A creative writing prompt

From time to time I will post a writing prompt for my writing friends and former students who check in here.
Tonight's prompt:
Imagine you are taking a walk, all alone, at night. The street or road is quiet, no traffic, and the moon is the only light. Suddenly, ahead you see a figure walking toward you. It is someone familiar, but you have never met in person. This person can be from your childhood, your school years, or from your life as an adult.
You both stop and carry on a conversation. Write about this meeting.

Send me your writing on this prompt if you'd like and I'll post it with your photo on this site.
Send to writerlady21@yahoo.com

Debbie's "retarded" Cat is cured

My friend Debbie told me an amazing story about her cat. Debbie rescued a cat that was about to be euthanized because it was "retarded." The cat was not adoptable, but kind-hearted Debbie, who would save all the animals in the world if she could, took the unwanted kitty into her home.

Debbie carefully chose cat litter and bought a covered litter box. Right away Debbie noticed the poor cat's problem. It would pass out and fall down. At times the cat would become unconscious and fall from high places, hitting the floor with a hard thump.

With the cat's history, Debbie thought this could be what had caused the "brain damage" -- the reason the cat was said to be retarded.

Luckily for this little kitty, Debbie did some research and discovered the litter she was using was poisoning the cat. First the litter with fragrance and then the second one, the clay, caused the cat's fainting spells.

The litter was replaced with a natural pine product, and within days the cat was fine. No more passing out. "He does have a brain and now he is smart," Debbie told me on the phone.

If she had not investigated and been persistent, the cat would probably have ended up being euthanized.

Debbie is one who has learned the hard way about chemicals and products we use that are harmful to people and pets. She owns a cleaning business and has her own problems with chemical sensitivity. No longer can she use bleach for cleaning, and she can no longer use products with fragrance on her person or in her house. In her fifties now, the products she has used all these years have damaged her with the harmful chemical fumes she breathed. She believes that anyone who cleans with the popular brands on the shelves will eventually develop the same sensitivities. Debbie has searched far and wide for safe products. I appreciate her suggestions for clean, green products available locally and by mail-order.

Like that poor cat, when chemically sensitive people are overcome with harmful fumes that shut off the oxygen to their bodies, their brains don't work properly. We can't think when we can't breathe. One day we all may be presumed "retarded" like Debbie's cat.

Blogging and learning is ongoing exercise.

I've made a change to this blog with embedded comments and I hope to see if it works on this post.
Blogging on blogger.com is an ongoing learning exercise. They constantly try to find better ways to bring about the interaction we want on a blog.
With embedded comments, we hope to make it easier for our readers to leave a message.
We want to hear from you. Tell us about your thoughts on writing, genealogy, keeping our air clean, pets, or anything that strikes your fancy.
Do you like photos on this blog? Are they important to engaging you as a reader?
We learn by doing and by doing this blog, I've learned way more than I ever thought I needed to know about Internet technology. And I've learned, also, how little I know and how much more there is to learn.
Leave a comment and let's see how this works.

Now Might As Well Be Then

Poetry has been running through my mind the past two days. I've rewritten several and have some lines rattling around in my head that will find their way to paper soon. Sometimes I go back and read poetry I wrote years ago and I wonder if that is really my poem or did I copy that from a book of poems. It seems strange to me that I'd write about a subject that touched me deeply enough to write a poem, but today I'm not aware that I wrote it.
I think it is because when we write poetry our minds go into a state of thinking, deeper than we normally think, and for a short time we are delving deeply into part of our mine that we are unaware of in our daily life.
But that might not be true of Nancy Simpson, Kathryn Byer and others whose lives are poetry. I'll bet Kay Byer dreams in poetic phrases. I know Nancy sees every thing around her as a poem.
I can't explain how I write a poem or why. But when a line or a thought comes to me, I know I must use it or write about it. I mull it around for days until I know how I will use it. Sometimes it is a poem and other times a line will lead me to a story or essay. Oddly enough, after completing the piece, the line might have been cut out of the poem or the idea I began with leads me to something else which I decided is more in keeping with what I want to say.
I have the last poem for my chapbook. I finally stopped re-writing it and I will mail it out this week. Ah, that is such a relief to have that last poem. Now I feel it is complete. The chapbook title is Now Might As Well Be Then, and my last poem, Blue Moon Every Twenty Years, is perfect for the ending. If only the publishers agree.

Sleeping to the Sound of Rain

I sit here tonight with my window open just enough to hear the rain coming in quick showers, taking me back to my youth when windows were open most of the time.
Cool night air drifted in and lifted heavy summer heat, and in the southern winter season, temperatures seldom dropped extremely low.

With the unusually warm weather here in the mountains, and with me being such a hot natured person, I joy in the fresh air and the rain erasing the dry atmosphere inside our house which stays closed and heated by electricity.

Rain's peaceful sound soothes restlessness or calms anxiety in the night. Like nature's lullaby, its tones and rhythms hypnotize and send me off to dreamland.

Sounds bring back memories and I often use sounds in my classes to dredge up forgotten moments of the past.

