each fictional character, partially invented and partially native, taps into its writer’s own voice box. Voices within propel writers’ fingers, and shape their stories. With few exceptions, it is also true that everyone has multiple voices, whether writer or not. Anyone who hides true feelings or conceals real intentions uses a voice convenient for the…
A Safe Place
By Kathleen Haynie When did I feel safe? I can’t remember ever feeling safe. I search. Maybe I felt safe at Ocean Beach—only strangers around and I could keep my distance. A place to run to on the “N” Judah street car. Run from the fighting, run from hurt, run from the anger. Run to feel away, to feel unfettered, to yell at the ocean where no one could hear my voice drowned out by the Pacific roar. I could hide in the open expanse of sand and waves and roar and motion and cry, the tears running. Running. Run into the cold fog, run into the bits of sand in the air, run with the pull of the earth. Drawn into the pull of the receding water, losing itself/myself into the empty of personality, empty of emotion. Fleeing and dissolving into the pull back into self. Self-drained with fast…
Dad
By Susan Bono “That’s quite a sack of rocks you’re carrying, sweetie,” my father’s friend Bruce said more than once during phone calls last year. It was his way of acknowledging how heavily Dad’s poor health, hard-headedness and self-imposed isolation weighed on me. But I also took it as a tribute to Dad’s stubbornness and my strength, too. “Dumb as a rock” never made much sense to me, since stone strikes me as having its own unassailable intelligence. Its ability to endure illustrates its genius. I have never believed in the ability to factor equations or compose sonnets was proof of brain power, although I shared with Dad the idea that someone with rocks in his head was lacking in foresight and flexibility. Rocks may be smart, but they are slow. Time measured in stone is something else again. There were moments during my dad’s dying that were as slow…
What am I ready to let go of?
By Julie Wilder-Sherman Well, what am I going to do with all these masks? Store-bought. Handmade. Giants-themed. Kitty cats. Bejeweled. Blue flowers with yellow backgrounds. Yellow flowers with blue backgrounds. Plain, monochromatic. Busy, colorful. Cloth mosaic. A quilt of masks. Wait! That’s it. A Quilt. Of. Masks. Imagine millions of masks sewn together like the AIDS quilt, honoring what we have survived and what we have lost. A memorial, a tribute and dedication to what we have endured. I’m ready to let go of seeing half-faces. Of asking people to repeat themselves. At nodding to those speaking, pretending to understand. At straining to hear the muffled words behind the shield. I’m ready to let go of images of cops and robbers. Of old movies with lepers, their faces partially covered. Of images of Isis terrorists with covered faces holding rifles over captives kneeling in front of them. I’m ready to let…