State of Obvious

My final writing prompt for my Creative Writing Degree.  It's nice to end on a fun note. 5 Star Review!             My life has been forever and irrevocably changed by the amazing T-376 Commuter's Helmet from Narco Leptic Industries.  Never before and never again have I owed such a debt of gratitude to a five pound yellow gadget from Japan.             My husband, Hal, was born with an unfortunate and debilitating disease.  While this disease has not yet been identified by the scientific community at large (the bastards), I am confident that someday a cure will be found and he will finally be able to live a normal life.  Until then, he is forced to suffer through the pain and humiliation of his condition.  We did not discover this terrible affliction until after our first son, Hal Jr. I, was born.  Soon after our beautiful child's birth, rig...

Call it a product of lots of work and little time, or maybe classes which all seem to share threads despite being almost wholly unrelated, but lately I've been thinking a lot about how powerless I am in my own skin. I talk too much. Or maybe it's powerful .  I am powerful in my own skin .  I can do things, be things, try things.  I don't have to do it for anyone but me.  I don't have to do it unless I want to.  I can look at the map and choose the road and see where it goes.  And be okay even if I get turned around. I am a bonafied know-it-all. It's funny.  I haven't noticed myself getting older.  It just sort of happened.  Snuck up while I was napping.  Little spots on the back of my hands, wrinkles around my mouth, gray hair.  I've settled into my thirties, somehow, just in time to get ready to leave them.  Mid-way, mid-life, mid-me.  I'm not excited about forty in four years, but it's coming anyhow.  C...

How do you feel?  Facebook keeps asking me that like it is a living, breathing person who cares.  Silly facebook, I know you're not real.  But still. I feel overwhelmed.  I have so much to do and not enough hours in the day.  If I sleep in (which I did), I scrutinize those minutes and wonder if they are wasted.  If I watch TV, play a game, do nothing, I feel like I'm running behind. I am too busy. But not too busy for facebook to keep asking me how I'm doing. I guess that's ironic. Or it's just that I need to sometimes come up for air.  For pause.  For full stop (like this weekend when I ran around California with my sister and ate lots of In-n-Out.  It was good, the burgers and the running and especially my sister.) I felt refreshed, and then I pushed play. And now - how do I feel? Overwhelmed.  There are not enough hours in the day.  If I sleep - well, why don't we find out?

Once, when Josh was still very small, my mother-in-law turned to me and said: "You know, it's like he's always been here." And right there, in those eight words, she perfectly captured my faith in God. There are days, like today, when I look at my child and I can almost see eternity stretching backward like a long unfurling satin wing.  We've been on this path together for a while now, though we've forgotten the greater part.  But it was only just tonight, while I had my hands in a bubbly sink full of dishes, that I came to understand the significance of that. I often think to myself: I am failing my child . or I am a terrible mother . or I can't believe I just did that, again! or What is wrong with me? These kids are making me crazy and they're not even doing anything wrong! or I should not be his/her mother.   or It's no wonder we don't have any more kids.  I don't deserve them. or Well, you get the idea...

My brain.  This is the short piece I started working on based on someone else's brainstorm image from class.  I am still trying to write every day, but some days my laziness is just too strong.  Like the force, only less cool.  Still, I'm writing a bit of something most days (and I am not short changing myself when that 'writing' is part of school work.  I have a LOT of it right now, and we're only two weeks in.  Last semester I got a bit lazy and paid the price with last minute rushing; this semester I want to go out nice and easy...if possible.) --- Safe Haven In the milk aisle at Costco, Elise’s four year old daughter Candy announced that she had to use the restroom again. She bobbed on her little feet, knock kneed and bubbling over with all the urgency of her four-year-old full bladder. She pulled at the hem of her pink tutu and tried not to make eye contact with her mom. Looking down at the top of her daughter’s restless blonde head, Elise tr...

Classes officially started back up this week.  At times I am just shocked to be in the homestretch of classes, but then other days I am wondering why it isn't over yet.  This semester I'll be taking six classes.  S-I-X.  I also took six last semester and did ok until the very end when I lost my brain somewhere between Thanksgiving and Neverland.  This semester I am trying to stay more organized and on top of assignments so that I'm not battling down to the last moment.  Two days in and I've almost missed one quiz already so I spent a fortune in ink printing out all the class due date schedules.  Anyhow, the first assignment for my creative writing class is to come up with a "spring loaded image."  I have the same professor as last semester, so I've actually done this before.  A spring loaded image is basically a short description of an image ripe with potential.  The example my professor uses in class is "A Wedding Cake in the Middle o...

The mountains shrouded With swaths of wispy clouds Sweetly white where they cling Like babes to their mother’s breast And snow falls fast, feather upon feather Blotting out the brown and gloom of winter Promising ice-kissed spring not far behind. The slopes of old regrets Go sweeping down Fast, fast upon the mountainside Until the depths are reached Darkness and despair in the canyons And everywhere shadows And everywhere paths pointing north At the precipice An empty hour Bird calls and swooning wind A thousand syllables of lost love Buried in the scent of pine and moss Growing things asleep in beds New tomorrows under foot.