I’ve been a writer for a very long time and have written professionally in my field of study, so I can write effortlessly about business, finance, politics, and the U.S. economy. Even though I can write easily about these topics, they still require research since the issues change constantly.
Other topics that come easily to me are lifestyle topics like weight loss and some medical conditions such as Type II diabetes. I write about women’s issues, animal care and animals rights, as well as animal cruelty. I also write about gardening.
I have a fairly wide array of topics that are fairly effortless, but that doesn’t mean they don’t take research. I always research my articles, particularly non-fiction essays. I want my readers to have correct, good information.
Little Michael and his parents traveled to the beach a few hundred miles away from their home town. Carol and John Henderson, Michael’s parents, were trying to find something to help little Michael. The nine year old boy had been through a traumatic time at his school. After the trauma, he had refused to ever go back to that school building. He was also afraid of leaving his house and of just about anything new. When someone came to the door of his house, he hid under his bed. Most of the time, he preferred to play in his room with his Legos.
Carol and John were at the end of their rope. They had tried everything and they couldn’t seem to help their precious son. They were so thankful that he wasn’t one of the victims at his school that they just wanted to keep him home and safe. They knew that the school shooting would scar him for life. They also knew that they needed to take some positive action to try to help Michael, so they planned a beach trip thinking that a change of scenery might help the little boy.
The Henderson’s were staying right on the beach. When they got to their hotel, they took Michael outside to play on the beach and see the ocean. The beach was crowded. Carol took Michael’s hand and led him to the edge of the water, hoping he would enjoy the ocean. She noticed that his eyes kept darting around the crowd at the beach and he refused to even get his feet wet. He just wanted to go back inside their hotel room. They walked right by a big bucket and spade that had been placed there for the kids to enjoy. Michael ignored it. He almost ran back to their hotel room.
Carol and John waited until the next day to try to lure Michael to the beach. They had conversations with him about his fears. No words seemed to help. Carol insisted that Michael try to beach again, so they once again took Michael outside. When they got outside, Carol noticed a small boy, Michael’s age, working on the beginning of a sand castle using the bucket and spade. Michael noticed him too and Carol saw his eyes light up. As they walked by the boy building the sandcastle, he stopped them to say hello. Michael walked over to him and watched him build the sand castle.
Finally, the boy asked Michael if he could play and would he like to help build the sandcastle. Michael jumped at the chance and the two children played all afternoon. After he came back to the hotel room, he was very quiet.
Later that evening, Michael said to Carol, ”Mom, my new friend had the same experience I did.” Carol asked what he meant. Michael went ahead to say, ”His school got shot up too, but it was a year ago. He felt like I feel. However, he has now gone back to school and wants to get to play again. I want to be like him.”
Carol had to turn away because of the tears in her eyes. For the first time, she had hope for Michael. As their week at the beach progressed, Michael, and his new friend, Gregory, played every day. One day when Carol was at the beach with Michael, she actually heard him laugh with Gregory. She also saw him and his friend stick their toes into the ocean. She felt like Michael was on the road to recovery.
After the family returned to their hometown, Carol and John put Michael into counseling. It was slow going with the little boy, but months later, he went back to school, but to another elementary school.
Michael’s scars will be permanent, As he grow up, he’ll realize that he was much luckier than some of the children that day. He came away with his life, but it will be different now. Michael told Carol that he wants to help other kids like Gregory helped him.
If we were having coffee this weekend, I would ask you to please come in, sit and make yourself comfortable, and before you sit down, please choose the beverage of your choice off my coffee bar. There are several types of coffee, cocoa and my favorite, a wonderful cinnamon tea.
I’d like to wish everyone hello and good wishes and thank you for joining my weekly coffee share this week. I’ve been away and haven’t participated in the weeklycoffeeshare for a long time now, but I’m glad to be back. I see many familiar faces here and some new ones. I’m looking forward to getting re-acquainted and reading everyone’s contribution this week!
Since I was last here, I took a job(s) writing freelance (and contract) for several firms including The New York Times, DotDash Meredith and Smart Asset. That was several years ago now and I had a wonderful freelance writing career. It was really an encore career since I had been a college professor for 27 years and had retired. All good things must come to an end, however, and I retired permanently in March 2022, However, just because I retired from writing commercially, doesn’t mean that I don’t want to write, so here I am back at my roots, blogging on WordPress. I’m so happy to be back and happy to see all of you!
My next venture may be a book or two. Something I have in my head that’s fiction and another non-fiction book on the area in the U.S. in which I live, Appalachia. You’ll probably hear a lot about Appalachia from me. I’m not ready to reveal all the details yet, but perhaps soon! I found out yesterday that I may have a health challenge to contend with that joins another health challenge that I’ve dealt with for years. Aren’t the Golden Years wonderful!?
