Yayy, I made it through the first week of the May Challenge! Is anyone else playing? Because I feel like the only one lol. I rest on Saturdays so unfortunately I will not participate in this challenge on Saturdays so I will see you all Sunday. I plan to incorporate some flash fiction and poetry into Week Two, time permitting. In the meantime, below is your EC Quote Friday:
When I logged into my WordPress account, I had other plans for what to post today. I was not looking for writing prompts or post ideas. However, when I saw Felicia’s Writing Prompt: “Why is this picture frame empty?” I knew then what my purpose for logging on was. This prompt is an excellent way to spark a thoughtful conversation and for those of you who know me, or rather my writing style, you know that if there is one thing I enjoy, it is thoughtful conversations. So, why is this picture frame empty?
In life we tend to severely underestimate the power of choice. If you ask someone why their life turned out the way that it did, they are most certainly going to give you the details. These details may range from a number of things: upbringing, childhood, circumstances, racism, discrimination, abuse, neglect, the list goes on and on. Interestingly enough, rarely will you hear:
“I am where I am in my life because I chose to be here.”
The picture frame is only empty if you want it to be. If you see nothing, then that is what exists. This happens a lot in life. Every day we are only capable of seeing what it is we want to see, and sometimes this makes it difficult to embrace the necessary changes we need to grow or to even recognize the palpable. What is obvious from our perspective is the only thing that exists, but we cannot see the other side of it. If I bang my hand hard against the table you will feel it move. Even if you can’t see me, you will feel the effects of me hitting the table. The question is: Do you limit your perspective to that which you can only see, feel, taste, and touch physically? Or will you consider that something made the table move? It’s all about the decisions and the choices that we make.
While I can give you a million reasons why I can or cannot do a certain thing, one truth remains: Each and every individual is where he or she is because he or she chose to be there. When we start taking this kind of responsibility over our lives, we will be in a better position in every respect. We undergo changes every day. The only problem with change is that everyone wishes to change his circumstances but never his mind. When we each start to self-examine ourselves and start to take accountability for our life and the things that are happening in it, only then will we be better able to see what really lies ahead.
Why is the picture frame empty?
It depends on what you choose to see. Maybe it’s not a picture frame at all. Maybe it’s a mirror.
https://twitter.com/BluMarTen/status/605128443475456001
“Whatever”, Tasha spoke under her breath and logged out of her twitter account. It amazed her how exactly those few words had summed up her life. Technology was a trip.
Curtis
“Hello love”
Tasha
Not a good time
Tasha slid the smart phone under the covers as her husband entered the room.
“Hey babe,” he said planting a kiss on her lips. She watched him walk away. Completely compact with everything she’d ever wanted in a man. As he slipped out of his shirt she took the opportunity to admire the dark chocolate, toned physique of her child’s father. Standing 6’1 the man had beauty and brains and had swept her off her feet ten years ago and everything else had been storybook. In less than a year they were married, Carson was born six months after that and their combined salary afforded them the luxury of the two story house sitting comfortably between two large Oak Trees in Elmhurst Illinois. Tasha hated those trees. They had somehow become the mocking occasion of her perfect life. Attorney, wife, mother, and home owner and yet here she was, stuck between two men; both just as large and overwhelming as those trees. She’d have to remember to have at least one of them cut down. Their existence, how they mocked her very life, was too much to take.
“What time you getting off tonight?” yelled Anthony from the shower.
“Nine, this case is really kicking my butt.”
There it was. Another lie. It was her fourth lie this month. She knew because she counted. It was difficult at first, but whenever she thought about rolling around on the floor with her boss it became much much easier.
Curtis was nothing like Anthony and that reality was perhaps one of her greatest fears. More so than the betrayal, the lies, even more so than the sex was that these men couldn’t be any more different. It was that, their differences, that Tasha feared even more so than getting caught. She smiled wickedly. Why did the thought excite her so? She’d built trust with Anthony and now she capitalized on that trust. Taking advantage of their years she played the men like strings. Pulling and tugging on their position in her life and manipulating the occasion.
Tasha met Curtis when she was just an intern at Curtis & Law and he was well aware that she was married. Tasha preferred it this way and often beamed with satisfaction. If ever there was an occasion to sleep around she’d found it. If ever there was a secret to deceit, she’d cracked the code. Her life with Anthony was secure and she made it clear she would never divorce him. Curtis was OK with that and vowed that their time together was nothing more than a thing.
Curtis
Tash, you there?
Tasha scrambled to mute the text alert before it became noticeable. One downfall to cheating was extreme paranoia. Tasha was sure the muffled sound could be heard through the sound of the Shower and peeking down at the screen she rolled her eyes. This was starting to get old real fast. He knew he had no right to call her that. Only Anthony called her “Tash”. But Curtis had professed his love last night and somehow thought it gave him free reign to be the first man in her life. She thought she’d made it very clear that would never happen. “Maybe I should just call off”, thought Tasha. The dread of the workplace had become intense. Any occasion to which she had to see his face in public sent her cascading through mental turmoil and she felt she would explode.
“In our universe a star explodes and dies every single second..”
“Hmm,” thought Tasha, “Is this what death feels like?”
Anthony was her everything. Her love and her heart broke at the thought of what this would do to him if he ever found out and yet, the thought was quickly erased by another lie.
