Earlier this summer a girlfriend sent me an invitation to join an on-line writing experience called Finding Your Voice with author Robin Rice. Every other day we were sent a photo prompt to use as inspiration to write the first few paragraphs of a story, with opening lines provided, or to practice writing a concise paragraph or haiku poem. I created an instagram account to share with those who happened upon it, but I have decided to also post the whole collection here on my blog too, for what is voice if it’s not shared? Please enjoy. I hope one or two of the 28 little pieces speaks to you.
Thanks for hearing my voice,
Katie
“I never said I wouldn’t jump,” she whispered aloud to herself. “So I can’t be called a liar. Then again, if I do jump…”
I never said I wouldn’t jump, she whispered aloud to herself. So I can’t be called a liar. Then again, if I do jump, what do I care what I’m called. I could be called every single word I’ve ever feared —bitch, bad mother, selfish woman, and I wouldn’t be around to know. I could be called unstable, a pity, a life wasted. What constitutes a wasted life? One that doesn’t last enough years? Doesn’t have enough laughs, produce enough offspring or please enough people?
She knew the truth was that she’d been wasting her life for decades, since the age she traded in pink for colors she deemed more sophisticated.
But the view from halfway up the lighthouse wall was crystal clear. She could make the most impactful choice of her life from there. Working with her allies, Rock and Sea, she could right the incongruity urgently ripping her apart.
Or, she could climb down, into the truck and and hit the open road, leaving behind the life passively created along the path of least resistance. She could start over, this time on purpose. Leaping seemed nobler, but running away gave her a second chance.
And then it struck her, like the waves crashing on the boulders below. There was a third option too. One that would require much more of her. She could start living on purpose from right where she was.
…
I can feel this tiny being’s heart beat in my gut, and below too. I can feel this little bird’s heartbeat in the place I am only now learning to tune into. I thought this place was for sex, or perhaps a punishment. I realize now this place is for life. This place lets me know when I need to pay attention. She lets me know when I am in the presence of a message worth heeding. She lets me know I am connected, I am part of the web.
What is this message?
I see Bird, full of raw and unconditioned anxiety, I feel her heart beating as fast as her little wings want to fly, yet her body is still. She wastes no effort fighting. Is she trusting? I can’t imagine she’s run through all possible future scenarios and chosen stillness as the most appropriate action. How does she know she doesn’t stand a chance against this much bigger hand? How does she know to be still, to allow and to trust?
Maybe she has her own place of wisdom.
…
I am taken to the all but disappeared Nebraska village where my parents met, courted and married. A place I visited my grandparents and cousins as a child, the playground rusted with abandonment. A place I felt the stuck-ness and stifled-ness of the worn-down people, as well as the beckoning of the surrounding land. The tree-lined lane led the curious ones past the Church and out of town— a portal to the vast horizon whispering of untapped magic and opportunity. My parents, like most, escaped the town, but not the deeply embedded and oxidized restraints. I wrestle now to untangle the multilayered chain-link directing my beliefs and those of my grandmothers too. I hold hope in the hollow diamonds of space permitting the light.
…
The Incas call the earth-time intersection Pachamama, and they worship her as Earth, Sun and Moon. I wonder what our world could be if no matter how else we differed in belief, we all honored time and place as sacred— if we worshiped by consciously choosing how we passed our time and made holy the places we inhabited.
…
I twist into you
As you circle around me
Nowhere do we go.
…
I cringed upon opening this photo prompt. The dime a dozen-ness churned my stomach in disgust, and my heart deflated in disappointment. The leprechauns don’t appear to be made by hand or for conscious consideration.
Who thought making them was a good idea?
Who chose to stock them on the shelves?
Who will buy them and for whom?
I envision them landing in a secondhand store on the way to a landfill, and my blood begins to boil. The judgement initially turned outward changes course like a mutant cancer cell and points itself back at me, growing rapidly. This is the type of judgement that eats away me, wearing me down. The type that emerges with single-use plastic, buy-in-bulk shopping chains and overflowing storage bins. The type that makes living in my culture a daily struggle. I realize my judgment hurts me and may even color my luck. I further wonder about a possible relationship between my reaction to this dratted little leprechaun line-up and my missed flight this morning.
