Where the Ancestors Breathe Through Her

2025/12/10Posted in ProseTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Madness Made Visible, Prose, writing3 Comments

She lifts her arm like she’s remembering something older than breath—an inheritance carried not in blood, but in rhythm. The world behind her blurs into strokes of salt and shadow, yet she stands carved from something steadier: a woman made of lineage, of stories whispered through blue smoke and braided into the folds of her headwrap.

Her eyes are closed, but nothing about her is blind. She’s listening—maybe to the low tide of an ancestor’s voice, maybe to the soft insistence of her own pulse. The light catches her cheek like a blessing she didn’t ask for but accepts anyway.

And there’s that slight tilt of her mouth—neither smile nor sorrow, just the calm of someone who has survived enough to know the difference between surrender and liberation.

This is not a pose.

It’s a reckoning.
A quiet claiming of space.
A woman mid-stride in a prayer only she understands, and yet somehow, it feels like she speaks for all of us.

Signal Through the Static

2025/12/09Posted in The Daily'sTagged Cartoons, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2147, The Daily's, writing2 Comments

I was never a cartoon kid. The bright colors, the slapstick chaos, the noise—they all felt like they were shouting past me. But every now and then, something stranger slipped through the broadcast. Clutch Cargo. Space Angel. The 70s Spider-Man reruns with animation so stiff it felt like everyone was holding their breath.

Most folks remember those shows for the uncanny mouths or the budget that barely covered a pot of coffee. I remember the stories.

Even as a kid, that’s what hooked me. It wasn’t the art; it was the pulse beneath it. A pilot lost in deep space. A hero swinging across a city that looked more empty than alive. A mystery to unravel before the next commercial break. Those shows were weird—no denying that—but weird wasn’t a flaw. Weird was an invitation.

While other kids waited for punchlines, I waited for stakes. I wanted to know what the trouble was, what hidden door we were about to open, what secret someone was trying to bury. The stories were simple, but they had weight. They made you pay attention. They carried that quiet tension you only feel when something matters, even if you can’t explain why.

Looking back, I think that’s what stayed with me. Not the animation. Not the nostalgia. The stories. They were the first lesson in how narrative works when you strip away spectacle: character, pressure, consequence. The essentials.

Maybe that’s why they stuck.
Maybe that’s why I still chase that same feeling when I sit down to write—just a strange transmission cutting through the static, reminding me that the story is the thing that survives.

Daily writing prompt

What’s your favorite cartoon?

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The Discipline of a Quiet Man

2025/12/09Posted in The Daily'sTagged Basketball, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2054, Kareem Abdul-Jabber, sports, The Daily's, writingLeave a comment

There are words we use carelessly, scattering them across people who haven’t earned them. Honor is not one of them. Honor is not a word; it’s a state of being. Many treat it as a relic from old books, a concept preserved in ink but forgotten in practice. We remember its definition, but not its discipline. Honor belongs to lives that can bear its weight—those whose choices reveal intent rather than performance, discipline rather than spectacle, substance rather than noise. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the rare men whose life, lived deliberately and consistently, justifies the use of that word.

Long before trophies or records, before the skyhook carved its arc into basketball history, Kareem learned what it meant to walk a disciplined path. In Black Cop’s Kid, he writes about his father, a Black New York City police officer navigating a segregated America. His father moved through streets that demanded vigilance, wisdom, and restraint—a man required to inhabit two worlds that seldom acknowledged the full weight of his humanity. That quiet duality shaped Kareem’s earliest understanding of strength. His father did not preach lessons; he embodied them. The discipline in that household was not loud or performative. It was patient. Intentional. A way of carrying oneself when no one is watching. It was here that Kareem first learned that the inner life must be steadier than the world pressing against it.

As Kareem stepped into the national spotlight, that lesson met its first genuine test. His presence alone carried expectations that were not of his choosing. Every gesture, every silence, every interview became a canvas for projection. America demanded a familiar performance from its Black athletes—gratitude without question, humility without edge, excellence without voice. Kareem refused the performance. His reserve was mistaken for distance; his intellect, for defiance. Yet what much called aloofness was simply the discipline he had been raised with: the separation of worlds, protecting the private self, the refusal to let public hunger consume what must remain internal. Strength, for him, was never volume. It was alignment. And maintaining that alignment in the face of scrutiny became its own form of endurance.

This alignment is what he carried into the moment that would sharpen his moral identity. In Black Cop’s Kid, Kareem describes being invited, at just twenty years old, to join a gathering now known as the Cleveland Summit. Jim Brown called him to sit alongside Bill Russell, Carl Stokes, Muhammad Ali, and other Black leaders—a room full of men who bore their own histories of struggle and conviction. They met to confront Ali’s refusal to be drafted into the Vietnam War. Some had served in uniform; others had walked the front lines of civil rights battles. The air in that room was a crucible, not a ceremony. Kareem entered as the youngest voice present, carrying the discipline of his father but stepping into a conversation that demanded clarity far beyond his years.

For hours, the group questioned Ali. They challenged his reasoning, his faith, his willingness to accept consequences. Ali argued that the war was being fought by people of color against people of color, for a nation that denied them basic civil rights. His refusal was rooted in religious conviction and moral clarity, not political theatrics. As Kareem recounts it, the debate grew heated—sharp questions, sharper answers, the weight of identity and duty pressing into every sentence. What emerged was not a portrait of a defiant champion but of a man prepared to sacrifice everything rather than betray his principles.

Bill Russell summarized what a good deal of felt but would not say aloud: he envied Ali’s “absolute and sincere faith.” Envy—not of fame or power, but of conviction. Kareem saw it plainly: even giants grappled with doubt. Even legends feared whether they could withstand the cost of conscience. In that moment, Kareem recognized a truth his father had lived without speaking—integrity is measured by what a person refuses to surrender. By the end of the Summit, they stood with Ali. Kareem left not with a slogan but with a direction. As he wrote, he felt he was finally doing something important rather than merely watching the world from its edges. His father’s quiet discipline had found its test, and it held.

That commitment of intent over performance would define the decades that followed. Kareem did not chase the spotlight. He did not soften his seriousness to become more palatable. His writing, activism, and public presence reflect a consistent refusal to be shaped by expectation. In a culture that rewards noise, he chose depth. In an era that prized spectacle, he chose substance. His reserve was not distance—it was stewardship of the inner life his father taught him to protect.

This same ethos threads through his work beyond basketball. In Brothers in Arms, his tribute to the 761st Tank Battalion of Black soldiers in World War II, he writes of men whose greatest acts were known only in fragments. Many lived entire lives without revealing what they had endured. Their silence was not secrecy—it was dignity. Kareem writes about them with reverence, humility, and a recognition that some forms of service cannot be measured by praise. In many ways, his own life echoes theirs: principled choices, quiet strength, a preference for action over advertisement. Deeds, not words, as the old motto says.

Across time, the pattern of his life remains coherent. The public, private, and secret selves that his father taught him to guard align under a single discipline: to move with intent, even when misunderstood. The same steadiness that kept his father upright on hostile streets steadied Kareem through shifting eras, hostile headlines, and the long shadow of fame. His reserve is no longer misread when viewed through this lens. It becomes what it always was: a disciplined way of walking through a world eager to consume more than it has earned.

Most athletes earn admiration. Very few earn Honor. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar does, not because he was flawless or universally embraced, but because he lived with deliberate intent when it would have been easier to drift, and with discipline when it would have been easier to perform. Honor is not a word; it is a state of being. And if we are to use that word with any seriousness, we should reserve it for lives capable of carrying its weight. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s life is one of them.

Daily writing prompt

Name the professional athletes you respect the most and why.

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What Bloomed After the Darkness Surrendered

2025/12/08Posted in Dispatches from the Splinters of My MindTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, Dispatches, fantasy, Fiction, short-story, writing2 Comments

Dispatches from the Splinters of my Mind – Entry 12

I didn’t expect to find anyone out here.

This stretch of land was where people came to lose things, not recover them. Ruined garden, dead roses, night thick enough to bruise your lungs. The kind of place you walk through only if something heavier is pushing you from behind.

But she was there—hooded, veiled, blindfolded—kneeling in a field of collapsed petals. Her stillness wasn’t passive. It was deliberate, like someone waiting for a verdict they suspected they wouldn’t survive.

A faint ember glowed at the heart of one dying rose beside her knee. Gold, quiet, defiant. That single bloom didn’t belong here any more than I did.

She didn’t turn when I approached. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t reach for a blade.
The air around her was the kind people enter only by accident.

“You alone out here?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.

Her head angled toward my voice. “Still deciding.”

“On what?”

“Whether solitude is a wound or a home.”

I stopped a few paces away. Not out of fear—more out of respect. Some people carry storms so dense you don’t step too close unless invited.

“Why the blindfold?” I asked.

“So the world can’t trick me into believing it’s changed.”

I let that sit a moment. The roses whispered in the wind, petals shifting like softened ash.

“You waiting for something?” I asked.

“A sign,” she said. “A memory. A reason.”
A pause.
“Maybe an ending.”

Her fingers sank into the roses, searching for something beneath them. Not clutching. Feeling. Testing the borders of whatever she still believed in.

“You think endings come find you?” I asked.

“No,” she said. “But grief does. And it never knocks first.”

I moved closer, lowering myself into a crouch. Up close, the blindfold looked like something she tied herself—not a binding, but a boundary. A way of saying: I see enough without seeing anything at all.

Her breathing was slow but not steady. The kind of rhythm people get when they’re fighting tears without wanting to admit it.

“You come out here to die?” I asked.

“To choose,” she said.

“What’s the choice?”

She lifted the faintly glowing rose, its ember casting a soft outline across the cloth over her eyes.

“Whether to see things as they are,” she said, “or as I feel them.”

I reached instinctively toward the blindfold. Not forceful. Just curious. But her hand rose and pressed gently against my wrist.

“Don’t.”

Her voice wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t even afraid.
It was… resolved, in a tremor-laced way only people who’ve hurt enough to recognize the shape of their own boundaries can manage.

“You don’t want to see the world around you?” I asked.

“I already do,” she said softly. “Just not with my eyes.”

I lowered my hand. “Most people would call that denial.”

“Most people,” she said, “confuse vision with understanding.”

She tilted her face toward the faint warmth of the rose. “When I look at things, I start filling in the story. Adding meanings that aren’t there. Projecting old wounds onto new shadows. I see too much. And none of it’s true.”

Her fingers trembled once, barely noticeable.

“With this on,” she continued, touching the blindfold, “I feel the world instead of interpreting it. I hear it. I sense it. I don’t get lost in what I think things are.”

I let her words settle. She wasn’t fragile. She wasn’t defeated.
She was… calibrating. Choosing her method of survival.

“There’s a path east,” I said. “Ruined, but navigable.”

“I know,” she whispered. “I stood at the fork earlier.”

“And?”

“And I couldn’t choose.”

“Because you couldn’t see it?”

“No,” she said. “Because I could.”

The ember pulsed in the rose like a small, stubborn heartbeat.

“When you’ve been hurt often enough,” she said, “every familiar road feels like a trap. Every new road feels like a lie. You stand there waiting for some sign—some clarity—to tell you where to go. You wait so long the waiting becomes its own kind of grave.”

“And the blindfold?”

“It’s not to hide,” she said. “It’s to quiet the noise.”

Her face—what I could see of it beneath the veil—softened.
“I don’t want to see the world tonight,” she said. “I want to feel what’s left of me inside it.”

I understood that in a way I wished I didn’t.

“You’re not lost,” I told her.

“No,” she said. “I’m unlearning the version of myself that got me killed the first time.”

Wind swept through the roses, their petals rattling like brittle memories. The ember in her hand brightened, painting the lower half of her face in gold.

I offered my hand—not to lift the blindfold, not to drag her toward sight, but because no one should sit in a field of dead flowers alone.

She didn’t take it at first. Her fingers hovered millimeters from mine, trembling like she wasn’t sure whether to trust the impulse.

“You don’t need your eyes for this,” I said quietly. “Just the part of you that knows exactly what you want and is terrified to admit it.”

“And what do you think that is?” she whispered.

“To stop standing at the fork.”

Her breath hitched. Not loudly. Just enough to notice if you were close.

“The path east…” she said. “It felt like the one I should have chosen before everything went wrong.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I asked.

“Because someone convinced me I wasn’t the kind of person who deserved to walk it.”

Her hand finally—finally—closed around mine. Cold fingers warming slowly in the cradle of my palm.

“I can’t see it,” she said.

“You don’t need to.”

“How do you know?”

“Because sight’s never been the problem,” I said. “Belief has.”

She swallowed hard. There were tears beneath the blindfold; I could hear the thickness in her breathing.

“Lead me,” she said, steady even through the shake.
“Down the path I should have chosen. Not the one I kept returning to out of fear.”

I rose, pulling her gently with me. Her footing was careful but sure, her other hand cupped around the glowing rose so its small ember wouldn’t die.

“You realize,” I said, “leaving the blindfold on means you won’t see what’s ahead.”

“I don’t want to,” she replied. “If I see it, I’ll try to predict it. Control it. Ruin it before it begins.”
A breath.
“Let me walk without knowing.”

I nodded, though she couldn’t see it.
Some people need eyes. Some need maps.
She needed silence—her own, for once, not the world’s.

We stepped through the dead roses. Their petals brushed her legs like faint apologies.

“Tell me something,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Does the night look as heavy as it feels?”

“Worse,” I admitted.

She smiled faintly. “Good. I’d hate to be the only one carrying weight.”

Another few steps. Her grip tightened when the ground shifted, then eased again.

“You’re not afraid,” I said.

“No,” she replied. “I’m aware. Fear is when you run from things. Awareness is when you walk toward them knowing they might break you.”

“And you think this path will break you?”

“Everything breaks me,” she said. “That’s not new. The question is whether it teaches me something afterward.”

“And what do you want it to teach you?”

“That surrender isn’t defeat,” she said. “Just a kind of honesty.”

We walked farther. The night didn’t lighten, but something inside her did—a straightening of the spine, a deepening of breath, a quiet resolve she must have forgotten she owned.

She stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” I asked.

She held the glowing rose out toward the dark.

“When hope survives in a place like this,” she said, “it isn’t a promise. It’s a warning.”

“Of what?”

“That the world isn’t done with me yet.”

She lowered the rose to her chest.
The ember brightened once—brave or foolish—and then stilled, warm against her heart.

“Tell me,” she whispered. “Are we still walking east?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

She tightened her grip around my hand, the blindfold still firm across her eyes.

“Then don’t let me stop,” she said. “Not even when I want to.”

We stepped forward together, and the night shifted around us—not lighter, not kinder, just… open.

Behind us, the dead roses rustled in the dark.
Ahead, the path waited without expectation.

And she—blindfolded, trembling, resolute—walked toward it not because she saw it
but because she finally understood
what bloomed after the darkness surrendered was not the world.
It was her.

Instincts, Echoes, and the Work of Coming Back

2025/12/08Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2127, life, love, mental health, mindfulness, The Daily's, writing1 Comment

Of course I trust my instincts. These instincts are the reason I’m still here. They’re the early warning system that kicked in long before I had the language to explain what was happening. They’ve pulled me out of bad situations, terrible decisions, and moments where everything felt razor-thin. Survival sharpens you in ways calm living never will. Yet there are times you wonder if what you’re feeling is actually what’s happening. As someone living with PTSD, even after years of progress, the episodes don’t disappear—they just get quieter, less commanding, but still capable of blindsiding you when life hits at the wrong angle.

That’s the strange part: instincts are made of scar tissue and memory, not magic. They’re a patchwork of everything you’ve lived through—every mistake, every close call, every moment you had to react before you had time to think. And when your past includes trauma, those instincts can carry echoes of things you already survived. Sometimes they show up as alarms, even when there’s no fire in the room. It’s difficult to explain this to people. Not because they don’t care or don’t try, but because they don’t have a point of reference. If someone’s never had their body react to a memory like it’s happening in real time, or never had their nervous system jump to high alert over a sound everyone else barely notices, there’s only so much they can understand.

It’s not their fault. It’s simply the gap between lived experience and good intentions. But sometimes that gap feels like its own form of isolation. You end up minimizing what you feel or staying quiet because explaining it feels like trying to describe color to someone who’s only ever seen in grayscale. Eventually the question becomes: Why bother? And that silence can be its own kind of weight.

Even so, with the right support and coping tools, you really can relearn how to trust—not just your instincts, but yourself. Healing isn’t about shutting off the alarms; it’s about recalibrating them so they stop drowning out everything else. You learn to tell the difference between a real signal and old static. You learn how to talk yourself down without dismissing what your body is trying to say. You realize you’re not fighting your nervous system—you’re retraining it. Support and coping skills create space between the present moment and the past, and that’s the space where self-trust has room to grow.

But healing isn’t linear. There are days when every tool you’ve learned goes out the window. Days when your instincts feel unreliable, when your body reacts before your brain catches up, when everything hits at once and you’re back in old patterns without warning. Those days can make progress feel imaginary. But they aren’t the whole story. Because the very fact that you can name what’s happening now—the fact that you can reach for help, reach for tools, reach for clarity—means you’re not where you used to be.

Trust isn’t a single leap. It’s a series of small choices where you refuse to abandon yourself. Over time, instinct and self-trust start to merge again, the way they were always meant to. You move from surviving to navigating, and eventually, to living with a steadiness that’s earned, not imagined.

It’s not perfect. But it’s real. And real is enough.

Do you trust your instincts?

The Line Between Us and the Wild Is Paper-Thin

2025/12/08Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative non-fiction, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2144, Fiction, humor, life, short-story, The Daily's, writing1 Comment

Some days, I feel like the unofficial understudy for Marlon Perkins from Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom—minus the khaki shorts and the camera crew. No judgement here, khaki’s are so comfortable. Wildlife keeps showing up in my life like it’s angling for a recurring role.

A few years back, it was Louie and Smiley—two raccoons who treated my house like a spiritual retreat with free snacks. I returned from visiting my folks to find Louie perched in my office chair reading the Douay-Rheims Bible with the focus of a man reconsidering his sins. Smiley wandered out of the kitchen with a loaf of bread and a pack of cheese like he was prepping for a midnight sermon.

“I found the mother lode!” he said.

“Shut up, Smiley,” Louie muttered—then saw me.
“Louie! He’s back! He’s back!”

Panic. Scramble. Silence.
I expected the Bible to be covered in raccoon glyphs, but it was clean. The kitchen was another story entirely. The kitchen looked like a flour bomb had gone off. And the little bastards were munching on my Cheez-its. Looking back I can’t blame them because Cheez-It’s are righteous. And it’s been over a year since I’ve seen either of them. Strange to admit, but I miss those idiots. You don’t realize how lonely you’ve gotten until you start missing thieves with tails.

These days, everything seems to drift toward “normal”—if that word still means anything. Maybe it’s really just slipping back into the routine that makes sense to you, even if it looks ridiculous to anyone else. My routine involves trying (and failing) to quit smoking while watching the neighborhood wildlife walk around like they pay rent.

Groundhogs strolling like retirees.
Squirrels hustling like Wall Street interns.
Feral cats acting like landlords.

They don’t hide; they don’t wait for the coast to clear. They move like the world belongs to them.

Some mornings, the line between wild and human feels paper-thin.

Lately I’ve been paying attention in a way I never used to—maybe that’s why the animals have gotten bolder.

Because then came the possums.

A pair waddled down my sidewalk one evening, paused, and stared at me like I was the one intruding. As if they were wondering if I was going to hurt them or let them be. I supposed they had decided because one of them lifted a tiny paw and waved.

Then she stood up and said,
“Mangus, don’t act like you don’t see us! Ralph, would you look at this—humans can be so rude.”

Ralph gave the possum equivalent of a shrug.

I figured that was strange enough for the week, but winter has a way of dragging even stranger things to your doorstep.

There’s something about a cold morning—the chill bites you like you walked into the wrong yard. A reminder of the no-no’s of life.

A few mornings later, frost was clinging to everything like regret. I stepped out with a cigarette—a filthy habit, so I’m told. But I’ve lived long enough to see people celebrate worse sins, so I take the judgment with a grain of salt.

That’s when I saw him.

A raccoon was sitting on my stoop, smoking one of my cigarettes, staring into the frost as if it had whispered a prophecy. He jumped when he finally noticed me. His eyes went wide, then settled. If I meant him harm, I’d have done it already.

I lit my own cigarette.
You hear the snow crunching beneath someone’s footsteps. I turned.

“Don’t worry,” the raccoon said without looking back. “That’s just Smoke wondering if you put anything out to eat. You’ve been slipping on that, by the way.”

Smoke—another raccoon—raised a paw in greeting, then kept moving toward the trash can like we were roommates who barely tolerated each other.

I took my first drag.
Ah, the sweet relief of the little lies we tell ourselves.
“Best thing ever.”
Not really—but the small fibs get us through the day.

Cold mornings always pry open old memories. Suddenly, I was thinking about a chocolate cake—dangerously good-looking, baked by someone capable of getting a diabetic canonized or killed. I told myself I’d be a “good diabetic” that day. Truth was, it simply wasn’t the weekend.

I’m not diabetic on the weekends.
A doctor once told me that’s not how it works.
My response: “Watch me, partner.”
Gave him my patented fuck off look. He didn’t know that expression at the time, but he learned fast.

Later, a young woman offering the cake stood beside me—closer than she needed to be. She smelled nice. Held out a plate.

“Yes, you have diabetes,” she whispered. “But you still have to live.”

Best cake ever.

Back on the stoop, the raccoon finally spoke.

“I’m Stu. Stuart Bigelow. That’s what a little girl across town used to call me. Cancer took her. Cancer’s an evil SOB—it comes for us all.”

“I’m Mangus,” I said. “And I have one question.”

“What’s that?”

“Who in the hell told you you could smoke my cigarettes?”

Stu coughed mid-drag, a little smoke curling out like he was half-laughing.
“Well, I figured since you left them outside, it was a party pack.”

Stu’s whiskers twitched after each exhale as if the smoke was burning his nose.

I snorted, then coughed, then burst into laughter.
“So not a party pack, Stu.”

Some mornings, the wild doesn’t feel wild at all.

Daily writing prompt

Do you ever see wild animals?

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Reblog: Black Soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars

2025/12/07Posted in ProseTagged history, Napoleonic Wars, Notes from the U.K., REBLOG1 Comment

I came across this piece earlier today, and it stopped me. We talk about the Napoleonic Wars like they were fought by one kind of soldier in one kind of uniform, but history is rarely that clean. This post digs into the lives of Black soldiers who served in that era — men like George Rose and Thomas James — whose stories sit in the margins instead of the main text.

I’m reblogging it because it reminds us how easily entire lives can disappear from the record, not by accident, but by habit. And sometimes the most important thing we can do is shine a light where the page went quiet.

Black soldiers in the Napoleonic Wars

Quote of the Day – 12072025

2025/12/072025/12/06Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Joan Didion, QOTD1 Comment

Personal Reflection:
Winter pulls memory into strange shapes. You find yourself thinking about who you once were — the old reactions, the old habits, the versions of yourself that felt permanent at the time. Didion’s line lands with a quiet honesty: you don’t just outgrow old identities — sometimes you forget how they even fit you. There are people you used to be who feel like distant acquaintances now, faces you’d nod to politely if you passed them on the street.

Losing touch with old selves isn’t always graceful. Some versions of you died in rooms no one else saw. Some were shed out of necessity, not desire. Some you abandoned because they could no longer carry you without breaking. And some… some you miss without wanting them back. That’s the strange thing about growth — it holds both grief and gratitude at the same time.

You look back and see the decisions you made with the tools you had. The mistakes that taught you more than any triumph. The fears that shaped you. The stubbornness that saved you. Those earlier selves were stepping stones, scaffolding, incomplete drafts — important, but not meant to last. And part of becoming who you are now is acknowledging that you’ll continue to lose contact with old versions of yourself as you evolve.

Memory isn’t a museum.
It’s a landscape weathering in real time.

Maybe today is about honoring the people you used to be — not clinging to them, not wishing for their return, but recognizing their role in building the person who stands here now. You don’t owe nostalgia to your past selves. You owe them gratitude, and freedom. Let them rest where they belong: in memory, in distance, in the quiet archive of everything you’ve survived.

And if you’ve lost touch with who you were?
That’s not failure.
That’s movement.
That’s life continuing, even through the cold.

Reflective Prompt:
Which version of yourself are you grateful for — even though you no longer inhabit them?

Quote of the Day – 12062025

2025/12/06Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Louise Gluck, movies, music, QOTD, random, science1 Comment

Personal Reflection:
Winter is honest about the cost of things. The cold exposes cracks, the dark lengthens shadows, and even the light arrives at angles that reveal what’s usually hidden. This line drops into that landscape with quiet gravity. Becoming yourself isn’t a clean story or an easy arc. It’s a series of choices no one else fully sees — the losses, the risks, the private battles that never made it into conversation. The world may admire who you are now, but it rarely understands the price you paid to get here.

Because becoming yourself isn’t a single transformation — it’s a slow burn that demands pieces of your former life as fuel. You lose people who preferred the older versions of you. You outgrow dreams you once swore were permanent. You dismantle comforts that kept you small because growth demanded more space than they allowed. And beneath all that change is a truth most people never consider:
evolution is expensive.

Not financially — emotionally.

It takes courage to stand in the wreckage of who you were and still decide to keep moving. It takes clarity to recognize when something familiar has turned into something harmful. And it takes a quiet, relentless kind of strength to admit that becoming yourself means disappointing the expectations others built around your past.

The cost isn’t always visible — but the ache is.

Maybe the point isn’t to be understood — not fully. Maybe the point is to honor the price you paid. To acknowledge the private courage it took to shed your old life and stand in the sharper air of who you are now. Becoming yourself is not about being admired — it’s about being true, even when truth carries weight.

And if the world never knows the cost?

That doesn’t diminish the value.
It means you carried something heavy far enough to step into your own name — and that is enough.

Reflective Prompt:
What part of your becoming has been misunderstood or unseen by others?

Station Break

2025/12/05Posted in ProseTagged TunageLeave a comment

I’m currently at another heavy metal concert2 doing research fort next music post. I will have the article ready tomorrow

I think. stay cool and be blessed

Quote of the Day – 12052025

2025/12/05Posted in Quote of the DayTagged David Whyte, QOTD1 Comment

Personal Reflection:
Winter offers the kind of clarity that summer tries to hide. Cold air, bare branches, honest light. There’s no room for pretending in this season — everything unnecessary falls away. This line steps directly into that clarity. It’s a reminder that identity isn’t a life sentence. Who you were is not a contract you’re obligated to renew. You’re allowed to walk away from the older versions of yourself without explaining the exit.

But leaving who you were is not as simple as shedding skin. The past sticks to you — not because it defines you, but because you’ve carried it long enough to confuse weight with worth. You stay loyal to outdated versions of yourself out of habit, or guilt, or the quiet fear that becoming someone new means betraying someone old. Winter challenges that loyalty. It asks: Is this truly you, or just the version of you that survived long enough to become familiar?

And that’s where the discomfort lives — in the realization that you can outgrow identities the way trees outgrow bark. It splits. It cracks. It hurts a little. But it’s necessary.

Maybe today is the day you give yourself permission to stop rehearsing an outdated self. To step into the quiet and ask who you’re becoming, not who you’ve been. You don’t owe permanence to anything that no longer feels true. You’re allowed to choose again. You’re allowed to evolve without waiting for the world to notice. The cold doesn’t ask for permission to change the landscape — it simply arrives. Maybe you can do the same.

Reflective Prompt:
What part of your past self have you outgrown, but still carry out of habit?

Skills from a Graduate of the School of Hard Knocks

2025/12/04Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2142, life, love, mental health, The Daily's, writer's life, writers on writing, writing2 Comments

If I’m being honest, the things I’m good at didn’t come from any classroom with fluorescent lights and tidy rows. They came from life pulling me aside, usually at the worst possible moment, and saying, “Pay attention—this part matters.” Most of what I know was earned the long way: scraped knuckles, late nights, and a few seasons where survival wasn’t guaranteed but somehow still happened. These skills didn’t unfold gently. They arrived as consequences, as revelations, as the quiet clarity that follows a storm.

One thing I’ve learned is that I’m better at creating a feeling than I am at delivering a finished product. I don’t sit down to produce anything polished or algorithm-friendly. I write to capture a moment’s temperature—the hush before a confession, the weight of a truth someone’s been carrying too long, the strange peace that settles in when you finally stop pretending everything is fine. I follow the line that tightens my chest because that’s where the real story is hiding. Atmosphere isn’t decoration; it’s the closest thing I have to honesty. And if someone walks into that space and feels seen, then the work did what it was supposed to.

I’ve also learned how to make complicated emotions legible—not tidy, not simple, but real. The heavy stuff never hands you clean language. Grief has its own dialect. Shame speaks in whispers. Loneliness shows up wearing someone else’s coat. Most people run from these things because they think naming them will make them bigger. But I sit with them long enough to understand their shape. Not because I’m brave—because I don’t know how else to move through the world. If I can translate that heaviness into a line that makes someone pause and think, “Yeah… me too,” then maybe the weight becomes shareable.

Another skill I’ve picked up is the ability to hold a ridiculous number of moving parts without letting the whole structure collapse. MKU. MoM. HoT. Fiction arcs. Art projects. QOTD. Image collections. The universe I’m building is messy, sprawling, and sometimes bigger than I intended. But even in the chaos, there’s a thread running through it—something emotional, instinctive, connective. I don’t always know where the thread is leading, but I know when I’ve lost it. And I know how to find my way back by listening to what the work is trying to become. People mistake this for multitasking; it’s really just surviving the storm with both hands open.

I’ve stopped worshipping the first draft. If a piece doesn’t feel right, I tear it apart, not out of self-doubt but out of loyalty—to the truth, to the reader, to the version of myself that refuses to settle for the easy version of anything. Revision is where the honesty happens. It’s where the mask slips. It’s where I notice the lines I wrote to protect myself instead of reveal something. I’ve rebuilt myself enough times to know that tearing something down is just another form of creation.

And finally, I adapt. Quickly. Quietly. Often without applause or acknowledgment. Life didn’t give me the privilege of staying the same for long. Every year demanded a new version of me—some built by choice, others by necessity. Adaptation isn’t a talent; it’s a scar that learned how to walk. When something breaks, I adjust. When something shifts beneath my feet, I move. Reinvention stopped feeling dramatic years ago; now it’s just how I breathe.

These are the skills I’ve gathered on my way through the wreckage. Not glamorous. Not marketable. But real. They weren’t taught—they were carved. And maybe that’s the mark of a true education in the school of hard knocks: you don’t graduate with honors. You graduate with perspective. With endurance. With stories you didn’t ask for but somehow needed.

And when someone asks what you’re good at, you finally have the language to answer—not with pride, but with truth.

Quote of the Day – 12042025

2025/12/04Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Anne Micheals, QOTD, Winter Stillness1 Comment

Personal Reflection:
Winter mornings have a particular kind of quiet — not empty, but concentrated. The world feels like it’s holding its breath, waiting for something unnamed. This quote steps into that hush with a truth we often avoid: silence isn’t about what disappears. It’s about what remains. When the noise of the day drops away, you’re left with the sound of your own thoughts, your own pulse, your own unfiltered presence. Sometimes that’s comforting. Sometimes it scares you.

Because here’s the part we don’t like to admit: a lot of the noise we surround ourselves with is intentional. Distraction is a kind of refuge. Constant motion is a way to outrun the parts of ourselves we aren’t ready to face. Silence removes the shield. It returns you to the version of yourself you’ve postponed — the one waiting beneath all the performance, the obligation, the practiced answers. And winter, with its wide-open spaces and long nights, brings that truth to the surface whether you asked for it or not. Stillness demands honesty. It asks you to sit with the things that don’t flinch when the world goes quiet.

Maybe the invitation today is simple: listen. Not to the world, but to what rises in the absence of it. Notice what refuses to vanish. Notice what grows louder when everything else is muted. Silence is not a void — it’s a mirror. And when you meet yourself there, without the usual noise to soften the edges, you realize presence isn’t something you earn. It’s something you return to.

Reflective Prompt:
What part of you becomes unmistakable when the world grows quiet?

Chilled to the Bone and Shadow

2025/12/03Posted in TunageTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians, Grooving With Glyn, House of Tunage, Mixed Music Bag, music, reviews, Tunage, writing4 Comments

Groovin’ with Glyn: Week 1

Air of December by Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians

December is a month of conflicting mindsets. On one hand, people get swept up in the season and start doing “Good Things,” as if generosity is something they dust off once a year like ornaments from the attic. Smiles get bigger. Voices get lighter. Folks try to be kinder, cleaner versions of themselves — at least for a few weeks.

But not everyone rises with the cheer.
Some slip the other way — into that deep, cold room December knows how to unlock. The early darkness settles on their shoulders. The empty chairs at the table get louder. They watch the world light up and feel nothing but the distance.

The weather has changed. We felt the shift back in November — a quiet warning — but December carries the truth in its bones. The calendar hints at winter, but nature tells you outright. Woodchucks waddle with purpose, grabbing whatever scraps they need to seal themselves away. Raccoons run their winter reconnaissance, scouting warm corners with criminal determination.

Across the street, after sundown, the trees start speaking. Leaves rustle in patterns the wind doesn’t claim. Then: silence. Then another rustle — heavier this time — followed by a shadow shifting where it shouldn’t. And there it is:
a raccoon the size of a small planet climbing like gravity signed a waiver. Somehow that bandit-faced acrobat is perched on the roof of a three-story house, staring down like it owns the deed.

Meanwhile, Christmas trees bloom behind neighborhood windows — soft glows behind glass, promises of borrowed joy. For the next thirty days, people will act like saints in training, as if kindness has a seasonal password and only December knows it. Christmas carols creep through grocery aisles. Decorations multiply like mushrooms.

This is precisely why you need a strong music collection.
Survival gear.
Armor.

Because there are only so many versions of “Jingle Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Deck the Halls,” and “Frosty the Snowman” a person can take before something in them snaps.
Though Frosty and Rudolph do have their… alternative interpretations — the ones no one plays around polite company. Those versions? Those have some soul to them.

The lights are up on half the streets by now — fake pine needles, borrowed glow, holiday cheer on rotation. But behind windows, in alleys, in empty rooms and quiet corners, the air tastes different. Thinner. Sharper. More honest.

That’s when I slip on “Air of December.”
Soft bass. Careful voice. Shadows tucked into the chords.
This song doesn’t promise warmth, and it sure as hell doesn’t ask you to smile.
It just says: pay attention.

Edie Brickell & New Bohemians were never a mainstream machine. They had one catchy breakout moment, and most people froze them in that era like a photograph in a drawer. Air of December is one of those tracks even longtime fans forget exists. It’s not whispered in corners or held up as a hidden classic. But for the ones who hear it — really hear it — there’s a quiet respect. A recognition of its weight. Its weather. Its staying power.

The song opens like a door easing into colder air — a small shift in pressure you feel more than hear. The guitar stays clean but unsweet; the bass hums low like a steady engine under the floorboards; the drums hold back, giving the track room to breathe. The band understands restraint — they don’t fill the silence; they let the silence carry meaning. There’s distance in the mix as well, not loneliness but space, like the walls of the room are set a little farther apart than usual. It gives the whole track that “cold air in the next room” feeling — a quiet tension humming beneath the melody.

Brickell’s voice moves with deliberate softness.
She doesn’t chase the melody — she circles it.
As if she is dancing alongside it, doing her best not to disturb the melody, but to belong to it.
It’s intimate without being fragile or overbearing — confessional without wandering into theatrics. It respects the moment, and we appreciate that without even realizing we do.
This is the “close-but-not-too-close” mic technique: you feel near her, but not pulled into her chest. You’re listening in, not being performed to.

Her lyrics drift like breath on cold glass — shapes that form, fade, and return slightly altered.
Brickell doesn’t write scenes; she writes impressions.
Smudges.
Moments that land in your body long before your mind explains them.
That’s December — not revelations, just quiet truths catching you in the corner of your eye.

There’s also the emotional sleight of hand: a major-key framework phrased with minor-key honesty. Hopeful chords, weary inflections. Warm instrumentation, cool delivery. A contradiction — just like the month. This isn’t a heartbreak song or a holiday anthem. It’s a temperature. A walking pace. The sound of someone thinking as the sun drops at 4:30 PM.

Some songs become seasonal without meaning to — not because they mention snow or nostalgia, but because they inhabit the emotional weather perfectly.
This one does.

It sounds like a room after the noise has died down and the truth hasn’t found its words yet.
It sounds like someone sitting beside you, matching your breathing.
It sounds like December without the costume.

Most December songs want to wrap you in tinsel and memory.
This one just sits beside you.
Doesn’t judge.
Doesn’t push.
Just listens.

People claim they want authenticity in December — honesty, depth, meaning.
They don’t.
They want distraction wrapped in nostalgia.
They want songs about snow so they don’t have to face the winter inside themselves.

“Air of December” refuses that bargain.
It listens — and listening is dangerous this month.

Give someone a quiet December track and half of them will panic.
They’ll change it before the first truth lands.
Stillness has a way of turning the room into a mirror.

Most December listeners don’t want the real temperature.
They want the thermostat set to everything’s fine.
But winter doesn’t trade in lies.
And neither does this track.

Yet there’s a strange comfort in that kind of honesty.
The song doesn’t shield you from the cold — it invites you into it.
It says, look around, breathe, the truths you’ve been dodging all year are rising — and you’re strong enough now to meet them.

December strips everything down to bone and breath.
This track reminds you that what remains is still yours.

Quote of the Day – 12032025

2025/12/032025/12/03Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Albert Camus, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection
Winter has a way of stripping everything down to what’s essential. Trees holding nothing. Light barely making it over the horizon. The world quieter than you remember it being. This line steps into that stillness with a quiet revelation — that sometimes you don’t discover what you’re made of until the cold has taken everything unnecessary away. Winter doesn’t lie. It shows you what survives inside you when everything else goes silent.

But let’s be honest: no one finds their “invincible summer” on a good day. You find it when the warmth is gone, when you’re trembling in the dark with only your breath to remind you that you’re still here. Strength isn’t some heroic surge — it’s a slow burn you don’t notice until you’re forced to rely on it. And winter, whether literal or emotional, has a way of testing every weak beam in the structure. It exposes the drafts, the fractures, the places you thought were sealed. But it also reveals the heat you didn’t know you carried — the stubborn pulse that refuses to go out.

Maybe the real lesson here isn’t about hope, but recognition. The quiet understanding that even in the season of least light, you are not empty. That something inside you endures — not loudly, but faithfully. December isn’t asking you to bloom; it’s asking you to remember what still burns. The part of you that stays alive in the dark. The ember that doesn’t need applause or sunlight. The summer that waits beneath your ribs, patient and unwavering.

Reflective Prompt
What warmth in you has outlived the coldest seasons of your life?

The Boy Who Wasn’t Afraid of the Dark

2025/12/02Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2140, life, love, mental health, poetry, The Daily's, writing3 Comments

There’s something about the night I’ve never managed to explain without feeling like I’m circling the real truth instead of touching it. It isn’t just the absence of light. It’s the way the world exhales after midnight, how everything settles into a version of itself that feels more honest. If you’re a night person, you already know what I mean—you don’t need me to draw a map to that place.

As a kid, I treated the night like a sanctuary no one else had discovered. The dark didn’t judge, didn’t demand, didn’t tap its foot waiting for me to prove something. I used to get sad when the Dawn arrived—not out of melodrama, but because daybreak felt like someone flipping on the fluorescent lights, telling me to sit up straight and get back in line. Dawn was order. Dawn was expectation. Dawn was the world reminding me I owed it something.

Night never asked for payment.
It just handed me the keys and stepped aside.

I really believed there were no rules after sunset. In the dark, the harsh edges of the day softened. The noise thinned out. My thoughts stopped running defense and finally came out from hiding. The boy I was didn’t have the language for it, but he understood the feeling: Night made room for him in a way life rarely did.

Looking back, I can see how much of that was escape. The night gave me cover—space to imagine, space to feel, space to acknowledge things I wasn’t ready to say out loud. But escape isn’t always cowardice. Sometimes it’s survival. Sometimes it’s the only way a kid can breathe.

And even now—older, carrying more history than I ever expected to survive—I still feel that tug when the sky lightens. There’s a part of me that mourns the end of the hours where I don’t have to pretend to be anything. A part that whispers, Hold on… not yet.
That boy is still in there. He still trusts the dark more than the dawn.

But here’s the thing I keep circling back to: the night didn’t make me free. It made me honest. There’s a difference. The dark gave me room to face myself without all the day’s noise confusing the signal. It let me consider who I was becoming, who I wasn’t, who I might still be if I stopped running long enough to look in the mirror.

And some nights—when the world goes quiet and the air feels like it’s holding its breath—that honesty still slips through. It reminds me why I loved the dark in the first place: not because it hid me, but because it revealed the parts of me I didn’t yet know how to live with in the light.

Holding the Line Behind the Curtain

2025/12/01Posted in ProseTagged mku, status update1 Comment

Some days the MKU pulls me deep into the art side of the house, and that’s where I’ve been this week—buried in images, color work, and the kind of creative mess that leaves your desk looking like a crime scene made of pixels.

But I’m still here behind the curtain on MoM, handling the admin work, reading fellow bloggers, keeping things tuned even if the front page looks quiet. Sometimes the best thing I can do is step back, breathe, and make sure the whole machine stays steady. More posts are coming. Just doing the groundwork first.

REBLOG: Life after door kicking’s post

2025/11/30Posted in ProseTagged memorial day, REBLOG, Veterans Day1 Comment

Some words don’t just honor the fallen — they remind us the living are still carrying their ghosts.

I stumbled across a piece that doesn’t wear patriotism like a costume. It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t wave flags. It simply stands still for a moment and asks: What happens to those who came home, but never truly made it back?

It traces the thin, invisible line between Veterans Day and Memorial Day—not to scold, but to reveal how often we blur the two because it’s easier than seeing the cost in human terms.

If you’ve ever said “Thank you for your service” and wondered afterward if it was enough—go read this.

👉 Not All Who Served Are Gone

Not All Who Served Are Gone—

Portrait of the Day – 11292025

2025/11/29Posted in Portrait of the DayTagged photo editing, POTD2 Comments

It wasn’t rage that shaped him, but the slow burn of inevitability. Stone gathered around his form the way old grudges gather around a name, layer by layer, until even the sky forgot what he once was. Flame carved the rest — blue, cold, deliberate — a fire that didn’t roar so much as whisper its intent. And somewhere between the crack and the spark, a wolf opened his eyes.

He did not rise to hunt. He did not rise to serve. He rose because something ancient and unfinished refused to stay buried. The world moved on, learned new fears, worshipped smaller gods. But he walked out of the dark like a memory with teeth, carrying the quiet certainty that monsters aren’t born — they’re awakened.

And he carries every reason to never sleep again.

The Hardest Decision Was Saying Yes to Myself

2025/11/28Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2136, life, love, mental health, The Daily's, writing17 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why?

View all responses

The hardest decision I’ve made recently wasn’t life-or-death. It was deciding to release my work—actually release it. Not hide it in drafts. Not polish it into oblivion. Not drop something small into the void and pretend I didn’t care about the silence afterward. The real battle wasn’t skill or imagination. It was belief—my own.

And I had reason to hesitate. I’d put work out before, here and there. A story, an image, a thought I didn’t mind people ignoring. And they did. The response was minimal or nonexistent, and that kind of quiet gets inside your head. It feeds every story you whisper to yourself at three in the morning: Why do I bother? What does it take to keep going? No one’s reading me anyway. Silence is its own kind of confirmation bias. It tells you you’re forgettable long before you ever get a chance to be known.

Then 2024 hit, and everything went sideways. I was terribly ill—bent, shaken, barely holding myself upright some days. But the blog? Strange as it sounds, it became the one place that felt sane. Real. Safe. My body was chaos, but the work gave my mind somewhere to breathe. I didn’t write because I was inspired. I wrote because it was the only steady ground I had left to stand on.

2025 rolled in with its own question mark hanging over my head. I’d survived—but now what? Who the hell was I supposed to be after everything? No grand gestures; those are just New Year’s resolutions dressed up in fancier language. We make them because we mean well, but half the time we don’t say them out loud. Not because they’re secret—shhh, G-14 classified—but because if we fail, at least the failure stays private. No ridicule. No audience.

Still, I was creating. Since 2023, I’d been grinding like a madman, pushing out content as if volume alone could outrun doubt. But earlier this year, something shifted. I slowed down. I started choosing quality over quantity. Fewer posts, deeper ones. Work that actually had weight. And the analytics—when they finally came—didn’t just pat me on the back. They confirmed it. Memoirs of Madness has had its best year ever. I’m proud of the work, sure. But what hits harder are the unexpected relationships that have come out of this place. That’s the real measure of success. Connection. Not clicks.

Only after all that did I look back at why I never trusted the praise from friends and family. It wasn’t that I doubted their honesty. It’s just that love carries a bias. It’s like being the most beautiful woman in four counties. Everyone knows it, everyone agrees. She leaves home expecting doors to swing open—only to find herself in a city where everyone is beautiful and suddenly she’s average. Not any less beautiful, just no longer exceptional by default. Creative praise works the same way. When the only eyes on your work are the ones already in your corner, it’s easy to confuse affection with validation. And easier still to hide behind that confusion.

But the last seven or eight months changed everything. I kept showing up. The work matured. The engagement grew. Strangers—people with no stake in my ego—connected with pieces I almost didn’t release. It wasn’t validation I was chasing. It was proof that the work could stand in bigger rooms. And for the first time, it could.

Releasing my work wasn’t the victory. That was just the surface.

The real decision—the hard one—was finally trusting that it belonged in the world.
Once I chose that, the rest started falling into place.

REBLOG: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm’s Translation

2025/11/28Posted in ProseTagged Art, books, news, Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, REBLOG1 Comment

Ta chọn yêu em trong im lặng… | RUMI

Every now and then, a poem comes along that feels like it was written in a language your heart already understood. This one is exactly that—a quiet confession of the ways we love when we’re not sure the world is safe enough to love openly. And reading it through the Vietnamese translation by Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm adds a different kind of weight. Her rendering doesn’t dilute Rumi’s longing; it sharpens it. The phrasing feels more intimate, more exposed, almost like a truth whispered in the dark rather than something meant for daylight. It carries the tremor of someone choosing their words carefully—not to hide the feeling, but to keep it from breaking.

I recognize myself in these lines—not because they’re romantic, but because they’re honest in the way only the wounded can be honest. The choices Rumi names—silence, loneliness, distance, wind, dreams—aren’t just poetic gestures; they’re survival strategies we adopt long before we ever learn to name them. Before I step into the analysis, I want to be clear about the feeling underneath all of this: this is a poem about longing, but it’s also a poem about what fear teaches us to call love.

Rumi’s Poem (Full Examination)

“I choose to love you in silence…
Because in silence there is no rejection,”
Silence becomes a controlled environment. No exposure, no risk. It’s the heart refusing to let someone’s “no” dismantle what feels sacred. There’s tenderness here, but also deep self-protection.

“I choose to love you in loneliness…
Because in loneliness you do not belong to anyone but me,”
Loneliness becomes ownership. Not of the person, but of the fantasy. It’s that quiet admission that imagined intimacy feels safer than shared intimacy—because reality involves other people, other choices, other ways to be hurt.

“I choose to cherish you from afar…
Because distance will shield me from pain,”
Distance is anesthetic. Keep the feeling alive, but keep it far enough away that it can’t burn you. There’s longing here rooted in past wounds—love held at arm’s length because closeness has teeth.

“I choose to kiss you in the wind…
Because the wind is softer than my lips,”
The wind becomes a surrogate for touch—the gentler, safer stand-in. This speaks to someone who has learned that physical connection can wound as easily as it heals. Gentleness outsourced to nature because the body remembers hurt.

“I choose to hold you in my dreams…
Because in my dreams, you will be forever.”
Dreams are the only place where love doesn’t die, change, betray, or disappear. Permanence becomes a fantasy because impermanence has already carved its mark.

Personal Reflection:

Rumi’s poem reads like someone tracing the outline of their own heart without daring to fill it in. Every choice—silence, loneliness, distance, dreams—feels less like surrender and more like survival. Anyone who’s lived through love that left bruises knows this pattern: protect the feeling by protecting yourself. Sometimes the safest place to love someone is the one where you never have to test whether they love you back.

But there’s a heavier truth humming beneath these lines. Loving in silence isn’t just reverence—it’s fear wearing poetry as armor. We tell ourselves we’re choosing distance when what we’re really choosing is control.

Silence keeps us from being shattered. Loneliness gives us a version of them we never have to share. Dreams let us rewrite the ending.

The thing is, these choices don’t just shield us from pain—they shield us from possibility. And that’s the part Rumi doesn’t say but implies: sometimes unspoken love is a sanctuary, and sometimes it’s a cell. The heart learns to ration hope after it’s been broken enough times. We call it wisdom, but it’s also scar tissue deciding what stories we’re allowed to tell.

Still, there’s something profoundly human in this poem—this instinct to hold what feels sacred in the quiet. Not every love needs to be confessed to be real. Some loves are meant to teach us, soften us, remind us we’re still capable of feeling deeply even after the world has taken its swings.

Maybe the point isn’t to stay hidden. Maybe it’s to understand the terrain of our own tenderness before we risk crossing it with someone else. Silence can be a starting point, not a resignation. Distance can be a breath, not a retreat.

And dreams… well, sometimes dreams hold our truest selves until we’re ready to step into the light and admit what we want out loud.

REBLOG: What Do You Learn When You Choose Peace Over Fear?

2025/11/27Posted in ProseLeave a comment

Choosing peace over fear is never easy. Learn what this difficult decision teaches about courage, clarity, purpose, and trusting God fully. The post …
What Do You Learn When You Choose Peace Over Fear?

REBLOG: Poor Old Henry’s Preoccupation – The March of Fina -1

2025/11/26Posted in ProseLeave a comment

Poor Old Henry’s Preoccupation – The March of Fina -1

A Different Kind of Work

2025/11/25Posted in ProseTagged creative writing, daily exercise, writing1 Comment

I’m stepping back from posting new pieces for the rest of the month — not because the well is dry, but because the work has shifted.

There’s writing, and then there’s everything that protects the writing — tending the archives, organizing drafts, sketching out what 2026 should feel like, not just look like. And just as important: actually showing up in other people’s spaces. Reading. Responding. Listening the way I ask others to.

I’ve always said I don’t want a crowd — I want a conversation. But conversation takes presence. It doesn’t happen if I only speak.

So this month, I’m still here. Just a little quieter. I’ll be reading your work, catching up on the stories and reflections I’ve missed. I’ll be behind the scenes — editing, planning, strengthening the scaffolding that holds this place up.

I’m realizing that engagement isn’t a side-task — it’s part of the practice. And I intend to carry that into 2026.

Not less writing.
Just writing built on connection — not isolation.

See you in the comments.

— Mangus

The People I Keep Close

2025/11/24Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2132, The Daily's, writing2 Comments

Daily writing prompt

Who are your current most favorite people?

View all responses

These days, my favorite people aren’t the loud ones. They aren’t the ones chasing applause, reposting their virtues, or building entire personalities out of whatever trend is paying attention this week. I find myself drawn to the honest ones—the people who speak plainly and stand up straight even when nobody’s watching. The ones whose integrity isn’t a performance but a reflex.

Authenticity gets romanticized a lot, but most folks don’t actually want the real thing. Real authenticity means you’re going to disappoint someone. It means saying the thing that needs to be said instead of the thing that keeps the peace. Integrity has a cost, and everyone nods along right up to the moment the bill shows up.

I’ve learned to pay attention to who stays the same when the stakes rise. Who doesn’t bend their moral spine just to make a situation smoother. Who tells you the truth even when it’s awkward, or heavy, or not what you wanted to hear. Those people are rare, and when you find them, you feel your shoulders drop a little. You breathe easier. The room feels safer.

So yes—my favorite people are the honest ones, the authentic ones, the ones whose integrity isn’t situational. They don’t need a spotlight. They don’t need a crowd. They just show up as themselves, every damn time.

Those are the people worth keeping close.

The Draft 2

2025/11/23Posted in Prose, The Daily'sTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2128, Fiction, short-story, The Daily's, writing3 Comments

Daily writing prompt

If you could meet a historical figure, who would it be and why?

