Prissilla watched as the waves ebbed and flowed.

In and out, in and out.

It’s melody calling out to her.

Heeding it’s call, she rose slowly and made her way into the surf.

The waves lapped around her ankles like a greedy puppy, she felt welcomed somehow.

She pushed in deeper until the water was just below her armpits and she relaxed and allowed the salt in the water to push her up into a float.

Her enormous belly no longer felt as heavy as a pumpkin, it simply bobbed and weaved merging with ocean.

With each ripple of the water she felt  her pain, her sorrow, her loss, the feelings of abandonment that she just couldn’t shake, her  anxiety for the future and most of all the missing seep into water and she felt at peace.

As if on cue, the little being inside of her kicked, in what she always hoped was pleasure. They at least had this in common she thought, a love for the sea.

She would miss this time most of all she thought, it is pity she couldn’t figure out a way to keep him or her.

For now though, she would enjoy their time together immersed in the magical, always forgiving salt water and think only of her beloved Pierre.

–

Joining in on this week’s writing prompt ‘Salt water’

“The cure for anything is salt water….sweat, tears or the sea.”
~ Isak Dinesen, pseudonym of Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke

For your Creative Non-Fiction tell us about the last time that one of these three things “cured” you. If you are going with Fiction, have your character resolve a problem using one of the three (or all three!!!).

I chose to do fiction for this prompt.  The character Prissilla is from my attempt at the NANOWRIMO challenge. I actually stopped right at the point in my novel attempt and giggled when I saw the prompt because instantly I knew what to write even though it alluded me so many weeks ago.

Hope it answers the prompt. Please feel free to comment and critique.

and could barely muster up a smile much less a hilarious face like these.

But today she is back to normal and being everything thing written here in pink, her favourite colour of course.

Oh well but I am still doing it here,

the prompt asked “to come up with a title and tagline that captures your life, or a moment from your life.”

I have a chosen to tagline right now this minute!

Gayle

With each check-up finds out she is slowly falling apart

Well I am still with asthma and I am really not impressed. Yes I said with asthma. I honestly thought I would have kicked it to the sidewalk awhile ago, but no one month later we are still together. I still find myself frantically reaching for that inhaler with shaky hands and drawing from it greedily as I would expect a junkie would do as he or she dives into their daily hit. Just so that I can breathe without wheezing or pain.

It makes me tired… well I guess it only makes sense that I am having difficulty breathing that my body and brain would be tired. Looking forward to the end of the silly cold season to get back to my normal self.

and here is a tagline for my life right now.

Gayle

loving mother, good wife in progress, donning her shield daily to do battle with the homework dragon.

Sigh school is back in session 2 week now and bad Mummy that I am I have already allowed one ‘sick’ day to my son ..yes he was so not sick his sister was but not him! And I also sat and played with him when he had a bag full of homework and then sent him off to bed with not even a glance again at the school bag.

I am hating homework as much as he is right about now… maybe more. And well the teacher did say that he should do it by himself and well since he didn’t even look at it by himself  well I figured I did my part. Yeah I know bad mummy

Trying to do homework with a special needs kiddie is just no fun… it is no fun with a typical child either if that child just doesn’t want to do it. My very creative children both hate creative writing LOL.

or

Gayle, living a life crammed with kiddies and loving their enthusiasm for life.

My honeys are all growing up so fast that it is scary. They may stress me out and cause me to yell but they sure make my heart swell with love and pride and just good ole happiness. So all in all the year is coming along nicely and though can’t seem to find time for myself everything is A-ok.

Hope everyone is A-Ok as well.

Happy New Year by the way

(so what if the year is 18 dys old)

It is a Sunday which means that Anthony is cooking up a big pot of ginger with some meat tossed in for flavour.

I absolutely despise ginger.

And every Sunday that I was able to make Sunday lunch at our dear family friend’s house I would start protesting loudly from the gate about the ginger.

“Why have me here for lunch when you know how much I hate the ginger!” I would bellow only half way joking because I was  really kind of annoyed. To me there is nothing worse than biting into a piece of ginger that has masqueraded itself as a piece of chicken.

The bittersweet sting that hits the back of the throat and the subsequent heat that inches it way down to the stomach is most unpleasant to me especially if I am biting into it unawares.

He would always just laugh at me and say “have a beer girl you fret too much” and then would pile up a plate and say taste it.

