Navigating the waters of self, motherhood, work, and wife
Daily Prompt: Photographers, artists, poets: show us LOCAL.
Author’s note: This is a scene just outside my office’s garage door. Hence “local.”
A folded cot, a neat stack of blue black blankets Arranged just so and tucked into a brick vestibule Overlooking the alley. With Dumpster views and a Patchwork asphalt carpet, this modest efficiency screams "Bargain!" but not what the resident bargained for. His roll-away stands at attention in this dim limbo, I'm sure, he never imagined.
Daily Prompt: Come Fly with Me
Share a story about the furthest you’ve ever traveled from home.
“Are we on Mars?” I remember thinking to myself as we drove through an area of construction on Route 29S in central Virginia. Large yellow bulldozers and nudged the terra cotta-colored dirt into heaps along the side of the narrow highway. The dirt wasn’t the only unfamiliar sight. Big box stores with names like Rose’s, Belk, and Food Lion flashed by. There were cows and fields and barns falling in on themselves. The loamy, pungent scent of manure filled my nose as I stepped out of the car at the gas station.
I had traveled farther away than this from my home in Connecticut, a bedroom community of New York City, or “The City” as we called it. Even though my family was of modest means, my blue-collar dad made sure we explored the country. I’d been Wyoming, Montana, Utah, and Florida. The difference between this trip and those trips was that my parents would be depositing me at Lynchburg College and leaving me behind.
“If I don’t like college,” I remember asking, “can I come back home?”
I don’t remember my father’s reply. Probably some generic reassurance about feeling better once I got into the swing of things. He could acknowledge my anxiety, but he floundered when it came helping me talk through difficult emotions.
After the lugging my junk to my dorm room and quick tearful goodbye, he and my mom left me alone to sort out my feelings . Far from home.
From The Daily Prompt: On the interview show Inside the Actors’ Studio, host James Lipton asks each of his guests the same ten questions. Here are my responses:
What is your favorite word? Namaste. [Roughly: “The Spirit within me salutes the Spirit in you.”]
What is your least favorite word? [I’m] Bored.
What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Writing.
What turns you off? Dealing with people who act like that they are better than you are.
What is your favorite curse word? Fuckwit (I don’t use it, but I love the sound of it)
What sound or noise do you love? My children laughing together.
What sound or noise do you hate? The screech of tires just before a crash.
What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Visual artist.
What profession would you not like to do? Accounting.
If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates? “Guess who didn’t make the cut?” [Then He shows me all those nasty, hateful religious conservatives like Jerry Falwell, Ken Cucinelli, Jim DeMint, and Ted Cruz languishing in limbo.]
