Growing with gratitude for life's challenges
“Silent!” the teacher, breaking from the lesson she had been delivering, turned towards me. I cringed, slinking down in my chair, choking on my ‘sorry’. My classmate shifted quickly, happy to have missed the wrath, but as soon as the teacher turned her back, she leaned in again to resume our conversation. “That’s it! Miss […]
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“Varnish” I said aloud, rolling the word over my tongue as if we were new acquaintances. “What’s that you said, Mom?” My daughter, breezing through the kitchen, found me standing at the counter, gazing out the window. She was gone before I could answer. They were used to me by now, my family. How long […]
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It’s no mystery that stripped of all obligations and confined to a bed provides the coveted time to pursue writing skills, however; it is the actual experience of illness (in my case ME/CFS) that provides the platform for expansion. Although I have been a ‘writer’ since my early years, the past four have marked a […]
Read MoreHere’s yours truly reading Absence and They’re Just Family, After All at an Open Mic (only my third). To see the full poems, please click on the links.
Read MoreEvery morning, I open my email to find a slew of new messages indicating that my fellow bloggers have been busy. Typically, I scroll through and prioritize. These are a few of my must reads: Soul Gatherings is my first go-to place. Theresa offers a dose of daily inspiration served up with beautiful graphics. cookingforthetimechallenged, […]
Read MoreFirst, a disclaimer: I am in no way an authority on poetry; it is just something I happen to do… a lot. In fact, my original blog, One Woman’s Quest, is dedicated to my poetic escapades. A cancer scare prompted me to start writing a blog in the first place – I needed somewhere to […]
Read MoreOriginally posted on One Woman's Quest:
Routine, I find, is both a comfort and a discomfort. Stripped of all routine when I first became ill, I floundered about looking for some order to the resulting chaos. I longed for a routine, like a navigational device, to help me define exactly where I was in…
(Note: Much of my inspiration for writing comes from dreams, which I typically interpret in the form of poetry, but recently I have been challenging myself to write prose. A Bee’s Perspective is the poetic response to the dream behind this piece.) Even as the floorboards beneath her heave and crack with a thunderous roar, […]
Read MoreThe Nest, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney is an ambitious work weaving together many diverse characters and their overlapping storylines. The central plot focuses around a family of four adult children all awaiting their slice of the coveted “nest”: trust money set to be released on the fortieth birthday of the youngest sibling. Predictably something happens […]
Read MoreAs an audio book, A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara, runs for over 32 hours. I passed by it several times, but lured by the recommendations on Audible.com, finally committed. A Little Life is an admirable undertaking: the author has spared no details in weaving this tale: establishing first the framework of relationships that form […]
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One Woman's Quest II 