Opal Reflections
Perspectives through Prose, Poetry and Photography
Free Will
Written for Trifextra weekend challenge:
This week we’re asking for 33 of your own words inspired by this classic song by The Rolling Stones. Good luck!
NaBloPoMo October!
Haiku Friday: Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
My dog lay sleeping;
Recharging energy stores,
Serene, sweet, slumber.
Photo Friday: Lonesome
“Lonesome” has many faces and images. Here we see a few: A pouty pet; DisneyWorld ducks, appreciating the solitude of a quiet pool; a predawn, dockside lantern; a solitary tree, standing in the middle of a farmer’s field in rural France (as captured from a moving TGV); a backyard wagon, awaiting the never ending onslaught of falling leaves; a leaf-stripped lonely tree, hunkering down as hurricane Sandy approaches; and a lonely pigeon, pecking for his food at a cobblestoned cafe in Avignon.
Turn, Turn, Turn
Written as part of NaBloPoMo October 2013 Fall: Wordless Wednesday,Autumn in an image.
This view from my back porch is the epitome of changing seasons. Autumn is well underway. “To everything there is a season (turn,turn,turn); and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
Dear Diary, 1944
This was written using Trifecta prompt “Zombie”( a mixed drink made of several kinds of rum, liqueur, and fruit juice ), and for NaBloMoPo October (crunching leaves).
Golden Delicious
Monday, October 7, 2013 Written in response to NaBloPoMo October 2013: “If you were an apple, which type of apple (Granny Smith, Gala, Red Delicious, etc) would you be and why?”
If I were an apple, I would choose to be a “Golden Delicious Apple”, growing and ripening in a tree in the middle of a New Jersey Orchard. Golden Delicious are not sisters of the more well-known “Red Delicious” variety, but rather are very honey-sweet second cousins.
I choose this because I know that having started out as a beautiful apple blossom in spring, i was much like a baby beginning life, as a pure, lovely evidence that there is God.
And I choose to be a young fruit hanging on a tree limb because as a young ‘un, I know my life is still ahead of me and anything is possible. Having just come from my 50th high school class reunion, I recall vividly the sense that the whole world lay ahead of me. Life was what I chose to make of it. I look back on those adolescent days as days of wonder and limitless possibility. Hence my choice to be a young fruit.
I choose an orchard in New Jersey because I was born in New Jersey, was raised in NJ and though I have traveled far and wide I am always happy to return home to New Jersey. I raised my children here and they are now raising their children here. My home has been my home for 40 years and I will live here until I leave this earth, much as an apple will remain with her mother tree until it is time to move on to her ultimate purpose.
So yes – I choose to be a young, not quite ready for picking, “Golden Delicious” apple growing in an orchard in a quiet New Jersey community. Someday I will be ready for picking. But for today, I rejoice that the sun finds its way through the leaves to shed its light on my skin, and that every gentle breeze that causes me to wobble on the stem, reminds me of how fortunate I am to be here.
Silent Danger
Stench invades our senses,
Macerating mucous membranes,
Rodents release their refuse
into once crystal clear waters,
producing putrid pools;
Disease incubators
disseminating deadly, dire
moldy maladies.
No safe harbor!
No respite!
Sandy’s aftermath!
This was written in response to the Trifecta weekend prompt: As you know, Trifecta has a history of dedicating the entire month of October to Halloween. We’re kicking it off early and easy with this prompt:
You’ve found some old books. On page 3 of one of the books, this illustration appears:
Artist credit: Dan Duford
http://www.poisonedplayground.com
Give us the 33 words that follow this illustration. What happens next? You are welcome to use this image on your site, but you must credit the image with a clickable link back to http://www.poisonedplayground.com.
EOCH Echoes
🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓
It’s October 1962. I’m swept back into the teenage milieu that molded my character; sitting in Mr. Yates’ music room at East Orange Catholic High School , rehearsing a quartet, “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”, that we will bravely perform in four-part harmony, at the upcoming Glee Club Concert. I’m consumed with the day-to-day challenges of senior year, striving to get good grades and SAT scores, fretting about college applications, and being acutely aware that the decisions I make, will determine the forward path of the rest of my life.
Fast forward to 2013: I’m packing an overnight bag for my 50th high school reunion, where I will reconnect with fifty, formerly young women. Many will be mothers and grandmothers; some will be noted professionals in their field of endeavor. A few will have traveled the world and seen amazing wonders. Some will have survived crises, and all will have dealt with the inevitable physical and emotional evolutions, that spare no one.
