June in France! IWSG

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Our lovely IWSG co-hosts this fine month of June are...
SE White, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguire, Joylene Nowell Butler, Jacqui Murray!

Please go visit their sites and thank them for keeping us going this month!

I am writing this from the other side of the ocean from home, again! I am so very happy to be here, back in France with more folks that I love and cherish. Not to mention the landscapes! I hope you are having as wonderful summer as I am. This will be short for this month but I wish you all the best!

Hello May! Hello IWSG!

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Hearts are resilient even if fragile. 

Love brings joy over-filling and grief over fills as well. 

Time, such an ethereal yet solid concept can't be manipulated no matter how much one wishes it could. 

May brings color and life back from monochrome winter, soothing souls.

Longing sits down and watches, knowing its turn will come again, soon enough. It is patient.

MAY 4 IWSG Question: It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times) and writer lows (the crappy times)?

Having the characters speak and let me know what they want is a great high.

Having no love while working is a very sad low.

The IWSG co-hosts blessing us this month are:

Kim Elliott ,Melissa Maygrove ,Chemist Ken Lee Lowery Nancy Gideon!

Please drop by their sites and thank them!

Happy Spring

Saddest April Ever and IWSG

 

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I missed yesterday because we had to let go of our little furry bundle of love, Boney, and I couldn't handle anything. The loss is overwhelming. The grief is there, then gone, then back again. No way to control it. No way to make sense of it. No clarity. Just empty space. A hole. My eyes hurt. My heart is so broken I don't know how to fix it yet. I "know" time will help. But right now nothing does. I try to tell myself that people in Ukraine have it sooooo much worse than I do. But I relate to their grief and loss even more than I did before. My pain is real. Not to be diminished by others also in pain. This is what I tell myself. Nothing helps. I took off work this morning but will go back this afternoon. I will be brave. I will do what I must. I will not be able to not think of Boney, so I will let the tears come as they will and do the best that I can.

Bonaparte (Boney) May 15, 2012 - April 6, 2022

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Please go and visit those awesome co-hosts who have volunteered for April!

 Joylene Nowell Butler, Jemima Pett, Patricia Josephine, 

Louise - Fundy Blue, and Kim Lajevardi!

Missed March IWSG But Am Here Now, Kind Of

 

March has come in like a whirlwind and carried me away with it. I am back now, for the most part, but not totally up to par. My little love, Bonaparte, Boney for short, is sitting on a precipice between life and going away. It happened so fast, took us by surprise, and we are still trying to help him get better. So, with my mind on this I won't write much today. Please think of us and send prayers and love Boney's way. We need all that we can get. 

Also, please visit our co-hosts for IWSG this month and say Hi and thank them...

Joylene Nowell Butler, Jemima Pett, Patricia Josephine, Louise - Fundy Blue, Kim Lajevardi!

Our Boney...

Fluttering February & IWSG

 

Good day to everyone! February, a time for love and madness, and, Black History (and my mother's birthday!). Weather is funky. Some look forward to celebrating with their special other, some rant because they don't have one. This month, leaning into spring, is one that feels like an "in between" month in the whole of the year. It's still winter, but we are teased at times with blue skies, then plunged back into gray. And we're all waiting for the cold to warm and the buds to begin showing their green promises of spring. And the ground hog doesn't help at all! Black History Month gives more meaning to February for me and I enjoy learning from all the resources that now abound about that missing part of this country's heritage.

Since I'm on break from writing, I've been concentrating on my other work with children (in before/after school programs with the YWCA) and find these little precious beings filling my soul. I am blessed to be appreciated by them, that they feel safe with me and my colleagues. Living on the edge of, well, fear-unrest-nervousness about Covid, we have to make sacrifices every day for their safety and ours and they do, too. I hate it for them, but am also glad because they still get to come to school. They still get this time to catch up on what they missed the years before. They are learning again to socialize and be a part of something bigger than themselves: their community. So far we haven't had to close any programs! Our parents are being wonderful and understanding and trusting us to help care for their children when they need us to do so. I feel like this work is helping me grow as a person (and it helps give me my "Kiddy " fix since my only grandchild lives in France!)

I wanted to share this and Black History Month with you, because I'm so very, very, VERY tired of "bad" news all the time. I can't stand to listen to most of it anymore because it's so off balance of "real" life. I DO read CNN's "Good News" newsletter every weekend and smile every time. It is so nice to read something positive and to see how many really beautiful/wonderful/gentle/loving people there are in the world. I count all of you IWSG'ers among them. You make me feel special and a part of something really good and much bigger than myself. I thank you for that and for being who you are.

The IWSG question of the month is: Is there someone who influenced or supported you that perhaps isn't around anymore? Anyone you miss?

Yes. My father. My Dad was a writer and great reader all my life. I've already mentioned on a different post here how, when we were kids our father had us write short one page stories for our allowance. He would then read them with us and correct our spelling or whatever. When I decided to listen to my soul and write, he was my greatest supporter (my mom too!) and he encouraged me, not only to write, but gave me the facts of how hard it would be. I miss him more than words can convey.

Please go and visit our co-hosts this month and thank them for helping out!

Joylene Nowell Butler, Jacqui Murray, Sandra Cox,Lee Lowery!

So, I hope February, BLACK HISTORY MONTH, is not just an "in between" month for you and that you find something precious and positive in it this year. Happy February!