I heard the call. It wasn’t a whisper or delicate voice or loud words urging me to transcribe thoughts to paper. But the call did sound like an alarm, telling me it was time to awaken a dormant spirit. I was ready to give voice to my ideas, the beginning of my story telling. When I was fifteen, a pink [...]
The upstairs bathroom on Carlisle Avenue was at the top of the red carpeted stairs, middle of the hall. This kid’s bathroom came standard equipped with a bathtub, showering capabilities and a toilet on one wall and on the opposite wall a beige Formica counter ran the length of the bathroom. The muddy blue double sink holes, one for Timmy [...]
TO A TREE “The time has come for us to move on Let us nest that time in the Bottom of the tree To grow with each new branch Letting our leaves bud with Each new spring The nest is our home, the branches Our foundation It is the universal home of God For I am set in the ways [...]
Dottie-3 mos. Thursday is noodle night. And Dottie knows this. Dottie, aka Tooker’s Girl Lightning, her registered name with the AKC, is a purebred beagle. She is an old gal now, but does not let her age defy her registered name as she circumnavigates the fenced yard’s perimeters with bursts of flash speed like lightning from skies above. [...]
It is only on a winter's day today where the shades of white, grey and black blend together to create a landscape void of color, of life of warmth that I retreat to thoughts of a different season . . . I inhale the warm summer air and my eyes meet the sun’s glow just above the horizon. This is [...]
Distractions in my head keep time with my travels of foot. Like any good shadow, it clings to my thoughts when I am alone or mingling with others, in my work room or in a public arena.My fidgeting brain tracks sensory stimulation of movement, sound and smell like any great horned owl zeros in on a tiny mouse or a [...]
“The Deerfield Commons, it used to be over there, that whole block, with Waukegan and Deerfield roads fencing it in,” I muttered with a heavy sigh looking west as I drove north on Waukegan Road. I say it every time I drive into Deerfield, where I grew up, and pass that intersection. I am flooded with memories and pictures of [...]
Roots seek their path through the ground of where they are nestled, marking generations of their families, expanding with the seasons and taking their time over the decades. They wander blindly but knowingly in search of water and sustenance, robbing the earth’s soil of her nutrients with an undeniable quest for growth. I was born a Chadwick, the DNA evident [...]
in the moment, senses tapped, breathing deep and defined, discharging the creative flow a whirlwind blow of air pushes out the furnace through portals in my walls replacing a chill about me with dry warmth. the roof cracks and splinters from the cooling of heated air aloft in the attic. the circa 1920 wooden school clock propped on the foyer [...]
The blueprints tell me the once new house would never be as it was in 1964. The thin white lines drafted on blueprint are no longer virginal. The floors have been released of their coverings and footprints are disintegrated into the now thin air. The furniture has been relocated out of the house to new rooms and inhabitants are sitting [...]