Month: May 2016

SWEET DREAMS

It’s Wednesday, time enough for Friday Fictioneers and their stories of 100 words or so to a photo prompt.  We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple.  Anyone can join in.  Here is my little story for this week. I admit it is a little sappy but sometimes it is nice to sweet dream.  Life is harsh.

arena
PHOTO PROMPT © CEAYR

The summer night was warm.  The moon bright even through her rheumy eyes. A breeze stirred the hair around her face.  She sighed softly remembering another night.

They were sitting on the Lido Deck on the Carnival.  A bottle of champagne and two glasses between them, the moon and stars above.  There was silence saved for the lapping of the waves.  The warmth of the night wrapped around them. They sat in its protected cocoon, savouring their last moments.  Tomorrow…

Her head jerked.  She sat up with a start.  Where was she?  Oh, she had fallen asleep with sweet dreams.

 

RAINY MORNING MUSINGS

It’s raining – the first of the year.  I’m grateful.  My garden is grateful – for this drink of life. It is cool – 4 degrees Celsius after last week’s blistering 32.  Tomorrow and the next night, the forecast for -1 and -2 respectively.  Nothing is predictable anymore.  Was anything ever? Have a look at what is happening in Fort McMurray, Alberta.  It is like a dream.  I am sure it is a nightmare for the residents fleeing their city as the fires rages.

I am philosophical, uncertain but happy and grateful this rainy, cool 10th of May.  I took a tour of my garden, securing the covers over the tender young tomatoes I planted 2 days ago.  I might have been too optimistic and foolish thinking that the temperature could not possibly dip below 0 anymore.  But what the hey?  Nothing ventured, nothing gained/learned.  I have a good feeling about my green thumb.  I feel like a winner at the moment.  I’m going with it.

IMG_5382I’ve doubted my feelings and myself for too long.  I’m making up by taking taking a giant big step forward. I’m being confident.  I’m being happy with myself as I am, no apologies.  It feels good.  There’s no time for putting myself on the back burner for others.  I’m moving closer and closer towards my own mortality every day.  If I don’t live for me now, when then?

Life is messy and wonderful.  That is what I take away from Anne Lamott.  In Bird by Bird she wrote,

“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived …Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation… Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.”

IMG_5373I am now wondering why I have been so taken with Marie Kondo and her The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I have been a clutter bug all my life.  I could learn to be a little neater but more would be trying to get a leopard to rid its spots or a zebra its stripes. What was I thinking?  There’s beauty and artistry in our clutter and messes.  After all, it is what our lives are made of.

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I am tired of holding my breath, suspending my animation.  I am letting me out of the bag. So happy to have this rainy interlude to muse much about it all and savour life.

BIRDS ON A WIRE

 

It’s another Wednesday and another photo prompt for Friday Fictioneers to tell their stories of approximately 100 words.  We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple.  Here’s my story of 100 words this week – inspired by this photo, the heat and Leonard Cohen.

grey-day-with-pigeons-roger-bultot
HOTO PROMPT © Roger Bultot

There was tension in the air.  You can almost feel it crackling like tinder under a match. Her heart raced and thudded.  It felt like a stallion was  galloping through her chest.  Any minute now.  It was coming.  She was sure.

The sky was grey and ominous. Enormous clouds hung over the rooftops.  The telephone wires drooped heavy with crows, gathered and waiting as if for a funeral.

Where could she hide?  Just then a bolt flashed across the sky.  She clapped her hands over her ears as thunder rumbled and shook the walls.  The rain came.  She was alright.