…
Like Pavlov’s dogs I sense the fomo wafting into my field before I even recognize the photo for what it is: travelers awaiting their journey. The irony in the longing is that I awoke today in an unknown land partaking in my own journey. I take pause to register this subtle, yet faster than a knee jerk reaction. What is it about travel that makes me covet so acutely? Certainly not the planning, packing or logistics. Not the delays, discomforts or disrupted sleep cycles. These are a small price to pay for the opportunity to see through the lens of a different land, to break the sluggishness of routine and to find connection and light where ignorance once lived. Journey is the metaphor for knowing the unknown, and I seek insatiably to water the flames of fear with discovery, making acquaintance and sharing tea. My wish is to learn to journey more profoundly without the pull to leave right where I am.
…
I know this look, it’s the satisfied one between contentedness and borderline-scary, exhilarating joy. This is the look of connection. The one that asks to be burnt into memory because the heart is sensing its tendrils reaching out to this specific intersection in time and space and it feels so right and sacred it doesn’t want to be forgotten. The one calling for selfie documentation and perhaps a bold share. This is both rootedness and expansion. All is right in the world, even if only for this moment, which for now is forever.
…
“I almost didn’t come today,” she said. “I am glad you did”, he replied, “because otherwise …
I almost didn’t come today she said. I am glad you did he replied, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to tell you that I’m starting to understand. Before, I thought I did, but I was shielded from truly hearing your words by the disdain I felt from coming you. I realize now that what I took to be disdain was really a defensive shield protecting a sore heart trying its damndest to soften. When you told me how you interpret my actions it took a bit for me to really fathom how badly that interpretation must pierce, and how it must color your handling of me. Imagining you holding these beliefs about about me, about us, about your perceived ugliness and worthiness is extremely difficult. I see you so strong, so beautiful, so powerful. I want you to hear that I am seeing the constraints of your binding beliefs and the pain they cause, but I am also seeing you, glorious you, through the prison bars of your own making. Though I’m beginning to understand, I’m not saying that I can gracefully handle the ice freeze of your protective mode, or that I know how to convince you that I’m all the way in and I’m not going anywhere. I can’t help you untangle the mess of constraints in your head, but I can offer you my human and messy love.
This is how she would interpret whatever came out of his mouth as he appeared boldly in the threshold, pinned her against the wall and began consuming her body with his hungry need and adoration.
…
If I want to open to the world, if I want to feel, really feel, the opening is going to come with water droplets. There is no other way. My work is to learn to sit through the salty (and sometimes snotty) outpouring, to not resist, try to be stoic or wait for precipitation to pass before engaging in the prickly conversation, entertaining the difficult emotion or examining the dark underside of reality. Just like amorous opening requires wetness, so does opening of heart space. I will use my wetness as an ally, letting me know we are getting to the good stuff.
…
One day I’ll be a little old lady with bed head. People will giggle as they see me humming to myself at the market and hear me singing as I tend to my garden. They will see my wardrobe choice – comfort and beautiful splendor- and wonder if the cheese has fallen off my cracker. I will welcome into my abode and magical world those curious and unhurried souls who want to hear stories about the old days, about tyrannical feudal lords and the rise of the rainbow people.
…
I thrive in the heat of summer. Under the big hot sun my shoulders fall away from my ears, my muscles soften and my heart expands. My legs bronze and strengthen, kicking in the pool and skipping on the walk. The cicadas, fireflies and sensuous lilies beckon me to mimic.
To sound, to light, to open.
The mighty shade trees call for me to sit below their branches, and in the hammock I enjoy the breeze. I may appear lazy, but I’m soaking it all in, storing up vibrancy for the days at the other end of the spectrum.
Cold and short, they make me call upon reserves, digging down deep for the motivation to rouse, bundle and survive.
A different type of thrive.
…
My ears perk, alerting me morning is here. The quiet is disconcerting. I lift my nose to the sky. The air smells a bit like metal. It’s dryer. Something big has changed. Outside pulls on my insides. I stand and attempt to shake it off, but I only draw in more of this charged air. Must go out. I set my chin on his pillow—eyes focused, head still, but my bum can’t be contained. How on earth can they sleep through this pull? My body, wiggly, wants to jump so badly. Is it worth their being angry with me? Too late, I’m already in the bed, my tongue uncontrollable. Laboriously he comes to life, in slow motion fumbling into robe and slippers, he shuffles clumsily to the stairs. Knocking into the back of his calves, I pass him, skid on the hardwood and slide into wall. The door opens, and I remember what all this magic hoopla is about — SNOW!
