Time Traveling Up Ahead

January 6, 2024January 7, 2024 Amy15 Comments

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

I read the prompt suggestion today, and my reaction was, “Meh.” I scrunched up my face and was underwhelmed. So I’m going to break the rules a little bit and use the prompt to springboard (similar to billboard, but not at all) to something I wrote a while ago, and which ties into yesterday‘s prompt.

I’ve heard people say energies can inhabit a place long after a person has passed. It’s general knowledge in the paranormal community that ghosts/spirits can remain in a place, their energies reliving a certain time of their lives, for whatever reason, their presences seen in the same place, enacting the same scene for…ever (or until they have made their peace and move on). Perhaps these times were overwhelmingly happy or devastatingly sad.

What I question is this: is it possible for us “living right now” people to ingrain a happy memory onto a time and place so that others see or “feel” a presence when they are in these places?

As of today, living and breathing, I often pass places where I’ve created happy memories and wonder if anyone near or in those places now can feel the happiness that I helped create and lived once upon a time. In other words, do our living energies imprint our feelings just as spirits are able to when they pass?

I find myself searching specific areas with my eyes, curious if something akin to “The Time-Traveler’s Wife” is possible (horrible film, by the way, but compelling story).

For now, I don’t know. I feel no differently in these places, I see no out of the ordinary phenomena; it’s just me and my memories.

And I cherish them.

daily prompt · Writing

Van Halen Said It Best

January 5, 2024January 10, 2024 Amy20 Comments

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

What’s wrong with staying in the moment, in today? It’s the only day in which I can do anything. If I’m thinking about yesterday or tomorrow, what am I getting done today?

There are a few sayings about this topic. One is: “Don’t look back you’re not going that way.” Another is: “The future is a gift, today is the present.”

Many mental health professionals will tell you to think too much of the past may lead to/can be a sign of depression, and to think into the future may lead to/can be a sign of anxiety.

As a writer, I put myself into a zone which has no knowledge of time. The zone sometimes includes the past, as some of the best material for poetry is mined from the past. I’m not interested in writing about the future, unless I’m working on a fictional piece that involves fictional characters. In my every day life my feet are firmly in the day that I was given.

As soon as I saw this prompt, I thought of Van Halen. I started singing the lyrics, in fact. Below is the verse that my mind went to from the song entitled, “Right Now.”

Hey
It’s your tomorrow
(Right now),
C’mon, it’s everything
(Right now),
Catch a magic moment, do it
Right here and now
It means everything
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Alex Van Halen / Edward Van Halen / Michael Anthony / Sammy Hagar
Right Now (2004 Remaster) lyrics © Capitol CMG Publishing, Royalty Network, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

daily prompt · Humor · Writing

Every Day is Play Day

January 2, 2024January 4, 2024 Amy9 Comments

Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?

This prompt question has recently been asked, and you can read my piece on that here.

There was a similar prompt question, which asked how you remain a kid at heart. Read my piece on that here.

I guess it’s pretty obvious from the previous prompts I’ve answered, the fact that Hello Kitty is found throughout my house, and that there was a red nose on my car for Rudolph season, that I am thoroughly invested in play every day.

The key to staying young in mind and heart (and hopefully somewhat in body), is to find the moments of play. And if you can’t find them, create them. Opportunities are all around if you just look.

Below you’ll see photographic evidence of play in every day situations.

What does play look like in your life? Do you make time to play? Do you make the effort to look around you and see the opportunities? Let me know in the comments. Thanks for stopping by!

If you have a white coated tongue, you may have just eaten an Oreo cookie

Candle with googly eyes, sweater and cap

daily prompt · Nature · Writing

Bert Pinkfoot

December 29, 2023August 10, 2024 Amy7 Comments

If I started a sports team, it would be racing pigeons, and their mascot would be Bert Pinkfoot.

Bert Pinkfoot was a racing pigeon who absconded a race and somehow ended up in my backyard. I knew he was a racing pigeon because he had green bands on both ankles. He was also rather tame. He arrived several Septembers ago, and I knew he wasn’t from around here, because we don’t have many pigeons where I live. That and the bands, as I mentioned. There are plenty of mourning doves, but no pigeons.