I hope to spend a lot of time in the flower gardens here at my home in Kentucky, USA this summer. It was an oddly cool spring and even at the end of May, we’re having some cool weather. I’m ready for some heat and humidity! Well, maybe just heat! Summer is welcome this year after a long fall and winter of COVID-19 and the isolation that comes with it. I hope all of you have done well during the pandemic.
I also want to spend as much time with my little dog, Clara, as possible. Clara, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is an attention hog so I’m trying to oblige her this summer. She’s 10 years old which is a pretty long life for a Cavalier.
Thank you so much for stopping by my weeklycoffeeshare today. I’ll share more and more with you as time goes on including pictures! For those of you who celebrate it, Happy Memorial Day weekend!
Walking through the woods on the day of the autumn equinox, she found them. Tokens lying at the foot of a tree. Arranged in a precise manner. A fall leaf signifying the season. The season when the harvest is over and it’s time to rest and renew. There was a grey feather. A sign that balance will be achieved in the universe. A sign of the season of neutrality and hope. Last, she saw the two red tokens. Red for boldness, passion, and creativity. She sat at the foot of the tree and let the magic of the tokens overtake her.
As Ladd and the small man made their way toward London, they stopped to sleep at dusk at whatever shelter they could find. The first night on the road found them by a lake with water so still it looked like glass. There was a small shelter there that someone, probably another traveler, had built out of limbs and mud. It was enough to keep them out of the weather and away from the wild beasts. The small man decided to stop there for the night.
After they laid down their things, the small man instructed Ladd to gather some leaves to make them softer beds. The leaves from the past fall were still on the ground. Ladd went about the business of gathering leaves while the small man built a fire. Dark had not yet fallen.
The small man went to Ladd and asked him to follow him. Ladd stopped leaf-gathering and followed the man. He led him to the water’s edge and sat down. He motioned for the boy to sit down beside him.
“Have you ever seen a looking glass?” the small man asked the boy.
“Oh yes,” Ladd replied. “The mother of my friend from home has one.”
”Looking glasses are important in your job as a wizard,” said the small man. “They allow you to see through them to the future and in front of them to the past.’
Ladd just stared at him.
“I’ll give you a magic lesson,” the small man said, smiling. “First, we have to cast a circle. The circle will keep the evil powers out and keep us safe inside.”
With that, the small man picked up a stick and drew an oval in the sand around them. He then sat very still with his head bowed. He appeared to disappear deep inside himself. He opened his eyes, raised both arms and pointed out at the lake. Ladd saw that his eyes had turned the color of the lake.
In his hands, he had pieces of lake glass he had picked up, clear in one hand, colored in the other. He shook them and transferred the clear glass to the hand with the colored glass. He said these words,
“Glass and water, Glass and water. We mean you no bother. Show us Ladd’s village. Only a future image.”
From the surface of the lake, a shimmery image of Ladd’s village arose.
As it came into focus, Ladd cried out, “There’s my sister. That’s Mercy!”
“Who are the people with her, Ladd?” the small man asked gently.
“The man is Smith, her betrothed and the blacksmith in our village. There are children I don’t know. It looks like Mercy is carrying a child.”
The small man said, “Remember Ladd, that is an image of the future.”
Suddenly, the image vanished. The small man seemed to draw back into himself and Ladd was quiet. After some time passed, the small man opened his eyes, which were now back to normal. He spoke. He spoke,
“That was quite tiring. It’s time to sleep.”
As he and Ladd arose, he removed the circle with his foot and they walked toward the shelter. The small man placed the lake glass in one of the jars he carried. He and Ladd then put a blanket on their pallets of straw, laid down, and immediately went to sleep.
Jane remembers the night they got to that island. They were just looking for a place to stay and they happened upon the bridge where signs told them of vacancies. They crossed the bridge, not really knowing where they were. Not really knowing they were going out into the Gulf of Mexico.
It was winter and even in the southern part of America, dark came early. Even so, someone was in the office of the first place they came to. After they secured a reservation, they went to their spot and crashed. Never really thinking about where they were. They had driven a long way. They knew it was warm and they could smell salt water. Sleep came instantly.
It had been a hard year for them before that winter. They were young. They didn’t know that the things that had happened, decisions they had made, would come back to haunt them many years later. They had the freedom of youth without the wisdom of age. Like most young people of ther generation, they worked hard and played just as hard. Too hard. It was the 1970s and their kind of fun seemed innocent then. They didn’t realize that it wasn’t. That the transgressions of youth would color their whole lives. They didn’t know that too much fun then would make the responsibilities of age hard and getting old so much more unbearable.
When Jane’s eyes came open, just a crack, the next morning, she looked around and saw the entire place enveloped in a warm glow. Bare tree branches were on one side of the place with palm trees towering over the other side. They had been lost the night before. She couldn’t imagine where they were.