And each time the sting of the ginger would hit me and I would be annoyed.

Overtime though he started putting less and less ginger into the pot when he knew I was going to be there for lunch, and slowly I got a taste for it. Still not my favourite but my grumbling stopped partly due to the resignation that Anthony could not cook without ginger and partly out of appreciation that he tried to appease me. Spoiled child that I was.

Then he died, giving into a second bout of cancer and there was no more ginger…… or cooking.

A few years later, pregnant and having a bad case of gas my husband forced some ginger ‘tea’ down my throat because ginger is suppose to be good for stomache ailments. It worked and I find myself on occasion actually cooking with ginger.

The root is still ugly, the smell is still stingingly sweet and too much of it still makes me feel sick. But everytime I use it, drink it or eat it I can almost feel him standing behind me saying ” Girl put some more in it, It will taste good.”

Joining in for my first Writing on Edge prompt for 2012.

Four hundred words or less, fiction or creative non-fiction, linked up on Friday morning’s post, based on one of the following definitions: flavour

Pierre Villaire

Son .  Brother .  Friend

1925 – 1945

The rain came down hard.

Each drop seemed to punctuate the statement, making it scream louder in her head.

Son.

Brother.

Friend.

The words were on repeat in her head as if trying to negate  what she knew.

She knew that he was much more than that,

he was inspiration, he was lover, he was love, he was life, he was  to be her life!

How could they not know this. But how could they he was gone before they could proclaim to the world that they were one.

How was she to go on now that her life was no longer.

He was gone!

Tears, hot and aching, spilled down her face mixing in with the rain and becoming one with the dirt and making mud.

The stark reality of it made more real by seeing his name in stone.

Son. Brother . Friend

Prissilla didn’t even feel when her sister came up beside her.

Some how her soft whisper broke through the noise in her head,

“Prissy you are soaked right through, it is time. We must leave now.”

With one long look at the stone she allowed her sister to lead her away with one thought in her head- He was MINE.

____

Joining in today in the first Write On Edge writing prompt for 2012! Woohoo!

For this week, we were asked to write a fiction or creative non-fiction piece in which an epitaph features prominently–in 500 words or less.

Hope you enjoyed.

Happy New Year! May it be a year filled with lots of writing opportunities and accomplishments for us all.

I have ASTHMA! ( yes I am shouting)

Sigh…I can’t help but feel that I am falling apart.

and I am not sure where to lay the blame.

So I think I shall place it squarely on both the fact that I had twins and that I turned 40 shortly after.

the Big 4-0 plus 1

Yikes the numbers stick in my throat everytime. ‘Cause in my head I am still only 19 maybe 20. hahahaha I have jokes.

Anyway ever since those two events my body has just not been the same.

I have to say I honestly didn’t think it would take me over two years to reclaim my stomache but it is 2 and a half and I am still trying. That nasty C-section just totally destroyed what ever feeble muscles that I had and now I have a gut and rolling over, wouldn’t stay sucked in gut. that is causing me no end of grief.

And I think because of the twins, though I do love them dearly, I now have nil resistance. Nothing passes me because guess what I am perpetually tired because the sweet darlings are only now at 2 and a half sleeping through the night!

Which now leads me to the idea it is because I am over 40 now.

Over the summer I had a kidney infection… a blinkity blink kidney infection after a really vigorous week of exercise. I was in the hospital for 5 whole days!!!! I was not impressed and then it took me almost 6 weeks to ‘get back’ to normal. It drained me so much. I felt like I was a pile of mush continually pinned down by a big fat thumb.

Oh and did I mention I also have the dreaded eye sight going dim. My once perfect eyesight is now seriously AWFUL. Fortunately I still can see anything that is a foot away from me but get any closer to me and if you are not a blur you are seriously hurting my eyes and of course my head! My constant companion is a tiny folded up pair of magnifying glasses, which I stubbornly rarely take out of it’s case. Sigh.

Still recovering from the summer but feeling good about exercising again I started at the gym again because quite frankly the muscles of my body are turning or have turned into mush.

And though I am killing myself on the spinning cycle and some mean classes of pilates I find that I have put on 10-12 pounds. Geez, I have middle age spread to go along with that God-Awful rolling over Gut.

This is the heaviest that I have ever been that is not pregnancy related. And don’t shot me in the scheme of things I am not overweight or obese but it just seems so odd to adjust to. I now have a backside that could possibly rival Beyonce’s… Oh shame (hangs head.)

