A week of Empty Rooms

The weekly prompt for my writing group was "empty rooms - real or metaphorical". These are my responses. 

Prompt Response Monday

Once empty rooms echoed with loneliness
They were filled
Then emptied bit by bit
Now they echo with loss

Prompt Response Tuesday

Shining floors
Lovely rugs
Fine furnishings
Unique accessories
No soul
No love
No laughter
It is at heart
An empty room

This was a room in a house that had actual gold-plated faucets in the powder room. Brocade draperies. An actual 100+ year old mansion, the family home of a former well-known regional politician. I have never felt such lack of connection to reality as when I was there (as a guest) for an evening.

Prompt Response #2 for Tuesday

The empty room
A promise to
the new 
A benediction to
the old

The empty room
a space between
heartbeats
the pause between
breaths

The empty room
is in
and for
each of us

Prompt Response Wednesday

love a fragile dream

hope a fledgling butterfly

home an empty room

Prompt Response Thursday

An empty room

An open door

A woodland path

The night sky

Four things that beguile this poets soul

What calls to you today?

Prompt Response Friday

cold and barren empty room
dustmotes and cobwebs
where once there was you

Prompt Response Saturday

to be empty is to have plenty of room

unexplored possibilities

unsated thirsts

unfulfilled dreams

an empty room is the greatest adventure in life

Prompt Response Sunday

An empty room that calls to me is the attic room in my mother's house, repository for my childhood detritus,there held in safety and care for all these many years. I resist the call, knowing that those fragments of the me that once was will in some manner be both more and less than I am prepared to acknowledge.

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 3

A Sunday Inspiration

The world can be a scary place
with scowls upon many a face
when searching for a ray of hope
these are ways I found to cope

I choose to believe in magic and love
in dreams and angels and gifts from above
wishing on stars - buttercup tests -
giving the biggest piece of cake to my guest

I believe that hard work pays off
in saying bless you when you cough
that bacon fat makes most food taste better
and in penning a handwritten letter


~Ellen Apple 4/3/16

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 2

A Villanelle  

We had the life we wanted did we not

The days of worry were part of the deal

As we stand and look at what our time wrought

It may seem our rest was with nightmares fraught

And at times there was a lack of true zeal

We had the life we wanted did we not

All the time in the world is what we thought

Being here at journey’s end is surreal

As we stand and look at what our time wrought

Validation of process was never sought

Never at anyone’s feet did we kneel

We had the life we wanted did we not

So here we are after so much was taught

Having willingly gone through each ordeal

As we stand and look at what our time wrought

In the end no treasure have we brought

We’ve no dirge to sing no bell to peal

We had the life we wanted did we not

As we stand and look at what our time wrought

~Ellen Apple 4/2/2016

NaPoWriMo 2016 Day 1

cold and barren empty room

dustmotes and cobwebs

where once there was you

~ellen apple 4/1/16

Thursday Throwback:A Memory - 31 March 2016

When I was young, we did not have a great deal of money. From my preteens onward, we three youngest Smiths of 400 Virginia Avenue were very inventive in ways to earn funds to obtain everything from comic books and snacks to clothes and money for extracurricular activities at school. I do not doubt that, had they had the money, Mom and Dad would have given us allowances and bought all of those things children think are so vital to their social success. In lieu of actual money, they helped us procure moneymaking opportunities in various ways. I used to joke that Dad hired us out like indentured servants to friends and relatives, and that is not far from the truth. One of the most consistent and lucrative jobs, for myself, my older by 18 months sister and younger by 4 years brother was as carriers for our local daily paper, The Bluefield Daily Telegraph. 

Photograph by Jim Thacker
used with permission

My favorite time of the year to deliver the paper was in (of course) Spring and Fall. Spring was especially enjoyable, because in addition to the warmer early morning temperature, there was the intoxicating aroma of blooming trees and flowers intermingled with the scent of coffee brewing and bacon frying wafting through the crisp morning air as I walked my paper route. It was more often than not dark when we left the house in the morning to deliver our papers. Virginia Carol's route was out towards East 2nd, 3rd and 4th streets. Ed's route was up Virginia Avenue, and across the hill towards where the town's recreation park is now located. My route was "around the hill" and out Philpott Avenue. 

Photograph by Jim Thacker
used with permission

There were times when it was a wee bit scary, walking the sections of road where there were no houses, between where the Caseys lived and the Stoots house was. I liked the quiet though, interspersed with the early songs of birds, calling up the sun. It was perhaps on those mornings that my love of quiet times out in nature was born. I can recall taking deep breaths of that cool morning air and almost being giddy with the smell of the new day. 

When I was almost through the route, heading up Philpott beside the Catholic church, I could see the sun setting the clouds ablaze, burning off the mist that drifted up from the Clinch River. This picture that my friend Jim took this morning is of the early sky over Dalton Addition, the same neighborhood where I grew up and delivered all of those bags and bags of newspapers, over 40 years ago. 

