Tuesday, March 1, 2016

The Diary

  “Please read my diary, look through my things and figure me out.”  Kurt Cobain

      Grace received her first diary years ago for Christmas from her Aunt Marge.  She had been twelve at the time and she had regarded the shiny red cover wondering what she would do with it.  She didn’t like to write.  Of course, she tried to act thrilled.  She didn’t want to hurt Aunt Marge’s feelings.  Her mother would have been livid if she had and there would have been hell to pay.  Not long after, Aunt Marge died in a tragic car accident.  She remembered the day in exact, glaring detail.  Snowy, treacherous roads and a bit of ice had sealed Aunt Marge’s destiny.  The accident set a series of events in motion that would change Grace’s life forever.  One by one her family left.  First her mother died, and then her dad. Finally, her little brother had fallen through the ice one fateful day while ice skating.  By the time she was 20, they were all gone leaving Grace alone to conquer the world.  
     She met Rob by accident.  A dear friend had set her up on a blind date.  The weirdest thing happened, though.  Her date couldn’t come.  Instead, he sent flowers with his apology.  Rob delivered the flowers and they connected immediately.  Compelled to see her again, he sent flowers to her and delivered them himself.  A whirlwind romance followed which culminated in a marriage proposal. Grace said yes before Rob even finished what he had to say.   Since Grace no longer had any family to speak of, she was eager to start a family of her own.  Just a little over a year later she welcomed a son who became her pride and joy.  A daughter soon followed, and soon it seemed her dreams of a family were complete. 
    The years passed.  Her son enlisted in the navy when war broke out, and at the tender age of 19, died in battle.  Grace's heart shattered into a million pieces.  Her grief palpable, she remained inconsolable.  Her diary filled to overflowing with tear stained prose.  
     Still her daughter remained.    Soon, Grace’s diary focused revolved around Elise and Rob's comings and goings.  Somewhere along the way, Grace ceased to exist.  Her life ceased to matter.  Her feelings were never discussed within the pages of her most recent diary.  In her mind, she was insignificant.  They were her whole world. 
After another joyous Christmas celebration, Rob suffered a fatal heart attack. One minute he was at her side, the next he was gone.  Grace wrote pages and pages in her diary as she coped.  She mourned her life partner, and once again the pages became smudged and tear stained.  Her daughter did all she could to see to Grace's needs, but then life stepped in once again.  Her daughter accepted a wonderful job thousands of miles away.  Grace mustered her strength, put a brave face on it, and saying goodbye, wished her well.
Years passed.  With each passing year, Grace withdrew a bit farther into herself.  She stopped associating with the outside world and became a modern day recluse.  Those she loved most in life had gone leaving her behind.  She longed to join them.  She longed to be free of her lonely life.  She played her music.  She created her art.  She survived, a prisoner of her dark thoughts and feelings of helplessness. She put on a brave, showed the world giggles and smiles because that is what she thought the world wanted to see.  She confided only in her diary.  She prayed that when her time was up, that whoever found her diaries would read them and understand. 






Sunday, January 24, 2016

Sleep Haiku



rest for the weary
escape from reality
the soul's siesta


Inspired by the prompt at




Monday, January 18, 2016

#Monday Musings

           It’s Monday.  It’s Martin Luther King Day.  Wow.  I haven’t written anything since November 11, 2015. That is a long time.  Do I even still remember how to write?  We will see, won’t we?  Where have I been?  Sick.  I have been sick with pneumonia all this time.   My husband had pneumonia which led to him being unable to work for two weeks.  The only blessing was that the kids never got sick once.  He got better.  I didn’t.  Go figure.  I mean, I have no trains to catch, no job outside the home, so who truly gives a rat’s ass if I ever get well?  It has been a long, depressing road.  We survived the holidays.  The internet was off at our house all this time.  I had the internet on my phone, but nowhere else.  Honestly, I didn’t feel well enough to waddle from my bed to the bathroom, let alone write.  I kept a low profile and flew under the radar battling depression, my own demons, and making a minute by minute attempt to literally cough up my vagina and every bodily fluid I could possibly possess.  Have you ever coughed so hard that you literally peed your pants? Or worse?  I have been there and done that and, this time, didn’t even have the joyous excuse of being pregnant.

        So here I am! For those of you that wondered if I died, you didn’t get that lucky.  I am still struggling along somehow with my messed up  humor and special brand of sarcasm very much intact.   With that said I’ll be giving this writing thing another go.  I am older, struggling with mental-pause hormones.  The up- side is that my doctor finally figured out that perhaps I needed a bit of medicinal help with that situation when I shared that I normally step out on my back stoop in subzero temps in my underwear, barefoot…in the snow,  because I am sweating my ass off.  Behavior like that doesn’t really help the whole attempt to get over pneumonia.

       I have discovered a few things about myself during this time period, though.  The first, and perhaps the most important is that I giggle when I am nervous and uncomfortable.  It isn’t because I am particularly happy.  I also laugh hysterically when I am amused, which still happens quite regularly.   I talk entirely too much when prompted.  I probably share things I relate with and am amused by entirely too much on Facebook.   I am perhaps a bit too honest for most people’s tastes and probably a whole lot inappropriate.  I am convinced that it is a public service for me to isolate myself as much as possible which is why I hide behind writing fiction and haiku.  I also realize that I am just not that great of a writer, but I am OK with that now.  I will write for the fun of it and see how it goes and have absolutely no illusions that I belong at the top of any writing heap.  Sometimes you just need to let it out and vent. Sometimes you simply have to realize that God never abandoned you after all and you are OK.  And then sometimes, you need to quit caring so much, and simply try again.  That is what I am attempting to do.



#MondayMusings