Opening Pandora’s … Vase

March 10, 2025March 9, 2025 / roughwighting / 85 Comments

I’m enervated and enthusiastic as I return home after meeting with some of my writing besties for lunch. Ah, the stories we share!

Smiling, I park in the garage, gather my purse and lunch leftovers, and open the door into my home, ready for a hot cuppa tea.

But then I stop as if an anchor is placed on my ankles. Something is wrong, or at least not right. I feel a subtle shift in the house. Yes, a shift.

Occasionally, I get this sensation; after all, a house is not a static object. It’s full of wood and plaster and beams and then walls and ceilings that absorb all the inhabitants’ moods and pains and joys and … I suppose some may think I’m weird. But living space is alive with energetic cells released by each of us. Continue reading →

Honey, I’m Charmed!

February 9, 2024February 9, 2024 / roughwighting / 95 Comments

I stumble backwards at the sight of Roger.

How on Earth can Roger – the Roger I’ve known and bantered with and talked to (in my head) for 46 years – be here? In flesh and blood and a smile that could light up a lonely midnight? (See part1 https://roughwighting.net/2024/01/26/honey-im-home/#more-10186) Continue reading →

Honey, I’m Home!

January 26, 2024January 25, 2024 / roughwighting / 127 Comments

The snow is falling like sleet. As I climb out of my mini-Cooper I grumble to the car “you’re cute in June, but you’re mighty ugly in January.” While waiting for my tiny turquoise car to reply, a huge icy snowflake falls on my cheek. “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings,” I mutter to the car. Continue reading →

Lucky Charm

May 19, 2023May 18, 2023 / roughwighting / 111 Comments

The Friday it happened, I went about my business as usual, helping nature beautify the world. I’d seen a lot of strange objects in my line of work: deflated balls; rusted costume jewelry; musty leather wallets with soggy dollar bills; even a diamond ring, which I had to return to its divorced owner.

But I’d never seen what I came across on that afternoon, between the hydrangea bushes and the to-be-planted dogwood trees. Continue reading →

The Creature Inside and Out

April 21, 2023April 20, 2023 / roughwighting / 88 Comments

“Stevie, I don’t have a creature inside me,” I insist. “In fact, there’s not much left to me at all,” I stare down at my decrepit body, hunched over from arthritis and age.

“That’s the point, Auntie!” Stevie exclaims. “The creature inside you is young. Vibrant. Viral.”

Readers: I’m Lucia, and my story began at the last post (https://roughwighting.net/2023/04/07/the-creature-within/) explaining that my brilliant nephew Stevie is convincing me to take a pill he invented that will help me become“the creature within.” At my old age, crooked with regrets, I decide to take the plunge, so to speak. Many of you guessed I will turn into a dragon, or a bird, a snake or a butterfly. Some of you even guessed I’d become a … well, wait, I’m holding the pill in my hand …

Continue reading →