Moxie Monday: Do It Afraid
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
[Photo: Pantheon - Rome, Italy]
Moxie Monday: Progress
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
[Photo: Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II, Rome, Italy]
Fiction Friday: [Up From The Shallows]
[This week's Fiction Friday was my submission for Scene Stealers #24. Scene Stealers is a fun writing prompt from Write to Done. For this prompt, we had to use the sentence they provided to open the story (as written) and it couldn't be longer than 350 words. Click the link above if you want to give it a try. In the meantime...enjoy!]
She settled herself in the shallow water and looked at him, waiting to be amazed.
It was a gorgeous day. A day rife with possibilities. But, he’d never been one to seek out the possible. No, he’d always been content to sit safely by as the rest of the world took chances around him. Staring at the sand sparkling around his firmly planted feet, she wondered if he would ever aspire to anything greater than just existing.
She turned her attention to the water and marveled at how the sun danced along the ocean’s peaks. She inhaled the salty air and lavished under the sun’s kisses. She wished for him to truly see how beautiful it all was.
From the corner of her eye, he came into view as he took one tentative step followed by another. She held her breath when he paused, his toes touching the craggy edge of the darkened sand where the ocean had met the earth. His toes seemed to dance in rhythm with her heartbeat before disappearing under the frothy edges of the crystal blue water crashing into the beach.
The sound of the surf faded under his giggles and the sun seemed to dim in comparison to the sparkle in his eyes.
“I did it, mommy! I did it!”
The calls of the seagulls circling above were no match for his squeals of delight. The rays of the sun no match for the heat of pride swelling in her bosom.
Today was a gorgeous day. It was a day rife with possibilities.
Moxie Monday: Choose Wisely
Kick start your week with a lil' moxie!
Fiction Friday: [Elsewhere]
“Why is this my life?” Dawn sighed as she hung the last sheet up on the line. “Other people have dryers in their homes. Some even have maids and don’t do laundry at all. They just sit around eating bon bons and drinking martinis.”
Tina rolled her eyes at her little sister who pretended like she hadn’t noticed.
“Look, Dawn, we live in Maine, worse yet, Bremen and neither of us have any discernable talent worth getting us out of this place.”
It was Dawn’s turn to roll her eyes, but she felt guilty about it. She knew that Tina was bitter, angry even, and felt guilty because she had recently found out why. Of everyone in their family, heck, of everyone they knew, Tina was the one that should’ve made it out of this town.
At just five years old Tina started studying under Judith Balmer who had been a principle dancer with the New York City Ballet before retiring to Maine. According to the stories not only was Tina naturally gifted, she truly loved ballet. Her talent was so strong that her future was certain.
Then, when she was fourteen she met That Damn Russ and a year later she was pregnant. Not only did she never dance again, she gave up. Resigned herself to being stuck in Bremen, forever attached to That Damn Russ. Forever dreaming of what could have been.
At sixteen, despite being a very pretty girl, Dawn never had a boyfriend. She wasn’t going to be twenty years old with sadness in her eyes like her sister. She wasn’t going to get stuck with her own That Damn Russ.
When Dawn was eight she started getting an allowance and even at that young age she knew she had to save every penny. Every penny represented another step out of town. Babysitting, yard work, she took any job to reach her goal.
Every time she added her latest earnings to her Muppets lunchbox she fantasized about leaving in the middle of the night. Moving to New York without saying a word. She imagined sending her family postcards from Italy and Spain and Australia.
And she dared to hope that with each postcard sent Tina would find the strength to dance again.