My memory is flooded with dozens of images and recollections, bobbing up to the surface like apples in a dunking barrel. But the old questions and insecurities lie just beneath the calm, mature smile: Who are these women? Will I remember them? Will they remember me? Will they like me?
I nervously park my Infinity in the last remaining space and stumble into the hotel lobby, dragging my ‘wheels’ behind me. There is barely enough room to wade through the crowd of people, chatting animatedly. I’m a little annoyed, until I realize that these are “my people”! Suddenly their eyes and facial expressions come into focus, and I strain to casually glance at their donned nametags. I hear my name, and turning to respond, my eyes connect with several familiar faces from the past. Suddenly, the years wash away and we are girls again, giggling in the hallway, as we pick up our welcome bags and information packets.
We learn that this evening there will be a Mass in honor of our class and, in particular, in remembrance of those who have passed away. Though they are absent, they join us, as we share humorous anecdotes about them and about who ‘we’ were. We know that though we all have had unique experiences, we are the same.
Half a century ago, we were given the very precious gift of ‘great expectations’. The faculty of nuns and priests who guided us, expected amazing things from us; and we, each in our own way, rose to those expectations. Revisiting the past through the lens of a life well lived, gives perspective to that life, adding texture and context.
I am happy to be present on this fabulous fall weekend, at a cozy suburban hotel in Northern New Jersey, sharing a few moments in time with these very special women.
🎓🎓🎓🎓🎓
Mr. Penny
Written in for NaBloPoMo October: Fall posted by BlogHer.
Prompt for October 4- what is your favorite Halloween costume.
He could hardly stand, the weight of his costume sitting atop his frail, ten year-old frame. Though his face was covered, I could still see his shocking blue eyes peering through, knowing that his strawberry-blond hair, was in disarray – disheveled ‘neath the overwhelming masquerade.
Mom was never at a loss for clever costume ideas, and being a seamstress and naturally creative person, this was one of her best; as proclaimed by onlookers, costume judges, kids, and other Moms. But we all knew, that the mischievous red-head wanted to shed the heavy coat and run, unencumbered, down Berryman Place, the narrow tree-lined street on which we lived.
Days earlier, my mother, sister and I had spent hours, methodically taping the saved-up copper pennies to the paper costume shell; deploying the care and patience a dressmaker might have used to meticulously affix pearly beads to an expensive bridal gown.
“Mr. Penny” won the costume competition and that day would live on, in the annals of Berryman Place. As I think about those days (which I seem to be doing alot lately), I can’t help but let a tear or two escape. They are tears of joy and sadness, wistful for the family we were; for Mom and Dad and the sacrifices they made for their three children; for the days of playing stick ball in the street and flipping baseball cards against the front stoop; but most of all, for my freckle faced baby brother.
While I truly love Fall, each year during this season, my heart cries for “Mr. Penny”, who left us, much too soon, on October 20, 2001.
Helpless
Big Bully
‘Innately nasty’, ‘Blindly narcissistic’
‘Button pushing’, ‘Target terrorizing’, ‘Fear inspiring’
Epitome of Evil, ‘Kick ass’; ‘Scaredy ass’, ‘Victor’s victim’
‘Nemesis avoiding’, ‘Darkness dreading’, ‘Whisper whimpering’
‘Deliberately diminutive’, ‘Protectively passive’
Isolated Innocent
***
I admittedly took a few liberties with the Diamanté form, in order to get to thirty three words. As the reader probably knows by now, the a Diamanté form is written from the outside in, or more specifically from the top down, and bottom up; describing (in this case) opposites. They meet on the middle line.
This was written in response to Trifecta Challenge: “This week’s prompt word is inspired by a less-than-inspiring few weeks in the life of at least one (no more than three) Trifecta editor(s). If this type of language is not your thing, don’t worry. There aren’t too many more swear words with third definitions in our dictionary, so we can guarantee Trifecta won’t always be not safe for work. If it is your thing, well, give us your best.
ASS
1. (noun): any of several hardy gregarious African or Asian perissodactyl mammals —
2. (noun): a. often vulgar : buttocks —
3. (adverb/adjective) often vulgar—often used as a postpositive intensive especially with words of derogatory implication “
Lighthouse in the Mist, Cape May, NJ
Bandit
Festive View from the Pub, Peddler’s Village – Lahaska, PA.
Home Sweet Home
Opal Reflections 