“Please, I’m tripping. Men do this all the time”, she told herself to soothe the bruise of adultery seeping from her pores.
Anthony walked out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist and another one he used to dry his hair. “Goodness, that’s a beautiful man.” Tasha said to herself.
Curtis
Meet me at the spot, 1 hour
Startled, Tasha scrambled to answer her text.
“Tell Curtis you’ll be late this morning”, smiled Anthony, seductively approaching his wife.
Tasha smiled a wicked smile. Poor Ant, he would never know. It amazed her how color had such an impact on the way people saw the world. Anthony would never suspect a culprit in the proper, brown haired, blue eyed Caucasian that is his wife’s boss.
Tasha
I need a few hours. (wink)
Curtis
OK love.
Who needed worlds? Tasha had both.
For this weeks segment of Writer’s Quote Wednesday, I draw inspiration from William Wordsworth:
This quote is brief and to the point and I think it is most important. When you sit down to write, the focus should not initially be on proper grammar, sentence structure, whether the words rhyme, symbolism, or any other technique outside that thing that beats through your chest. Initially, the purpose should be to fill the paper with what’s truly in your heart. You can always go back to edit, but a page soaked in truth is more than likely to speak to people more so than proper grammar. At least for me, I try to make sure that my passion is first in my writing life, and that what I give you is coming from my innermost being. My goal is not to sound like I graduated from Harvard; my goal is to tell the truth.
About the Author:
William Wordsworth was a major English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication Lyrical Ballads. – Wikipedia
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That’s it for me today. Yall be great :).
My Writer’s Quote Wednesday for this week is in honor of the Short Story. Wendell Harris says:
“…the short story is a ….presentation of a moment whose intensity makes it seem outside the ordinary stream of time, or the significance is outside the ordinary range of experience.” —Wendell Harris
I really like how Harris spoke about, “the presentation of a moment” because it is what I think about when I think of short stories. It’s like a sampling of the authors writing, pulling as much life from the story as is possible and then storing it into as few pages as possible, which is my goal for my current short story trilogy. To fit as much information as possible in just a few pages, while simultaneously providing for that bit of mystery that I think is important for the short story. I think Stella relates to this quote because it is the presentation of a single moment in history. It tackles the ongoing racial intensity of the past and brings it into our present day so that we are experiencing, in a unique way, the co-existing of past, present, and future.
I wanted to include an Author Bio from the quote but I read this as part of a list of short story quotes and saved them to my drive awhile back so I’m not sure who this particular Wendell Harris is, but what a great quote!
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And that’s it for this week’s episode of Writer’s Quote Wednesday, as hosted by Colleen of Silver Threading.
Be good to yourself.
It’s easier said than done, but extremely important to remember. Humility does not ask that we think less of ourselves, just that we think of ourselves less. Many of us spend our days constantly looking out for others and it is a great work. We encourage, inspire, share, and overall put others above ourselves. But we have to remember to give this same kind of love to our own selves too. People who are good to themselves are strong enough to be good to others. On the other hand, there’s a saying that says to beware when a naked person offers you a shirt. What kindness can I offer you if I don’t first have the same kindness for myself? We have to learn to humbly accept compliments, rest when we need to, and treat ourselves every now and again. It’s not asking too much to implement some kind of exercise routine for your physical body, reading for your mind and prayer and reflection for your spirit. Our worlds can be so chaotic at times that we may even need to pull away for a while to tend to ourselves. This is not just a suggestion, but we need this. If you can’t function you can’t perform. We need to take care of ourselves so that we can continue to be of service to others. So take some time today and be wonderful to yourself this Wednesday.
No, that’s not Ron’s suggested prompt but it was inspired by it. Ronovan’s prompt is “Are You Ok?”
It’s an interesting thing how a week can comprise a singular theme. Sometimes there are lessons we have to learn and messages silently embedded into our day to day that we do no always see. The central theme of my week for instance had to do with not letting things burden me. So when I saw Ron’s prompt: “Are You OK?” it was on accord with my thoughts already. So my dose of positivity for today is Ron’s idea with a mixture of something I tell myself often, more so this week, and that is: “Get It Together!”
For those of you who know me by now, you know that I believe strongly in the power of choice and how our choices impact our lives. I counsel sisters from time to time and I noticed there’s a lot of depression taking place. I even found such depression to try and overtake me but I had to stop and ask myself a serious question: “Do you want to feel this way right now? Of all the things that need to be done and that are being done, really EC? Now?” From there I made the conscious decision to be OK with leaving things undone that attempt to rob me of the peace I so need in this moment. This was important to me because I knew that I will not otherwise accomplish the things I needed to. I saw this feeling then as a stumbling block to my daily priorities. Sometimes the problem is that we often try to go back and see how we can redo things that we really need to let go completely. We all have our moments (I know I do), but when our emotions get tangled sometimes we do not need to dwell on why, we just need to “Get it together” because the choice is yours no matter what it is. If you want to, you can shake the baggage and fly or you can give it permission to wear you down.
For the most part the advice to those who suffer from depression or any other negative spirit is “trying to figure out what’s wrong”, but not today. Today my message is the opposite, just drop it and get yourself together. Easier said than done I know, but it’s not impossible to do. Sometimes it’s not about thinking things through, it’s about letting them go completely and being OK with moving on.
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