Tag Archives: writing

An Uprooted Flower

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The rain drowned me under its force as I lay discarded on the muddy ground amongst the ferns.  Even they shivered.  Laden with water drops, they bent towards me, covering my petals and my stem from the rain.  I envied their roots in the ground, huddled together like families.  They weren’t like the one who carried me and dropped me here on his fleeting wind: He must have been an enemy from the start.  

What could I, a lonely flower do, but lay here and let the earth take me back, the way I had seen other flowers go.  The color fading in the petals until they shriveled and dropped completely when the cold swept in.  They almost always returned in the warm sunny days; it was the way of the seasons.  But my fate is to never return.  My stem is severed from my roots in the land and no amount of sunshine or water will bring those back.  When my petals fall, they will be gone forever.  I will wither homeless amongst these ferns.  One petal at a time.   

As I pondered the fading of my petals, the rain stopped and the dark clouds moved to make room for a bright expanse, shining down on me.  It blinded me, but I felt the calm warmth of it cover my drenched body:  It felt like an old friend.  At once, I realized I had forgotten about my friend, the sun.  I never said goodbye or told him I was leaving when I was plucked from my home beside that mountain road.  

I forgot about his warm hugs and selfless light.  But I remember now: He never tried to take me.  He was always by my side, always happy to shine his friendly light, while listening to my flower sighs.  I didn’t know he would find me.  I didn’t know I missed him so, until he said, “Hello.”  I poured out my heart to him like the rain, telling him of my taking and flying against the storm.  He stayed and listened all day long.  

When it was time for him to go, I cried a little and wished him well.  I knew I might not see him tomorrow or that I might not be around, but I told him I’d see him later.  Even if it is my last day, I know I will see him, because he was like the Spring in the garden.  Always beautiful and warm to me.  

*Hello readers! This is the second part to Picking a Flower, that I posted in September. Thanks for reading!*

Fear and Anxiety

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If I were to say fear is a constant friend, that is a bad friend and I need to give that up.  I do not like being afraid and I can’t honestly put a number to how many times fear has held me back. Nearly every day that I have been on vacation, I have wanted to write, but I don’t.  I am struggling with a story and for some reason I think avoiding it is a great idea. I keep thinking my story is terrible and there is no way for me to get into it again.  I am afraid all of my hundreds of pages are bad.  Logically, it is a rough draft, so it will be bad.  I can’t shake myself out of it.  Not only do I have this fear, I also have anxiety.

Anxiety, the bedfellow of fear, is a constant state of being for me when my to-do lists are long, my stories aren’t finished, I can’t lose weight, I fail at my goals, and my budget doesn’t include hiding away for months.  I am on vacation and last night I actually felt anxiety about not going to work like everyone else.  In my mind I thought, “What if they text me and need me for work?”  I know that’s not going to happen, but it could.  If I can’t even be on my staycation, what am I doing?  Why do I let all of these little detestable thoughts cause me anxiety and fearfulness?  Pressing play on the remote or controller is much easier than dealing with these bad friends, instead of working on it.  

Thinking about these unwelcome thoughts, I am reminded that thoughts are powerful.  Instead of letting my mind be crowded with fearful and anxious thoughts, I could spend my time changing my negative thoughts to positive ones, like my red velvet nightgown is comfortable and my coffee smoothie is delicious.  The lights in my room blink colors that match the blue of my ceiling light, making me feel relaxed.  My desk is organized and mostly clean of dust.  I get to spend time relaxing in my warm home while the winter wind blows and snow covers the land below my window.  How I dreamed of this time to wander through writing images of comfort and colorful scenes: I think I am starting to feel better.

Painful Breathing

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I pull on my long winter coat and slip into insulated boots.  My crocheted hat covers my head with a single braid on each side.  I don’t even bother checking the temperature anymore.  No matter what, It’s going to be cold.  When I walk out the door, dry cold air slams into my lungs and I convulse in coughs.  It would be refreshing if I wasn’t sick.  A couple more days and I will definitely forget about the current sickness and be torn between jumping off the plane or being trapped, waiting for it to move.  

If coughing was bad, being trapped in a freezing airplane was worse.  At least I wasn’t coughing?  Silver linings and all, I made it home without ever really getting anywhere.  I took the day off and it has given me a sense of calm and relaxation, before the oncoming storm of emails and to-do’s.  The falling snow from my window is beautiful, but I have to drive through that to the dentist.  My filling needs to be replaced; I hope I can eat later.  So much for the silver linings.

