✝️🙏🏼✨🌸
My son tells me that when he is in his twenties, all the Arctic sea ice will be gone. My gaze stoic, I tell him that is scary. “Are you sure?” I ask.
We briefly discuss actionable steps we are taking as a family to be kind to the earth.
I do not know which is fading faster, my memories of things I learned in grade school or the ice floating in the Arctic.
Earth Day
Should have been every day
It’s almost over
It’s Haibun Monday at dVerse. Frank prompts us to write about Earth Day.🌎
What makes you nervous?
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding.”
Proverbs 3:5 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/pro.3.5.NLT
As someone who has struggled with anxiety most of my life, at times without even having a name to diagnose the feeling, anything and everything can make me nervous. Standing in line at the grocery store, passing someone in an aisle, people make me nervous. Speaking makes me nervous. For years after I got clean, when I spoke, my voice would crack. That made me nervous.
Interaction with humans makes me nervous. Touch makes me nervous. I’ve had a number of things happen during my lifetime that have wired my brain in certain ways, I guess. I sometimes startle if someone brushes against me unexpectedly. It doesn’t matter if the person is a friend or a stranger.
I lived in Orange County, California, for a time. I stayed with my uncle who had a big house quite literally in the hills. I remember it was a forty minute walk to the entrance of the community he lived in. Walking in California made me nervous. I’d walk around the neighborhood, fearing drive by shootings. The fear was intense and overwhelming. I acknowledged then that the fear was probably very irrational. I couldn’t help it. Ironically, one time that I walked to a bus stop right outside the neighborhood, people in a car that drove by threw an egg at me. It cracked and I had raw egg all over me. “Welcome to California,” I thought.
There is an up side, I suppose, to having a heightened sense of awareness of my surroundings, and a hyper-vigilance. I’m always observing, and I’m likely to see whatever is happening before it happens. Another (I suppose) trauma response is that I become very effective in a crisis. For instance, I worked as a cashier at a local Turkey Hill in PA. I was in my early twenties. I worked the overnight shift. Drunk customers made me nervous. Weird men talking with me at 3am made me nervous. Anyway, one night I was stocking one of those refrigerated cases that hold sandwiches and things, it made a loud humming noise. I didn’t hear anyone come in, and I looked up and a man wearing a mask put a gun to my back and told me to get the money from the register. I automatically carried out the assignment in a calm, collected manner.
The man and his accomplice were arrested, and thankfully I wasn’t needed to testify. I was afraid to work in the store by myself at night after that, especially afraid to go around aisles or turn corners. Come to think of it, there was another incident where a young man had been hit in the head with a pistol out in the parking lot. He walked into the store in a daze, blood dripping down his head and face. I think I handled that calmly as well. What I couldn’t handle was cleaning up a stranger’s blood, it didn’t matter to me that there was some kit to do it. I was underpaid at that job.
Thinking about bugs crawling in my mouth at night makes me nervous. My bank account makes me nervous. Thinking about my children being hurt makes me nervous. I could list hundreds (at least) of experiences and ideas in this life that make me nervous. Truly, what I have now to counteract that nervousness is “but God”. Seriously, try it. Anything you are nervous about or afraid of, just stick “but God” afterwards. It is a powerful phrase. If, like me, you believe that you’ll end up someplace nice after this human life, then there’s nothing in this material world that can even come close to shaking that confidence.
I struggle with anxiety, but God is healing me of that. It might still be there, but I think I’m restored a little more each day, in what I am able to accomplish in spite of. I used to fear speaking to anyone, but God has vastly improved that to a point where you’ll probably rarely notice. I struggle with financial security, but I know God can take that weight from me if I surrender it to Him, and it is a constant surrender. I have evidence that God always shows up. I feel like a dust bunny–so fragile-minded!
Writing about anxiety made me a little nervous, but God… If no one told you they love you today, but God… and me.🙏🏻❤️
Hello! Welcome to Melissa’s Fandango Flash Fiction Challenge. Each week I will post an image I grab off the internet and challenge bloggers to write a flash fiction piece or a poem inspired by the image. There are no style or word limits.