…
Fourth of July greetings.
May you celebrate all light and love that this bright holiday shines through you: freedom, youth and opportunity. Vast plains, high peaks and deep valleys. Two oceans connected by many rivers and roads.
May you also pause to reflect on the the darkness that inevitably roughs the edges: breakneck speed of growth, rape, theft. Disregard for people, land and water. As a young nation, we are all of this, and as we approach adolescence we must ask ourselves what kind of nation we want to become.
May the gods bless the USA with a slower pace and a more connecting way of viewing time and the space. May they bless us with wisdom to process our past and move forward with intention for well-being and liberty for all.
…
Oh, to be a grandparent!
I look forward to it. Not too soon though, I mentally wink at my 15-year-old. I imagine that to parent from this grand perspective is to know how fleeting the innocence and wonder is, and to be able to open to it more fully—without the cautious weight of responsibility or the protective fear born from knowing that if you truly sat in the splendor of the littles your heart could explode, keeping you from completing all the tasks and checking all the boxes. I imagine grand-parenting to be without the the incessant questioning about how many times you’ve already glitched their systems with little hurts, rushes and betrayals that they will have to work out later.
I imagine grand-parenting to be akin to parenting the third or fourth, but supersized, with a toolkit bursting of trust, experience and wisdom. And beyond the magical skill set, is the practical. Enjoying a babe in spurts of visits and outings with plenty of rest and recuperation in between makes for a ready and nourished leader. One who is more equipped to listen deeply and pause before responding.
Again I’m reminded that child-rearing takes a tribe, if not a whole community of aunties and uncles willing and able to lead and hold. Thank you to my blood brothers, sisters and parents, my reciprocals in-law, and all those teachers, neighbors and friends both near and far who show my children love and lend them their time and attention.
….
To watch my parent
Dote lovingly on my babe
Is a love sandwich
I am the middle
Snuggled between soft slices
Of protective bread
…
I wonder if smoking a cigarette while arguing helps keep those involved calm and collected. Maybe all those deep breaths tell the nervous system “you’ve got this” while the tobacco smoke, reminiscent of that from peace pipe, conjures a little supportive connection from the native guides it summons. Maybe having a burning object in hand keeps both arms from crossing, thus relaying to the other that you’re at least half open to what they are saying. Maybe a pause to cup a hand and light up another provides just the time needed to check in with the body or think before speaking. Maybe the nicotine provides the rush to say the words that are stuck. Maybe the mere act of taking a smoke break provides the time and space for an argument to unfold which otherwise could be buried in silent resentment.
Maybe I stop reading self-help and pick up a pack of Marlboros.
…
Love is a very
large and accommodating
concept to capture.
Fish tacos, a cold beer and
the smell of the sea
over sunkissed skin
A charming new beau
with electrifying words
glances and touches.
Chatting with my sis
while walking through the park on
a crisp fall morning.
My comfiest sweats,
snuggled into my hubby
with the fire crackling.
Our newborn baby
tugging sweetly on my heart
strings with his god smell.
A steaming cup of
joe on the patio as the
birds chirp good morning.
Parents eagerly
giving me and my children
their time and stories
All of this is love,
But so is the stuff between
The perfect moments.
…
I didn’t expect my call to the man I took to be an arborist to take an existential turn. Or maybe I did. Maybe that is exactly why I waited to dial until I was feeling extra confused about my earthly role. I thought I was calling to ask for a tree trim, but maybe I was really in search of someone who could ask me provoking questions, who would invite me to deeply consider my values. Maybe I needed to be asked why I believed my tree should look different than it does, or if having a yard overtaken by wild strawberries was really a fear of being judged. (Did I know that the birds enjoyed the red berries and the bees the yellow flowers?) Maybe I needed to be reminded that treating a symptom, even if I do so organically, isn’t the same as seeking and addressing the root cause. Maybe I needed to hear the words “working with nature rather than against her” spoken aloud by a man a man who is not, in fact, an arborist, but rather a naturalist, an arboricultural consultant. Maybe I needed a gentle earth advocate believing in the power of connection to steer me back toward my path when I began to doubt and stray, worrying about how the life I’m creating for myself doesn’t look like the ones I see around me. Maybe I needed to be reminded that I much prefer low-maintenance and sustainable, that I am uplifted by beauty and kept safe by diversity, that I contribute to the web of connection when I nurture an environment that invites others. Thank you for reminding me that I favor all this a thousand times over striving to be just like the Joneses next door.
