Cuffs' Legacy

This post is in response to the word prompt "cuffs" by Velvet Verbosity at the 100 Word Challenge.

Every time she cuffs him, we cringe. She targets him. Today, she went further; grabbed his head, hit it against a locker. The ring of it resounded down the corridor loud enough to draw response. We, his classmates, stunned silent, were secretly glad as we shook that it wasn't us.

Her punishment always outdoes his infraction, whatever it was. What could a nine year old boy do to make a nun smash his head into that tall, shiny, empty, metal locker? No adult intervenes. Ever. We didn't know they should. Maybe that's the worst outcome. Except for his, of course.

100 Word Challenge - Epidemic

This post is in response to the prompt: epidemic given in the 100 Word Challenge
temporarily hosted by LouCeel and inspired by his post on the same topic.
Oh the difference 42 years can make.

Florence Nightingale was born to a British family in Florence, Italy. She moved back to London as a young girl and fought her family's expectations in order to become a nurse.

In 1854, during the Crimean War, she realized that in the crowded and dirty hospital conditions, the epidemic of cholera was killing more soldiers than injuries. Florence helped create the modern techniques of nursing that made contemporary nursing possible and started a school for nurses in London.

She was the first woman to receive the "Order of Merit", the highest honor awarded to a British person, from Queen Victoria.



Florence Nightingale was both a nurse and a statistician. She used her knowledge of math and statistics to show the British government that providing better conditions for sick and wounded soldiers would help them win the war. She became known as "the Lady with the Lamp" based on the rounds she made of the soldiers at night.
Florence brought hospital hygiene and basic sanitation to the care of the sick. The school she started was the first secular nursing school in the world.
The Nightingale pledge taken by new nurses was named in her honor. International Nurses Day is celebrated yearly on her birthday, May 12 (1820).

I'm excited that this 100 word challenge is also my 100th blog post!
And it's on the topic of nursing, near and dear to my heart,
since I spent 36 years as a nurse before retiring last year.
I'm celebrating both by a brand new blog look
inspired by my love of reading and my new home in Italy.

Traditional Values

This is in response to the prompt: "traditional" from the 100 Word Challenge.

Traditional Values

It's a continuous love story.
See the world in a new way,
set my own course,
prevail.
Yet carry on the traditional ways
of the ancestors,
rooted in their values,
linked through the generations,
connected to family, nature, Spirit.
Tell my story now:
"sometimes a person needs a story more than food
to stay alive."*
Weave in the mystical
visible in vivid hues
audible in the language of poetry.
Loss led the way to epiphany for me and for my ancestors.
We survived,
thrived,
strengthened to speak out
in my own voice
but not alone-
one with all that is.

*Crow and Weasel, B. Lopez

First Two-piece Swimsuit

This is in response to the prompt "swimsuit" at the 100 Word Challenge here.


"It was an itsy bitsy, teeny weeny...bikini"

My granddaughter's first two-piece swimsuit came at age 3 1/2. She lives in the remote rain forest of Trinidad- no TV, no magazines. Her parents are naturalists, organic gardeners, hikers, live off the land.

My granddaughter is fascinated with clothes, outfits, styles and fashion. Are you getting the picture? She's a 3 1/2 year old fashionista with no role models.

Last visit, I brought her a two-piece swimsuit. She could hardly wait to try it on. When she did, she struck this pose as she modeled it. Her parents just shake their heads.

Love's Consent

This week's prompt for 100 words of prose or poetry is "consent."
This is my entry.
For more visit here.

The day was clear and cloudless the first day she saw him. Hot with the extreme heat of August in the rain forest. Sweet, she thought as she looked at him, beautiful. She spent a lot of time swinging in the hammock skin to skin. Counted fingers and toes, stroked the silkiness of him, welcomed this first grandchild. The soft awe, nurturing, cherishing felt familiar. What surprised her was the ferocity that overcame her. The head over heals, ready to die for, fierce bear, all out committed love. Her advice to grandmothers ever since: consent to fall utterly in love.

Thinking Of A Change

This is part of the 100 word challenge of Velvet Verbosity on "Thinking".



Thinking Of A Change

My writing could be a stretched string
some strokes of black on white that others
have to decipher.

But I'll take a chance write words
that pull souls like rafts toward shore
words that life eyelids and stagger
lovers who swerve and slide
down the slope of those they love.

Words that have affairs with other words
grow gravid with illicit seed
bear new thoughts with primal screams.

Write raw like you do sometimes in a row
with one you love taking the chance
that nakedness is its own beauty
if it can just be seen.

Kaleidoscope Children

This post is in response to Velvet Verbosity's 100 word challenge: kaleidoscope.






Kaleidoscope Children

Prophecies come in dreams.
In my dream daughter
ate the tall plant in our house. I
feared it would take her, evolve
her into a new life form. It grew
wild, filled the house.

This greenwoman staked
her place on mother earth, glimpsed
her power connected
to dark rain forest plant people. Spoke
anew "all my relations."

It's specific, this
injunction. Leads to love. Brings
combinations of colors in shifting patterns. Enchanting
Little Ones mirror, mesmerize, evolve us all.

I panicked in my dream. Demanded
"No more plant eating!"
As if I could stop it,
or needed to.

A Time I Had Magic

This was written in response to the prompt "give" by The 100 Word Challenge of Velvet Verbosity in the belief that there are many ways to give life.




A Time I Had Magic

I saved a life once.
On a Nebraska Reservation
a baby boy was born
blue, limp, silent.

The doctor, a stranger
to these people and tired
said: "Leave him,
he will die."

His mother turned
her head, refused to hold him,
said: "Take him away,
he has eleven fingers."

I was his nurse.
I focused on him,
massaged his feet,
stroked his still chest.

Life loitered,
crept in slowly.
He breathed,
he moved,
turned pink.

Connected to life,
I fed it to him
like milk.
Whispered: "Welcome, little boy."

It was that kind of magic.

Silk Dress

This is in response to the 100 word challenge on the topic "material"
by Velvet Verbosity.



Silk Dress

"Come into my room
help me choose the dress.
Is it too morbid of me to ask?"
Your first choice a fuchsia dress
silk, long-sleeved, belted.
"Is it too garish for a funeral?"
You decided:
wear what you liked,
bright color a deliberate
counterpoint to your fading.

Final statement
by a legend of stylish dressing.
"Perfect choice, Mom."
"Guess what? It's a size 10!"
We laughed at your perverse
pleasure, loss of weight
even to cancer
size 10, even in your casket.

It had its intended effect.
Mourners said how lovely
your dress was, how so like you.

(Mary H. Warren in loving memory of Mary M. Harvey)