The Marianna

November 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Boat life, CCC, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Home, Loss, Micro-fiction, New Beginnings, Photo prompt, Relationships, Sailing, Siblings 13 Comments

He did it. He’d pared it all down and tucked it all in and stocked her all up.

He was down to one set of waterproofs, two pairs of jeans, three tees, four pairs of socks, five undies, six favorite CDs, seven books.

He was going for eight apples, nine carrots, and ten bananas, but he ate two bananas walking back from the store. So there was that. In any event, there were many other odds and ends he didn’t count but that counted just as much: sleeping bags, towels and dishes and batteries, the manual pump. All the things that would make it home.

For it was going to be. Home. The first he’d ever owned.

This boat: The Marianna.

His little sister had always dreamed of living on one, and her yearning settled in him after she died.

He smiled at the sky. “Welcome aboard, Marianna. Let’s fly.”

For Crispina’s CCC #53

Slivers Of Dreams

November 15, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Childhood memories, Creative writing, Dreams, No More War, Poetry, Posttraumatic Stress, Sleep, SoCS, Soldiers, Trauma, Writing prompt 8 Comments

Photo: Marina Shatskih on Unsplash

All those dreams that he had

As a child

Snug

Under covers

At night,

His tattered teddy

In arms.

His dreams

Parsed out

Into slivers

When

Under stars

At war,

His battered rifle

The only thing

He could

Hug.

For Linda Hill’s SoCS prompt: Dream

In The Shallows

November 14, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Breathing Space, Clarity, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Lake, life, Looking Glass, Meditation, Micro-fiction, Mirror, Poetry, WritePhoto 11 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

There was beauty in the shallows.

The mirror of the skies. The crystalline water in their unabashed reveal. The bottom — old and newer bits together — inviting her to step in and stir the quiet till it rises soft between her toes to momentarily obscure all things.

Opacity reassured her.

Like the enveloping from clouds when they leaned in close in misty acknowledgment, it held reminders:

That life was often muddy.

That clarity was temporary, hard won, and easily disrupted.

That fog spread quickly and lifted slowly, leaving damp disorientation in its wake.

That even shallows could reflect upended bowls of heaven and earth.

As if it heard, the water summoned her and she stepped into the silt. Wavelets nipped at her ankles, snapping cold against her skin.

Her toes disappeared, and she thought how apt it was to have her foundation hidden underneath a swirl of settling.

She breathed and closed her eyes and stilled and became one with the water, one with the sediment of time and the detritus of being.

Slowly, both the lake and her mind cleared.

She heard her spirit whistle on the wind.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto

Slippery Slope

November 14, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: Caution, Choices, Current affairs, Disclosure, fpj-photo-challenge, Glacier, Inquiry, Photo Challenge, Poetry, Politics, slippery, Truth 5 Comments

Photo: Inbar Asif

Down the slippery slope

Of icy past

And current treachery

They go,

Balancing precariously

On the edge of

What to do

With what they know.

For the Tuesday Photo Challenge: Slope

Secret Service

November 13, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, History, Micro-fiction, Persecution, Prayer, Religion, Revisiting, Synagogue, Tradition 40 Comments

Photo prompt © Roger Bultot

“We used to go in through that side door,” Mama said.

I stared at the narrow wooden portal. “Because you are a girl?” I knew that Jewish traditions relegated women to a separate area in the synagogue, sometimes a designated entrance.

“No,” Mama’s voice shook and I reached for her hand. Her tears surprised me.

She seemed reluctant to cross the street. I couldn’t blame her. The building looked forbiddingly cold, sealed shut.

“No,” she repeated, a note of defiance in her eyes. “So no one knew services were held. They’d have come for us if we were found out.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Yellow Fellows

November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: A moment in time, CFFC, Fall, foliage, Micro Poetry, New York City, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, Yellow 19 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

Speed of passage

Matched

By change

Of time.

A City moment

Snatched

By yellow

In its

Prime.

For Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Yellow

Gone Today

November 11, 2019November 11, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Flash Fiction, Grief, Kreative Kue, Loss, Memoriam, Micro-fiction, No More War, Photo prompt, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day, War 14 Comments

Photo: Keith Channing

They came for the car today.

It’s just a car, she tried to tell herself. It would not make sense to keep it. Not with the fees and with the debt on it only increasing. Oh, she tried, but there was no way around the loss of it.

No way around loss. In general.

She couldn’t bear to go outside to see it off. She stayed indoors, her nose glued to the window, her sweaty palms pressing life-lines into the glass, her heart in shreds.

It’s been his car.

And he would not be coming home to drive it.

Note: Dedicated on this Veterans Day (US) and Remembrance Day (The Commonwealth), to all who fought and won and lost and left and returned, or left and did not return, or not in the same way they’d left. And to the many who still are away in uniform. You are seen. You are known. May all come home whole. And may humanity one day learn peace and no more war.

For Keith’s Kreative Kue #237

Yellowed Gold

November 10, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Writing Tags: City life, Fall, Festival of leaves, foliage, Leaves, Micro Poetry, New York City, Photo Challenge, Poetry, Sunday Stills, Trees, Yellow 22 Comments

Photo: Na’ama Yehuda

Yellowed gold

Touching white

Lighting day

Glinting night.

Perfect fingers

Splayed bold

Last hurrah

Before cold.

For Sunday Stills: Yellow

For Dawn’s Festival of Leaves

Land Of Water

November 9, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Ancestry, Belonging, Flash Fiction, Folklore, Guyana, History, Interconnectedness, Micro-fiction, What Pegman Saw, Writing Challenge, Writing prompt 35 Comments

Photo: Guyana, by Joshua Gobin on Unsplash

“Have we always been here?”

“‘Always’ is a long-winded word,” Papa’s melodic voice told me a story was coming. “Some people lived here before our ancestors. Some had come after we’d already been here. The land and the water were here before any humans had come. The word ‘always’ does not mean one thing.”

“Moses said we’re not from here. That we were brought here as slaves.”

“Are you a slave?”

“No, Papa.”

“Are you here?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“You and I are Guyana born. Have you worked this land, swam in the Essequibo, witnessed Kiaeteur Falls, walked the savanna, ate manioc?”

“I have.”

“So you have your answer, Son. We’re all children of land and water. All born of wombs filled with water, all depend on water, and will one day become rain and go over the falls. Your ancestors got here. You’re here. Where else would you be from?”

For What Pegman Saw: Guyana, South America