These days, I am often outside again at the first light of day, taking a break at work and watching the fog lift up from Cedar Creek in Lebanon. I still take deep nourishing breaths of that early fresh air, and am grateful that I am accorded the privilege of experiencing Springtime in the Appalachians. Perhaps that is why Appalachian Spring  is one of my favorite compositions. 

Have a terrific day!

Thoughtful Tuesday 29 March 2016

This came across my newsfeed on Facebook this morning. For me, it pulls into one thought what at times seems to be an avalanche of fragmented despair and discord. Not (just) for me but for people across the spectrum of humanity. 

One of my Facebook friends who is Lakota from Pine Ridge and now lives in Colorado wrote today of going to powwow and reconnecting with his tribe (community) and how liberating it was to once again feel a part of rather than apart from.

I read a rather lengthy post/article on holding space for one another, and what this means both individually and collectively. I began to mull over exactly what this means, and how it is used and abused in today's climate.

My writing group (such a marvelous collection of people - it is beyond my ken how I am included) is working off of a provocative prompt this week - Empty room(s): Real or metaphorical.

Then all of these disparate thoughts came together into one cohesive concept when a woman I consider to be extremely gifted and intuitive posed this question:

Is the world a dangerous, chaotic place with no inherent purpose, running on automatic like a malfunctioning machine and fundamentally inimical to your happiness?

Or are you surrounded by helpers in a friendly universe that gives you challenges in order to make you smarter and wilder and kinder?

So, as I sit here in my comfortable little house, nestled amidst the mountains and with the sound of a meandering stream just outside the window, I contemplate me. 

There are times I feel I have been beset by every trial imaginable in my life. Times when I feel I have battled and been bruised and bloodied in ways I did not know were possible. Every time - without fail - when I share my situation I am met with love, understanding, empathy, support, encouragement - every positive adjective you can imagine. 

We all face battles, and battle demons. We can do it alone, in that empty room, or we can do it with our tribe, our circle, our family. We can lift that burden and carry it alone, or we can allow others to hold space with and for us. The weight is the same, but the burden is distributed among many backs as opposed to just one.

We all have joys and triumphs. Moments of victory, of plenty, of blessing. We can hoard these riches and buffer ourselves against the want and need around us or we can hold space with and for others. The blessing is the same, but the lightening of daily cares and worries is spread to many lives. We fill an empty room with celebration.

Social media is what it is. And what it is in 2016 is a force in society. Social media is redefining what a tribe is, who our family is, who matters and why. We are seeing for the first time in history all people as one. Mankind as a unit, not divided by the barriers of non-communication and veiled in mystery as in years past. Too often, non-communication has been replaced by miscommunication and misunderstanding. 

Xenophobia, misogyny, racism and discrimination have been exposed across the board. 

There is much work ahead for us, as common inhabits of this big blue marble hurtling through the cosmos. 

Day by day, bit by bit, I believe we are getting there. So in answer to my Facebook friends, 

A Miscellany of Musings 24 March 2016

A Miscellany of Musings - Presented to you in celebration of the Full Moon and this beautiful Spring we have been gifted in the Appalachians.

Across the verdant meadow lies
The gateway to a sacred place
Betwixt the water and ice blue skies
Enfolded in a magical embrace
At journey's end there waits a prize
A solemn blessing - boundless grace
Out of time and worry a day
To visit with the elusive fey

Ellen Apple 05/16/2015

Attempted to find credit for photograph, it is apparently a Gypsy Caravan in Gloucestershire, England 

Take my wagon to the woods

That is what I should do

Dig some 'seng

Find some ramps

 Search out those dry-land fish

Take my wagon to the meadow

That is what I should do

Gather dandelions and clover

Cut some lavender

Brew me some thistle tea

Take my wagon to the fair

That is what I should do

Read some cards

Dance and twirl

Sing the Moon to sleep

- Roberta Ellen Smith Apple, 02/27/2014

Hobbit House in New Zealand, I tried to find a photo credit but could not

Hidden under the fairy mound

Beside the willow tree

Behind a haint blue door

Sipping a sassafras tea

Who could hope to conjure more?

This is where I shall be found!

~ Ellen Apple 03/24/2014

By Ellen Apple 

Quietude in full moonlight 

Making magic in the night

Bright she guides me on my way

Inspires me with what to say

Drawing down her mystic power

Emboldened at the witching hour

Ellen Apple 03/24/2016

By Ellen Apple

My Inner Landscape

I close my eyes and I can see

A path from river stone laid

Past fragrant lily of the valley

'Neath a weeping willow for shade

Clover, violet and moss so lush

Varying shades of green

 

A blossom laden spirea bush

Morning dew adds sparkle and sheen

The sounds of serenity filter in

Birdsong and a dragonfly's whir

Leaves flutter on tip of limb

 

As a breeze begins to stir

A seat from a tree stump hewn

From which to sit and ponder

While glimpsing in cloud an ancient rune

A delicious way time to squander

Come join me in my inner landscape

A place I have carefully constructed

Where from life's trials we can escape

And dreams are not obstructed

~ Ellen Apple May 3, 2015