Tag: Inspiration

Posted in Flash Fiction

Clouded Vision – #writephoto

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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The cottage was in the small village that was surrounded by moorland. The scenery was beautiful outside. Green, peaceful, pleasant. The village was sleepy, but friendly. When they arrived here, they remembered how the times with her parents at the cottage were filled with love and care. They were gone now, but they had given she and her husband the lovely gift of the cottage. They used it as a get-away from high-pressure life they lived in the city. Now, the pandemic had driven them out of the city and they took refuge in the cottage in the countryside.

It was a very small place, perfect for two people, though when they came here with her parents, they squeezed in four. It had only four rooms downstairs. In the front, there was a large living area with cushy furniture and colors that reminded her of her childhood. Lots of pinks, greens, and blues. Some of her artwork from childhood was hanging on the walls along with lovely photos of this part of the country and pictures of family members who were all gone now. A big fireplace and hearth were at the side of the room with floor pillows all around. They enjoyed this room.

At the side of the living room and across from the fireplace stood a ladder leaning up to allow access to the open loft. The loft was where she and her husband slept. The ceiling was high because of the V-shaped pitched roof of the cottage. The bedding was a calm beige with a big comforter covering the bed. There were a few other pieces of furniture. Old tables used as nightstands. A trunk at the end of the bed where they could sit. It held treasures from the past. She made sure this was an inviting place. One with soft surfaces and warm throws everywhere. Soft blue filled the room.

Behind the living area was the big kitchen and workroom. An Aga stove dominated the kitchen and everyone seemed to gather here. In front ot the stove stood a long country dining table, also used for cooking preparation. Comfortable chairs with cushions were around three sides of the table. Friends came here to sit and drink endless cups of tea with them.

The small, but cozy, bedroom was at the side of the house. It contained everything a guest would need. The bathroom was by the bedroom and in it was a claw foot tub. The bathroom had been updated to allow for a shower. Her pots and creams and sticks full of color made the room smell like heaven. Potions and lotions were all around the big tub.

Because of the pandemic, he had been laid off his job, but she was still working remotely.  Coming to the cottage and the green of the moorland relaxed both of them and allowed them to think about something other than sickness and death. They planted a small kitchen garden behind the cottage. Her mother’s flower garden was also there, bursting with color and the promise of new beginnings.

She would sit with her small dog on the back porch while he puttered in the gardens. Her head were filled with love and a glimmer of hope for the future. She watched the cloud bank roll across the moorland and thought of how clouded her own vision had been in the past. There was a time she saw only despair, but that time was gone. Her vision had cleared and, finally, she realized how lucky she was to have him.

Posted in Non-fiction

Teach……and…….Light

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

Teach and Light. I’m choosing to write about both of these Discover Prompts together because in the mind of this college professor, the two are inextricably linked. Since I’m an introvert, I didn’t really choose teaching as a career. It chose me. I ended up, almost by accident, in a PhD program after completing my Masters degree in Business Administration. I intended to go into industry to use my MBA. Friends of mine were pursuing their PhD’s and….shall we say….they talked me into it. I thought I would use it to do research, perhaps for the government or a private think tank. This is the beginning of the story.

When entering the doctoral program, there were teaching and research assistantships available to my class of students. I applied for both, but there weren’t many research assistantships available. I was awarded a teaching assistantship. I had never wanted to teach! Since I was at a major university, I was being thrown into the deep end.

School started that fall. The coursework for a PhD student was very challenging. On top of that, I was assigned two undergraduate finance classes to teach. 60 students in each. I don’t remember ever being so nervous. I got through those first weeks of classes. Gradually, I began to enjoy it. My doctoral coursework consumed me at the same time. I loved what I was doing. Teaching, learning, making the best friends of my life. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, yet my life had never before, and has never since, been so rewarding.

As I relaxed in front of the classroom and started really focusing on my students, something occurred to me. When I would do a good job explaining a concept to them, I would see their eyes light up as they “got it.” That became my goal as a professor. To get my student’s eyes to light up.

As I moved through a 27-year university teaching career, some days were good and some bad. But even on the worst day, what keep me going was that light in my students’ eyes. Now retired from teaching, that’s what I miss. I believe that light is what new teachers and professors should strive for.

Posted in Non-fiction

Day 7 – Below

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

I don’t really want to talk about “going below.” Allow me to tell you why. At this point in my life and in the history of the United States of America, when I think about “going below,” I think about the current U.S. government. Currently, on April 8, 2020, the citizens of the U.S. are virtual prisoners in their homes. Yes, I know that the COVID19 virus has done the same thing to most other countries of the world as well. Allow me to explain.

We have an incompetent idiot as the President of the United States. I can say that because we also have a Constitution with a First Amendment that guarantees us freedom of speech. At least, last time I looked, we still had a constitution. If Donald Trump had his way, we would not.

When this man was narrowly elected three and one-half years ago, I said then that he would destroy us and he almost has. He has shamed the Office of President over and over again. He has sucked up to the dictators of the world and shunned our allies. He has destroyed the environmental protections that have been so important in the U.S. because his predecessor put them into place and he is trying to undo everything President Obama did. He has done so much more that is beyond the scope of this post. He must be defeated in November 2020.