I immediately called the local bird sanctuary, and asked about this racing pigeon in my backyard, who had attracted a local flock of doves. As a matter of fact, all the female doves were quite impressed with Bert and tried to get his attention. Bert was a working man, he was a racing bird, and he was not interested in any female attention (this is when some doves cried).

The woman at the bird sanctuary told me that Bert likely left a race. My understanding is these birds race from point A to point B and back to point A, as pigeons are trained to do. She told me it was likely if I tried to return the bird to its owner, the owner would likely kill the bird because he absconded the race and lost the owner money. She also said that there had been a race about 300 miles north, and that he probably was from that race.

I wasn’t sure what to do with Bert. I had already been feeding and giving water to the “normal” birds, so he had a bit of an all-you- can eat buffet and sanctuary in my backyard. The woman also told me that he’d be likely to be eaten by hawks because he was raised to be a racing pigeon, and had no true exposure to the outside, natural world. At least not while he was trying to sleep.

Bert hung around for several weeks, though he never joined in with the doves. He tolerated his distant cousins, and maybe he found solace with them. We’ll never know why he left the race – whether he was seeking freedom or he got lost – but after about two weeks, Bert was no longer in my backyard. I didn’t see him again. I like to think he found his freedom and flew to a nearby city to be with his brethren city pigeons. I don’t think of the alternative.

daily prompt · Writing

It’s This

December 27, 2023December 27, 2023 Amy5 Comments

You get to build your perfect space for reading and writing. What’s it like?

I have it. It’s here. Preassembled. No modifications.

daily prompt · Writing

Claircognizance

December 22, 2023December 23, 2023 Amy15 Comments

Are you a good judge of character?

My mother told me that when I was little I would stare at people to size them up without saying a word. But she didn’t need to tell me that I did it, I remember doing it. I did it even before I could talk. I can imagine a baby silently observing an adult would be a little unnerving for the adult. As I got older and continued to do it, people would say that I was a brat or spoiled or whatever other hurtful phrases they sputtered because they were afraid. These were people that had something to hide. I’m not quite as obvious about it anymore. I do it with every person I meet, it’s not an ability that I can control. I sense the essence of a person, whether good or otherwise, without them ever saying a word. I was born this way. There are other attributes of claircognizance. Check out this page for more information about the phenomenon. Do any of you have the ability? Or any other ability that seems unique to you? I’d love to read your comments!

daily prompt · Summer · tennis · Writing

Creatively Speaking

December 21, 2023December 22, 2023 Amy9 Comments

When are you most happy?

When I am creating another world through writing, showing a glimpse of a world through photography, sometimes combining the two. Making basil pesto pasta sauce from scratch. Baking brownies. Spending time with animals. Wrapping Christmas presents.

Creating something or some things that will be perceived by or given to others for their hopeful enjoyment is usually when I am most happy.

Watching tennis makes me happy. I’m not creating anything but noise for anyone else, but I enjoy watching tennis, especially from the stands.

I am also most happy in the summer. When I can walk through the soft, cool grass, with bare feet and feel like the warm air is an enveloping calming blanket, I am content – the combination of happiness and stillness.

daily prompt · Humor · Writing

Happy Holidays

December 19, 2023December 28, 2023 Amy17 Comments

List your top 5 grocery store items.

5 golden rings (is that my phone or yours?)

4 calling birds (it *was* my phone! Why are birds calling me at the grocery store?)

3 French hens (fancy birds, oui?)

2 turtle doves (look, I have enough game in my grocery cart already, I don’t need any turtle doves, whatever they are.)

A partridge in a pear tree (I already have 9 birds in this cart! And how am I going to fit an entire pear tree in here?!)

——————

$14,587.42 (and my cart has directionally challenged wheels)

daily prompt · Love · Writing

My Mother

December 18, 2023December 20, 2023 Amy6 Comments

Describe a *person* who has positively impacted your life.

She was both mother and father. Even when my father was alive, my mother was my father. Everything good that I’ve learned, I’ve learned from her. It was not a perfect relationship, but she was my best friend, and positively affected my life. My father, for his part, gave me these hands and these eyes, and this technical brain. Don’t get me wrong, he was impactful. Sort of like an asteroid hitting earth. Someone wise once said, “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.” Mary Oliver.

Thanks for the darkness, dad.

Thanks for the light, Mom.