UP THE STAIRCASE

Posted on January 16, 2016 by hafong

It is Saturday and bitterly cold. It’s a good time to gather around the Friday Fictioneers. We like to tell stories of 100 words to a photo prompt. We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple. Here’s my story this week.

PHOTO PROMPT © Amy Reese

She stopped. Her footsteps reverberated in the staircase. She could hear the echo of other footsteps beneath her own. She stood motionless till all was quiet except for the pounding of her heart.

Someone was following her. She took a breath, letting it out slowly. She climbed a step. Then another. She heard the faint sound of feet below her and felt the vibrations of another hand on the rail. Was her mind playing tricks on her?

Another step. She reached for the door. No more stairs. Next time, the elevator. She felt a rush of air behind her. No…

THE LONG RIDE

Posted on January 10, 2016 by hafong

Here it is, Sunday afternoon and I’ve finally penned my 100 words for Friday Fictioneers. We like to tell stories of 100 words or so to a photo prompt. Our host is Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple. Anyone can join in.

PHOTO PROMPT © Melanie Greenwood

She had no choice. That was her only consolation. 5 hours to the airport. She started a conversation. Was she sorry!

She squirmed uncomfortably, willing the woman to shut up and move her fat thigh. No such luck. Tears were rolling down her cheeks as she continued the saga of her boyfriend.

Felicia glanced at the skinny dude on her right. He looked equally uncomfortable, jammed against the door. But at least he didn’t have the console up his butt.

She shifted again, using her hand on the car ceiling. A little better. Two more hours. One hour and fifty-nine, fifty….

THE MEETING

Posted on January 3, 2016 by hafong

It is Sunday of the new year. I’m a little late for the ball but what the heck. Better late than not showing up. So here’s my story for the Friday Fictioneers. We are storytellers of 100 words or so. We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple. Here’s this week’s photo prompt.

She saw the coffee shop as soon as she emerged from the subway station. It was exactly where he had said. She stood for a moment then walked to the door. It was now or never.

She scanned the room quickly. The faces were all blurry. Her breath was ragged and her heart thumped.

“Slow down. Take your time.” She scolded herself.

“May I help you?” A waitress came up.

“I’m meeting someone.”

“Do you want to walk through to see?”

“Thank you. I don’t know what he looks like. I haven’t met him before.”

The waitress raised her eyebrows.

WRITING ON THE WORD

Posted on January 2, 2016 by hafong

2015 is over. We are into the second day of 2016. There has been no big bang. No celebration. None that I’ve felt nor seen anyways. It’s disappointing in a way but it’s all good. It’s a slow comfortable ease from the old into the new. Let me celebrate it now with my words and pictures. Let me draw back the curtain and close the door. Let there be no distractions while I sit in the STILLNESS of last year’s word and think about the ORDER I want in the coming year.

My tea is made. I am ready to sit in silence and look backyards to what I have left behind. It is peaceful here looking out to what was. What was fell short of my intentions of stillness. It happens. Shit and failure can happen. I see that now. I am not that powerful. I am not in control of the Universe. I cannot wave my magic wand and make VOILA! happen. I can’t even tell you a good fairy tale.

What I can tell you is that the stillness I intended and longed for is here within me now. In this moment as I am tapping out my words, I feel its presence within. I look up and I can feel my ancestors looking down on me. I hear a whisper. ‘Be still and you will find order in your life.’

THE SPACE BETWEEN ANSWERS

Posted on December 30, 2015 by hafong

REVERB 2015 – waiting for 2016 – from Kat McNally:

Today, I invite you to think about the great unknowns in your life right now. Say to yourself this morning: “I am open to the answers finding me”. Then stay alert with as many senses as you can.