On the positive side, seeing that I need new clothes to accommodate the spreading behind and corresponding gut this means some shopping would be going on. I could muster a smile for that

And now I have Asthma. Guess who will never step foot in a spinning class again! Yup you got it me. It is so tiring trying to breathe with bronchioles that congested and clogged. Not to mention it hurts. Sigh.

Oh and the piece de resistance – I think I am going through perimenopause. I have just endured 6 weeks of no period and the concern of being pregnant even though I had three negative pregnancy test and a good scolding from my older male OBGYN for not being smart. Which has now given way to the flood gates being opened and no end in sight of them ever being closed ( sorry for the TMI.) Oh boy.

I keep waiting to enjoy the great epiphany and confidence that is supposed to come in the 40′s as friends of Mommy Pants have been sharing but I can’t seemed to find it.

Maybe if I put on my magnifying glasses after taking a puff from my new stupid, stupid inhaler (that makes me sleepy while the prednisone steroids make me hyped, which if I think about it kind of wakes me up and I am not as tired as I have been feeling lately so maybe it is a good thing. Ok I shall Stop the rambling now.) Maybe then I could find the beauty of being 40.

Until then I shall still gag on the number and pray that the body can hold it together at least until 50 because hello I am having a huge shindig come hell or high water.

Phew what a vent I feel better now. Sorry to go into such a ramble!

So I go off now to take some pill or the other. Thanking God for life .

Keep good.

With hands shaking like a leaf in the wind I reached for the door handle.

What just happened? My mind still in a fog

I know I hadn’t taken my eyes of the road. Yet still I almost missed that the car in front of me had stopped.

Fast, fast my feet jam hard on the brakes

I am so focused that I am cushioned in a bubble that buffers out all noise.

I am not breathing

The car stops.

Did I hit the car?

There was no crash. There was no screech. The tyres did not scream

Was this because of the bubble?

My son is wailing. I hear that . He is ok. I slowly exhale.

I step out of the car and say

Did my car hit your?

Taking part in RemembeRED – Flash Memoir. Take the next ten minutes to write about the first single memory that word calls up. Focus on the emotions and the experience, spend ten minutes really exploring that memory. Then wrap it up, publish, and come link up.

A curl, well what was supposed to be a curl, grasped firmly between two finger.

Twirling it around her finger, she glanced at the mirror across from her and almost gasped at her image.

A pouf of kinky, frizzy mass stood in place of what should have been her hair.

So much for channelling Halle Berry with that hair style, she thought, it was looking more like Ludacris in his early days.

She was feeling glum. And each spiky, frizzy strand of hair  seemed to mirror that feeling.

Not for the first time she wondered how closely twined her hair and mood always were.

She was a great believer that your best accessory is a great hairstyle. And the accessory in the mirror sucked.

A ball dropping on the desk brought her attention back to the melee that was her living room at that moment.

Children were piled high on the cushions that were no longer on their respective place of the couch or chair.

It appears that the game of Pirates had given way to a game of catch.

Geez, it struck Rowena that all those shrieking children were hers, four children who would have thought it.

She had been home with them all day and she was losing it. No wonder she and her hair were fighting the glum monster.

Yes she thought she would make an appointment and cut it all off maybe add a colour or two.

Halle Berry would have nothing on her…. well except maybe three less children.

With that thought she smiled and threw the ball back to the waiting child.

Change was good sometimes and it starts with her hair.

Taking part in Red Writing Hood this week. We were asked to write about hair. So many of us have a love-hate relationship with it. For some of us, it’s our defining feature. Whatever it means to you – or to your characters – we want to know about it. Just 300  words to write it in.

I started to beat myself about not ever finishing anything and not being disciplined enough

BUT then I realised the challenge itself is about writing and the decision to write

And I took on that challenge didn’t I?

Last week Thursday as the deadline loomed overhead and the realization that I was barely half way to the count it I conceded defeat to the NAnoWRI MO however not before acknowledging the following facts:

Here are a few things about myself  that I learned in taking on this challenge
1) Boy do I have an imagination,
2) You can fall in love with your characters!
and
3) I am not ready for guerilla writing and I am resigned to the fact that I did not win the challenge. Oh well still intend to finish the novel whether it is readable or not. LOL