Once again, I wonder why I’m here, where the exit door is, and how quickly I can excuse myself. I know that Karen means well, but Karen is not the good friend she thinks she is. If she really knew me – Mandy Shepherd, the introvert – really cared about me, she’d keep me away from this kind of “meetngreet” fiasco. Continue reading
creative writing
NEVER Too Old
It wasn’t a competition as much as a test. How far could we go before our kids became really really REALLY embarrassed by us?
My best friend, Danni, and I weren’t new kids on the block, and in fact, we both had children who were now in that stage of telling us what to do. Or not to do. Continue reading
The Tulip
Helen can’t identify the strange sonorous sounds coming from outside. Usually in her little corner of the world, the loudest noise early in the morning is the red squirrels arguing with each other as they sit on branches, trees apart.
But this sound is unfamiliar, not the high-pitched shrill squirrel bickering she’s used to. Helen runs out the front door, the spring rain falling on her as she instinctively looks upward. A strange looking plane is overhead. Old-fashioned propellers make a swishing sound, yet the beautiful light blue body is sleek. Helen notices the glint of sun on the front, which of course isn’t possible because it’s raining. But no – there, on the left horizon, blue sky emerges, along with an impossibly bright rainbow. 
Continue reading
Go with the (spring) Snow!
Today, four days past the middle of March, I waken to the dreaded four-letter word.
S N O W.
But I decide to shovel away my disgruntlement of another wintry day and to exercise outside No Matter What. Normally I dislike the cold and the fear of falling on icy roadways, but after three months of this weather, and after meditating my breaths into ACCEPTANCE, I choose to go with the flow. Or in this case, Go with the Snow. Continue reading
A New Realm
Ruby took a breath, and with a shaking hand, signed her name to the list.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Ruby’s twin sister whispered in her ear. The trails of uncertainty in Trudy’s breath caused Ruby’s heart to thump thump thump.
Finishing the n in her last name “Rubicon” with flair, Ruby dropped the ancient fountain pen onto the solid oak table, which had been passed from generation to generation. She nodded a weak Yes. Continue reading
