Charge - Free Assoc Writers Group 08172019

Free Assoc 8/17/19
The word: CHARGE

Amelia left the house, her home she made with Bob and the kids, with a heavy heart. She also had the knowledge that she was making the right decision for herself. She carried her two suitcases out, set them down on the porch, and gently clicked the front door shut for the last time.

Looking over her shoulder and down, she made certain her stocking seams were straight. She pulled her gloves snugly on her wrists, wriggled her fingers, and picked up her luggage, all she was leaving with, just as the Yellow Cab turned the corner and slid up alongside the curb.

'This is it,' she thought. 'This is where I start over and leave all that was behind.'

Down the steps and into the cab, the gentlemanly cabbie relieving her of her cases and stowing them in the boot. She sat down in the roomy back seat and smoothed her light blue skirt as she settled in for the short ride to the train station.

As the cab pulled away, the feeling of apprehension and nervousness was replaced by a flutter of excitement. She felt her face flush. She was also aware she was smiling.

"Where ya going, miss?" The cabbie looked up at her from the rear-view mirror. She noticed he had kind, dark-brown eyes and a slight accent she couldn't place. "Travelling for business or pleasure?"

She had to think about that for a moment.

"Well, I guess you could call it a combination of both," Amelia replied. "It's time for me to leave here, leave myself behind, and see if I can flourish somewhere else."

"Where might that be? Heading for the West Coast then?"

"Not sure, really." Amelia thought for a brief moment, feeling braver and more adventurous as they moved farther and farther away from the big green house with the front porch and the big bank of hydrangeas out front. "I'm thinking of buying a ticket all the way out to California but, since I don't have any schedule to stick to, I'm thinking of disembarking at different stops along the way, should I feel the desire to explore or roam. Or if I just feel like getting off the train for a day or so. I can hop off and on along the way for no extra charge."

The cabbie's eyes widened a bit. "You are going off to travel alone? With no particular destination in mind? Miss, if I may say, you are what they call these days a liberated woman. I will wish you a very safe and pleasant trip and pray that you find what you are looking for. I will worry about you but I can see fire in your eyes. You have a look of determination. Did you know that?"

Amelia looked down at her white gloves with the little pearl buttons at the cuff. "Hmm, I have never thought of myself that way. I think you just instilled me with more confidence that I had when I got in the taxi. Funny how a chance meeting with a complete stranger can strengthen you. My hands aren't shaking anymore. I'm not thinking 'Have I made a mistake' anymore. I feel like I am leaning forward into my future all of a sudden, sir. That's all because of your encouraging and kind words. So I thank you for that."

"No, no, miss. I am simply who I am. I hear so many stories throughout my day, every day that I drive. I have a happy life, job security that allows me to make a life for my family, my wife and children that I love and that love me. These are things that make my life complete. I enjoy hearing the stories of others. It helps me to remember that we all are looking. Some of us have found it and some are on their journey to find it. It is what makes life worth living, I suppose."

"I understand," Amelia smiled and replied. "I thought I had what I had been looking for. I really did. There was a family tragedy, that I'd rather not share, that made me realize that everything is temporary. It also made me see that being mild and content and being truly happy in life, are two very different things. I look forward to seeing if I can find what will make me truly happy in life. I really do. And I'm going to be brave about it. Life is too short to play it safe."

Dream of Another Life

Last night, it started with a darkened room.

I was in a place that was familiar and friendly. Many surrounding me were those that I knew. More than mere acquaintances, many were loose friends. You know what I mean by that. When we are together, we couldn't be tighter, but now that we are apart, running in different circles on different schedules, we connect and say hello and send hearts and I love and miss you's on Facebook. For the moment it seems like we are back 5 years. But in reality, I will only see you if you are working when I am shopping. Sad, but that's life. That is one of the main things that broke me. You know when.

The End is the Birth of the Beginning

An old, old mansion in an old, old American city. That means not very old at all.

The old woman, the last survivor of the family that built this behemoth has finally found a way to go on to another plane of existence. She also has figured out how to stay.

Butterflies come to life on the fingertips of those to whom they breathe life into. Real life. Not how thay have lived thus far. But who they transform into. It is magical and terrifying.

A doll, benign with faded ivory and porcelain. The doll becomes dark, its own twin. carrying dark thoughts deep within to secret away.

Photographs that line a study on the 3rd floor. Black and white snaps that capture the history of the country and its development of celebrity. They step out of the photos and become reborn. Those who were unhappy are happy. Those that were corrupt come back tortured. Those drunk with power come back young and helpless, in need of help from others.