For the purposes of this post, he has massively mishandled the COVID19 disaster. Did other viruses make prisoners of us in our homes? Ebola? SARS? MERS? I could go on. No, they did not because we had a competent government then. Donald Trump is far more interested in lining his pockets and doing anything it takes to win re-election than doing what is best for the U.S. He ignored COVID19 back in 2019 when it was first discovered. He kept letting possibly infected individuals into the country. He kept right on trying to win the favor of the President of China through negotiating trade deals…..or trying to. China is a communist country and they will never, and I repeat NEVER, have the welfare of the United States in mind. One only has to look at history to know that. If you don’t consider history, you are doomed to repeat it.

We have lost over 10,000 people and will lose many more. We currently lead the world in people carrying this infection. We have to practice “social distancing” in order to protect ourselves and others. China is the country where you have to wear a mask to walk down the street, not the U.S. Or not until now. Now we do. Like Communist China and because of Donald Trump and his incompetence. We have lost one-fourth, at least, of our economy which is sending his into a deep recession and possibly a depression. Trump just keeps spending money inflating a massive deficit. Inflation will come next. Unemployment may reach 32%, unheard of since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

If this man is re-elected, we are doomed. Voting for him would truly be “going below.”

Posted in Flash Fiction

Day 9 – Pairs

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

For many years, they were friends. In some ways, they seemed an unlikely pair. She was married. He was single. There was nothing romantic about their relationship, although no one ever believed that. They met in graduate school and found friendship through studying together. They stayed together through two degree programs and helped each other every step of the way.

Others viewed their friendship with curiosity. He was abrasive, arrogant, and difficult to be around. She was friendlier with a touch of arrogance. People liked her more than they did him. She had a wide circle of friends and he did not. When she tried to include him in her circle, most of her friends found him difficult and unlikeable. She never understood this because she liked him, understood him. She had the ability to be with normal people despite her intelligence. His intelligence shined and intimidated others.

What she enjoyed most about him was their conversations about every topic under the sun. Long, philosophical conversations. He had strengths in some areas and she in other areas. They complimented each other and learned from each other. He filled an intellectual hole in her life. Somehow, these long conversations never included politics. Not in the early and middle years of their friendship. As she looks back, she wonders how they avoided it. She decides they were too busy learning their respective fields to be concerned with political matters. That was then.

Gradually, their friendship extended beyond the academic and philosophical and they met each other’s families. They helped each other with personal matters. Their entire lives became intertwined. There was still no romantic relationship. Not even when she divorced. They truly just had a good friendship.

By now, 25 or 30 years had passed. They had grown old as good friends, this unlikely pair. The world was changing around them and the U.S. had become politically polarized. Politics began to creep into their conversations. Until now, they’d had only a basic awareness of each other’s political leanings. Just enough to know that they leaned in different directions, but that had never mattered. Until now.

Suddenly, everything in the U.S. was defined by whether it was right or left, red or blue, conservative or liberal. There was no middle ground anymore. Their conversations were increasingly couched in politics. Their political positions couldn’t have been more different. Over the space of several years, she found it difficult to talk to him knowing his political position. It was like he was suddenly from another world. A world she wasn’t familiar with. A world of hatred and exclusion. He found it difficult to talk to her since he did not enjoy knowing anyone who had the political beliefs she had.

Their communication became less often and more tense. One evening, he blasted her with political rhetoric that made her feel like he kept in touch with her out of obligation only. That he didn’t really enjoy it since she believed so differently than he did. She felt like his political leanings were monstrous. She couldn’t hear them anymore.

She didn’t have it in her to be mean to him. Life had become too stressful in the politically charged atmosphere of the U.S. society. She had to get away from his rhetoric.

Through tears, she made a decision. She quit answering the phone. She finally had to save herself.

 

Posted in Flash Fiction

Day 5 – Dish

Posted on by R.M. Carlson

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I consider myself lucky to have grown up on the fringes on Appalachia. In fact, my mother came from deep in Appalachia and I visited my grandparents often as a child and a teenager there. She cooked the food common to the region with possibly a nod to health along the way. When my dad’s relatives from Michigan came to visit, they loved my mother’s cooking and begged her to fix the dishes she grew up with.

When the Michigan relatives came in the summer time, they would ask, especially, for one dish – fried green tomatoes. It’s not a fancy dish nor is it a difficult dish. Even though I’ve modernized my cooking, I still fix fried green tomatoes in the summer as a special treat for us. Let me share the recipe with you:

Ingredients:

A few green tomatoes, olive oil, salt, pepper, white corn meal, one egg, a pinch of Splenda

Mix up some corn meal with a beaten egg and a pinch of Splenda. Spread a piece of waxed paper on the counter top. Slice up as many green tomatoes as you want to fry into thick slices. Use an iron skillet if you have one. Heat some olive oil in the skillet. Heat it on low-medium as olive oil has a low smoke point.

Carefully roll each slice of tomato in the corn meal mixture and place in the skillet. You will have several batches. Fry each batch separately until the slices of tomato are a light brown. Remove to plates covered in paper towels for drainage.

Voila! You have fried green tomatoes, a favorite dish in the South and Appalachia! Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper.