A straight horizon line separated Lake Lugano from the sky as the pervasive sun shined down, its rays extending across Collina d’Oro. Amid the rhythm of urban life, Emma and I sat on a bench overlooking the valley below. Every weekend, we united at the bench. Our conversations flowed like the waters of Lake Lugano, weaving the stories of our upbringings in Barcelona and Amman.

Hers was largely shaped by the exile of her father, whose half-brother overtook the Jordanian throne. Mine was shaped by attending kindergarten in New Zealand and the six months I spent in New Jersey.

As we settled down at the bench, I pulled out The Anthropocene Reviewed from my tote bag. The book offered us a warm embrace with a touch of incomprehensible joy. Each chapter merged sensations of unity and vastness with a spirit of individuality.

“It fuels our stubborn hope!” Emma exclaimed.

Occasionally, we paused our conversation and listened to our thoughts. We lay down on the muddy ground, our knees pointing to the blue canvas above, and laughed and laughed. Our laughter was unfiltered. We felt understood in each other’s presence. We smiled as a family of four made their way to one of the benches. The mother held her son’s hand tight as they spoke about their upcoming travels. To our left, an elderly couple leaned on each other for silent support.

A cold haze hugged us as Emma’s fingers wrapped around my wrist, pulling my gaze up at her.

“I love spending time with you,” she whispered.

The final rays of sun caressed my forearms as I marvelled at how alive the air felt. At that moment, we loved ourselves, each other and the world.

The Window

I gazed out my room window, seeking solace in the gentle rustling of leaves and the faint laughter of cheery teenagers. It was the night before my music trip to Salzburg, Austria. As the soft glow of lamps filtered through my yellow curtains and the leaves danced down, my thoughts swirled like a tempest. The windows at night had transformed into mirrors. I no longer saw the actions of others but rather the reflection of my younger self.

From early on in my life, windows had become my ‘sanctuary’ when my parents argued – the mediator between my intense desire to intervene and a longing to vanish. With nine travelers from seven nationalities, two teachers and one bus driver, we embarked on our van ride through the Swiss Alps. From my seat, I watched the season change from fall to winter. A boundless sea of white snow gradually blanketed the ground.

“Ice flowers!” Franklin blurted out.

Casual bursts of conversations were soon replaced by ‘The Sound of Music.’ Our collective gazes remained fixed on the landscape of colors. Yet, we screamed to the lyrics of the ‘Do Re Mi,” bouncing in our seats like a group of children on a trampoline. At that instant, nothing else mattered. We felt like carefree children in a van, savoring our precious moments of freedom and oblivious to the uncertainties of the future. ‘Do Re Mi’ transported us back to places more vividly than any other form of memory.

This time, I saw my experiences with enough distance to perceive them as something more than mere recollections. The view outside the window faded in comparison to who I was sharing those sights with. Our love for music sustained and connected us. I was with the right people in just the right place. Every facet of the journey intertwined to craft an experience that transcended cultural boundaries.

Photo Credits

Bench Image by Ilona Ilyés from Pixabay

Alps Image by Claudia Beyli from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Yumeng Fan

Yumeng Fan loves vignettes—for her, they’re a way to hold onto fleeting moments. Writing is her way of metabolizing her own experiences, a means of making sense of memory, change, and becoming. Yumeng loves ballroom dance, Hispanic literature, collage-making, and the wide, tangled worlds of literature, science, poetry, and art.

…. Jack Andrish
2022

Jack at Key West

Photo Credit

Photo courtesy of Jack Andrish – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio
Jack Andrish

I am a retired orthopaedic surgeon living in Cleveland Ohio. However, while visiting my brother-in-law in Key West and watching the world go by as I sat on the porch, I was inspired to record my thoughts and observations.

When I was a kid, I hated school. I just didn’t want to be there; I wanted to be at home with my mom. It seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to be sent off every morning in rain, snow, sleet or heat. I went to a Catholic school just down the street from where I lived. It was a pleasant enough place, I suppose. The church was right across the street and back then it was a big part of our education.

In 1963 I was in kindergarten. At the time, it was run out of the church basement, and really wasn’t much of a learning centre. It was a small room with some toys, books and a few puzzles. But I felt a more urgent need to be outside. I’d often ride my tricycle, a honking big green trike, to kindergarten. I’d then spend most of my time on it, outside on those beautiful days riding around the church parking lot. That is until the teacher, who was an elderly woman, would come out and tell me to put my bike away and come and learn some letters. I didn’t enjoy being told to put my bike away. In fact, feeling part of the whole school experience was few and far between for me. School, from my perspective, was a place where freedom didn’t exist. And it was hard to listen to this woman who, it seemed to me, should have been at home knitting baby sweaters for her grown children. I’m sure I didn’t think that back then, but I think that now. And perhaps she wasn’t as old as I remember. She may have been my age now for all I know, but at the time she seemed really, really old.

One thing I do remember about those kindergarten days was the day President Kennedy was shot. I remember being there playing, then all of a sudden there seemed to be this huge commotion going on, with adults running in and out of the room. Someone, I recall, found a television and proceeded to turn it on. I remember my teacher crying. Then all of a sudden my mother showed up, which was really odd because my mother would never take me home unless there was some sort of emergency. She did try to tell me what was happening but all I remember is the sadness of the adults, and the tears. Also, it seemed to me they were fearful. That day, like others that would follow, would ultimately become embedded in my mind. The feeling of loss and sadness still resonates with me today.

One cold, blustery winter morning, when I was a year older and in grade one, I spent several hours playing on a snow hill just down the street from my house. It must have been just after one of those great big snow storms, as I was having a wonderful time making angels in the snow. The street was so quiet, the sounds muffled by all the snow that had just fallen. The sky was a perfect blue and the sun was shining. I was quite happy playing out in that snow bank. Unfortunately the woman who lived across the street from that snow bank felt differently.

I remember her coming up to me. “Hello, are you Martha?”

“Yes,”  I responded.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Martha?”

“I think so.” Now I was feeling like I was being interrogated.

“Ok, well why don’t I take you home?”

“Okay,” I said, not thinking it was going to turn out so wrong once we got to our front door.

“Hello, Joan,” the woman said to my mother at the door. “I found something that I think belongs to you. She was playing outside our house. She’d been there for quite some time and was sure she must be bitterly cold so I thought I’d bring her home to you.” 

“Well, thank you,” my mom replied.

Once the woman left, my mom’s demeanor completely changed. “Martha, what were you thinking? Why aren’t you in school? You have to go to school!” she yelled. She yelled a bit more, then grabbed her coat and hauled me off by the scruff of the neck all the way to school. That was one of the most embarrassing events of my life. It was awful arriving to class, when all the other kids were seated properly at their desks, being dragged into the room by my mother. Me crying, her crying; it was not a pleasant scene. And then after my mother left I got yelled at some more by the nun who was my teacher. I tuned out most of her yelling and looked out the window at the beautiful day I was missing.

From then on, school was just not the place I wanted to be. And even though I never went to university, I did, at the tender age of forty-nine, receive my diploma from Vanier, Quebec’s CEGEP (General and Vocational College) in Early Childhood Education.

Ironic the way life works, isn’t it?

Photo Credit
Photo courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

The kitchen was small and yet Mom had the magic touch in that tiny space. She could produce the most amazing things with flour, butter and sugar. And there were always pans of her nuts and bolts and cheese straws. All sorts of her fruit pies – apple, strawberry and blueberry – were frozen in her giant freezer in the garage. 

Mom and Dad were masters at being hosts. At parties, and in particular le Réveillon on Christmas Eve, Mom would cook up a ham and roast beef or a turkey with all the trimmings. Dad looked after the bar – rye, rum, whiskey, vodka, gin, beer and wine for dinner. And of course his favorite apéritif. He loved those tiny glasses and the rich taste of Irish cream. And the parties were always alive with music! My parents’ friends were all so talented and could play the piano or guitar or both. And the singing and dancing! I would sit on the stairs when I was very young until I was old enough to join in the festivities that lasted into the wee hours. It was always a treat to listen to the merriment! At midnight Mom would start bringing out trays and platters of food, and would lay down a feast amongst the candles and linens and branches of sweet-smelling pine. No expense was spared when it came to le Réveillon. There were beans with almonds and mushroom sauce, turnips and yams and mashed potatoes so creamy they would melt in your mouth, and broccoli au gratin made with old cheddar cheese. Mom never scrimped on butter or cheese. Her famous CCC (Chocolate Chip Cookies), oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate candy and roasted almonds were always plentiful. She would let me taste a cookie in the dining room with her; we would chat while I ate my cookie and she had a smoke break. Her tomato aspic was something I always remember but could never quite understand why someone would eat it. Every dish was prepared with love and a thankfulness for all the people who sat around that table.

Those were the days of Christmas filled with such sweet and wonderful smells coming from the kitchen. Those are the moments in time that are kept close in my heart. Memories of my mom, who could cook up a storm, rest in my heart and give me a good feeling. It’s the feeling of what Christmas means to me: good food, family and friends sharing in those special moments. I hope I’ve been a part of my children’s Christmas landscape just like my parents were a part of mine; traditions passed down to keep those special moments alive for generations to come.

Photo Credits

Photos courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

A golden temple submerged deep in nature’s heart. Ever unbending in the way the wind flows on your body walking up the steep stone steps with the humidity in the air and sweat flowing from your hair to your back. The brown wooden doors invite you inside with flower engravings and a shiny glass handle with edges weathered by human touch so much you can feel the indents of others hands. The awning hides the sun’s harsh glare giving judgment upon the ones who come to find solemn silence. Even after so many years it still stands affected but still, alone but comforting and truly comforting for wayward travelers.

Image Credit

Image is from Pixabay

Guest Author Bio
Noah Ruzzi

I am a Student at a Catholic High School in New York. I love to express myself and the world around me through my writing. My writing has allowed me to be able to tell people who I am and what I feel. I love using intense descriptions in order to present my work in a vivid manner so a reader can truly picture what I am saying.

We arrived at a home of a two-child family.

A little girl stood barefoot, wore dull-pink shorts, and was naked on top. Her lean hands brought a weeping girl, who embraced her shoulders. I guessed they were not over eight and two years old. She talked in Khmer with the guide.

A home that received a well from the voluntary community, Wedigwells, in Cambodia.
(Personal collection)

Close to her feet, cloth hangers were scattered on a wet, light-brown, solid ground. Two large buckets were beside a blue vertical pipe, which was installed on a cement base. Water filled a bucket with clothes inside. I wondered if she had washed the clothes.

A part-brick and part-tin walled house was behind her. The way in was open – no door or door frame. A towel and tooth brushes hung on its side. A wooden table was in the middle of the room. The room was so small that I could see a small table across from the bigger one.

I looked around, nothing but grasses and trees. The only neighbor was one bigger house – might have needed at least five minutes for her tiny legs to reach there.

“Their parents aren’t at home now,” the guide said in English.

“Are they alone?” I asked.

“Yes. Their parents just went out, and will most likely leave them alone this time.”

I looked at the girls. The older might have had to take care of her sister while doing the housework when their parents were not at home, sacrificing her childhood. No cloudy gaze in her eyes, though.

“This is the well” the guide said, walking to the blue vertical pipe.

“We installed it about six months ago.” He pointed to the writing on the cement base, 22.02.2018. He held a long wooden lever connected to the pump and pushed it down. The water discharged, filling one bucket.

“Clear, no smell.” He showed dripping water in his cupped hand. “They use it for washing clothes, drinking, and cooking.”

The older girl said something to him. Her eyes sparkled. Her teeth were visible as she grinned; both tips of her lips moved up wide.

The guide looked at me. “She said she’s happy and thanks for the well.”