Those close to the family or those vaguely related through marriage or whatnot...
They chat in and out of these rooms, discover themselves, become other people, realize they are not who they think they are. The snooty are cowardly. The meek are inspirational.

The little boy who never spoke said, "There's a ghost in the garden."

The building was made of dark, red granite. And the stones had been cut by hand; cut by the rough, weathered hands of the proud men who had been blessed with the talent and vision to make art from ordinary blocks of stone. These were the craftsmen from scattered European countries.

This house looked like an exaggerated painting in the late afternoon sun. Blood red on the side lit from the sun and so dark that it looked nearly black on the north. The granite block, which had been coaxed from mined stone, was the color of dried blood and it had a heavy scattering of sparkling crystals in the blackest of blacks.

Completion

(Hollywood & Western, if anyone knows the area), so laying in bed, not sleeping (as usual), and I saw in my mind the story through to the end. It made the story complete and complex, a perfect way to bring the 2 main characters to the end of their relationship and an emotionally charged parting of the ways as they went on their seperate paths beyond the end of the story.

The next day...I felt as if I'd finished the story and had no further desire to actually type it out (yes, on a manual typewriter...this was the late 80s) and complete it the way I saw it in my head. To this day, I remember the ending, I still think it's wonderful, and I've never written it down. I know I still have those typewritten pages in a folder but I am not sure where it is.

I have almost 10 stories that I "am writing" currently that I rarely visit and add to, except on the rare occasion. It bothers me. Not only am I doing the stories a disservice, I feel I am preventing myself from developing further as a writer. I can come up with a great idea, get it going and initially write for hours....and then I set it aside. And again, it's usually because I have decided how it ends...or what I want to convey with it...I don't know what it is. Fear of failure? Fear of success? A wildly out-of-control affliction of procrastination? That's more likely it than anything else. I can procrastinate like no other.

I am not sure how to break this cycle, to teach myself to want to finish my projects. I've been like this since I was very young. I wrote as a child and I had one notebook, pages and pages of ideas for stories, and I had a separate notebook of completed VERY short stories and meandering poems.

I recently found a canvas bag containing a dozen or so folders, filled with my writing. One had all the songs my band used to play. My  handwritten lyrics and my weird way of writing music (it looks more like algebraic formulas than music, but I can read it so...). So many songs...and all complete.

Another folder has all my completed teeny tiny stories. Usually no longer than 2 notebook pages written by hand or one typed legal length piece of paper.

See? Those I can finish because I can write them as I see them develop and I can end them when I think of an ending.

The longer projects, what I really would love to see through to an end, those are the more difficult. I've tried outlining, writing a synopsis and then expanding on that...nothing has worked. So I am working on almost a dozen stories and maybe always will be.

The Spark

Sitting alone and in the dark

The darkness of an empty mind

Reaching desperately for something

Anything...a feeling, a thought

A flash of color as you close your eyes

You hear someone walking down

the hallway outside your door

Footsteps growing louder, then softer

Then there is nothing

Blissful silence for just a moment

You try to write down words

just one or two

that might set you on a journey

but those words fall flat

and then the dreaded feeling

that feeling of desperation

as you wonder where it all is

Let's go for a walk, you think

it's 4 in the morning and you can't sleep

So on with the shoes, stretching

and rhythmically counting

As you tend to do when your head is empty

Out the building and to the right

down the street to the trail around the lake

If your mother knew you were out in the

middle of the night walking by yourself

she would be aghast, and worried

Don't worry Mom, you think, I'm safe

A mile in and you feel the familiar swirl

and it starts to happen, of course

here you are a mile from your notebook

You vow to remember what is forming

You can see a pattern emerging

It is brighter than your surroundings

The lake trail is two miles or so

And you might as well keep going

Turning back might interrupt your flow

Stop thinking about what might happen

and get back to your words

Feed that spark, give it a melody

give it dialogue and scenery

Make it real, make it otherwordly

Just make it solid

Start to repeat what you want to keep

Repeat it again, sing it in your head

Visualize the setting, the circumstances

But don't dwell on those things

You might lose what you are trying to hang onto

Accelerate your pace and the keep repeating

The thought enters quickly that you should

always have a notepad with you

And you always do

Except for this unplanned walk

at 4 in the morning

alone and feverish with creativity

Trying to keep it moving but

needing to contain its whirling nature

only until you arrive back

inside your apartment

with your pencils and pens

notebooks and laptop

Then you can let it go

let it slide down your arms

and out through your fingertips

Breathe life into it

Like creating a campfire out of

a tiny spark on loose fiber

you need to blow lightly and

add more tinder for the flame

to consume and grow

Use your words

Find your spark

Build your bonfire