Merry-Go-Round

February 27, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Commitment, Determination, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hardship, History, Micro-fiction, Route 66, travel 48 Comments

Photo prompt © Jean L. Hays

“Used to be a zoo,” Ol’ Joe stuffed his cheek full of chewing tobacco. No frowning from Mama could make him give it up.

I gazed at the empty parking lot. We kept the market open by sheer willpower and another mortgage.

Mama often argued it was money down the drain, but Pops would shake his head. “History is a merry-go-round, Penny. It’ll come back. We just have to hang in there a little longer.”

Then the two of them would look at Ol’ Joe, and I knew: closing the business would kill him. Grandpop’s life was tied into Route 66.

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Smooth As Glass

February 26, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Aqua, Beautiful world, CFFC, Fjord, Micro Poetry, Mountains, Norway, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, Smooth, travel, Turquoise 2 Comments

Photo: Amitai Asif

Norway fjord

Smooth as glass

Flowing cold

Through mountains’ pass.

For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Smooth

Layer By Layer

February 26, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: fpj-photo-challenge, Hiking, History, Layers, Photo Challenge, Photo prompt, Poetry, Rock, Stories, travel, Wadi 9 Comments

Photo: Osnat Halperin-Barlev

Layer by layer

They go back

In time,

Descending through eras

They can carefully

Climb.

What whispers

What stories

Does the wadi

Impart?

Will their souls see

The footprints

These rocks know

By heart?

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Layer

The Perfect Shoes

February 25, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Family, Flash Fiction, memories, Micro-fiction, Old and New, Photo prompt, Shoes, Sunday Photo Fiction, Thrift Store, Writing Challenge 9 Comments

Photo Courtesy of Susan Spaulding

She came across them at the thrift store, squashed in a box along with moth-eaten scarves, a pair of slacks with holes that could tell many stories, two helplessly dented hats, and some fabric scraps.

She was about to lift a shoe to ask about the price when the proprietor glanced in her direction. “Those are by the box,” he drawled. “Take it or leave it. No picking.”

“How much?” She swished her hand inside the box and shrugged, worrying he’d overcharge her if he detected interest.

“Thirty.”

Her eyebrows hiked up on their own accord. The shoes alone were worth ten times as much.

“Twenty, final offer,” he misinterpreted her gesture.

She gazed into nearby containers till her thrumming heart settled down and she could pour something less jello-like into her legs.

“I’ll take it.”

She carried the box to the car fully expecting to hear the shopkeeper’s voice calling her back to point out a mistake. No call came.

Finally at home, she rescued the shoes, stuffed them with tissue-paper, and placed them reverently under Great-Great-Grandma’s bridal gown. Family lore was that she’d had big feet and had to wear men’s shoes. Those were a perfect match.

For Susan’s Sunday Photo Fiction

Fly By

February 24, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Flight, Make a mark, Make a wish, Moon, Photo Challenge, Photo prompt, Poetry, Skies, Sunday Stills, Writing prompt 7 Comments

Photo: Ofir Asif

Fly by

The moon

And kiss a new star

Goodnight.

Fly by

The sun

And let its light touch

Your mind.

Fly by

In play

To draw a blue skies

Outlined.

Fly high

Today

And know I’m not far

Behind.

For the Sunday Stills challenge: High flight

First Summit

February 23, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Culture, Everest, Flash Fiction, Karma, Micro-fiction, Necessity, Nepal, Sacrifice, Sherpa, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 16 Comments

Photo: Simon on Pixabay

He grew up in the shadow of Sagarmatha, where people’s moods shifted with Miyolangsangma’s and with the weather on the mountain foreigners insisted on calling “Everest.”

“Sagarmatha is her palace,” Dādā warned. “The uninvited should not trespass into the realm of the Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving. She turns many back. Some die.”

Most in the village agreed, and still they sent men to guide foreigners to the summit. Faith did not pay for necessities, while the visitors, eager if unequipped for the altitude and Miyolangsangma’s moods, paid well. Surely the Goddess understood.

“Foreigners are ignorant,” the old man argued. “But you know better than to show irreverence.”

He did know better. But Dādā needed medicine.

“I’ll stop by Rongbuk Monastery,” Garvesh proffered on the eve of his first ascent. “I will get the monks’ blessing.”

“It will not stop Karma,” his grandfather sighed. “Or what may be our last goodbye.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Trivia and Glossary:

Dādā — Grandfather in Nepali.
Sagarmatha — The Nepali name for Mount Everest. The Sherpa people believe that the mountain and its flanks are imbued with spiritual energy, and one should show reverence when passing through this sacred landscape, where the karmic effects of one’s actions are magnified.
Miyolangsangma — The “Goddess of Inexhaustible Giving” is a Tibetan Buddhist Goddess who Sherpa Buddhist Monks believe had lived at the top of the mountain.
Rongbuk Monastery — Also called the “sacred threshold to the mountain” is an important pilgrimage site for Sherpas who live on the slopes of Everest in the Khumbu region of Nepal.
Sherpa — One of the major ethnic groups native to the most mountainous regions of Nepal (as well as certain areas of China, Bhutan, India, and the Himalayas). The term sherpa or sherwa derives from the Sherpa language words Shar (“east”) and Wa (“people”), which refer to their geographical origin in Tibet.