There, water is precious, even more than a diamond.

Photo Credits

Photo is courtesy of the author

Guest Author Bio
Kartika Lestari

Kartika Lestari is a former academician and climate scientist who now dedicates her time to follow her passion for writing stories and poems. Her letters and poem were on the list of Writing Contests by The Unsealed. Recently, her pieces are accepted to appear in Soul-Lit and Potato Soup Journal. She has also published her work on Medium’s publications.

Blog / Website: Kartika Lestari

There’s something in this photo that suggests to me that my father yearned for adventure, to live a life as a bohemian, an artist, a writer. There’s that dashing look about him, as though he were Hemingway or Kerouac. Is my father, this man so young and vibrant, so full of life, looking ahead to a future full of possibilities? Yes, in this photo, I believe he is.

My father told me he knew very little about his parents; how they met or who their ancestors were. He spent a fair amount of time and money searching for his roots in Ireland during his retirement, and yet I don’t think he ever really pinned down where his grandparents were from.

Do we ever really know our parents? They become our caregivers and they offer us love and support, but do we ever truly know them as people? Like my father, I didn’t know a whole lot about my parents. Mom and Dad shared some stories of their youth, but who they really were and how they lived through some of the tragedies they endured, those kinds of things were well-kept secrets. My father lived through the era of depression and poverty and the Second World War. All of these things made him the man I knew.

My father grew up in North Toronto in what he used to describe as the end of the world. There was never any money. My grandfather was a presser in a women’s garment factory and my grandmother stayed at home and ran the household. My father left school at sixteen and started working to help support the family. I recall him telling me about his shoes. He said he never had a good pair that fit, and after long days at work he’d come home and his feet would be blistered and bleeding. He always remained a frugal spender, but because of that, the one thing he never scrimped on was shoes. He owned some of the top-notch brands of shoes and boots!

The story of my Dad’s shoes tells me just how desperate his world was, and I recall him telling it more than once. For me, it really tells the story of his life. The photo of that young man is stunning to me because when I think of my father I think of grey hair, suits and ties and good shoes. Did I ever think, as a child, that perhaps my father had dreams of his own? No, I only knew I admired him for the life he made for us, the fact we always had new shoes and that our feet were never blistered and raw.

Photo Credits

Photo courtesy of Martha Farley – all rights reserved

The following day I started mulling over the whole idea about covers and why they make us feel safe when we are feeling vulnerable.

I remember a long time ago my father telling me about a dream he had one night, I suppose it really was a nightmare. He said in the dream he woke up from a deep sleep and the house was shaking and he knew it was an earthquake, he thought I better get out, better get my wife and kids out of the house. But he told me later what he did instead in the dream was lie back down and pull the covers up over his head.

I used to have a lot of nightmares when I was a child. I had a lot of scary nightmares about dinosaurs. No doubt because my older brother told me frightening stories about dinosaurs and how they were going to take over the planet. It was always such a shock to wake from those dreams with the feeling that those dinosaurs were right outside your window. I distinctly remember being too scared to even move but I knew if I was under the covers I would be fine. The dinosaurs could not get to me if I was under the blankets.

Even trying to fall asleep as a child I remember sometimes feeling frightened or scared by something, I had a very active imagination and would often wonder if someone or something was just right outside my bedroom window. I would lie stone still in my bed with those blankets right over my head. I would not let one inch of me outside the blanket for fear that if I did I would be grabbed and taken to a place I feared I would never be able to get out of. Those blankets I can safely say protected me from those nasty, scary things who perched themselves in my imagination and spent nights haunting me.

And what do I do now when I am tired or scared? Now that I am a full fledged grown woman, where do I go for refuge? A place that offers peace in a world that moves sometimes way to fast? I lie in bed and get under the covers, hiding for the moment from all the stresses of life. It is the best feeling in the world. To be hidden far away from all the demands of daily life, to rest my head and unwind under the covers.