When I hear the rain coming in waves, growing louder and louder, then fading softly away, I remember the sudden storms that often woke me in the night, summer storms with thunder rumbling in the distance, moving ever closer as I lay in my bed tuned in to the track the rain traveled.

Southwest Georgia can have the most turbulent weather in summer when electrical storms pop up suddenly, and lightning slashes the sky from top to bottom, tearing apart the fabric holding the heavens.

As a child I shivered with fear, covered my head with my pillow and waited for the sounds of the storm to pass. When I heard the thunder softly rumbling far, far away, I breathed a sigh of relief and finally slept.

Tonight I have no fear as rain plunks down on the tin roof of the carport, the asphalt driveway, wrapping the winter-bare trees in sheets of water.

We still need rain to end the drought that's dried up wells and left lakes receding from their bank.

Tomorrow will likely be another foggy, misty day where we can barely make out Brasstown Bald many miles across Lake Chatuge. I don't mind at all. Today was one of those days, and I stayed in my pajamas and worked on my poetry chapbook, hoping to submit it before next week is done. Sometimes " bad" weather is actually quite good for those of us who enjoy writing and reading and huddling inside all day. We get an enforced holiday from the world.

I think I'll turn in and go to sleep listening to that droning sound of delicious rain. Good night.

Music to Enjoy is Alive and Well

I thought Folk Music was dead, but today I clicked on the blog of Silas House and learned about a superb young woman who brings back memories of Joan Baez. I was a big fan of Joan Baez, but this young woman, Caroline Herring, has a lower voice, more alto than soprano, and sings in the same haunting way. She writes her music and plays guitar.


Why don't we hear those songs on the radio? I truthfully thought no one was making music that I like. I don't care for most of the new country music and the only modern sounds I hear on radio are gawd-awful twanging blaring sounds, thumping rock and rap that I just can't call music. So I have been relegated to listening to "oldies" on Sirius Radio because I thought the "newbies" were only those things I heard on the popular radio stations. Thanks, Silas, for opening a new door for me.I will look for Caroine Herrings CD's and purchase one.

If anyone knows of her or her music, let me hear from you.

Can you imagine life without music? I think music has played a major part in my life from the time I was a child. One of my earliest memories was of my mother playing piano by ear, and my big sister, June, doing the "trickle toe, " a dance that was one step side to side and a quick twisting of the hips. They always laughed, sharing that special moment.


I grew up hearing my brothers sing, mother sing, and when cousin Vivian and Aunt Annie came, they sang. The mother - daughter harmony still sings in my mind.

A New Year and New Beginnings

2009 , tonight less than one hour old, is as new and as innocent as this beautiful baby.

It is now 2009 at 12:35 AM. No one is awake but Tiger the bob-tail cat and me. Barry was determined to make it till the Ball Drop in Times Square, but I didn't need to see a ball drop, a peach drop or as they do in Brasstown, a possum drop, to know another year has flown by and still, I have so much yet to do.

Today was windy, cold but sunny and that lifted my spirits which are not the best on New Year's Eve. I even gave myself time to be pampered with a good long massage by Linda at Murphy Mountain Therapeutic Massage and now I feel more prepared to face a new year, with new challenges and new hopes and new goals. Always new goals. Last year my goals were more for NCWN West than for me, but in 2009, my goals are more personal.

Number one is to help my husband and partner heal and be well. Secondly, I want to submit more of my writing and possibly publish a book. This will take more discipline, more time given to myself, and a writing schedule such as Kelly L. Stone advises in her book, Time to Write..

When the Christmas tree, the few decorations I put out and the cards are put away, I look forward to beginning the new year with my class at the John Campbell Folk School in January. February will hopefully mean the end of Barry's chemo treatments and the beginning of a few weeks in Florida. We will both be ready for that down time.

March brings on the Blue Ridge Writers' Conference in Blairsville. I have not missed this annual conference since it began and I've enjoyed every one. My good friend Carol Crawford has created an excellent event for writers.

April weather inspires me to garden even though my planting usually takes place on my deck with pots of geraniums and in my yard, impatients line the bed beside the driveway. Thanks to Robert, a wonderful man who does the heavy work, our daylilly beds, our shade bed and our azaleas will pop with color and our twenty five dogwoods will brighten our wooded areas like left over snow mounds.

So now I go to bed and wake up in a brand new year. I will open my new journal and begin, January 1, 2009 and I hope and believe I will fill this journal with good things, things of which I'm more appreciative than I was last year. At the top of each page of this journal I will list what I'm grateful for and why. The more we emphasize our blessings, the less we dwell on our hardships. The more we give, the more we receive and the happier we are. This year with our shortage of cash, we plan to live a more frugal life and dispose of much we have that others can use.

I know what it is to do without. I saw my parents sacrifice and I can do the same if need be. Material things that have no active purpose are unnecessary if we need food and shelter. I see the country moving away from the greed and keeping up with the Joneses, and embracing a simpler life which will make for a kinder more compassionate society.
Happy New Year to you, my readers , to those who leave comments and let me know you enjoy this blog, a special thanks.

May all the best be yours in 2009.