Happy May 2023!

 Hello, my friends. Happy May—which is to say, happy mental health month. To round out the rest of the month I’m sprinkling here and there some happy mindful things. Some of my favorites. Starting with this:

 

And then this:

Because there is so much magic embedded here. Yom. 

Esther Remembered

This time, last month, I was four months pregnant. Then there was blood, so much blood. And then I was no longer pregnant.

Now, I feel like so much is broken. My words are broken.

But this woman happened to be assigned as my nurse, and that is important. There’s a piece of magic in that she was my nurse. I’m clutching this magic like a spark in my hand, and I may not be able to use it now, because my heart still hurts too much, but eventually I’ll loosen my grip and the spark will light things up so I can see better.

Meanwhile, I want to share this woman’s story and her song. I want to shed some light on the fact that so many women go through this. I didn’t know before, but I know now, and I’ve felt deeply consoled by the women who’ve shared bits of their own stories—bits of their shattered pieces—yet they’ve found ways to heal, or to deal, and to continue finding joy and love.

I’ve not yet found ways to heal or deal, but here are some pieces of gratitude I’ve been able to gather over the last month:

• I’m grateful for the woman who cleaned the blood off my legs. She didn’t have to, I could have done it, but she wiped my legs while I wiped tears from my face.
• I’m grateful for the woman who brought soup and sourdough for my family. I could have done that too, but she coordinated things in the background, so I didn’t have to.
• I’m grateful for those who prayed for us, sent love to us, condolences in texts and handwritten cards.
• I’m grateful for children who hold my hand and wrap their little arms around me, pressing their cheeks to mine.
• I’m grateful for a husband who will cry with me because, sometimes, that’s all we can do.
• I’m grateful we were able to find out our baby’s gender in December, and name her, and feel her close for a while.
• I’m grateful I still feel Esther close, sometimes.  

To anyone else who’s gone through this, I’m so sorry. I share this song, “Angels Remembered,” in hope that it helps.

Week Three—Week of Legends

Hello fellow Creatives! Welcome to Week Three of our five-week Picture Book Challenge. 

Remember, as far as rules go, we’re keeping it simple:

1. Word count: 300-500 words.

2. Write only what the illustrator can’t illustrate. Allow room for their art (or yours if you’re illustrating your own stories) to bloom too.

3. Be kid friendly. Review Week 1 for a reminder of what that means.

Okay, so this week is similar to Week 2 in that we’re making a list of favorites. This week, though, we’re spreading our arms out a little broader and digging in a little deeper.

This week, we make a list of our favorite fairytales, legends, and songs. Here’s where we’re reaching broader, right? These foci span culture, time, and narrative style. And again, we’re digging deeper by figuring out why these different aspects of culture, time, and style are so meaningful to us. Why do these things go ping?

So, make your list of at least ten favorite fairytales, legends, and songs. Maybe circle the ones that come to mind first, without a lot of brain poking or research. The answers that just roll out sans thought.

If you want or need to research to get more ideas, definitely do. Project Gutenberg is a fantastic public domain resource. There are so many stories and songs out there that I forget I adore until I’m reminded of them, and then it’s like meeting old friends when I run into them again. Crane Wife! Teeny-Tiny Woman! Golden Goose! Little Talks! Happy gasps and small swoons for all.

Read or listen to them, if you can. Then read or listen to them again. Read or play them to others. Talk about them with friends and family, get their thoughts on these stories. Observe people’s reactions.

After you’ve gone through your favorite fairytales, legends, and songs multiple times, make notes of your favorite things in each. Things that make your heart squeeze, things that make you feel deeply, but also things you think could make the stories or songs better.

As with Week 2, your notes will reveal similarities across stories of your specific preferences. This is how you begin to understand what legends to embed into your own stories and why those themes or ideas are important for you to explore.

For example, three favorite fairytales that roll off the top of my head are Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty.

