Once again, the eight-year-old me is standing under the mantle staring up at that serious, soft-eyed person in the picture. Sometimes, when passing through this room, I glance up and smile. Other times, I fear he is watching me as if he is judging. When no one is around, I return his gaze and try ...

Have you ever thought about the adult the younger version of yourself imagined you would be? I thought I would live in a London flat with my husband and at least a few children. My life isn’t anything similar to what I thought when I was little. Honestly, I was sad about that for a ...

New Year’s Resolutions New Year’s Resolutions are more like goals for me. I start them and keep up with them. The difference for me is if I forget to do it every day, I will keep continuing with my goal. An example is that I set a goal to write 500 words a day of ...

Recommit Yourself We are two weeks into November. I’m supposed to have over 25,000 words. My document has a pitiful 200. Most people would give up. The average word count to win would be 5,000 words or more daily. My best day is 2,000. The next step for me is to recommit to my story. ...

The Chameleon says to her Mom, “I want to be many creatures and do many things, all at once.” Mom tells her she cannot be any more than one creature at a time, and cannot do more than one thing at a time. She has to pick one. But Chameleon can’t. Her mind travels fast ...

Everyone has a week where things didn’t exactly go as planned. This can be extremely frustrating for any number of reasons. Last week, I planned to finish a book that I was given to beta read, and I couldn’t touch it at all because I was so tired. This week I’m making good progress, and ...

We were young, still in our cocoons when we first met. Flora morphed into a beautiful butterfly, sooner than me. Her wings—the colors of fire, lit the sky. Her flutter stirred many, to reach and pocket her. But free minded, she held her own, unwilling to be caught.   With a grand vision to travel ...

Upside Down Hanging around upside down Gives you a top view of the ground Reverses the annoying busy sounds Lets us think of life’s endless bounds Day And Night There’s dark, then light Like there’s day and night Sunrise and sunset Like there’s life and regrets Life ebbs and flows Life comes and goes There’s ...

Powdery white sand shimmers its quartz in sunlight stars twinkle on ground   Singing cardinal joins the drumming woodpecker branches take a bow   Fluttering pupa amidst the dense, tall sand dunes dotted flowers bloom   Sliding waves ashore bring seaweeds, grasses, and more crabs party with bugs   Diving pelican grabs grub by its ...

  We are about a month into the New Year. I would normally comment how most people have probably broken their resolutions by now. Instead, I’ve realized that resolutions are just prioritizing aspects of your life that a person feels they have overlooked lately. I chose to have goals that will make me happy.  The ...