The image below is from Anastasia Shuraeva at Pexels.
The image depicts a little girl sitting cross-legged on a floor. She is looking right at us. We see plants in the background, along with art hung on a wall. The little girl has jars of red, blue, and yellow paint, along with a glass of water and a paintbrush. On the wall immediately behind her, we see a menagerie of painted symbols, swirls, a handprint.
If this week’s image inspires you and you wish to participate, please write your post and use the tag #FFFC. Please create a pingback to this post and/or manually add your link in the comments. I hope it will generate some great posts. Don’t forget to stop back and read/comment on the posts of others. Thank you for participating!🎨
What kind of apparition are
you? Why’ve you come to me this hour?
Why ‘tis that you only glower–
has someone broke your devil’s heart?
Then what has caused you to depart,
seeking solace within this place,
such violence scrawled upon your face?
I fear I’ve not one remedy;
that you’re perhaps the death of me;
alas, our paths have interlaced..
An espinela for Val’s Poetry Scavenger Hunt and Sadje’s What Do You See?
Questo numero del Domenicale è dedicato alla cara memoria di Antonio Bianchetti, il Barman del Club. Buona domenica. . Ranuncolo . Mio ranuncolo …
Gioielli Rubati 297: Emilio Capaccio – Anna Maria Bonfiglio – Melissa Lemay – mimi – Chiedo ai sassi che nome vogliono – Manuel Calderon – Silviatico…
What a wonderful privilege to have poetry of mine translated to Italian. You may read the original poem at Literary Revelations, here. Grazie mille!🤗
Water cascades over stacked rock
Reflecting rivulets of lightspray
On an ordinary day
At twilight fireflies walk
Reflecting rivulets of lightspray
Water cascades over stacked rock
Flowering crimson bee balm sways
Paying homage to glittering sun
Cherry blossoms come undone
Lining trodden dirt pathways
Paying homage to glittering sun
Flowering crimson bee balm sways
Ivy creeps along the floor
Breathing its soft song to pebbles
Under which dirt and dust settle
From the branches and limbs they wore
Breathing its soft song to pebbles
Ivy creeps along the floor
A series of biolets written for Rebecca’s monthly poetry challenge, Day 17 on Prolific Pulse, and Day 19 of Paul Brooke’s Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge.
Umbrella array floats, hovers
Canopy of brilliance covers
Happiness abounds
Sunlight lost and found
Without sound
Love’s colors
A clogyrnach, written for Val’s Poetry Scavenger Hunt and my weekly flash fiction challenge.
I emptied out my pockets to make room
for my trip to fly to a faraway island.
I needed a secret code, leaving soon.
I imagined all of the contraband
I’d bring back from my trip to the island–
fresh fruit to plant trees, and grow them
from seed; gold; iron ore; contraband
galore! Maybe a few new recipes then.
Apple, cherry and peach trees I’ll plant,
and maybe some coconuts, too.
I’ll learn some yummy new recipes
that will make all my island guests croon.
How many coconuts grow on a tree?
Well my guess is three, how about you?
All the guests on my island home sweet
home will croon over my coconut stew.
Coconuts on tree, three, and three
islands out on the wide ocean blue.
Coconut stew with coconut cream,
I’ll make it a dream come true.
I’m off to an island on wide ocean blue.
I’ve my secret code, I’m leaving soon.
Gathering treasure, a dream come true–
I emptied my pockets to make room.
A pantoum written for Meeting the Bar at dVerse, where Merril is hosting. I’ll write you a poem if you can guess the inspiration for this piece.🥥
Pink petals
softly fallen down, pollen
dust unevenly settled
Swept from streets
to the earth, that embraces
every fallen flow’r leaf
March winds sigh,
sending icy chill sweeping–
reluctantly April shies
Soon she sprays
fistfuls of colorful flow’rs
like confetti into May
Treochair written for Val’s Poetry Scavenger Hunt; Day 17 of Paul Brookes’ Ekphrastic Poetry Challenge; and Wea’ve Written Weekly, where Heather is hosting. PS I can’t stop looking at the below picture. Are those ferrets?🩷
Mom With a Blog