View all responses

Chapter 2

The Magnificent Seven, Mangus Style

I’m sitting at the table, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, waiting for the liquor distributors to show up. The invoices are spread out like old confessions. Ursula drops into the booth beside me, scooting against the wall, legs propped up on the bench like she’s claiming territory. She looks like she’s been rode hard and put away wet.

“You look like hammered dogshit,” I say.

“Thanks,” she sighs. “It’s a wonder women aren’t fighting in the parking lot for a chance to talk to you.”

I grunt and go back to the receipts. It was a good night. A bunch of weekenders dropped in just because they heard Willie and Ernie were here. Then somehow someone whispered that Josephine Baker might show. It was over after that. Word of mouth is gasoline in a place like this.

We’re in between both worlds—nobody really knows the size of the joint. The place shifts. Expands. Contracts. Accommodates. Like memory. Like guilt.

The door opens, blasting light from the heat tab—too bright, too sharp. Just a silhouette. I shield my eyes.

Bass Reeves walks in.

Not dressed like legend, not like myth—just a man who’s walked through dust and didn’t bother wiping it off. I don’t call him over. He comes anyway. Doesn’t sit. Just stands long enough to confirm he’s real, and not just folklore wearing boots.

He takes the seat across from me—no words exchanged. Doesn’t need any.

The door opens again, except this time, it doesn’t make a sound.

Poe steps through.

He enters like he’s always belonged indoors, even when he hasn’t eaten in days. Coat longer than necessary. Shoes too clean for a man with his kind of imagination. He doesn’t look at us. He looks at the rafters, checking for ravens. Bass nods. Poe nods back, like grief recognizing authority.

Ursula doesn’t greet them. She knows better than to greet ghosts.

I start to say something, but I stop—because someone is standing at the edge of the table.

No one saw her come in.

No coat. No apology. No explanation.

Just there.

Mata Hari.

She’s not posing. Not seductive. Not shimmering. Just still.

Present.

Composed like someone who’s tired of being looked at and never actually seen.

Reeves rises—not out of courtesy, not because she’s a woman—but because someone has entered his perimeter.

Poe stands, too, but slower. Not startled. Just… intrigued. Like he’s been trying to write her for years.

She doesn’t look at either of them.

Her gaze drops to my receipts.

My records.

“You keep records,” she says softly.
“That makes you accountable.”

She doesn’t sit. She doesn’t need to. The room begins adjusting around her—like furniture shifting to make space for gravity.

Before I can recover, the door opens—with noise this time.

Ursula walks back in, not with plates, not with style. But with familiarity.

She leans down and kisses the newcomer on the cheek.

“Hey, Rudy.”

Rudolph Fisher blushes and shrugs like a schoolboy caught passing notes.

I light another cigarette. My hand is not steady.

“Remember my first kiss,” I mutter. “Lime green woman.”

“Lime green chick, huh?” Yuri calls from across the room—thick Russian, thick boots, thicker folklore.

“You eat the worm again?” Roscoe asks. He’s polishing the same glass he’s been polishing since Truman was president.

I shake my head.

The fellas glance at each other—slowly, like the air just changed language.

Oscar breaks the silence.

“It was two worms.”

Everyone nods like that explains everything.

Ursula guides Rudolph to the table. He doesn’t posture. Doesn’t rush. He sits like a man whose pace belongs to him—not to the room.

“Now we’ve got rhythm,” he says, tapping the table twice. The table… agrees.

“You guys hungry?” Ursula asks—already heading to the kitchen before anyone answers.

She won’t cook it—God forbid—but she’ll deliver it. Gifted waitress. Terrible woman for boiling water.

Roscoe and Oscar drift toward the bar, part-time employees who never leave and never clock in. I once told them I’m not paying extra.

They nodded like monks agreeing poverty was noble.

Ursula returns with plates she definitely did not make.

Bass studies his meal like it’s giving testimony.

Poe inhales the steam like he’s trying to decode its loneliness.

Fisher smiles without tasting anything.

Mata Hari watches butter knives like they hold state secrets.

No one speaks.

Not because we’re eating.

Because something is coming.

The door opens a third time.

Not dramatic.

Just right.

Gwendolyn Brooks walks in.

Not like royalty.

Like someone royalty once stood for.

And everyone—Poe, Reeves, Fisher, Yuri, Roscoe, Oscar, Mata Hari—stands.

Not out of politeness.

Out of alignment.

She doesn’t require attention. The room composes itself around her presence.

She does not take the head of the table.

She takes the center.

Because that is where gravity sits.

She sets down her satchel. Folds her napkin.

And without looking up:

“Tell me,” she says,
“why you write.”

No one answers.

Because royalty does not ask questions.

She issues invitations.

And then—

There are eight cups on the table.

And only seven of us sitting.

The eighth cup is warm.

I turn—

And Toni Morrison is already there.

Not having entered.

Not having appeared.

Just present—hands folded, elbows resting, as if she had always been here.

Brooks doesn’t turn to greet her.

She only says:

“You took your time.”

Morrison smiles—small, devastating.

“No,” she says.
“I took my place.”

Then she looks at me.

Not through me.

Into me.

Not asking a question—

Delivering one.

“What promises have you made…
that your writing is afraid to keep?”

No one speaks.

Because that was not a question.

It was a verdict.

And that is where the chapter ends.

That Grown Folk Shit

2025/11/23Posted in TunageTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Jazz, life, love, Melody Gardot, music, music review, Song Lyric Sunday, writing9 Comments

Song Lyric Sunday • Theme: Rivers, Streams, Creeks, Brooks

We got those Sunday Jazz Vibes going. It’s never intentional, but it’s always right. The slow grooves of Grover Washington Jr. set the tone before the coffee even cools. The things that man does with a sax ought to be illegal in a few states.

“East River Drive” rolls in like a slow-moving tide — smooth on the surface, dangerous underneath. It’s one of those tracks that pretends to be background sound until you realize you’ve stopped whatever you were doing just to follow the way he bends a note. That sly confidence, that river-road swagger. The rhythm section lays back like it’s got nowhere to be, while Grover glides above it all, mapping the emotional coastline of a Sunday morning.

A subtle deep groove — the kind that whispers instead of shouts, trusting you’ll lean in.

And somewhere between those warm horn lines and the long exhale of morning, my mind drifted downstream. That’s when the tonal shift hit — jarring in the best possible way.

Sliding from Grover into Melody Gardot is like stepping out of warm light into cool river air. Grover softens the room; Gardot sharpens it. His sax gives you glide. Her voice gives you gravity. With Grover, the river moves. With Gardot, the river speaks.

She pulls you in with that first line:
“Love me like a river does.”

On paper, it’s simple.
In her mouth, it’s a philosophy.

The river isn’t passion.
It’s not urgency.
It’s not the cinematic love-story nonsense we were raised on.

A river flows.
A river returns.
A river shapes the land without ever raising its voice.

She’s not asking for fireworks.
She’s asking for endurance.

Then the quiet boundary:
“Baby don’t rush, you’re no waterfall.”

That’s the deal-breaker disguised as tenderness.
The waterfall is the crash, the spectacle, the “falling in love” that feels good until you’re pulling yourself out of the wreckage.

She wants none of that.

Her voice is soft, but the boundaries are steel.

Strip away the romance of rivers and waterfalls and what she’s really saying is:

“If you’re going to love me, do it in a way that won’t break me.”

That’s not fear.
That’s experience.

The next verse shifts from river to sea — steady flow to swirling depth. Not for drama. For honesty. Intimacy always disorients you a little.

But even in that turbulence, she returns to her anchor: no rushing, no crashing, no spectacle. Even the sea has tides. Even passion needs rhythm.

Then the lens widens — earth, sky, rotation, gravity. Love as cycle, not event. Love that keeps you grounded without pinning you down.

And then back to the whisper:
“Love me, that is all.”

Simple words.
Colossal meaning.

What I love about this track is that it refuses to lie.

It doesn’t speak of love the way movies do — all gush, sparks, and declarations nobody could sustain after the credits roll. Gardot isn’t chasing fireworks. She’s not interested in romance that burns hot and disappears just as fast.

She’s talking about grown-folk love.

The kind that shows up.
The kind that lasts.
The kind built on years, not moments.

Her metaphors — river, sea, earth — aren’t poetic decoration. They’re durability tests:

Can your love flow?
Can it deepen?
Can it cycle?
Can it stay?

She’s asking for a love that tends a lifetime, not a scene. A love shaped by presence, not passion; by commitment, not chaos.

The kind you don’t stumble into.
The kind you earn.

And maybe that’s why this one gets me every time — there’s a difference between love that excites you and love that holds you. I’ve lived long enough to know which one matters more.

And let me say this plainly: this track comes from Melody Gardot’s debut album. Worrisome Heart was her first offering to the world, and I’ve rarely seen that kind of sophistication and grace appear so fully formed on a debut. Most artists spend years trying to grow into this kind of emotional control — the restraint, the nuance, the quiet authority. Gardot walked in with it from day one. No hesitation. No warm-up laps. Just a young artist already carrying the poise of someone who’s lived a lifetime and managed to distill it into song. Truly a marvel.

Before you watch the performance below, a quick note:
This reflection is based on the studio version of “Love Me Like a River Does,” from Worrisome Heart — the quiet, intimate rendition where she whispers the philosophy of grown-folk love straight into your chest. But in the live version you’re about to hear, she opens with something unexpected: the first verse of Nina Simone’s “Don’t Explain.” It’s a deliberate nod — smoky, weary, full of Simone’s emotional steel — and Gardot weaves it in so seamlessly you barely notice the transition until it’s done. One moment you’re in Nina’s world of bruised truth; the next, Gardot slips into her own song like it was always meant to follow. It turns the piece from a gentle plea into something closer to a declaration.

What makes the song hit is how Gardot never pushes. The arrangement stays minimal. The room stays dim. Every breath has space around it.

It’s intimacy without intrusion.
Truth without theater.

A quiet manifesto from someone who knows the cost of loving too fast and too violently.

She’s asking for love like water — not the kind that drowns you, but the kind that carries you and keeps coming back.

A grown-folk kind of love.
A river kind of love.
The kind that lasts because two people choose the flow over the fall.

And maybe that’s the real Sunday lesson — some songs don’t need volume to be heard. Some just need stillness.

Fuzzy Creatures, Women, and the Truth

2025/11/22Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, blogging, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2130, life, mental health, The Daily's, writing4 Comments

Daily writing prompt

Beach or mountains? Which do you prefer? Why?

View all responses

I’ve been to several corners of the world. I’ve spent time in places that would make people cringe—hell, they make me cringe when I let my mind drift back there. But when I look at these two choices, it feels like a no-brainer.

Give me the mountains.

Not the postcard kind—the real ones. The ones where the air thins out and you can hear your own pulse arguing with gravity. I’ve sat there wondering how much time it took to carve them into what they are—ancient, stubborn, unapologetically themselves. Walking a trail through them will kick your ass in the most honest way possible, every step a small tax you pay for the privilege of being there.

And when you finally reach whatever passes for a destination? The sense of accomplishment hits different. It’s not victory—it’s communion.

Funny thing is, when I was young, I swore the beach was where it was at. Not because I actually enjoyed it all that much—more because that’s where the women always talked about going. At that age, it was a no-brainer. Youth, and the nonsense we tell ourselves. I played volleyball barefoot in the sand, listened to that guy who only knew one chord on his guitar, watched the girls swoon like he was some kind of desert prophet. We had bonfires, told stories, laughed until the night was serenaded by the dawn.

It was magic in its own chaotic, salt-soaked way.
But even with all that, it doesn’t compare to the mountains for me.

Up there, everything strips down to what matters. You hear the creatures before you see them—felt more than observed. Every now and then one will wander out, give you that slow, measured look, maybe share the moment with you. They’re never fussy. I like that about them.

And somewhere along the way, I figured out there are women up there too.
Fuzzy creatures, women, and breathtaking views—what’s not to like?

Honestly, the animals might be cooler than most people. At least they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. People?
What did Morrison say?
People are strange—and he was being polite.

The beach is pretty, sure. But the mountains?
They make you bleed a little for every inch of beauty.
And anything worth keeping has always cost me something.

So yeah—I pick the mountains.
I trust things that don’t lie.

Red Line

2025/11/22Posted in FictionTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Madness Made Visible, Weekend Writing Prompt, writing10 Comments

The light tore through me before I understood it was mine. A red current, blistering the dark behind my eyes, splitting memory from bone. They called it prophecy, a vision, but it felt more like a confession—everything I’d avoided now illuminated in a single brutal line. I didn’t ask for clarity. Still, it came, scorching a path forward, and wide, demanding I follow or burn.

Quote of the Day – 11202025

2025/11/202025/11/20Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTD, self discovery, self reflection, Warsan ShireLeave a comment

Personal Reflection
There’s a moment — usually quiet, usually unexpected — when you realize the world has been tugging at you from every direction. Expectations. Obligations. Ghosts of who you used to be. People who still think you owe them a version of yourself you outgrew. This line steps in like a hand on your shoulder: a reminder that before you belong to anyone or anything, you belong to your own damn life. Not shallowly, not politely — deeply.

But belonging to yourself isn’t a gentle process. It requires taking inventory of every place you’ve handed out pieces of your identity just to stay loved, or useful, or accepted. It means looking at the roles you were pushed into, the ones you performed out of habit or survival, and asking whether they still fit the shape of you. Some won’t. Some never did. And that’s where the fracture begins — the quiet conflict between the self you’ve carried and the self you’re becoming.

Sometimes you reclaim yourself in small ways: saying no without apologizing, taking up space without shrinking first, naming what you actually want even if your voice shakes. And sometimes you reclaim yourself by walking away from people who only love the version of you that makes their world easier.

Belonging to yourself is a kind of rebellion.
A soft, steady revolt.

Maybe today is about remembering that your life is not a negotiation. You don’t have to audition for your own existence. You don’t have to justify your becoming. You don’t have to earn the right to stand where you stand. You belong — not because the world agrees, but because you decided to come home to yourself.

And that kind of belonging can’t be taken.
It can only be lived.

Reflective Prompt
Where in your life have you been asking for permission to be who you already are?

Sometimes Bare Trees Are the Loudest

2025/11/19Posted in TunageTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Fiction, Grooving With Glyn, life, love, mental health, Mixed Music Bag, QOTD, Tunage, writing4 Comments

Groovin’ with Glyn — November, Week 2

Track: “November Trees and Rain” – Marie Dresselhuis

On most November mornings, there’s a chill in the air. Not the kind that grabs you by the collar and shakes you awake, but the subtle kind — the one that lets you know it’s there. It moves slow, almost tender, until your body shivers without asking permission.

I hear the morning before I see it. A woodpecker knocking its code into the trees, winter birds answering in their thin, determined voices. I close my eyes and let the breeze speak for a while — the rustle of fallen leaves, the soft give of the season shifting underfoot. There’s a certain beauty in the bareness of the trees. Something quiet. Something honest. Not something I can describe cleanly in words, but it’s beautiful all the same — the kind of beauty that doesn’t need witnesses.

Then the world shifts again — one of those November moments of return. The air brakes hiss, then squeal, and suddenly the stillness cracks open. Children rush toward the bus, half-awake, half-dressed, somehow always unprepared and always ready. The adventure begins whether they are or not.

I remember my own kids doing the same. I miss those mornings — not with regret, but with that quiet wish a father carries for a different version of himself, a different decision made on a different day.

Guppy’s cry pulls me back. She’s in my chair, staring at me like I’m late. Her way of reminding me that the present is still here, still demanding, still alive. Work waits. Memory wanders. But Guppy doesn’t let me drift too far.

So let us go then, you and I, into this next stop in Groovin’ with Glyn — that mixed music bag I keep rummaging through.

“November Trees and Rain” doesn’t try to dazzle you. It doesn’t fight for attention. It just unfolds — steady, slow-water honest. The title alone feels like a location on a map: somewhere between the last red leaf falling and the moment the season exhales. The guitar comes in like breath; the vocals come in like thought; the whole thing feels like watching the world turn the page while you stand there holding the corner.

This is a song for people who know how to sit with themselves.
Not judge. Not fix. Just sit.

The Devil’s Voice in the Back of the Room

Not everyone trusts the quiet. They say they do, but not really. They want to be shocked and awed underneath while saying, “it’s so peaceful.” Some people hear a slow song and panic — like silence might reveal something they’ve worked hard to bury. Give them rain and they’ll close the blinds. Give them bare trees and they’ll look at their phones. Give them a morning like this and they won’t hear anything but their own hurry.

A song like “November Trees and Rain” has no chance with them.
Too inward.
Too honest.
Too close to the bone.

But November isn’t for cowards.
And neither is this track.

The Lift — Why It Belongs Here

Because there’s a moment midway through the month when the noise dies down — not the external noise, the internal one. This song fits right into that pocket. It’s the sound of a thought finally forming. The kind of realization you don’t chase; it arrives on its own timetable.

“November Trees and Rain” is what happens when the world stops performing and just is.
Bare.
Wet.
Cold.
True.

It reminds you that not everything beautiful announces itself — some things just endure.

Week 1 woke us.
Week 2 asks us to stay awake.

Because the trees are bare now, the rain has longer stories to tell.
Are you ready to listen?

Quote of the Day – 11192025

2025/11/19Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Linda Hogan, music, QOTD, Quiet Reckoning, random, science, TravelLeave a comment

Personal Reflection

November has a way of showing you what still weighs on you — the half-finished things, the quiet regrets, the truths you’ve been circling all year without naming. The air feels thinner, the days shorter, the world stripped to bone. And somewhere in that bare landscape, you start to notice what you’ve been carrying without meaning to. This quote steps right into that moment. There are burdens you can’t hand off, no matter how much you want to. And there are truths you can’t ignore, no matter how tired your spirit feels. November doesn’t care about the story you told yourself in June. It cares about what’s still in your hands now.

But this is the month when the hidden weight starts talking back.
Not loudly — that would almost be merciful — but in a steady, relentless whisper that threads itself into every quiet space. The things you avoided start showing teeth. The versions of yourself you grew out of linger like ghosts in their old rooms. And the silence you once thought you needed becomes a mirror you can’t turn away from.

This is the part no one warns you about: becoming often means letting go of the lies that kept you upright. The narratives that softened the edges. The masks you perfected. November strips those away with the same casual certainty that trees drop their leaves. And in the cold clarity that follows, you’re left facing truths that aren’t gentle. The ones too heavy to carry gracefully, too essential to abandon without losing your shape.

Some truths don’t break you.
They reveal you.

Maybe that’s November’s gift — not clarity, but honesty. Not resolution, but recognition.
This month doesn’t ask you to rise.
It asks you to stay.
To sit with what’s real.
To hold your truth without rushing to pretty it up or make it palatable.

Becoming isn’t a transformation montage. It’s the slow, steady acceptance of who you’ve been, who you are, and who you’re trying to grow into — even when those identities don’t agree. It’s learning to carry what matters, set down what doesn’t, and live with the ache of not always knowing the difference.

Maybe today the victory isn’t lightness.
Maybe it’s the willingness to stop pretending the weight isn’t there — and the quiet courage it takes not to look away.

Reflective Prompt:

What truth have you carried all year that still refuses to be put down?

Tap, tap, tap … Follow me

2025/11/18Posted in TunageTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, fantasy, Grooving With Glyn, Mixed Music Bag, music, November Tunes, november-lights, Tunage, writing5 Comments

Groovin’ with Glyn: November, Week 1

November doesn’t crash in. It slips under the doorframe like it owns the place, tracking in the smell of rain and cold metal. Children rubbing their bellies because they have OD’d on candy. I miss those days. November comes as if it knows we need to exhale. Not long, just a little bit. Something quick to recharge for the next round of madness.

There’s a moment in early November when the world gets quiet enough that you actually hear yourself think — and sometimes you wish you hadn’t. The wind carries that familiar bite as the last of the fall aromas slide along with it. Then something else rides in on the shift — soft, strange, a whisper you almost mistake for memory. You turn your head without meaning to, unsure if you heard anything at all. The wind changes again, closer this time, warm against your ear as it murmurs, “Wake up.”

That’s the space “Wake Up” lives in.

A small Scottish band barely scratching 30K streams, November Lights shouldn’t hit this hard on paper. But the track feels like standing just outside your own life, watching the windows fog over while you debate going back inside. Not regret or clarity. More like the low buzz of a lightbulb that isn’t sure if it wants to live or die.

The vocals don’t beg. They ask. Quietly. Like someone nudging you in the dark, not to startle you, but to keep you from drifting too far away. And the production carries that nocturnal haze — the kind that tells you somebody sat alone longer than they meant to, letting reverb fill the silence they didn’t want to face.

Beneath it all is a steady pulse, the kind that hints at recognition rather than revelation. November has a talent for that — it doesn’t hand you answers; it hands you a mirror. The cold sharpens edges you swore were already smooth. The light changes, and suddenly everything looks closer to the truth.

The Honest Take

This is a quietly beautiful track. Not earth-shattering. Not one that guts you. Not every song is meant to gut you, but all of them should resonate with you on some level. Not every listener — just the ones the track was meant for. Something you won’t know until the needle touches the vinyl. Some songs don’t raise their voice; they settle in beside you and wait. “Wake Up” is exactly that — understated, precise, intentional.