In what form did the answers find you?

~~~~~~~

I have been trying or not trying so hard to write on the above prompt for quite a few days now. I am sad at the ending of things. I am not good with new beginnings or farewells. Our host, Kat McNally is saying goodbye to Reverb and her blog. Then Christmas Eve, our neighbours had a house fire. They lost their 2 little dogs to smoke inhalation. My dog and I still look for them when we leave the house. Where are those little rascals? Loss takes time. It’s not bad to feel it. It is natural. Now I have to move on – with the rhythm of life and my words.

The older I get the less I know, the more confused I am on how to be. That is very, very true. The good thing is that I am getting more comfortable with this unknowing in life. I am able to sit back and sink into that messiness of I don’t know where the hell I am going or what to do. I’m okay with sitting in between answers. Why kill myself in digging at the root of things? Sometimes there are no answers. I am deliberately choosing to do something different.

In the meantime there is nothing to do, no place to go, no wants, no striving, no worries. I can sit here with the Mister and Sheba – feet up, living in the moment, watching our breaths going in and out. All is copacetic.

EYES AND SECRETS

Posted on December 17, 2015 by hafong

Another week, another story as Friday Fictioneers gather here to tell the tales of 100 words. Our host is Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple. Thanks for this week’s photo prompt, Rochelle. I love windows and kitchens. Kitchens are good places for story telling.

PHOTO PROMPT- © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

If the eyes are the window into the soul, windows are the eyes into the universe for her. She loves sitting here in the mornings. The world is still asleep but the darkness is lifting. First a faint grey, then a haze of soft buttery yellow. Now the orange is streaking through.

The kettle is whistling. A breeze comes in the window. Contentment sighs through her. She makes her tea and takes it over to the table. She gathers her pens and pads. She is ready. Ready and willing to tell the story. The drama, lies and all the secrets.

MARSHMALLOW DAYS

Posted on December 16, 2015 by hafong

REVERB2015

Issue 5 of the beautiful magazine Bella Grace carries a gorgeously illustrated quote from a chap called H. Jackson Brown Jr as follows:

“Watch the sunrise at least once a year, put a lot of marshmallows in your hot chocolate, lie on your back and look at the stars, never buy a coffee table you can’t put your feet on, never pass up a chance to jump on a trampoline, don’t overlook life’s small joys while searching for the big ones.”

What small pleasures gave you moments of intense joy in 2015?

What more could you cultivate in 2016?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why is it that I always wait till I’m sodden with wine and then try to write? That is the thousand dollar question as they say. I’m happy to say my day of nothingness did go as planned.

I’ve spent the day admonishing my dog, Sheba and reading Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin. The book is read and the dog quiet. I’m having trouble retrieving myself from the book. But I have come up with a word for the coming year: ORDER.

For now and today, especially these grey days of December, I like to indulge and pamper myself with the sensual. ‘Tis the season after all. ‘Tis the season between autumn and spring, after the harvest and before the sowing. It’s that time of pausing to nourish and plan for the coming season. There will be much work of sowing, creating, working – the projects, the garden, the life.

I’m learning to love the days I used to dread, these sunless days of December. Once they filled me with anxiety and sadness. Now the grey sky blankets me with warmth and ease. It tells me it’s okay to be slow. It’s okay to be lazy. It’s okay to do a day of nothing. I can languish with a book. I can indulge in hot chocolate with a marshmallow or two. Everything is copacetic.

There! My two favourite words – languish and copacetic. Both in one paragraph. I’ve missed them, my two friends. Such a long time since I’ve last written you. Surprising how two words can give me so much pleasure. But I am not one with big desires. Give me the smallness, the seemingly inconsequential. I will find comfort and happiness there.

hot chocolate with 2 marshmallows floating on top
tapping out my words
capturing everyday life my iPhone
coffee with a friend/my mother
a smile from a stranger
the feel of his hands on my face
Sheba at my feet
the aroma of bread/cookies/cinnamon buns baking
warm bubble baths/clean sheets
a mindful swim
and so on and on…..

Memories of all the little and everyday things will sustain me into the new year and on. I need not try harder. I need not yearn for more. This is enough for now and 2016.

ON TRANSFORMATION

Posted on December 13, 2015 by hafong

I had given up espousing on Reverb15 for awhile. I took it as a sign when I stopped getting Kat’s emails. I needed a rest anyways. But after a couple of days, the emails came back. It was another sign. So here I am again…Today’s prompt from Lisa Sadikman. She writes:

You wake up and the light through the window seems different, the air carries a chill or maybe a hint of warmer days.

What has changed? You? The world?

It can be a change that happened this past year or one you’re looking toward in the time ahead. It can be a broad sweep obvious to all or a more subtle shift that only you know about.

Tell us about transformation.

