Legacy of Words & Finding Hope

"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 2097 August 16, 2018
size:5}" “Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there." ~ Ray Bradbury
Do you agree or disagree? If so what will you leave behind?

Without question, I will leave my daughter my words.

I have, it seems, always been writing in my life but the moment my daughter became the seed in my soul, she also became my muse. I have written about the joy of expecting her delivery, the trials of being a new mother and struggling to find balance as a working mom. I have written about the incredibly vulnerability you feel bringing a life into the world and of the fierce and all-consuming love that makes you both terribly afraid and immeasurably happy all at once. I have written about my daughter's growth, about her amazing milestones, our battles and all those sweet moments that made my heart melt.

I continue to write about her, marking her years with all the insights I can about who she is and what she is like at her various stages and ages. Her aggravating love of slime is forever immortalized in my my blogs, as is the lovely character of her laughter and the summer she fell in love with horses. I try to capture all her burgeoning beauty, grace and personality that seems to come at a rapid fire pacing I feel I can barely keep up with. My hope is that one day she can read through all my entries, all my stories and blogs and see how I saw her at age 3, age 7, age 18...and that this might tell her something about herself, about the woman she has become and most importantly, about how she was the absolute world to the woman who raised her.

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
Day 1703 August 16, 2018
Prompt: Hope.
I had hope. It wasn't much hope but it was a little. Then it turned out to have a thousand pieces, Scattering it in all directions. Hope for the best, expect the worst. When is the last time you felt all hope was lost but things got better?

There have been many moments when I have felt hope scattered around me like so much broken glass. There were times when the darkness was so close to pulling me down that it seemed I could not draw enough breathe into my lungs to live another second for myself. Even in those moments, I must still have held onto hope because I did breathe. I did find a way to get back on my feet. I think I wanted so badly to know a different life, I wanted to be a different woman. I did not want to cower forever or live a life when I could not tell the difference between passion and violence. I wanted to love in another color besides red. I think I had hope even then, when a weak man's rage had me curled into a frightened ball at the base of my stairs, that this would not be my life and that it would get better...that I would love better and find someone in turn who did the same. I remember staring at my bloody fingertips and thinking, "someday it will be me or him, and I will have to chose me". Those words seemed so impossibly loud in my head and thinking them gave me hope, and that hope eventually gave me the strength to do exactly that.

Hope is this amazing thing that resides in our souls...quietly waiting until it is needed the most. In those dark times, it can be the light by which we find our way out.

"Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without words and never stops at all" Emily Dickinson

Audio Books and Leaving Love

"Blog City ~ Every Blogger's Paradise"
DAY 1173--May 30, 2017
Prompt “It is so hard to leave—until you leave. And then it is the easiest goddamned thing in the world.” John Green, Paper Towns
What were some of the things or people that were difficult to leave for you, for someone you know, or for a character in your story, and what were the results of leaving those things?

The act of leaving someone you are still in love with is one of the hardest things to do. Paul Simon's classic, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" might offer up a plethora of viable and catchy suggestions but the truth is, it is always more complex and the fallout more life-altering than we may anticipate. I agree with John Green insofar as there is a sense of relief after the decision to leave is made but it has never magically become the "easiest thing". For me, it took weeks of isolating soul-searching and painful meditation on old wounds and broken promises. It took several hard reality checks before I had fully accepted the fact that my life with him would be a lonely journey through an eternal landscape of failed expectations and disappointments. The realization was only the first step. It took conditioning to convince my heart what my head already understood, and my heart was by far the more stubborn organ. In the end, I prayed. I prayed to God that I would stop loving him. I prayed on my knees, as the steaming hot water rained down. I prayed alone in empty hospital corridors and silent waiting rooms. I prayed in the privacy of my silent bedroom, wrapped in my stiff new bed sheets. There is a type of despair you encounter when you find yourself begging for a release from love. The desperation to rid one's heart, to strip love from your organism when it was once so critical to your biology, is uniquely terrible and painful. It can be done, you can walk away, but it is far from easy and leaves you permanently marred.


"Blogging Circle of Friends "
DAY 1656 May 30, 2017
How do you feel about the rising demand for audio books? Is this a good thing or bad thing for literature? As a writer, have you considered reading your work for audio books, podcasts or youtube?

As a busy working mom, and former reading junkie, I rely heavily on audio books to satisfy a thirst I never seem to have the time to quench. While it will never replace the tactile joy of cracking open a book, it at least lets me experience my favorite authors and engage with amazing stories. I will say that as a big fan of James Lee Burke, the audio versions of his books narrated by Will Patton are almost magical. Patton has such a command over Burke's characters that he gives dimensional life to colorful characters like Dave Robicheaux and Clet Purcell. I have found more often than not, a narrator can affect your listening experience no matter how strong the story is and that is a definite drawback. As far as being good for literature, I think if it allows more people to "read" work, it helps - regardless of what form it takes literature needs an audience. If I had the luxury of choosing, I would still prefer to take my dose of literature between actual pages but for now I appreciate the ability to audit them instead.