Just Another Day (a writing prompt)

But it doesn’t have to be.

And it isn’t.

Believe me when I tell you I know that “same old, same old” feeling. 

It infects me too. LOTS of times.

But the thing is, we have to fight it, because love IS the answer most of the time, but fighting that particular virus like a mo-fo (I can’t use the real term since I’m a teacher and my right to free speech doesn’t exist) is the answer at other times. 

Sure, we can love “what is”. 

But if “what is” is killing us softly, slowly, one tic-tock at a time, that’s a mind battle we need to engage in.

Speaking of mind battles and what is…

Self discipline is not my middle name.

We tussle like siblings over the “whatever there is to tussle about at that current moment in time”. 

I say I’m going to write every day at a certain time and more than not, I get distracted by something shiny, start doing 7 other things or the words don’t flow immediately and I excuse myself in my own mind. I’m still the same writer wannabe and it’s just another day.

The elliptical machine in my garage stares at me mockingly each afternoon as I pull in from work. I tell myself my ankle REALLY is too swollen still (from a broken fibula in August) to attempt a reboot of my fitness routine, and it’s just another day.

But it’s not folks. 

Unless we’re in an unventilated vault or coffin ( there’s a metaphor), there are new molecules swirling around our smiling or sullen faces each moment. Today’s air mass is not yesterday’s. If we pull back the curtains, open the windows, step outside, we’ll see a new sky-scape. Breathe new air. Feel a totally new set of atoms vibrating.

We may be seeing whatever is within our range of vision with tired eyes, but if we truly look closely, we’ll notice that nothing is really the same as it was yesterday. Change is indeed the only constant. We have to make that effort and “intentionally” recognize that though, because some days the clouds of hum-drummery, political dummery ( a new word I just made up) and world chaos as the norm, make it not-so-apparent.

If we do one thing differently today than we did yesterday, then it’s not ” just another day”. 

Whether we do that willingly or begrudgingly doesn’t really matter. What matters is that we do it with purpose. Life often surprises us when we step out of our ruts/comfort zones. One small change, whatever that means in our personal worlds, is all it takes to move from “just another day” to “a new day dawning”. 

I’m preaching to myself here. I OFTEN write the words I need to hear and just let others read them. These ARE new words though, so that proves it. 

It’s not “just another day”! 

Peace and Love

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Dot Dot Dot

 

A November writing prompt

… 

That could be the “hell to the yes” title of my memoir. 

Ellipsis.

Interrupted.

Oh, the stories…

Trailing off.

On her own.

Still much unsaid.

Amidst the cacophonous din.

So much implied.

What lives between those tiny marks?

Whispered dreams?

Unspoken screams?

What eyes can’t belie?

…

CRR

11-10-18

Heartbeats

Preface-

I ordered myself an early birthday present and it arrived today! I’m turning the big 60 in one month, yet how can that be when I still feel 15? All amazement and horror aside, I received an advertisement for a pair of writing gloves ( yes, they’re a thing) imprinted with words about love, (in her own handwriting, Gahhhh! ) from “The Book of Joan” (order it!) by Lidia Yuknavitch. I couldn’t fumble through my purse for that credit card fast enough. 

I put them on and smiled widely. Having attended a writing workshop of hers, I could hear her gorgeous misfit voice, welcoming us all to the freedom of wielding the pen, realizing the power we hold within, and releasing our skin stories. My heart might have skipped a beat or two hundred on that actual day. 

So, here I am on record, declaring that all future writing will be done in these gloves, which I’m sure have been woven with her mermaid magic, empowing oceans of words to flow. 

“Words carry oceans on their small backs.” 

Lidia Yuknavitch

Heartbeats. A November writing prompt. 
Beginnings, endings, and everything in between. It, the word “heartbeats”, truly does carry an ocean. The swells, the breaks, the highs and the lows it creates as each signals tides of blood being pumped through our bodies, capillaries, veins and arteries, containing that which allows us to live. 

I remember the icy gel on my bulging belly, and the magic wand that allowed me to hear the pulsing rhythm of a baby growing into life inside my womb. Everyday moments when I was sure my heart would explode with joy or pride as the beats seemed to echo outside of me. Unbidden moments, when the beats signaled danger or fear. Hollow moments filled with the ceasing of a loved ones’ heart, flooding the shores of my soul with grief. 

I have a friend who refers to her children as “her heartbeats” and I get that, as our loved ones are often the reasons we continue, to fight battles we didn’t initiate, to wake up to another sunrise and go on. Our heartbeats can be the pulse of life’s blood when our proverbial “get up and go” has got up and gone. 

We mourn the heartbeats we no longer hear, the ones slowly becoming more faint. The ones that still beat afar through chests our ears once laid upon. 

Our heartbeats are gauges physicians read, whispers and echoes we ignore at times and broadcast at others. Signals received or dismissed, consciously or not. An indication of life and death, a heartbeat contains all the words, all the hopes and dreams, all the misgivings and regrets, all the oceans of emotions that flow through the days and nights of our lives. 

Listen to yours. It has a message for you.

