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It is a waste to ignore the musings of the mind. |
| Writing is the communication of the writer's hopes and dreams. To write is to express the laughter, the tears, the joys of the heart. It is the writer's desire to communicate all his feelings and desires in her/her heart to a reader. |
| Isolation in the midst of a floating, harmful disease!!! So, we are all in this pandemic together - isolated yet together in our thinking, in the middle of sickness and death, in the rush to find a vaccine. What comes next? A cure? A new vaccine? What is there to hope for? More viruses? More pain and death? To probably many of us this year's global sickness that came in the middle of our enjoyment of life, of togetherness with family and friends, of living a good life; and now we are distant away from each other. But now there is fear in our hearts; a virus that would not go away; a sickness that has come to stay. How long are we to isolate ourselves? How long are we to suffer this kind of illness? When is a cure to be announced by experts? Is there hope of a cure? The arrival of coronavirus in our midst has completely taken us in a whirl. We are just rolling along, going from here to there, yet getting no release from the fear of an illness that is debilitating? We question those who know what kind of life comes after all the rush of testing and testing. Is this virus going to be with us all our life? We hear of many things from experts, and yet none of those things are even close to giving us respite from the fear of the virus. Are we forever trapped in this era, the year of 2020, that is so devastatingly filled with pain and death? And so the world continues to live, to experience the hopelessness of a virus-free world, to hope for tomorrow's world to be free from coronavirus. And so we wait. We hope. We live, isolated from each other; away from the warmth of love and joy that we have with our families and friends; fears and forboding in our midst. Take care. Pray. |
| Listening and digesting. Why should one listen? There are times when we find ourselves totally out of touch with what is going on around us. We are deaf to ideas that are being floated around. We are stuck with what we want to write, we miss to listen to other's ideas. We begin to think ours is much, much better; and what others are saying are nothing but rot. Listening does not mean we agree to what we are hearing. It means we must open our minds to what is being said, understand what those ideas are, and then analyse those ideas; are they positive? negative? adjustable? There are things we do not understand, and listening is a good way to make our writing go the better way. Digesting comes after we understand what ideas we have listened to and about. We turn those ideas around; we review the meaning of those ideas; we do a complete read about those ideas; then we take what is good and best from those ideas, and turn them into a first rate fiction/nonfiction. |
| A Story of Life At 78 she thought she was ready to go home. Home, where Mom and Pop were. She also thought she was tired. Tired of counting her pennies. Tired of her aches and pains. Tired of her sisters. She sniffed. Tears welled in her eyes. Remembering, how her two younger sisters treated her with disrespect. She was much older than them, about five years. They screamed at her when she could not remember things, like making her bed, like turning off the light in the bathroom, like calling them. She resisted calling them. She knew she was going to be scolded. Therefore, it was no problem to her not to call them. When her beloved husband passed, she knew she had to call them. They did come to his funeral, even donated a sum of money to help with the expenses. To her dismay, before they left, they assumed she was going to sell the house. They expected to be informed of the sale and the amount she was to get. They wanted her to help fund the schooling of her nieces, three of them. She did not want to tell them she had debts, debts so large, the money out of the sale of the house hardly covered the debts. She was devastated when they got furious. Their anger reached the point of hatred, in their eyes, words that stung from their mouths, disgust at her for not heeding their request. She sat on her bed that morning, crying to herself. She wanted to die right there and then. She got off the bed. The dizzy spells that had been a bother to her during the last few weeks suddenly got hold of her. She could not focus, she felt sick to her stomach, and then there was nothing. She did not know how long she had been on the floor. She heard knocking on her door. She could not speak. Her throat was dry, awfully dry, it felt like her whole mouth was about ready to be ripped into pieces. The knocking continued. She tried to get off the floor, twice she fell back. And then the knocking stopped. In the silence, in her apartment she laid still, crying softly. Three days later, she awoke in a hospital bed. The people around her were faces of strangers. She looked for her sisters among the strangers. She turned to her side, convinced her sisters were not among them. She knew then, she must forgive them. |
