Year in Review

Well, this post has been a long time coming. And now, a month after completing my goal, I’m again working to carve out time to write and update this blog with my review of the entire year of blogging and a hint to what’s next. I’ve been ridiculously busy—too busy, actually—but I’ve also hesitated to say what I plan to do because then that understandable pressure of actually doing it will start hounding me every day.

(sigh) Accountability…it’s simultaneously wonderful and uncomfortable…

Anyway, last February, when I started this blog, it was after much time, pondering, and deliberation. I’d like to say that I was planning everything out, getting organized on my goals and plans, but really I was trying to get over being fearful and let go of some perfectionist tendencies—such a bad combo.

Anyway, once I made myself just start blogging, it was less scary. There was still lots of pressure and lots of work, but less fear.

My daily goal of writing made me rework my priorities,

Willowacks

willowacks

1. New England. a wooded, uninhabited area.

The breeze shifted slightly, drawing lose curls across sun-washed skin. Lina shook the strands away, peering beneath her hand into the thrush. Nell was nowhere to be seen.

Overhead the full moon glowed a faint white against the pale evening sky, speaking of things to come.

“Nell!” A sharp whistle revealed irritation.

Another breeze rolled through, cooling the air around her.

This was the first time she’d lived this day, but something in the breeze made her question that fact. She knew this wind. Like the voice of an old friend she hadn’t seen since childhood, it called to her, beckoning her to remember.

If she closed her eyes, she could see herself there, in the tangle of the willowacks, even feel the scratchiness of grass between her toes.

There in the cooling of the day, that’s where Lina learned the meaning of love.

She resisted this painful moment that often tried to sneak out of from under

Pleonasm

pleonasm

1. the use of more words than are necessary to express an idea; redundancy.
2. an instance of this, as free gift or true fact.
3. a redundant word or expression.

John wove his way around cars and pedestrians, trying to find an available parking space next to a car free from dents that didn’t have its bumper over the yellow parking space lines.

“I’ll drop you off here, Malina,” he said, eyeing a parking space on his left.

“Thanks, Daddy,” his daughter said climbing out of the SUV slowly. “I’ll be super quick.”

John waited at a stop sign, his patience straining as people ambled in front of the car with carts full of food and appliances, as if it was the end of the world or a record-breaking snowfall was expected to arrive in mere minutes. Elainia rested a gentle hand on her husband’s shoulder, calming him with a gentle touch and drawing a smile. She stroked his tense muscles as he drove past the green Subaru that had claimed his desired parking space, silently counting off the available parking spaces next to angled and dented cars.

Minutes later John found a suitable parking space to wait directly adjacent to the entrance and exit doors.

“Malina didn’t look well; what is she getting again,” he asked, lowering the volume of

Logophobia

logophobia

1. an obsessive fear of words

It took some time for the professionals to convince Henry and Janie Therwald that their daughter wasn’t a mute. In fact it was quite the opposite.

Although Mindy sat in silence, played in silence, and ate in silence every single day, the tests were proving that she was in the top percentile for hearing, sight, comprehension and her studies.

It wasn’t until one particular spring day, at a very regular dinner that

Soupbone

soupbone

1. Baseball Slang. a pitcher’s throwing arm.
2. a bone used for making soup or broth.

It was never hard to tell when Sandra was having a hard day. She normally bopped around as if her bones were filled with helium instead of marrow, a constant smile on her face. But when she was down, her body seemed to slump in on itself, as if she was unable to stand up straight.

Today she was curling in on herself as she sat at the kitchen table, her head in her hands. She sighed heavily several times before placing her forehead on the table and allowing her arms to dangle at her sides.

From her body language, Anthony could tell it had been a really rough day.

“Here.”

Anthony slid a

Compunction

compunction

1. a feeling of uneasiness or anxiety of the conscience caused by regret for doing wrong or causing pain; contrition; remorse.
2. any uneasiness or hesitation about the rightness of an action.

By the time Raquel arrived at her daughter’s school, she had ran through two red lights, ignored several stop signs and mercilessly interrogated herself, wondering what she could’ve possibly missed.

Her afternoon meeting had lasted longer than expected. An hour later she realized she had missed the school’s voicemail, reporting that her daughter was in the nurse’s office after collapsing on the track during gym class.

Raquel tried to maintain her composure, but the thoughts of her own past at her daughter’s age were haunting her. Like skeletons that had been revived, memories came out of the closet to torture her, whispering questions of “what if…”

What if she’s not eating?