Some similarities across the three stories include:

*A female character who’s put into a situation(s) that’s difficult to deal with—hard both physically as well as mentally/emotionally.

*Enchanted surroundings, or people/animals, who help the main character. She’s not alone, even though she may not understand the enchantment(s).

*Moments of simplicity, wherein the main character is able to feel safe or peace, even if the big problem of the story hasn’t been resolved yet.

Looking at these three shared threads, I ask myself, Do I feel deeply about these things?

Yes, I do.

Can I incorporate these three ideas into my next 300-500 word children’s story, then?

Yes, I can.

We can do this, right? Write. Create something legendary.

Go, write, win!

Little Talks by Of Monsters and Men

Let's Hear for the New Year

Let's face it, I have no idea what I'm doing. But I'm trying to figure it out, so meanwhile, here's a little something from someone who seems like they do:

Echo

Because I love 300 words or less, here's an old piece of my heart:

Echo

An echo of coal

still glows orange and red,

softly round, inside my soul.

Is it too much?

Not yet. When it is,

I'll let you know.

And this is what helps me wakey-wakey at 4 am, because that's the only time I can chunk out to write during this chunk of my life:

Little Dragon

Oh, you know, because today calls for a little jammy-jam. Little Dragon say:

Heart Space

Leah is continuing the prompts through the weekend. What? I know! So I'm running behind on this one, and so many others, just don't think about it! Here's the prompt:

Make a list of places you don't go anymore

And here's my 10 minute list:

original link

dark room

the greenbelt

jungle run

table rock cross

simplot’s hill

bogus basin

orchestra practice

mandarin garden

basement of the business building

laundromat

the quad

beaver mountain

swing café

mike hams

the raven

security office at the theater

employee lounge

on the bart

the underworld

the gym

path by the canal

green studio

the owl

the loop drive

secret orchard at Red Butte Garden

that one greek restaurant

Bryant Middleschool

smoke shops

And just because, here's a song place I used to visit frequently but don't much anymore:

 

What unvisited places fill up your heart spaces? 

What Is It?

This is the reason I write. One of the reasons, anyway:

Did you see it? See the moment? Watch it again, and then write down in the comments the [minute:second] where you saw it, and what you think it is. More on this next week, I just want to throw this little experiment out to the masses and hear what you think.

Living Your Peace

Because today I don't have much to say, there's this:

What piece of peace is moving you right now? Do share in the comments -- I'd love to live your peace too.

My Blue Looks Like This

And my results from this are:

Trump

Today you said I’ve come full circle,

Round and round I go.

Uroborus

Munching my own tail.

Please. Give me benefit of spiral instead, movement rather than ground zero.

link to original here

 __________________________

 

Lurch

“Lands gad,” he says to my lad.

“Up there ahead, do you see?”

Reeling left, my son lifts his great heft

Calling, “Harbor ho!” bitterly.

He hates coming home to see me.

link to original here

 ___________________________

Bowl-Over

Because I said I would.

Our love started on a night

When the moon was round, and the stars hung

Low. Now my belly is round, and my breasts hang low, and

Only you could love me so

Voraciously still.

Each memory is a chemical balance, fermenting with age until we are

Ripe with such fullness. I partake of this drink, with you, because I said I would.

Click here for Musical Inspiration

___________________________

For another rendition from the same palette check out Sleepy Joe's lovely story here. Much thanks to her for sharing part of her world.

And for your final piece of magic today I bring you some love from Xavier Rudd:

 

300 Words or Less: Pale

I'm not usually one to take my shirt off for people, but when the person telling me to strip has a gun on her hip and a title on her name? I only hesitate a moment.

At least I can be proud of that moment.

We are both workers, she and I, born in the same complex. Obviously the authority of my title holds nothing against hers though. I’ve definitely not been issued a gun.

Her face is hard, like the grey stone walls around us are hard. Still, I can’t imagine she’s much older than me. None of us get much older than me without losing something important. An eye, a hand, a piece of our soul.