…
When was the last time my eyes felt this clear?
My smile this honest?
My mind this free from judgement?
I can see my younger self in this little girl. I can feel myself in the child imprisoned at the border. I can imagine myself as the brave parent who risks everything for increased security and opportunity in the North. But can I see myself in the border patrol agents? And where are the parts of me in our fearful president?
…
I held the plastic tray of pre-made hamburger patties in my hands, my thumbs grazing the smooth expanse of cellophane. So much easier for the lake, I thought. And then a current of consciousness forced the matter. A jolt. I set the tray down and picked up the ground beef wrapped in only a single layer of plastic, the option that would require my hands to be more involved in the preparation of my meal, the option that would ask me to acknowledge the life given up for my family’s barbecue, the option that ecologically and spiritually aligned with my values and required me to slow down and ponder my connection.
So many cities, my own included, have contemplated limiting single use plastics. Councils question how much difference eliminating plastic bags will really make for the environment. They contemplate the inconvenience for consumers having to remember baskets, boxes and bags from home.
Maybe a bit of an annoyance, but every time we choose to do the little uncomfortable thing that honors our space and each other, we slightly shift our consciousness toward the action of connection, we deepen the mental groove of responsibility. And these itty bitty shifts can lead to big change.
I read just this morning, “more than 100 people are dead and almost 6 million are under threat from rising flood waters in South Asia”.
Both the news blurb and the photo prompt ask me to examine how my actions ripple out to my brothers and sisters sharing the same sky and the same waters, all across the globe.
I choose to keep doing better.
…
Coins spin in outer
space, the backdrop image to
bedtime Hail Marys,
Our Fathers, Glory
Bes. Followed by fantasies
of Michael Jackson
spotting my roller
skate crash from his airplane up
above. He swoops down
to scoop me up to
safety and adoring love.
All this while I keep
at bay the fear that
Jesus will appear to ask
that I give up my
worldly existence
and follow him, living a
simple, toy-less life.
In later years the
prayers change to more fervent
pleas. Help me be good.
To succeed. Achieve.
Bartering begins. I run.
Count. Control the urge.
A rosary to
stave away teen pregnancy.
Forgive me Father.
Where is the mother?
I do not know I crave her.
Or that she exists.
In the fat Buddha,
and rocks, plants, animals, trees.
In quiet she comes.
Action is not a
requirement, but rather
an impediment. Instead
the spirit asks that
I still. And allow her to
be known. As she is.
To participate
with a whisper to the moon,
clear intention set.
To be aware of
this body. Be curious
of all sensation.
…
She looks at this photo one day and sees brown.
She looks the next, and sees rust, caramel and the color of the sun. She enjoys the smoothness of the yellow layer beneath and the sharp, crisp edges of the rolling peels above. She hears crunch as her fist squeezes and then crackling as the fire consumes.
The difference between day one and day two?
Time, presence, and the willingness to observe and allow.
…
I have heard it said that serious dancers dance because they can’t not dance. Does that make dancing an addiction? An addiction to being in the body and transcending it too? To strength, flexibility and rhythm? To synchronizing with a group or communicating wordlessly with a partner? To getting inside the other worldliness of the music? To form? To discipline? To excellence?
I have also heard it said that dancers can easily fall into the all-so-common pit of disordered eating, another addiction of sorts. Perhaps it makes sense that the ease in which they can be lifted or the effort it takes to defy gravity be a concern. But what about the rest of us?
What is the difference between passion and destruction? Between beauty and death? Between precision and obsession? Is the line between order and disorder a fine one? What is the relationship between chaos and control? And the cost?
And anyway, what is addiction but a break from reality, a way to numb from the now, an attempt to connect less painfully? What makes an addiction culture friendly or shunned by society? When does an addiction make us shun ourselves?