What if she’s following in your footsteps?

What if you lose her the way your parents almost lost you?

“No; she eats. I see her. We have dinner together almost every night,” Raquel said aloud, uncertainty tinting her words.

Yeah, but what if she’s

Circumbendibus

circumbendibus

1. Informal. a roundabout way; circumlocution

“The! End!”

Marlena increased her volume trying to remove the weariness from her voice, blinking tired eyes.

Her daughter’s small hands grasped for the book, flipping the pages to the beginning again.

“One more time, Mommy,” Riley said gleefully, somehow full of energy at 9 at night.

Marlena looked at her smiling little girl, silently wishing she could be 6 again and go to bed early or have enough energy to make exhaustion seem like a reclusive neighbor.

Being a single mother was her full-time job that wound itself around her other full-time job as an administrative assistant for a law firm. Both were taxing. And although

Titivate

titivate

1. to make smart or spruce: She titivated her old dress with a new belt.
2. to make oneself smart or spruce

The wind was starting to pick up. Grey clouds rolled across the sky rapidly. It was going to rain soon.

People quickly scurried from one building to the next, trying to evade the cooling temperatures and the foreboding  weather on this dreary October day.

Normally Aimee would do the same, but she didn’t want to make herself comfortable inside some coffee shop, pretending it was just a regular fall day. She needed to keep this meeting short. Her paper on the works of Monet and Manet was not going to be miraculously written by a cadre of small helpers.

She pulled up the collar of her dark grey wool pea coat and crammed her hands farther into her pockets. Her shoulders were hunched in order to stave off the chill as she paced back and forth in front of a concrete statue, trying to stay warm. She turned back around and stood face to face with

Virgule

virgule

1. a short oblique stroke (/) between two words indicating that whichever is appropriate may be chosen to complete the sense of the text in which they occur: The defendant and his/her attorney must appear in court.

 

Today was Monday. Sarah’s parents never had anything positive to say about Mondays. The day arrived with regularity, and yet they seemed surprised. They detested that day above all others. And now she hated it too.

She swung her legs nervously back and forth, unable to stop the motion. Her mind felt tormented with thoughts of what might be happening behind the big red wooden door. She lowered her gaze to the bright cream carpet, but found herself staring at the door.

Everything was changing, unraveling.

This particular Monday had been circled on the calendar in red for several weeks. It was the day her parents would

Doughty

 

doughty

1. steadfastly courageous and resolute; valiant

The rain outside was heavy. It obscured Patricia’s view of her father’s car in the driveway, turning the scene outside into a melting world of blurred colors.  The sound of it forcefully railing against the house was usually comforting to her, but today it did nothing to calm her agitated heart.

She could hear her parents upstairs bickering back and forth. They had been yelling for about an hour. The yelling was normal, she was fine with it. It was the quietness that came after the yelling that worried her.

This afternoon the yelling had started as soon as her father had

Zoogenic

zoogenic

1. produced or caused by animals.
2. pertaining or related to animal development or evolution.

“I can understand you not wanting to talk to me and I know this is crazy, but I need your help,” she said. “You probably still hate me for what I did and I don’t blame you…”

He could tell she was struggling not to cry.

“Peter, please help me,” she hissed. “I need you… I need you to help me.”

He always hated it when she cried. It tore at him like nothing else.

“You said

Piebald

piebald 

1. composed of incongruous parts
2. of different colors; especially : spotted or blotched with black and white

 

Lacey clutched her quilt tightly, pulling it up to her chubby chin. It was tattered in a few places, but for the most part, Grandma Neelie’s quilt was holding up, standing strong against the rough sleeping patterns of a 7 year old.

The quilt was actually Lacey’s favorite thing.

In the winter, she could be found wrapped in the piebald construction, shuffling from room to room, looking more like a burrito with a portion of the tortilla trailing behind her, than a child pretending to be a queen wrapped in royal garb. In the summer months she was often stretched out on the tapestry that spoke of her grandmother’s handiwork, her mother’s taste in clothing, and Lacey’s rough nature.

What never crossed Lacey’s happy mind was the obvious poverty that necessitated the making of the quilt from scraps of her mother’s clothing. Instead, she lived and slept in the quilt and expected it would be that way her entire life.

Her mother was less appreciative of what she mentally called