Short Stories and Poems: Snail Mail Muse

Short Stories and Poems: Snail Mail Muse: Snail Mail Snail mail is what main stream has begun calling letters sent through the post office. I've read in various places h...

Snail Mail Muse

Snail Mail

Snail mail is what main stream has begun calling letters sent through the post office. I've read in various places how people are becoming okay (conditioned) with Happy Birthday's just posted to facebook or e-cards sent through email. I'm afraid I sometimes fall under that category too. But I still value and treasure cards for any occasion, or none at all, sent through Snail Mail. :)

I  When I was a young girl I used to have pen pals. I'm not sure how it is today, but then we were in School we were encouraged to keep pen pals and correspond regularly with them. I used to have "summer" friends when I lived in Sunland. We would hang out all summer when their families were vacationing on the lake and when Labor Day came we would say or goodbye's until next June. Through out the school year we would write to each other. I loved picking out the pretty stationary and matching envelope to write on. Come to think of it, I still do :)  

We would share our school days and fill our stationary with our latest crushes, sports we were in, favorite books and all sorts of little girl frills. I would always use my best penmanship. Careful not to make any mistakes. June would arrive and we would giggle with excitement for we hadn't seen one another for nine months! Their hair was always in a new style and they were always a bit taller. I'm sure I was different too. I treasure that time of my childhood. I definitely do not believe in a "paperless society."

There is something exciting and good for our hearts when we open our letter box to find something sent other than nagging unforgiving bills and ads. My mother still sends us hand made cards for every special occasion and holiday. To her birthdays are not just another day as other families treat them. Nor is the first day of Spring. Does anyone celebrate May Day? May day is the first day in May. 
You gather fresh flowers in a basket and leave them on someone specials' door step for them to find. Isn't that a great old tradition? We used to celebrate it growing up and I still have my children do it. Before we moved to the evergreen state the kids usually picked Lilac & Forget Me Not blooms and give them to our dear sweet neighbor Ms. Ruby. 

I keep my cards and letters in pretty boxes. Someday when I have time I will go through them and reminisce through the years. I still have a beautiful birthday card that was given by my mother on my 17th birthday. That's almost an antique, now! :)  

Other than letters, I love handwritten recipe cards. You'll never catch me keeping recipes in some boring, sterile computer file. No way! That's fine for all you OCD friends (trust me I understand), but I'm perfectly content with the stained, spilled on recipe cards. My mother still pulls out her mother's recipes each time she need them. I love to see grandma's notes written in perfect slant cursive off to the side.
There have been rumors of schools around the United States removing cursive from their curriculum. You know, Language and Writing were my best subjects. All three of my children excel in them too. Well I refuse to conform. My children will be taught to write in cursive as long as I have anything to say about it. What a shame to remove such beautiful art from the American people. Some of Literature's finest publications were written in cursive. And so we are on the same page... printing is not the same as cursive. "Writing" actually means cursive while printing means to simply use letters in regular form. My grandparents would spend the majority of my homework hour debating this subject. Much to my dismay I missed the homework hour but came away with knowing full well the difference between "writing" and "printing." I grew up nervous to accidentally refer to print as writing and cursive as print careful not to confuse the two.

Literature's finest...our Early American Constitution was written in cursive. How beautiful it is with it's honest scribbles and scratch outs. How boring and impersonal had it been drawn up on Word Processor in perfect print!

It saddens me that today along with the various attempts to change such a beautiful ledger, also is it trying to be rewritten.

What would the beautiful Jane Austen have to say about the removal of the importance of cursive? Her books were indeed written in cursive. 

Lest, we forget the old Mother Goose books handwritten in cursive. 

This book is so beautifully written in cursive. 

I remember when it was no longer  acceptable by the teachers to turn in reports in penmanship. They required computer print. I was very disappointed and I knew things were drastically changing. In fact, I used to have a feather pen complete with an ink holder that sat on my little desk when I was a little girl.

St. Patrick's Day is vastly approaching and I think I will have the kids send out post cards to their cousins 
and far away friends this year. 
St. Patrick's Day is a lot of fun for children and adults, too. 
Green beer isn't bad, nor is getting kissed ;) 
Have a wonderful almost Spring day.

What to do when everything has been stripped away

From where do you regain hope?

