“Would you read something to me before we turn out the light,” asks my sleepy niece, Amy, as I tuck her into bed. “Please.” With her parents off on a well-deserved long weekend, Amy’s pulling an all-nighter at our house, something which doesn’t happen often, but which she loves because it means she can help out with the horses in … More Bedtime Story
~*~ “Matyas, what are you doing?” “Playing Liszt on a sad, old piano,” replied Matyas as he fumbled over the bass clef of an abandoned, battle-bruised upright. “But, we are in the midst of battle.” “I play anyway.” He culled from memory the patterns of finger play for the opening bars of the Hungarian Rhapsody. His lately unpracticed, … More Buying Time
~*~ “Which, of all the goodbyes in your life has been the hardest so far?” Manda, my inquisitive 12-year-old niece, has asked the impossible. Good grief. How do you tell a child, albeit an old soul, about the painful goodbye to lost youth? How do you get the young to understand that all that lies between youth and old age … More The Hard Question
It’s 4 o’clock of an early spring afternoon and the mood in the kitchen is blue. As Manda and I both stare out the window to the paddock and survey the damage wrought by a spring ice storm we are rendered numb; speechless. Mother Nature was reckless with her pruning shears. By the light of a … More In the Pink
#FWF Memory Prompt: Write about your earliest memory. Good, bad, happy or sad. Before you begin, take time to dwell in that memory. Absorb everything you can about it. What you see, what you smell, what you hear and mostly, how you feel. Let it resonate. Marinate your mind in that one moment. Then begin. … More Alfie
Daily Prompt: Leap ~*~ “Leap’s a funny word, isn’t it, Aunt Sal?” “Why do you say that?” I ask while brushing the mud off my boots before entering the house. We’ve been out at the barn feeding the horses. Such a mucky day as the seasons transition. “Well,” Manda pulls off her boots and shoves … More Tea Time
Daily Prompt: Life After Blogs “Honey, I remember life before computers, so imagining my life without one isn’t much of a stretch,” I wink at my 12-year-old niece, Manda, who simply stares at me in disbelief. Of course, her generation has practically been raised by computer, so imagining a world without one would be a … More Another Writer
Daily Prompt: If I Could Turn Back Time ~*~ “I have no regrets, sweetie.” “Yeah, but if you were given a chance to live another part of your life again … you know, a do over, would you?” Twelve-year-old Manda’s digging for a story. “Hmmm … let me think about that.” I pour another cup … More Do Over
The pain is deep ~ You put it there. Not that you knew it, You were simply sailing Your oblivious sea And I, being an innocent, Was caught in your toxic Wake; my life line The place in my Soul you Could not reach. * I forgive you. I forgive because Drowning in the pain Of you hurts only me, … More Forgiveness …
Daily Prompt: The Outsiders Tell us about the experience of being outside, looking in — however you’d like to interpret that. ~*~ Well, this hits close to home, Sally mused as she listened to her niece, Manda, tearfully explain how she’d not been invited to a sleepover with her supposed friends … again. “I don’t understand … More The Outsiders
Shedding Light on the Family Tree 