The Half Full Glass - IWSG March 2025

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. The March co-hosts are Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and  ME! For links to all contributors, click here.

This month’s optional question: If for one day you could be anyone or "thing" in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

This is a pretty creative question and since I don’t often get particularly introspective, I’m finding my answer hard to articulate, but here goes.

If I could be one “thing,” it would be the particular feeling I get in my heart during certain experiences. Without being cliché, although I suppose I am, it’s what I feel after waking on a February morning to see pink clouds behind skeleton trees and realizing the sun is coming up earlier. It’s the joy of discovery when I find the first Snow Drop in my early March garden. It’s the sound of seagulls as they soar over tidal mudflats. It’s the belly laugh I get from my adult daughter when, once again, one of us says what the other is thinking. (“Get out of my brain!” we yell at each other!) It’s the sad-joy I experience when I see a fleeting glimpse of my dear late husband in the gait of his brother who lives next door. It’s the kindness of the volunteers with whom I interact, who use their own time to drive senior citizens to medical appointments, prepare hot meals and deliver food to the homebound in my town. I could go on and on, but I suppose the feeling I’m trying to describe is gratitude for all the gifts I receive and witness on a daily basis. But it goes beyond gratitude. It’s the continued feeling of unexpectedness to these things and an all-encompassing delight that they are a part of my life. The newness never goes away.

I’m aware as a general rule I’m pretty naïve, but humor me here. There are so very many people in the world experiencing challenges beyond anything I can imagine. If I could, I’d infuse my feeling into every being across the world,  so that everyone could experience positivity even when things look beyond bleak. 

If you could be any one or thing, what would you choose?

Back to the Future - IWSG February 2025

 

 Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Co-hosts for February are Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson. For links to all contributors, click here.

February optional question - Is there a story or book you've written you want to/wish you could go back and change?

Funny you should ask. The first book I ever tried to write was such a disaster I put it away, took a couple of writing classes, and moved on to other things. When I thought of that first attempt at all it was only to consider how not being able to write it propelled me forward.

But over a year ago, I found myself at a low point. I had no interest in starting anything new but wanted to keep writing. Rifling through a drawer, I discovered a printout of that first muddle. Sorry to say, it was even worse than I remembered. But the timing was good. Pulling that mess together would certainly involve a challenge.

Today, what was once a wreck of a novel is now a solid piece of work I like. The red-ink comments of a trusted reader are sitting beside my computer. She suggested I rewrite one scene to make the stakes higher, but I'm happy to say that other than that, her feedback was positive, her changes few.

Honestly, I thought this book was a lost cause. Even now I’m surprised I had the nerve to dive into it again. So in answer to this month's question, I can’t say I “wished” to return to this particular story, but I’m delighted I proved to myself that I could.

Do you have stories you wished you could go back and change?

A Tribute - IWSG January 2025

 Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of Alex Cavanaugh. Co-hosts for the January 8 posting of the IWSG are Rebecca Douglass, Beth Camp,  Natalie @ Literary Rambles  and me! For links to all contributors, click here.

This month’s optional question: Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?

The summer I turned sixteen, I spent two months living with my best friend who’d moved one state over when her father purchased a country inn. Looking back on it, I think she was having trouble settling and  her parents imported me to help with that. Whatever. We missed each other like crazy and the plan was we'd both waitress in the inn dining room while having the summer together.

Starting my first paying job in a town where I knew no one but my friend was a bold step for shy me. After my first breakfast shift answering to a barking cook who had zero patience for a scared teenager, I climbed the stairs ready to flop on my bed for a good cry. But in the hall in front of my room, which happened to be next to the laundry area, I encountered a freckle-faced woman holding a bundle of sheets. Her face broke out into a welcoming smile and she greeted me by name, as if she'd been waiting to meet me. I have no idea if she recognized how miserable I was, but if someone asked me to describe an experience representing kindness, it would be that moment.

Kitty was a sort of Jill-of-all-trades around the inn and meeting her was the first thing that gave me comfort during those early awkward days away from home. Every time I saw her she offered me that same brilliant smile. Ultimately and regardless of a fifteen-year age difference, the two of us became friends.

I spent two summers working at the inn and afterwards became a prolific letter writer to folks I met there. Even then I expressed myself better in writing, and foremost and especially, I wrote to Kitty. She rarely wrote back but called on the phone and reached out to me when she was in my area. She invited me to her home on many occasions where we picked blueberries and blackberries in her yard. She and a friend traveled to see me when I was in college in Vermont, and after I graduated, she visited when I worked my last “summer job” on Martha’s Vineyard. We went to lunch when she’d come for appointments while I was employed in the city, and I remember being tickled when she commented about how grown up and professional I looked. The day after Christmas one year, I brought the man who ultimately became my husband up to meet her. Years later, after training as a nurse, she quizzed me when my young daughter and I visited her and she learned I’d had serious  surgery.

And then, as it is wont to do, life happened. A full-time working Mom, I crammed my daughter’s activities, home management, and family demands into the precious little free time I had. Letter-writing (or emailing at that point) landed lower on the priority scale and my regular communication with Kitty petered out. But always, I made sure to write a detailed Christmas letter, and most years, I got a long one back. Though I hadn’t spoken to her for longer than I care to remember, there’s Facebook, and when she discovered I’d lost my husband she called, telling me how even though we’d reached the ages we had, she’d always consider me her “little friend.”

I keep the silver bracelet she gave me for my seventeenth birthday in my jewelry box. I carefully hand wash the one wine glass remaining from a picnic set she sent as a wedding present, thinking of my dear friend every time I use it. These days, I’ve whittled what used to be an extensive Christmas card list down to three, but as always, the first one I wrote this year was to Kitty.

It’s been fifty years since that first summer I encountered her in the hallway, but even now, I think of her smile when I greet people, trying to replicate it with a warmth that starts in my eyes. I know I wore it on my face when I checked my mailbox last week and found her Christmas card inside.

Who had an impact on your life growing up?