I could have done so much more today, but I probably did enough.  It’s hard to learn to let things go and be okay with that.  It doesn’t last long, though it’s worth it.  I hope to keep my positive or relaxed attitude as I attempt to eat healthy and lose weight.  One problem at a time, or a bunch all at once when you stare at the piles of unfinished chores.  Well, let’s see what happens next. 

Picking a Flower

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I was once a flower resting in an untamed yard down beside the mountain road, when you picked me up.  You arrived on gusts of wind.  I couldn’t see your body through the morning mists, so I didn’t know to call you foe or friend.  The gush of air rippled through my soft petals and I thought I’d lost one, but you held me in your weightless hands and shielded me from the blast.  It was like warring air, you and the storm.  Colliding, falling, and rising again, until you landed me in a field of ferns.  

I fell softly against the mossy ground.  I lay there, unable to place myself inside it.  I could only watch the sky darken and hear the warning thunder of the storm stopping by.  I saw lightning crack against the great expanse, lighting my view in seconds of white.  The air grew denser and I waited for the slow pop of rainfall.  The trickling came and I limped under the precious cleansing.  Then the gift of the clouds erupted in thick heavy rainfall.  At once I felt like drowning beneath its weight.  I absorbed as much as a flower can, abandoned without roots in a land far from where I began. 

  

*Hello Readers!  I am starting to practice sharing pieces of a story at a time.  Let me know your thoughts.  Would you like to read more of this story?  Do you have any helpful critiques for the story so far? 

*Thank you for reading!

Dream Expression

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I dream of dancing in floor length dresses surrounded by satin curtains on a stage.  The music is me singing in acapella from the lyrics of my heart.  If only the dancing were enough to brush the sadness away.  When the cell phone alarm rings, the music stops and all sounds of entertainment cease.  I don’t often dream of dancing and singing, but when I do I feel that I have lived in the night.  In those dreams, I feel that I have expelled energy in excitement and unrestrained expression.  How then do I express in my writing how I visualized myself in my sleep?  Most of my writing inspiration has come from my dreams.  I know these vivid pictures are pieces of my subconscious understanding of “me”.  It’s like a deep dive that I can’t fathom attaining when I am awake.  I wonder how much I am hiding down there in the depths, below all the responsibilities and obligations?  Music helps to draw out those senses for specific themes, but it only draws water from the surface.  I can’t explain what it is that makes me feel alive when I’m awake.  How ordered is my self-expression?  I am pondering “me” in the morning and I keep checking the time, so that I am not late for work.  I envy those that don’t consider time and live freely for the moment.  For me life is chaos without structure, so maybe I might explode from the anxiety of a timeless life.  I hope to remember the “me” in my dreams, so that I can give her space to be when I am awake.  If only the words could contain her.  

Do you remember your dreams?  Are your dreams inspiring your writing/art?  If you don’t remember your dreams, what do you think you dream about?

Old Self and New Self

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It’s been long enough for me to forget exactly who I was back in my early adulthood.  It’s only about fifteen years ago that I graduated high school and started my first semester at the university.  In my catechumen class last night, the Father explained to me what it meant to be a catechumen in the Orthodox church.  A part of this transformation is an adoption of a new self, giving up your old one.  I am struggling with this statement because I feel like my old self was changed to new twelve years ago, when I had a revelation after my grandmother’s passing.  So it begs the question, what am I giving up now?  I know I won’t have the best obedience record and I still have a stubborn attitude problem.  I don’t plan on changing that.  Is my old self the one who is wandering aimlessly and leaning on money for success?  Or how about the prideful defender who can make up any excuse to be right?  All of these things seem simple behavioral traits and nothing that really needs to be changed.  Oftentimes, I worry what I am writing about in my novels will be considered risky or unacceptable for a catechumen.  Like any human person, I find the idea of change difficult.  I have written hundreds of pages of all different stories, do I really just delete them?  I find that hard to swallow.  It’s not that I have asked, but it’s something I’d assume would be considered. Heck, even some of the books I read might not be appropriate.  All of these thoughts add up to a basket full of I don’t wanna.  How do we reconcile giving up the old and paving the way for the new?  There has to be a compromise of sorts, because the effects would be jarring, especially for a creative person.  It could be that I am just not ready yet and I am in a good spot to learn and to figure out what matters most to me.  Unfortunately, I don’t like deep diving into my feelings.  I tend to enjoy the surface.  

What are your thoughts about old self and new self?  Do you remember changing from your old self to your new self?  How did that feel?  What were some things you thought you could never give up?