Category: Gratitude

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Have You Enjoyed Life?

This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. The prompt today is inspired by a question in Brother, I’m Dying asked by one of Edwidge Danticat’s brothers of his father after he tells his children he has a fatal disease. Goldberg asks us to answer that same question, honestly – to do an honest assessment.

I’ve chosen a shape poem today, also called a concrete poem since it takes the form of a tangible object or symbol shape. So here’s a lamp to shed a little truth on the answer to the question today.

Shedding Light On the Subject

I’ll answer

since you asked

I’ve enjoyed life, sure,

but I’m gonna squeeze out

the pulp and drink the dregs~

I’m ready

to retire

to travel

to linger over coffee

to wear comfortable shoes

I don’t want to slide into home

like a lot of people say they do

oh no, I want to be a little old

lady shuffling in with

hardly a breath left

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You Need to Know This

This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Begin the writing with “You Need to Know This” to complete today’s prompt.

Whenever we are anywhere and the Eagles ask that question in Take it to the Limit, we stop and nod. Yes, always.

They’re Singing Our Song

you need to know this:

if it all fell to pieces

tomorrow, I’d still

be yours, Eagles-style

taking it to the limit

my answer is yes.

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What are you Waiting For?

This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt asks the question, “What are you Waiting For?”

Today I offer you a tricube. It’s three stanzas of three lines with 3 syllables.

Let’s Just Be Real

I’m waiting

to retire

next chapters

exciting

relaxing

traveling

reading books

in sweatpants

until noon

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Body of Water

This month, I continue writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt is to tell about a body of water with which you are familiar. What comes to mind is the creek that ran through the back yard of our honeymoon house years ago.

Honeymoon Creek

its babbling trickle

from the top of the mountain ~

we watched for black bears

from our wraparound

porch with fireplace and rockers

sipping fresh coffee

~ always, it seems, I

wish we were living right there

in all the wonder

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Open Write Day 1 of 3 September 2025 with Kelsey Bigelow

Today’s host of the first day of September’s Open Write at http://www.ethicalela.com is Kelsey Bigelow, who works as a mental health poet and renowned author of books, slam poetry events, and writing workshops in Iowa. You can read all about Kelsey and visit today’s prompt and poems here, as she inspires us to think about what lives on the “good side of memories.” Today’s writing is rooted in stream of consciousness writing that can live on in that form or be the start of one that takes root for another.

It’s All in the Kneading and Knowing

the happiest thing

I’ve ever tasted was that moment

when in my grief

soul-gutting tears in a

big-enough-for-all

walls of a VRBO

reverberating sniffles

and crumpled Kleenex

and happy laughs of

oblivious grandchildren playing

with their newest cousin

trying to teach him

to walk at six months

and believing he could

the strains of Amazing Grace

sung to a guitar

by the rest of us trying

to sing with the best of us

believing we could

as we all sat piled high

on the curved couch

pajama-clad, remembering

*******. ********

then one broke the silence

asking for a happier moment

in the autumn – another together

time when smiles returned

then another added

yeah, when

any of us can

make a word from tiles in

turntable Scrabble

and another added

yeah, and only if Mom

brings the pumpkin bread

and right then

in those delicate moments

I knew three things:

that I had taken the reins

as the newest family elder and

that tradition of togetherness

lives on in food tried first

as a flopped recipe

when they’re toddlers, then tested

again and again to perfection

by the time they’re teenagers

and can’t think of gatherings

without it and

that families too

are like that ~

learning to walk

learning to sing

learning to bake

learning to live on

believing

through all the tears and laughter

that together

we can

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Secret Life

Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today, the post asks about the secret life or hidden dialogue of our pets or plants – or whatever lives in our homes.

Cat and Mouse Games

I think our garage ghost’s name is Felix

born in Waycross, Georgia in 1944

died in Brunswick, Georgia in 2025

a real cat all his life, a preacher

who knew the pleasures of wine

and wanted to taste the whole world

with every taste bud on heightened

sensory awareness because when

my brother and I left Five Star Bank

we ran into Al Brown

the church drummer who told

us in the Tramici’s parking lot that

our dad had come to him in a dream

and told him Heaven was great, that

…you can go anywhere you want, Al!

I was just in Minnesota yesterday….

and I stopped in my tracks

drew in my breath ~ because

that told me Dad and Gus

my sister-in-law’s father

are paying visits to their children

that they’d been to see Greg in

Minnesota (we know no other

soul in Minnesota)

Greg, my sister-in-law’s brother

who knew me well enough already

at the reception during the

sibling speeches to fear I might

push him in the pool

and now the cat and mouse are

on the loose

prowling around in my

garage posing as orbs

for the cameras

keeping me up all night

putting me on heightened

sensory awareness

Felix and Gus

a cat and a mouse

playing games

….as always….