Peace and Love

2:22

Things I do when I awake at 2:22 with foot cramps. Get up and drink a glass of water. Return to bed hopefully and listen to hubs snore for 1 more hour while contemplating the sadness of our country right now as we try to process yet another hate crime. Wonder if we’re going to have to move to another, less hateful country, one with a less idiotic, disgraceful, hate-mongering president. Wonder what more I can do besides vote. Get up and make coffee. Read and respond to posts from so many friends whose hearts are filled with a unidentified sadness. Watch a tribute video for the victims of The Tree of Life massacre. Think about two of them, Sylvan and Bernice Simon, standing in that very same synagogue 60 years ago and pledging their love till death, not knowing they would be slaughtered in that exact spot by pure evil and hate. Cry a little more for all of us. Drink more coffee. Sign up for a free online Jane Austen course that promises she’ll illuminate the beauty of everyday life. Hope that will be enough to keep the tears at bay, at least between the hours of 7:30 and 3:30, when my mission includes inspiring and leading the next generation towards tolerance of individual differences, instilling the desire to make a positive difference in the world, increasing recognition of our interdependence and encouraging them to spread kindness and love. Check and recheck for typos. Realize I’m going to piss some people off. Post anyway. 

Peace and Love

That Girl

This is me, filing an informal complaint with the Department of No One Cares, about the fact that 3:15 AM is now the new norm for the non-arrival of my muse. There’s no “obvious” reason I should awaken at this time each night, yet I do, and then get caught in the trap of comparing myself to a girl who use to write thought provoking, inspirational, and even occasionally funny essays. That girl who felt a fire in her belly and rushed to her desk to watch the letters pour out, conjoin their covalent bonds and form flames. That girl who danced back and forth between fingers of fire and refused to be burned. That fire-sign girl who defiantly fanned the torrid air, coyly giving the world “the finger”, the action disguised as rubbing her cheek. That pelagic girl that could never be drowned by the frigid flow of mind numbingness. That Neptunian girl whose fluid ache is palpable as her saline self seeks depths like those from which she arose. That girl.

Peace and Love

10-18-18

Three Wishes

Life can be disheartening, chaotic and painful. No matter our age, our gender, our “station”, how educated we are, how much money we have or how pretty, handsome or talented others think we are, there are 3 things we all would benefit from on those disheartening, chaotic and painful days. I recently came upon this brick on a street in Atlantic Beach, FL. It’s a wish from someone else to all whose footsteps would fall upon that path. Today it’s my wish for you. Let’s pass it on.

Peace and Love
CRR

10-7-18

Endings Are Also Beginnings

“The world is round, and the place which may seem like the end may also be the beginning.”

IVY BAKER PRIEST

Midnight marks the Autumnal Equinox and the first day of Fall. Fall doesn’t make me think of flannel shirts, boots or pumpkin spice anything. Fall makes me think of endings, which are often disguised as beginnings. The end of summer vacation, and the freedoms of hour-less periods of play and dreams and epic-love teen kisses. Summer vacation and hometown adventures, powered by lanky bare-footed legs, a ten speed bicycle, Slurpees and Jolly Ranchers. Summer vacation, morning light licenses to freely explore and darkness, the only curfew. Summer vacation, Lake Conway, PBJs, potato chips, Pepsi and a mom who took us every day. Summer vacation, a white bikini and creamscicles. Summer vacation and white hot sugar sand, salty air and hair and the ocean taking all of a 16 year old’s worries away. Fall and the day I called it quits. The day I changed my life. The day I decided I’d had enough of childhood and restrictions. The day I viewed the Lake Eola fountain from the back seat of a car headed north on I-4 for the exotic unknown, with tears in my eyes. The day I emancipated myself and began my own journey. The first day of Fall. The first of many endings and beginnings. The first realization of what life is all about. Endings and beginnings. Rising and falling and rising again. Persist.

Peace and Love

There Will Be Dark Days

It’s hella hard to embrace the darkness. I’m not talking about the darkness of being away from a city, where exponential stars illuminatethe charcoal night with brightness. I’m talking about the in your head ebony that drowns you, like quicksand, or the kind that sidles up next to you disguised as a best friend and settles like a sharp knife in between your bones. Can one really expect someone to be thankful for the pain, the sadness, the loneliness of days that feel like you’re naked and being beaten for sport?

Life isn’t easy, even when it looks that way for everyone else. And our world is one of opposites. We can’t have one without the other. How do we learn to sit with both? There’s only one way. We sit and breathe. We start. We don’t expect instantaneous, miraculous results. We keep doing those three things until we’re successful in understanding that change is the only constant, that life can be both wonderful and cruel. And we have it in us, not only to make it through, but to scale that next mountain and arrive at a place that we can triumphantly raise our arms and howl from. 

We’ve got this.

CRR

9-18-18

I’m Killin It

Some days you might have to fake it till you make it and take help where you can get it! Like me, today. I’m killing it here this morning from my bed, broken leg still elevated and iced, waiting impatiently for Amazon to deliver my walker so I can stop almost killing myself on crutches! Get up, get out and shine your light if you can! The world needs it and you! 

CRR

8-25-18

✌🏼️💞

What Is Your Verse?

In my Montessori educator training, I learned the philosophy of “Cosmic Education” and how it is the work of the educator to guide and enable each child to seek and find their cosmic purpose, their verse. Each of us has one, belonging only to us and it’s our task to discover the contribution that is ours to make. It’s why we’re here, to contribute positively to the big interconnected, interdependent mosaic that is our world.

What is your verse? You may not realize you have one, but you do. You may not think it’s unique, but it is! You may not have discovered it yet and that’s okay! The powerful play continues and the opportunities for you to do that arrive anew with each morning’s sunrise. Every day we get another chance to discover our passion, our purpose, our reason for being and to contribute our unique verse to the powerful play of life. And who knows, in doing so we might just help others discover theirs.
CRR

8-24-18