By Milada Vigerova

Blow negative thoughts every day, to make room for all the beautiful things that life gives you every day.

The Way Smell Evokes Memory

            On a hot summer afternoon, after a day of playing in the sun but before retiring to play video games, my mother would always shower. She loved spending time with us on those rare free days when all five of her girls were home, and she wasn’t working one of many jobs she held down simultaneously to provide. Our job was to set the living room up, since she didn’t understand and wasn’t willing to learn how to work the equipment. She would emerge in a puff of steam and a waft of perfume. Unwilling to wear shorts outside, those days she was even willing to don a light summer nightdress. We each peeled off at different times in the night, smart enough and independent enough to dictate our own bedtimes. With a yawn, I’d announce my departure. My mother was never short on hugs, pulling me in and holding me, understanding of the importance of that contact. Rich vanilla and rose and a creamy, heavy shea butter: the last things I’d smell for the night.

            When riffling through the cabinet before moving out, I discovered the exact lotion she would use. Her ‘yes’ when I asked to take it was distracted, unaware of the significance. Although, I don’t use it much.

River Flows in You

Bare feet slip through mossy banks

On the other side of a bubbling creek, filled with watercress,

Is a deep path

Leading to a breathtaking waterfall.

“This way,” a teacher says,

Shoving a fistful of fresh-plucked watercress into his mouth.

Students and staff follow, in order of their eagerness

The sharp snap of the plant dances on every tongue.

Hidden and rocky though the path may be,

Treasures await the fresh-faced explorers

A waterfall spills into the creek, misting the group,

As they all file into a hidden cavern behind the rushing waters.

Teachers don’t lecture the students as they fill their cupped palms and stick their little feet in,

Most never having felt such overwhelming, refreshing freedom in their short lives

Staff watches as happiness spreads across usually bleak faces,

Knowing they’re creating core memories for themselves and their students.

When I mutter, “I wish I was a waterfall, strong and powerful and cool,”

It is Mr. A who turns to me to teach the most valuable of all lessons this day

He never lies, and with the intelligence of a middle-aged man from the middle-east, replies:

“But you are, that energy flows through you, too.”

Forever Writing,

quill rose

NaNoWriMo Update One

I want to keep updates posted of my progress this month but I find that I'm not keeping track based on word count, but on chapters. I do want to share my breakdown though--

100,000 words total

5 sections of 7 chapters each

20,000 words per section

2,900 words per chapter

This is the outline I'm using, so when I've finished a chapter I assume it falls into this estimate. In the end I'll run a comprehensive count. As long as each chapter is near 3k, I don't fret and move to the next.

So far, I have 8 of 35 chapters finished and it's the 7th day of NaNoWriMo. I could pick up the pace...

6.7%

Attributed to diagnosis

Brought often in late spring

Clearly

            Directly

                        Estimated to be

Factors of illness

Greatly cause internal

Health decline

Immune to physical evolution

Join discussion for fewer storms,

Lies we authored,

Mismanaged medicines; mortality rates

Never revealed

Other

Physical symptoms

Questioning

Realities spread

Surrounding mental illness

Timelines weakened by disease

Unknown and invisible,

View seriously only too late

Winds

Expected

Yearning to blow

0 likelihood of simple and total recovery

If they don’t need you, it’s okay. You do not live for other people.

i love discovering the hidden gems in my city!

“Mine the long night The secret place Where lovers meet In long embrace In purple dark In silvered kiss Forget the world And grasp your bliss” - A.S. Byatt, Possession