| The memory keeps coming back: The barrio was small. There were but 100 or so residents, most of whom were related to each other. The war, the 2nd World War, came tumbling into the barrio. The platoon of Japanese soldiers shouted their commands. They want all young men assemble in the village hall. The leader, a Corporal got hold of an old villager. He demanded an interpreter, one who speaks English. Fear made the old villager run to Rosa. That was me. I was visiting the barrio that time. There was fear in the barrio. Men, women, children stayed in their homes. Word spread very quickly: these Japanese are cruel. They hurt people. They shoot people. The usual gathering at the hall did not materialize. The young men did not appear. There were none in the barrio at that time. Only old men presented themselves to the Japanese Corporal. The Corporal screamed in anger. Where are the young men, he asked me. I told him there were no young men in the barrio. They were all away - on a job or searching for jobs outside of the barrio. The Corporal looked at the four old men who presented themselves. There was fear in their eyes. They had to present themselves to save the women and children. The Corporal was an angry man, he was almost spewing saliva. He ordered his men to round up buckets and fill them with water. He ordered planks of wood to be brought to him. He was giving orders upon orders, getting madder each time he screamed. Then he started his tortures. He ordered his men to torture the old men. The four, old villagers, all aged somewhere between 70-80 were made to lay on the ground. The Japanese soldiers poured water into their mouths. Then they stepped on the villagers' tummies. Then, they were whipped with planks of wood, on their backs, on their sides, on all sides of their bodies. I sat on the side of the hall, shivering with fear. I could not protest. I could not do anything to help the old villagers. My heart bled with tears. The 2nd World War came to our barrio that day. |
| I saw him and I wanted to cry. He was just a young boy, not over 18 years old, sitting at a corner of the road I travel so often, not actually begging; just sitting there, all alone, his eyes were unseeing; his face was a conglomeration of fear, worry, discomfort; his arms were draped over his knees, as if to say, this is me, this my body, I have preserved it; his hair, which looked like it was dark black before, and was now clipped close to his skull; he was alone. Like me. I sat in my car and watched him, tears streamed down my face, a memory of something gone from me bubbled through my mind. What was it? I rooted out the hard, darkness that hid a part of me that was too painful to recall; and still I could not fathom what it was that made me cry, to see a young boy by the side of the road. When I looked at him again, he was gone! I fired the engine, in such a hurry, I banged my head against the window. I must find him. Where did he go? I drove on to the road and looked at my left, at my right, but he was nowhere. I wondered if I shall see him again? |
| One day, the pain did not come back. She lay on her side, her eyes unseeing, her breathing all but a whisper. The horrid, menacing pain that crushed every inch of her body, the aches that ripped through every corner of her being were silenced, never to return. She felt the peace in her heart, the quiet in her mind, the sweet, redeeming grace of forgiveness that came with calm. She was no longer... Her dreams vanished. Her hopes were crushed. Her wholeness became a mountain of nothingness, that discouraged, that menaced the source of the brightness that kept her alive. Where in heaven's good grace did all of life, all of kindness, all of love, all of hopes gone? She was no longer ... |
| The mind reflects what the heart feels. Why do I wonder along life's journey? What is the purpose of a life that is empty? Why am I alive? Melisa was a master in making things alive - in her writing. She writes with diligence, day after day, her thoughts come together in one large sweep, urges her to write, to engage in remembering the many facets of her life: as a teenager; as a mother; as an elderly adult. She sat at the back of her class every day, since the first day of grade school. She was terrified. In her own mind she knew the answer to a problem that was written on the blackboard. Alas, however, when the teacher asked her to stand up, provide an answer to the question, she began to sweat. Her hands felt damp, shaky. Her voice disappeared, somewhere in the deepest seat of fluid in her body. Her tongue got tied into knots. Her face turned reddish. She felt an overwhelming desire to run away, hide behind the door, or melt away from the eyes of her classmates, that stared at her inability to speak. But she stood by her desk, like a statue, quietly swallowing the shame that came over her, bearing a mountain of embarrassment that she knew she would never be able to explain to her mother. When she heard her teacher speak, told her to get out of the classroom, and be accompanied by a student teacher, to see the Principal, she was not relieved at all. This was the worst event in her life, something she was to remember until the day she dies. |