~~~~~~~~

December 13th. The mornings are oh so dark in the northern hemisphere at 7. The house cold before the thermostat was turned up. I had to turn the lights on to read Margaret Atwood with my tea before breakfast. After, I stood to stretch and to do my qigong routine as on most mornings. Darkness had receded somewhat and I could see out the windows.

I saw the spruce trees and wondered how they grew so big. I remembered planting them with my mother when I moved into the house. They were mere saplings then. Now, they towered above the garage, way up high in the sky. How immense! How impressive! Just as life is. Those thoughts came to me out of the blue – like text messages from Instagram, lighting up my iPhone.

I look at the spruce trees now and again throughout the day. They form a canopy over the two buddhas below. One is in serious contemplation, while the other laughs at it all – darkness and light, the yin and the yang, all of life’s catastrophes and comedies.

These things, ideas, realizations come at me like ping backs, whatever they are. I’ve been called eccentric/weird before – for reading ‘weird’ books, for buttering my toast with avocados, for being just me. I would not be insulted if you find me weird now. What else would you call someone that has things coming telepathically?

When I see the spruce branches quiver in the wind, I’m reminded again of their enormous size, their grandeur. I’ve grown them in my lifetime. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t life amazing? Isn’t it amazing how you can change how you see things in an instant, in a blink of an eye? I am so happy that I am ‘weird’.

ON THE BLOCK

Posted on December 11, 2015 by hafong

So here it is, another Friday, time for Friday Fictioneers. I’m slow to show this week. Such a busy schedule being retired and all! But here I am with my 100 words. We are hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields of Addicted to Purple. We like to tell tales according to a photo prompt.

Two pairs of arms lifted her up, one at her shoulders, the other at her feet. She was light as a feather. What was happening? She felt limp. Her head was all fuzzy.

She felt the arms lowering her. It wasn’t soft, that’s for sure. It wasn’t wide either. She felt her arms dangling down both sides. Oh, yes, she was in the OR for her surgery.

“I feel like a slab of meat!” She giggled.

Blurry faces in green masks loomed above her. “It’ll be over soon” She recognized her doctor’s voice. “Start counting to ten.” Said another. One…

ALCHEMY AND SERENDIPITY

Posted on December 9, 2015 by hafong

Day 8 of Kat McNally’s Reverb.

Today’s prompt and image come from Jennifer Williams-Fields (photo credit: Bing Osterman Photography). Jennifer is a true inspiration as she glides and stumbles through life as a single mum to six kids, yoga teacher, fitness instructor and writer. Her book Creating a Joyful Life: The Lessons I Learnt from Yoga and my Mom was published this year to great acclaim.

Jennifer writes:

While alchemy is the active process of creating something of value, serendipity is the passive path to finding an unexpected treasure.

Looking back through 2015, what did you diligently try to create?

What great thing did you just happen to find?

~~~~~~~~

I started this year with great diligence and intention of smoothing out all my rough edges. I was going to cast out all my mean evil spirits, all my faults and become the woman of the year. I had good intentions but it all backfired on me. I became a MESS. But I was a very functional one, having past experiences. Past experience is a great asset in these kinds of situations. I survived, shivering and quivering inside, hanging on by my fingernails.

I survived by hanging on with experience, knowing that “This, too, shall pass.” I healed by letting go, giving up. I threw up my hands. C’est la vie! I felt every one of those shivers of fright and lived to tell about it. It’s much like the feeling of falling in your dreams. You don’t hit bottom. You float up.

That is the great thing I found when I gave up. Life is messy and there are things that I cannot control. Things happen. That is how it is. Look at what happened to my bread! Though I am SURE that I did everything right, they came out like this. Where are my usual PERFECT loaves? Wait, all is not lost yet. I still have the baguettes in the oven.

They are out of the oven now, looking beautiful, brown and crisp. Will they pass the French taste test? Does it matter?

What matters is – I am still here. Though life is not perfect and there is darkness and meanness, there is also something greater than ourselves. I have stumbled and fallen. When I was too weary, the Universe took over. I am healing. I have to believe in the ultimate goodness. I have to believe in the Divine.

onethousandandtwo

Looking at Infinity