…
“I used to have problems. Now, I just get tired. Dying will do that to you. Show you what a problem really is. It also shows you… “
I used to have problems. Now, I just get tired. Dying will do that to you. Show you what a problem really is. It also shows you what really matters. Not a whole lot. Or everything. It makes your mind feel foggy and clear at the same time. I can focus on so little, I only notice what’s biggest, and right in front of my nose. So it could be a dust bunny floatin’ in the air, or the feel of the wind on my skin or the hum of this train rumblin’ from its guts and through my elbow, down my arm and hand and into my head. I swear, sometimes I feel like I have noticin’ superpowers. I ain’t never noticed stuff like this before I knew the dyin’ was comin’. There was always somethin’ else to think about, some plan to make or chat to be had. Now, I’m alone in a way I didn’t even feel in seventh grade. I wonder what the rest will be like. Will the tiredness turn to pain that I won’t be able to handle? Will I take the morphine and will it dull this super power or magnify it? I thought I’d feel sad about not seein’ my grandkids grow and my kids turn old like me, but I don’t. They’re going to do what they’re going to do and I’m going to do this dyin’ thing. And then who knows. Maybe I will see it all, just from a different place, but it doesn’t seem to matter, I’m just so damn tired. I let my sleep come when it wants now, on the train, in the waiting room, at family dinner. I surrender. I wonder if my kid self would call this quittin’. It feels wise to me. It’s comin’ whether I fight it or not. So for now, I’ll keep nappin’ and noticin’. The textures, the rhythms and the dust bunnies. They seem like enough right now. And a nice long stare into my wife’s eyes. She’s got this carin’ for the dyin’ thing down. She’s strong and she’s so busy makin’ the plans now that I have be stern just to get her to sit and look at me hard. But when she does it’s as good as makin’ sweet love to her in the back of my daddy’s truck. It’s different now. Everything is different. No problems. Just the tiredness and knowin’ it could get pretty bad. I think I’ll take the morphine. I’ll surrender to it like I do to the sweet sleep. Maybe this is what bein’ a baby was like, dust bunnies, voices, rhythms, textures and sleep. Wasn’t so bad then, I guess. Ain’t so bad now.
…
Time is a funny concept, concrete in minutes, hours and days, yet relative in interpretation and value. Time allows for the accumulation of experience, permitting a broad and vast vantage point from which to see. Time beckons the emergence of natural rhythms to be felt, for patterns to be discerned and wisdom to be gleaned.
But time does not require it.
Time speaks in cycles, seasons and deepening lines in the human face. Each one less of an offense as it joins the others in the map of physical age. Each one becoming a gift. A sign of perseverance, luck and perhaps something valuable to be shared.
…
We unfold naturally from the tight, dark womb space as we take our first startling breath. We stretch our limbs and slowly our attention, testing limits and boundaries as toddling humans. From there, so much of the result of this incessant life-force pushing and pulling us to blossom depends upon the soil into which our roots reach and extend. Is the earth rich with minerals and organic matter? Do we receive plenty of rain or alternative care? Is there enough opening above for the sun to reach us? For us to spread? Are there creatures nearby, both limbless and winged, for us to work with in symbiotic communion?
I often wonder if our blossoming matters in the grand scheme of things. Either way our time will eventually be done. But the shameless unfurling of our petals sure does make the landscape more beautiful.
…
He/she/they conjures childhood fear of the different and unknown, the things that don’t fall within my narrow and inexperienced scope of how people behave. In small town Nebraska I learned women wear dresses. Men wear pants. People like me (like me = that I can trust) don’t get tattoos. Smoking is bad (but maybe not unforgivable because my dad does it secretly). Small is good and right. Thin is what is on TV telling me what to buy and what to do.
He/she/they is confusing, I’d like to look away or pretend I don’t see.
I am transported to Tijuana, my first experience with the very different, with poverty and dirt, with begging and my father’s tangible fear, my mother’s desire to explore. I don’t remember exactly how Mexico beat out Sea World, but we crossed the boarder and looked for cheap trinkets to memorialize our day-trip adventure. We returned to our San Diego motel and I spent 30 minutes in the bathroom. With steam and scalding water I scrubbed my nine-year-old skin pink. I scrubbed my clothes and the turquoise ring I bought from the street vendor. I tried my damndest to scrub off all the filth and fear I felt that day. I got the surface clean but deep down I must have known the only way to eradicate the fear of difference was to go back in. To understand differences and why they happen. To spend time with difference and to engage with difference. To accept and connect. Trip by little trip to Central America my fear of poverty and living close to the earth disappears. As those fears disappear, they take with them other fears of difference, like sexual orientation, dress and behavior.
Now the time is approaching to start chipping away at fear of self.
…
The light and shadows
don’t make sense to me at all.
Why is there brightness
where there should be black?
Why does shadow appear where
there ought to be light?
Is it me who can’t
see? Or only me who can?
What’s it like for you?
…