A Case of Spoiled Rotten

February 24, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, Criticism, Fair, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, Just for fun, Micro-fiction, Mothering, parents, Photo prompt 32 Comments

roger-city-street-tilted

“You’re pouting.”

He hated crowds. “I’m not having fun, Ma.”

“Then why come? You could’ve stayed behind, along with the long face.”

Mani sighed. “I tried.”

“So now I tied you up and carted you along?”

Pretty much, emotionally. He shook his head. “Sorry, Ma. I’m in a mood.”

“A mood? What’s a mood? If you bled like a woman, you’d know about having a mood. You just have a case of spoiled rotten.”

“Yes, Ma.” It was easier to agree.

Ma craned her head. “Ah, now, lets see if these Jewish Greeks can cook anything worth eating.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Roger Bultot

In The Wrong

January 22, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Choices, Criticism, Finding your way, listening, Mothering, parenting, Poetry, self-esteem, Trust yourself, Weekend Writing Prompt 25 Comments

(Photo: Anna Hecker on Unsplash)

She was, always, in the wrong.

The wrong path. The wrong friends.

The wrong choices. The wrong dress.

The wrong dreams. The wrong job.

Wrong husband.

Wrong … no … not the wrong children.

Just the sometimes-very-difficult ones.

No wonder,

When her every action was judged

Widdershins.

So she chose to listen

To no one,

But the small call

Of her soul,

And the small arms that wrapped

Around her legs

When she reached

Down.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: widdershins in 75 words

When The Weather Allows

January 14, 2022Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: 100WordChallenge, children, Family, Flash Fiction, Friday Fictioneers, hope, Micro-fiction, Mothering, Patience, Seafaring, Waiting 38 Comments

“When will they come home?” Lizbeth’s voice penetrated Mauve’s daydream. It was rare to find rest in the middle of her day, and Mauve couldn’t help a touch of resentment at the interference. Guilt smothered it. The wee bairn could not help wondering. She missed her brothers as much as Mauve did her sons.

“When the weather allows it,” Mauve gazed at the sea. The maker and breaker of everything. She loved it. She loathed it. She couldn’t see a life without it.

“Tonight?” Lizbeth pressed against the rail.

“More possible tomorrow,” Mauve swallowed a sigh. “So we shall hope.”

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt © Bradley Harris

The Longest Walk

July 2, 2020July 2, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Meditation, Moment in time, Morning, Mothering, Pause, Photo prompt, Poetry, self-care, Take a moment, WritePhoto 25 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

She rose with the sun, her brow still damp with the essence of dream. Soon enough her feet were, too, from dew and from the small drops of silence that mornings bring.

There was little to say, and much space to accompany.

It was a good day.

It had to be.

There will be time much later on, for all the things she might still need, and all the words she may still say, and all the sorrows she no longer wished to borrow.

In the meanwhile, she walked on, crushing dandelions, breathing lavender.

The fields stretched ahead as the disc of light leaned hot against the sky. The air shimmered, dancing in the sun.

Or wavering.

It would not matter, in the long run.

She walked on.

Eventually she’d have to turn around, retrace her steps, return into the pace of tending, bending, sending, lending, fending.

And it would still be a good day.

For the dawn poured the generous morn into her, washing her, filling her, scenting her soul. Step by breath by step by breath, immersed into the longest walk her present moment could recall.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto

Her Reflection

June 25, 2020June 25, 2020Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Writing Tags: Beach, Breathing Space, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Mothering, parenting, Photo prompt, Reflection, self-care, Take a moment, WritePhoto 35 Comments

Photo: Sue Vincent

She walks along the dunes. There had been very little time away from others. So very few opportunities to be alone. She needs this more than air.

Morris agreed to keep an eye on the children. They were not enthused.

“He’s boring, Mama!” Ethan complained.

“Yeah, and his breath smells!” Lilly pouted.

“You don’t have to kiss him,” she replied. “And if you are bored, I can leave you some chores.”

They skulked away, displeased, but there was nothing for it, grumpy neighbor-as-babysitter or not. She knew she was becoming increasingly impatient. She did not want to cross the line into unkind.

It wasn’t their fault that Paul left. It wasn’t their doing that their dad did not see fit to shoulder any responsibility. She knew they missed him. He didn’t even think of calling on their birthdays. She knew Ethan cried for his dad in his sleep.

She almost took them with her to the dunes. Almost made it a family outing. Lilly loved running in the sand. Ethan’s eyes always lit up at the space. Like her, he loved the breeze and silence.

But she could not. Not this time.

This time she needed to replenish. For herself. For them. They needed a sane mother. She was running low on how.

She walks and breathes and ruminates and lets the worries and the sorrows stream out and flow down her cheeks and neck and chest till they evaporate.

There was a time she had hoped to have a house on the dunes. There was a time she had a dream of living in the solitary calm of gulls and tides and estuaries.

It wasn’t that she regretted having the children (marriage was a whole other story, given what non-partner Paul turned to be). She did not. Not once. She couldn’t imagine her life without them. Just for this morning, though … she needed to let be a part of herself that did not have them in its center.

She walks as if in daydream. The light shimmers and the estuary glints silver in the shrinking distance. It gives her peace. A reminder of how every stagnant-looking pool may in fact be only a pause in flow.