*references to Felix the Cat and Gus, a mouse from Disney’s Cinderella

**Dr. Felix Haynes and Dr, Gus Hernandez died three months apart earlier this year

***One was a Southern Baptist, one a devout Catholic…..and now we have a Baptist and a Catholic ghost teamed up visiting friends and family in the afterlife. One shows up as an orb on Ring cameras, and one sets off fire alarm. Shenanigans.

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Peace

Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. Today’s prompt is about what brings peace and what is not peaceful in your day. As a fan of visual poetry, I chose the form of the breathing wave today the way it may appear on a screen in a medical office (scroll fast and you can see the wave appear in the line breaks.

Where Peace Lives

I’m up at 5 a.m. writing

most days, even today – a

weekend I’ve longed for

after months of long

trips home to clean out

Dad’s house. Peace awaits

~ coffee, silence, cool gray screen

backlit keyboard, eye masks ~ where

the meditations of mind and memory

converge without to-do lists

and deadlines and data

keeping the pulse in

check, breathing

slowly, deeply

where I belong

before the clock

kicks in, governing

routine like a thief of

time, getting in the way

of the relaxed pace of

living without all the

demands awaiting

outside these

doors in the

real world

I find my

peace

here

…..

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Suffering

Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, and I’m continuing this month so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts.Today’s post asks us to consider all the ways people suffer.

I’m not in a mindset to write as much about suffering since I’ve seen my father’s suffering through illness and death so recently – and it has left some raw wounds not yet healed – but I am in a mindset of certainty that once the suffering is over, there is great reward and comfort in the arms of a loving Heavenly Father. I can imagine the desserts at the buffet are pretty tasty, too, and calorie-free, but I have appealed to the Lord to please ban Dad from the dessert table until we get his house and storage rooms cleaned out. I have a secret hope that there is a big screen TV in Heaven and he’s having to sit in a time-out chair and watch us clean it all out while all the other angels up there are swooning over the cakes and pies. We asked Dad so many times to please let us help him clean up and get some affairs sorted out, but we were always met with his insistence that he had it under control. And his attitude.

His definition of ‘under control’ and ours were on opposite ends of the spectrum. Nothing was under control. Most things in his house, health, mind, and world were, in fact, spinning out of control. This, too, I’m convinced, was all a part of his suffering in not being able to admit he could no longer function – – and having too much pride to accept the help he so desperately needed.

I’m convinced: we are all suffering. If we were to all sit in a circle and generate ideas about the order of the worst kinds of suffering, we might could gnaw all the meat off the bone with our stories.

And then, there is Romans 8:18: For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. And herein lies a Haiku to remind us of this truth:

all the suffering

cannot compare to the joy

of Heaven’s blessings

Amen.

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Reaching

This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. For this last day of August, the question asks: what are you reaching for? The end of the month provides a perfect time to reflect and set the sails for the last four months of 2025.

I’m reaching for better days ahead

more fitting for a woman of almost 60

to live out some dreams

go traveling

tend the parched plants

pet the dogs

read happy books

wear comfortable clothes

cook meals

drink morning porch coffee

chase waterfalls

sip wine

have time to call my own

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How I Learned to Drive

This month, I’m writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa. Today’s post inspires us to write about how we learned to drive.

In a Volkswagen

I learned how to drive in a

red Squareback stick shift

I still remember those days vividly – especially the day I pulled out in front of a car coming around a curve to make a left-hand turn at the last minute, thinking I had time. I don’t know how I avoided a collision, but I am convinced it was the other driver’s reaction time that kept us from wrecking. My mother was on the passenger side, and I remember the look of sheer fear on her face. She screamed, and the other driver laid on the horn.

This is what comes to mind when I think of the patience of my mother. She didn’t take my license away or put me on restriction – she quietly reminded me of the consequences of decisions that are made too quickly without enough forethought. Unintended consequences often have impacts on others that can’t always be undone.

Some lessons are never forgotten, and some words come rippling back right through the years.

Last night at our County Commissioners’ meeting, in a count of 4 to 1, our Commissioners did something no other Board has ever done in Georgia history. In a “hold my beer” move by one Commissioner who confused courage with a lack of sense, he made a motion to reject the school board’s millage rate proposal. The consequences for this are now that our county Tax Commissioner will not be able to collect taxes until the millage rate is submitted. The deadline is September 1. Today is August 27. I fear for the ripple effect that may close our library doors or other county departments; this impacts far more people than school leaders who are charged with making the best decisions for their schools and taxpayers worried about pennies on the dollar in their own pockets.

The one vote against this act of senselessness was my husband, I’m proud to say. As one who rarely comments or gets involved in politics on any level, I applaud his standing up for what is right in the face of overwhelming opposition. He voted for what was right.

It’s comforting to know that there are drivers who, unlike me in my learning days, do not put others in jeopardy. I rest fully in the confidence of his ability to lead and to drive. I pray for the ones who do not know what they do not know and do not count the costs.