| It is good to see a number of writing organizations that are willing to accept submissions from writers; I mean writers who are still struggling to have a book or writing published. It is interesting to note that quite a few of these magazines (online and offline) are willing to accept submissions from emerging writers. Things have really advanced since I first started writing. I am energized with this new trend, of print magazines accepting submissions from new writers. I hope these organizations continue to encourage writers, the struggling ones especially who have not had a chance to be read or published. My salute to these organizations!!! I hope this trend continues!!! |
| DREAM DESTINATION A dream is an inspiration that drives us to either fulfill it or abandon it. The fulfillment of a dream requires us to be patient, to work hard to attain that dream, and to hold on to that inspiration, even for many more years of hard work, until that inspiration becomes the realization of our dream, to become a published writer. On the other hand, if we abandon that dream we not only prove to ourselves we lack the passion, the sincerity, the energy to realize that inspiration until we see the fruits of our hard work in terms of a published work. If we allow ourselves to compromise or even to think of making a slight adjustment to our inspiration, then we are admitting we do not have the passion to see the reality of our dream. At a young age, somewhere between high school and university, I dreamed of going to Nepal. It was a longing that seemed utterly ambitious and unattainable. But my dream allowed me to study and learn more what Nepal is, where it is, how to get there, and when to get there, if I ever will. And when I get there, what to accomplish, to satisfy my curiosity of and what is about Nepal that kept my yearning alive, to see the place. Shangri-La, in my dream, is a place of peace. It is a land carved out of the highest mountain peak, serene and peaceful. It is my Eden, my paradise, my heaven. It is the perfect place of quiet and solitude, conducive to prayers and clean thinking. My Shangri-La would be filled with sunshine to warm my heart. It would be a kind of place where reason prevails and angers are forbidden. It would be filled with aura of scents and herbs to cleanse the ills that invaded my whole being. My Shangri-La would be a place where I can lay down all my troubles, and one by one scrutinize and examine each one with reasonable detail, and then to resolve each one to my satisfaction. It would be a place where physical conflicts are banned from polluting my Shangri-La, where wars are considered evils that tend to disrupt a wholesome way of thinking; and therefore, wars and all their elements of thinking are not, and never should be, tolerated, never mind permitted, to perpetuate my Shangri-La. |
| A cruise is not a cruise until you set foot in South America. Well, here I come, South America. Sailing on board MS Zandam, my husband and I will be visiting some of the countries in the southern part of the Americas. We are looking forward to this cruise, our fourth cruise on board Holland America's MS Zandam. Years ago, we convinced ourselves to take a four-day cruise to Alaska on board one of Holland America's ships, MS Zandam. It was such a good voyage we took more cruises: to the Carribbean Islands, to the eastern parts of the Pacific, and to a few more islands in and around the United States. We now consider ourselves Holland America's Number One voyagers. The two and a half weeks for this cruise to South America, we hope to see the Falkland Islands, Argentina, Uruguay, Strait of Magellan, Cockburn Channel, Glacier Alley, Cape Horn, Canal Sarmiento, Chilean Fjords, with a few days on sea. If the Americas are such beautiful islands, we should come back to Sacramento fully satisfied with this cruise!!! In the meantime, writing will not be forgotten. With these visits to the south of the Americas, Lilia hopes to find some inspiration to draft more fiction. I shall say goodbye for the time being, but I shall be back to write some more when I get back!!! All good wishes to one and all at writing.com!!! elephantsealer |
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