For Sue Vincent’s WritePhoto challenge

The Winner

June 17, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: adoption, Creative writing, Flash Fiction, Joy, life-change, Lottery, Micro-fiction, Mothering, New life, Winning, Writing prompt 22 Comments

Photo: Wesley Eland

It was never about the money, or the endless calculations, or the disappointment she learned to expect and accept. The odds were against her. She knew that. Everyone said so. Many laughed.

And yet …

She could scarce believe it when she saw the numbers and date and words line up, when she knew that for once — in the way that mattered most — she was the winner.

She rubbed her eyes. Checked everything again.

She called to double check. Her heart thrumming in her chest.

She wrote down every detail: The place. The time. The plan. The day when her life would forever change.

Or had it changed already?

That night she tossed and turned and even though she finally fell asleep, she woke before dawn with her heart aflutter, and gazed into the ceiling till the morning brought with it the first few rays of sun.

A day reborn. Herself, perhaps, as well.

Nights will never be the same, she thought. Nor mornings.

Nor any other time in any other hour. Winter or summer. Light or dark.

She counted down the days, excited beyond words and somewhat frightened — should she tell? Who to? How much to share? How much to keep to herself?

Eventually she’ll have to. …

Oh, there will be a celebration! She could list in her mind the friends who’d rejoice with her. She could also note the dread of recognizing those whose green-eyed-monsters might awaken. Will she lose friendships over this? Will jealousy taint what she’d never quite dared to believe would be awarded her?

“I won the lottery,” she whispered to herself, holding the bit of paper between shaking fingers. “They’ve checked it out and they’ve agreed. It’s approved. Two more weeks … I won’t believe it till I’m there. Till after. Till I’m back home with a new life in my hands.”

She pulled out the photo. Drank it in. The ebony chubby cheeks. The dimple in the elbow. The eyes. These eyes …

“I’m coming, Bomani …” She kissed the picture that the orphanage included with the adoption papers. “Mama’s coming for you, my little son-to-be.”

For V.J.’s Weekly Challenge: Lottery

A Heart, Missing

May 12, 2019November 12, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Memoriam, Muse and Flow, Photography, Poetry, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Emptiness, Grief, Loss, Miscarriage, Missing, Mother's Day, Mothering, One Word Sunday, Poetry, Pregnancy, Unspoken, Yearning 17 Comments

Photo: Yael Yehuda

There stands the empty crib

The room that will not hear

The sounds of cries or coos or laughter.

There are the walls,

Fresh paint

Fresh pain

For the awaited,

For a broken chapter.

A heart

Missing

Breast and breath

For an eternity of loss,

Till the hereafter.

Note: Dedicated with love to all empty-armed mothers (in all their manifestations and realities and outward presentations), on this Mother’s Day.

For Debbie’s One Word Sunday: Missing

Beached Hopes

November 9, 2018Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Photography, Reflections, Writing Tags: Future, hope, Mothering, Nature, Photo Challenge, Photography, Poetry, Turtles, Weekly Photo Challenge, Wildlife, WitsEndChallenge Leave a comment

Photo: Atara Katz

In the soft curl of foam

In the rush of cool waves

She will beach

She will trench

And will lay

Out her hopes

That a future

Will come.

For the Wits End Photo Challenge: Four legged friends

Welcoming Hearts

May 14, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Reflections, Writing Tags: Guidance, Hospitality, love, Mother's Day, Mothering, parenting, Raising Children, Thankful, The Daily Post 7 Comments

tender hand

For all the mothers, biological and adoptive, temporary or ‘forever,’ immediate and surrogate, spiritual, female and otherwise …

A day of thanks, for open hearts.

A day for those who carry, hold, deliver, care-for;

For those who pat-the-back-of-babies through long nights, who walk a groove into the floors in the new-parent-dance;

For those who wipe the brow of fever, whose arms and hands are never empty, who fill a plate for others before sitting down for theirs;

For those who watch over the children while their parents cannot be there – day in and day out, in emergency, or any needed time;

For those who fret and worry, contemplate and weigh each day, each milestone, each possible advance to a child’s healthy growing;

For those who open every corner of their heart for love far bigger than imagined;

For those who welcome little ones (and sometimes not so little) and parent, guide, teach, hug, steer safe, keep whole, allow, provide;

For those who still raise pieces of themselves even as they are called to raise others;

For those determined to change course from paths that harm, to ones that cradle;

For those who let be known that children matter, who fight to make the world a better place for those unable yet to lead but destined to inherit what we will leave them;

For the hospitality of parenting souls of all kinds;

For the depth of care so many offer;

For the triumphs and the challenges:

Deep thanks.

For The Daily Post

Mothering

May 8, 2016May 8, 2016Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Meditations, Reflections Tags: Gratitude, kindness, Mother Earth, Mother's Day, Mothering, NaamaYehuda, self-care, Thankful 4 Comments

tender care

Thankful

For mothering

In all its forms:

The immediate, the early, the continuous, the delayed;

The biological, the fostered, the adopted, the periodical, the incremental and the unusual;

To mothering by women, by men, by friends and neighbors, co-workers and teachers, siblings and relatives, by the kind smile of a stranger and moments of shared understanding;

To mothering by nature, by pets, by ocean waves, by breath and life’s constant flow and ebb;

To Mother Earth and Mother Moon;

To mothering of self, by self, by growth, by age and lessons learned and known …

To all of this, and more;

Thankful for mothering.

In all its forms.

tenderness