I wonder what she’ll do when she gets off work tonight. Will she lean on her fridge door while rummaging for something to munch? Maybe she’ll pop a lite beer, put her feet up, watch a re-run while winding down. Maybe she’ll head straight to bed. Will someone be waiting for her there?

link to original here

Her eyes scan lazy over my pale breasts, her voice monotone. “Height?”

“Five-three.”

“Weight?”

“One-twenty.”

She looks me up and down, doing her own calculations. I have no idea what she writes on her form. The questions never end.

Until they do.

The last one makes me smile.

“Are you suicidal?”

I smile because a truly suicidal person would never say yes. We all know this, right?

“No.”

She scrutinizes my face, my answer, my crime. She calculates again. But then she just shrugs, throws me my shirt. She’s got a pale ale at home that’s more important than I am.

“Put her in the tank with the rest,” she says, and they push me forward.

Or perhaps I’m moving backwards.

At this point, I can’t tell. 

_______________________________

That's the latest story, morning glory. Let me know what you think about this or anything else you want to rant/share. Have a lovely week, lovelies, and here's a little magic from Cat Power's new album:

*Update: I'm linking with the Dude Write flash-fic competition this week, so check out this and other bloggers' work here.

Follow the White Rabbit

Here are my top three pieces of advice this week, my friends (go read the links and I promise you won’t be disappointed):

1. Score Barton Moody as your tax guy. If you can, go in personally to see him because it’s such a treat, but if you don’t live anywhere near Salt Lake City he’ll do long-distance. So that means you.

link to original here

2. “Write with an imaginary machete strapped to your thigh. This is not wishy-washy, polite, drinking-tea-with-your-pinkie-sticking-out stuff. It’s who you want to be, your most powerful self.”

3. “Know your industry. But don’t get bogged by it. Your book can’t succeed if your book doesn’t exist in the first place. Concentrate all fire on that Star Destroyer, mmkay? You can’t control publishing. You can’t control the audience’s reaction to your book. Control what you can control, which means: write the best book that lives inside you.”

To all of the above I would add – writing is my gig but if something else is yours (art, music, design, dance, math, gaming, etc) these things apply to you as well. 

You may not be able to control other people’s reactions but you can control, to great extent, what you think and do. So create and experience life with that imaginary machete and be your most powerful you.

That, and talk to Moody.

  

And here's some magic from Daughter:

 

Medicine Cabinet

I’ll be back soon. Meanwhile, here are a myriad of things for you to riffle your fingers through. Like a medicine cabinet. Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone you opened the mirror to look behind. See anything that surprises you?

Napkin drawings

  

Matisyahu sans beard

Promises made

Promises broken (original link)

 

Practicing for Thor's hammer

And what do you keep in your metaphorical medicine cabinet? Link it up and/or comment below.

 

 

Lest I Wax

Lest I wax poetic on over-using syrup and warning strangers about cracked eggs, let me simplify and give you three more bitties from my handbag of originals:

link to original here

Eaten

To burn in my own emotions.

To feel the heat on my face.

To writhe in the flames of regret,

of sorrow,

of shame.

To put out the anger with tears,

except enough water to work would take years.

To feed on the air of quickened breath.

To yearn instead for death.

Sometimes my sins eat me.

My flesh incinerates.

_________________________________________

Learning the Tricks

Point one: Accepting the bad things when you know there will be good things to come after.

Point two: Knowing when it's okay to make a face that correlates to how you feel about what's going on.

Point three: Knowing when to keep your face straight.

 

_____________________________________________________

Always Possible

This is how I see my breath,

how I know it's there.

But it's always there --

even when I don't know it,

don't see it.

I am often thoughtless.

I am always thoughtless.

I am sometimes thoughtful.

My body works without me knowing.

This world works without me knowing.

What else works?

What else is there?

The possibilities are like my breath.

__________________________________________