Jane got up and dressed and walked out on the porch and down the road. The sky astonished her, layered in gold clouds. She had never seen anything like it. As she walked and nodded to the locals, she felt a weight lift off her shoulders, a sense of renewal wash over her. A decision she had been trying to make became clear to her as the tropical birds swooped in front of her. When she came to a general store, she found out the name of the island although in her mind, she’d already dubbed it her magical island. She’d been struggling with that decision for weeks.
After that winter, Jane knew they would spend many winters on that magical island. Looking back, she knows they will go back someday. It might be they should do it soon. Could it renew her once again?
“My blog” is our #JusJoJan prompt for today and that makes me smile. Why? I never dreamed I’d be a blogger! I started this blog in April of 2016. I can’t believe it’s been that long ago. When I started it, all I knew is that I wanted a place to write. A safe place to write on a daily basis. I fully intended to write in the same vein in which I’d always written. Non-fiction. Most likely in my field of business and finance. I hadn’t written much for awhile and I was going to polish up my skills to start selling my articles again. I did, indeed, do that for awhile. A short while.
There were things that I didn’t know. I didn’t know I’d find a community of writers here on WordPress. I didn’t know I’d read other people’s really awesome blogs. I didn’t know I’d become interested in participating in writing challenges. Most of all, I didn’t knnow I’d become interested in writing fiction. Fiction? Me? I had just spent thirty years doing academic writing. Terse and restrictive academic writing. Non-fiction – big time. Writing by formula to some extent. How do you jump from academic writing to fiction? It turns out it was not easy.
I had started writing, and getting published, as a child and then as a teenager. Then life and the 30 years of academic writing happened. My initial efforts at writing fiction here on my blog were terrible. Just awful. I started reading everything I could find about writing fiction. I started reading some of these awesome blogs. I gradually started getting more comfortable. I’m still not totally comfortable with fiction, but I’m better. I can knock out a non-fiction article very quickly. Fiction is a different deal. It takes awhile, lots of effort, and letting myself feel. Something I’m not very good at doing. Fiction involves creativity which I had not tapped into in a long time.
So, there you have my journey here with my blog. I’m not finished yet. I still have fiction skills to build. I’m even moving into different genres that I’m finding I enjoy. Magical realism anyone?
Have you ever talked to someone and, suddenly, you realized that person wasn’t really hearing you? At the very least, they didn’t understand what you were saying and were just being polite? If you’re going to talk, talk to people who hear you. Really hear you. Your words are wasted otherwise.
We all have different kinds of friends and family. Some are more casual. Some are closer. The only ones that can really be closer are those who can hear you. Hear the meaning and feeling behind your words. Otherwise, it’s a superficial relationship.
I’ll tell you what I usually do. I usually let the ones who can’t hear me talk to me. If they ever stopped to think about it, they would realize they know almost nothing about me. Nothing of any importance anyway.
If you try to talk to the ones who can’t hear you, you’ll just be frustrated and you’ll grow to resent them. It’s not their fault nor is it yours.
Welcome to the 2019 version of my blog! A new year! I”m starting this year with a challenge I particularly like. Linda’s #JusJoJan Challenge. You’ll see a post here, based on her prompts, every day of January. It will be fun. Today is just a brief rundown of 2018. In some ways, it’s a year I”d rather forget. More about that in a minute. In one very important way, it’s a year I’ll always remember. I want to share this with you.
When I was growing up, I really only knew one side of my family. I knew them and will love them always. I never had the opportunity to know the other side of my family, mostly, I think, because they were far-flung geographically from me. My dad didn’t talk very much about his family. He died young and I didn’t have the chance to ask. As I got older, I had to do some research in order to try to find my family. In 2018, I worked on my genealogy using Ancestry. About that time, coincidentally, one of my first cousins who I had really never known had been looking for me too. He found me on Facebook and we connected. It has been such a great pleasure getting to know him! Gradually, I’ve connected with most of my first cousins and then, through Ancestry, some of my second and third cousins. How fun it has been to get to know this big family I never knew I had!
Besides that, which has been the highlight of my year, it’s been a tough year and I’m glad to see 2018 end. I have some health-related challenges that are serious and just cropped up this year. Getting old is not for sissies! Because of that, I haven’t made as much writing progress as I’ve wanted to make. I have a novella and a novel in the works and only now am I starting to feel like working on them again. I am even feeling like taking a job again and may be working freelance for awhile.
At my age, you start to lose people in your life and I’ve also had deaths among my close circle of friends. It’s seemed as if there has been one funeral after another. On the upside of that, I’ve had a chance to reconnect with forever friends.
I’m ready for 2019 and am hoping that it will be a better year! Here’s hoping all of you have a wonderful year as well.
The Write Scribe 