And when you’re sick where do you want to be? Under the covers. Shivering and miserable, finding your way to your bed relieves the pain of aching muscles and sore joints from fever. Finding solace under the covers warms your heart and soul. Feeling safe and comforted by those blankets over your head helps you heal faster.

Whenever I encounter a sick child whether it is mine or someone else’s child I always feel better if they have a blanket or something over them to help console them. There is just something innately wonderful about having blankets over us when we are out of sorts.

In this hectic and crazy world isn’t it lovely to know there is one place in the world where nothing can touch you not even the monsters under the bed.

Photo Credit

Photo by Vanina W. on flickr – Some Rights Reserved

How much do I love him?
and a laughter lifted in me
more than he knows, more than he can see
and the ocean waters keep filling in me

How much do I love him?
where there is no end to the day or sleep
that satisfies me
how much do I love him?
come closer and put your hand here
where my beginnings begin and he ends in me

How much do I love him?
more than I can let it remind me
how much do I love him?
the tears in my eyes, the sweet love
of a train that never left

How much do I love him?
it’s in the colour shining in my red dress
and how much do I love him?
my heart aches and pounds endlessly
when I am dreaming about him holding and kissing me

How much do I love him?
it pounds down on me
how much do I love him?
stop askin’ me, can’t a blind man see
how much do I love him?
and a laughter came back again to me

How much do I love him?
raising my eyes, the pain of it keeps me
how much do I love him?
one more time, are you following me?
as the red of my dress
falls over a chair traced and
lined with lace, my hands
can’t get enough of him
my heart can’t stop me
as the love bleeds over him and me

Don’t ask me again, how much do I love him
can’t a blind man see?

Photo Credits

Photo from Morguefile 

You see, despite the fact I’m online all the time, as most of us are, and despite the fact that I know I could keep all my contact info online too, I’m still connected, like a lifeline, to the small pages of my address book, where actual snail mail addresses nestle side by side with updated cell phone numbers and land lines. When I travel, as I do frequently, I simply slip my address book in my purse or carry-on bag and voila, without having to depend on WiFi or cell phone service areas, I have the info at my fingertips to call someone, or drop them a postcard. Quaint perhaps, but true.

By the way, my smart phone also comes with me on my travels, and often my laptop as well. But for me the address book is the easiest way to rely on getting the info I need. No worry about depending on a good wireless connection. I’ve got the info with me, and can access it instantly, even when I’m out of cell phone range.

When my address book did not turn up after desperate searching, I tried the lost and found on the BC Ferries, since I’d recently taken a trip back and forth.
The young ferry worker on the line seemed puzzled.

“Address book? Is that like a piece of paper?” he asked. Uh oh. I thought I’d given him a pretty thorough description: small white book, with a gold ribbon around it.

Later, I finally gave up and went to buy a new one at a card shop. When I asked, the clerk said, “Address book? We don’t carry them anymore.”

Uh oh again. I tried the dollar store, found a cheap one, and reluctantly, admitting final defeat, bought it.

Of course anyone I mentioned this loss to looked at me a bit incredulously and said, “You know you can have all that info online. Why use an address book?” I knew I was sounding like a horse and buggy owner complaining about the exhaust of the new motorized vehicles. Still, I missed my book. It was tangible and it connected me to people, no matter where I was

It’s been my go-to place to record new addresses, new numbers, and most importantly, cell phone numbers, which I would jot in my book quickly when people emailed them, rather than take the time to enter them each in my smart phone contact list (big mistake, I know). By the way, why hasn’t someone created an online cell phone telephone listing yet?

Then, I got a phone call. My granddaughter had good news for me. She was holding my address book in her hand! It had turned up at her house, and I figure I had inadvertently packed it with her things as we escorted her home, by ferry, recently. I felt like a little miracle had occurred!

So, my address book is back and my husband has pledged to sit down with me and help me enter the information online as well. Sounds good, but old habits die hard. I just got back from a trip yesterday, and guess what I carried, snugly and happily buried in my purse.

Photo Credit:

© Star Weiss. All rights reserved.