Hope? When all that is left is broken pieces of what used to be your life. When once filled rooms are empty shells of what used to be. When reasons for waking at the sun's rise doesn't seem to exist anymore. When cooking for four has turned into cooking for one and sometimes two. When what you believed in is up for questioning. When truth becomes fogged by greater prevailing agendas. 

Life's meaning has been taken miles down the road. You sit in silence alone with your thoughts and millions of questions. You raise your sorrows and pain to the God who promises never to leave you. To never forsake you. 

...But you feel left, you feel forsaken. You feel thrown into the wind. With humble hands filled with bits of broken hearts you ask Him to take the shards of worry, your sadness, your fear, your confusion your everything broken. In hope to make it right again.

So you sit and listen as the days embark and the hours pass. Listening and waiting for the epiphany to come. For the answer. Through this, it feels like your darkest hours. Where you meet your anguish head on. Not running from it, not hiding, not taking to bad habits or idle time wasted. For this is the time when you are gaining clarity. Perhaps not understanding, because sometimes in this life when we are deep in the valley, understanding to our circumstances does not often come until we are out. Along the hillside, or atop the mountain. But clarity into where you belong in this storybook called life. 

I have found myself getting lost in translation when trying to understand the why's and the how's. I realized I have not gained anything positive or growth worthy other than to reopen and add heaps of salt to my raw open wounds. I realized this because as I lay sobbing and hurting crying out, I was incapable of learning the reasons why I was where I stood present in this point of life. I learned through experience that no matter how hard we try to control matters, we are not always responsible for the outcome. That sometimes the system fails us. Our parents, friends, sisters...We cannot control how others will behave or their actions. It's in that very thought process that I was learning to embrace my outcome(s) by not losing sight of what I believe in or what mattered to me most. My core. My very being.

Often I find myself crying aloud wondering, why did my prayers go unanswered. Why did He answer their cries and pleads and empty promises but failed to answer mine? It's that very question in which I pause today. I am wrestling with that one. I have always enjoyed the expression "One one door closes, another one opens..."  But what does that really mean? During this dark late hour, as I sit among the low lit lamp, tucked away in this humble room, I pause and ask once more but not my last: "Why? Why me, why us, why this?" What is the purpose, the lesson, the message?"  I try desperately to cleave to the truths that seem to really speak to my heart. I hold tight to the notion that God is not finished with this chapter. That though my current circumstance may be riddled with deep confusion and pain... somehow, somewhere, at some point...justice will be fulfilled and all the countless wrongs will be made right.

For in that...I have hope.

~Thanks for reading with me :)

"Hope is the thing with wings..." ~ Helen Keller

The Liar's Club

                                  Soul Sucker

                                                                   Prologue

      The Liars Club. The year is 1886. Welinburg Vermont, population 2,100. During a time when merriment was eroded and common sense spared. Lamp oil was found scarce and acute awareness was neglected. When denial persevered and discernment for common good was desolate. 
     The weak walk around this earth tormenting and infecting the innocent. Usually the very one's who are seemingly mild, meek and reserved. Posing as amicable neighbors in every viable occasion. Like an epidemic disease they spread venom through out the land. Spilling into social spheres causing division and destruction. Their venom effects the integrity of the innocent's reputations. Venom weaving and entangling places and inner circles of the innocents world and livelihoods. 
     For these people do exist. They habituate in your town, your neighborhood, your schools...they are inevitably everywhere. For it's mandatory and vital that you may attention. Pay great mind to those with whom you cross paths with. For they very well could be members of the Liar's Club...

~thanks for reading with me!
To continue on, meet back here tomorrow for chapter one.

Meet My Illustrator

Myra Fiacco

Myra Fiacco lives in Indiana with her husband and two young daughters, Phoebe and Lola. When she’s not illustrating or writing, she is working to instill the love of art into her family. With an artistic background and bucketful of ambitions, she stretches her creative limits with the hope of filling shelves around the world with inspirational and entertaining books. Myra runs a blog for her daughters, phoebeandlola.blogspot.com, and an adjoining Etsy shop that continues to grow.

“To create, no matter the medium, is to give to life to the motionless and salt to the flavorless.”

Little Pumpkin Men

                                           Featured Rough Draft

                                               ...How adorable are they already?