The Devil’s Voice in the Back of the Room

Look, if you’re waiting for grit, you won’t find it here.
If you want broken glass and a voice that sounds like it gargled the night, keep moving.
And yes — someone out there will dismiss this as too clean, too polished, too “indie boy with a synth pad.”

Let them.

Not every November needs a fist.
Some start with a shoulder tap, a soft reminder you can’t ignore.
Besides, honesty hits harder than distortion when you hear it at the right hour.

The Lift — Why It Belongs Here

Because November is a month with its own kind of mercy.
Not loud.
Not generous.
But real.

It doesn’t demand.
It nudges.
Sometimes it’s a hand on your shoulder saying, “You’re slipping. Come back to yourself.”

This song is that hand.
The hush before the confession.
The breath before the descent.
The spark before the month settles in.

Week 1 shouldn’t break you.
It should open the door.

“Wake Up” does that.
Softly.
Deliberately.
Without apology.

November is here.
The lights are on.
Step inside — and enjoy this breath, because winter is coming.

Quote of the Day – 11182025

2025/11/18Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Cherrie Moraga, movies, music, QOTD, random, science4 Comments

Personal Reflection

Some days there’s no revelation waiting for you. No clarity. No second wind. Just the simple, unglamorous choice to keep moving in the direction you said mattered. The world keeps insisting everything should come wrapped in a pretty bow — clean lines, smooth edges, no proof of the struggle it took to get there. But look at any real artisan. Their world is chaos until the work is done. Sawdust choking the air, paint bleeding onto the floor, bruised knuckles, tools scattered like a crime scene. Creation is never tidy. It’s loud. It’s stubborn. It demands a piece of you. And the outcome only becomes breathtaking because you walked through the mess and didn’t flinch.

We love to romanticize perseverance — the comeback story, the clean arc, the triumphant soundtrack. But most real fighting looks nothing like that. It’s waking up already exhausted. It’s dragging old fears behind you like unwilling dogs, snarling and snapping with every step. It’s pushing forward even when the only thing you’re sure of is the ache settling somewhere between your ribs and your resolve. And buried underneath it all is the truth you don’t say out loud: stopping feels too close to disappearing. And you’ve disappeared enough times already.

Maybe that’s the lesson today. You don’t have to feel brave to keep going. You don’t need inspiration or momentum or some sudden rush of conviction. You just keep moving. Step by stubborn step. Breath by stubborn breath. And somewhere in that slow crawl forward, you realize the fight was never about winning — it was about refusing to vanish from your own life. That quiet persistence becomes its own kind of craft. Its own kind of art.

Reflective Prompt

Where are you still fighting, even quietly, even without applause?

The Other Woman Was My Wife

2025/11/17Posted in TunageTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, music, Nina Simone, Song Lyric Sunday, Tunage, writing26 Comments

What I Learned Too Late and the Two Songs That Explained It

Song Lyric Sunday – Nina Simone, “The Other Woman”

My wife knew more about music than any woman I’ve ever met outside my mother. She couldn’t name artists, albums, or genres. None of that mattered. She just knew what was good. And the shit was spooky.

I learned this slowly, almost reluctantly, because I kept trying to talk to her about favorite artists. She never played that game. Her ear didn’t care about categories. Her heart didn’t negotiate with labels.

The first time she ever caught me off guard was the day I walked in and heard “Changes” by Black Sabbath drifting through the house.
Sabbath.
Black Sabbath.

Not a riff, not a hit — the one track that sounded like someone bottled regret.

It wasn’t that she was listening to Sabbath. It was that she somehow found the exact track I didn’t know I needed. And she did it without ever talking about music the way I did.

That quiet instinct — that sixth sense she carried — is what led her to two Nina Simone songs she treated like confessions. When she listened to Nina, the door stayed closed, the lamp stayed low, and you stayed out unless you were ready to walk into something fragile.

The smoke curled up from the cigarette balanced between her fingers, her hand resting beside a freshly cleaned ashtray. Hazelnut coffee filled the room, and Albert King was somewhere in the background complaining about the rain. I kissed her out of habit and apology — I stank to high heaven after a long day.

While I cleaned up, the music drifted from one blues track to another. I thought about grabbing a nap before the girls came home, when a voice cut through everything — soft, measured, heavy.

…wait. Is that Nina?

Next thing I knew, I was back at the table with a fresh cup of coffee. She didn’t look up, just nodded.

“I figured you’d get a nap before the girls got home,” she said.

I smiled into my cup.
This is why I married her — she got me.
She married me because I could reach the top shelf.
Balance in all things.

She slid the CD case to me and tapped a single track:

“The Other Woman.”

I replayed it a few times — autopsy mode — until she reached over and rested her hand on mine.

“Let it play, baby,” she said softly.

So I did.

“The Other Woman” isn’t loud or dramatic. It’s a truth-teller — the kind of song that doesn’t raise its voice because it doesn’t have to. Nina sings it low and steady, like someone who’s already made peace with the ache she’s naming. The piano stays half-lit, the bass moves like it’s carrying news no one wants to hear, and nothing in the arrangement tries to comfort you.

That’s what hooked my wife.
Not the lyrics.
Not the storyline.
The tone.

The way Nina delivered loneliness without apology.
The way she stood inside the ache without flinching.

My wife knew that tone.
She knew what it felt like to love a man who was half hers and half claimed by something bigger and colder than home.
“The Other Woman” wasn’t a song about cheating to her; it was the shape of a loneliness she never put into words — but Nina named it clean.

Back then, I thought it was a strange song for her to be listening to. I wasn’t stepping out. I felt the loneliness in Nina’s voice, but I didn’t understand the source. Maybe I wasn’t meant to — not then.

Years later, when she got sick — the kind of sick that turns a hospital room into a country of its own — I sat beside her bed with Nina in my headphones while I tried to write. And that’s when it hit me.

My wife knew what it felt like to be the other woman.

Not because of infidelity.
Not because of anything I did wrong.
But because of devotion and duty — the two forces that built our life and carved holes in it at the same time.

She loved a man claimed by an oath he made before he ever met her.
A man whose phone could ring at 2:17 a.m.
A man who packed on short notice and left with even less.

We preached “Family First.”
Said it often.
Said it like it was gospel.

But the truth — the one Nina kept whispering — was “Mission First.”

If “The Other Woman” named the loneliness, then “Tell Me More and Then Some” named the hunger beneath it.

Not desire — presence.
Not passion — time.
Nina sings that second track like a woman reaching out in the dark, asking for just a little more of a man she barely gets to keep.

For a military spouse, that’s the whole gospel:
the hours rationed out,
the moments cut short,
the days borrowed by orders.

You love the man, but the world keeps the schedule.

My wife never said she needed more of me — she never would have — but Nina said it for her.
Together, those two songs held the architecture of her heart:
the ache of being second and the quiet hope that maybe she could still have a little more time before the world claimed me again.

They lived on the same compilation she brought home when the girls were little — After Hours, still my favorite Nina collection. Maybe because it brought her voice into our home. Or maybe because it brought her truth into mine.

Those two tracks weren’t random choices.

They were the language she used to hold the parts of our life that the military kept taking.
The ache she carried quietly.
The hunger she never burdened me with.

Even now, as I write this, another Nina track slips in — “Ain’t No Use.” I didn’t cue it. Didn’t expect it. But there it is, like it wandered in to confirm every word on this page.

Nina always did that in our home — show up when truth was ready.

“The Other Woman” is my official Song Lyric Sunday entry because it appears on the 1969 compilation The Best of Nina Simone, one of her earliest and most enduring collections.

But really?
I’m choosing it because my wife understood this song long before I did. She lived the ache of being second to a calling she never chose, with a grace I still don’t know how to name.

Some songs don’t remind you of a person —
they finish the conversations you didn’t know you were having while they were still here.

This is one of those songs.

Let it play, baby.

Author’s Note:
This piece isn’t about infidelity. It’s about the complicated places where love and duty overlap, and the quiet truths that grow in the spaces no one talks about. My wife and I were both Nina Simone fans, though she understood Nina in ways I didn’t grasp until much later. The songs mentioned here — “The Other Woman” and “Tell Me More and Then Some” — were part of her private rituals, the moments she used to hold what our life couldn’t always name. This essay is my way of honoring the weight she carried with grace. If any part of it resonates with you, let it. That’s Nina’s doing, not mine.

Quote of the Day – 11172025

2025/11/17Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Hanif Abdurraqib, music, QOTD, random, science4 Comments

Personal Reflection:

Some mornings you wake up armored without even trying. Shoulders tight. Voice low. Every small kindness feels like something meant for someone else. Perhaps it was a bad dream, or a fragment of a memory you thought was buried, rising just enough to shift the weight of the day before it even begins. This line lands right there—in that gap between what your heart remembers and what your body refuses to trust. Believing in tenderness on the days you can’t feel it isn’t delusion. It’s survival.

But let’s not pretend it’s easy. Disappointment builds scar tissue. Grief calcifies. Some hurts become fossils—old pain preserved in perfect detail, untouched but never truly gone. And some wounds never heal properly; they knit themselves together in crooked ways, reminding you that survival doesn’t always mean restoration. It’s hard to reach for softness when life has taught you to brace, to expect the hit, to map the exits before the door even closes behind you. Yet becoming requires a dangerous kind of courage: letting the walls down a fraction, enough for light to get in even if you’re still flinching. Tenderness is not weakness—it’s risk. And risk is where transformation waits.

Maybe today isn’t about feeling tenderness, but acknowledging the stubborn belief that it exists. And stubborn in the real sense—not noble or poetic, but the kind of hold you keep because letting go feels like losing one more piece of hope you can’t afford to misplace. A small, quiet truth you carry like a pilot light. Even when the world is loud. Even when your own heart feels far away. Becoming yourself means making room for what you cannot yet hold. Letting one soft thing survive the hard days. Trusting that tenderness, once allowed, knows how to find its way back.

Reflective Prompt:
Where in your life have you mistaken protection for absence?

Quote of the Day – 11162025

2025/11/16Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Nayyirah Waheed, QOTDLeave a comment

Personal Reflection:

There are mornings when clarity slips out the back door before you even wake. You move through the house like someone left the lights on but the power off—everything familiar, yet dim. This quote sits in that space. The simple truth that being “lost” isn’t a permanent address; it’s a condition of being alive, breathing, and paying attention. Some days you know who you are. Some days you forget. Most days, you’re somewhere in between.

But there’s a deeper ache here—the quiet admission that becoming yourself is not a single heroic moment. It’s more like tidal work. You rise, you recede, you wash ashore in pieces you have to gather with your own hands. And God help you if you think you’re supposed to stay steady the whole time. We lose ourselves in grief, in grind, in the noise of other people’s expectations. We lose ourselves in the stories we tell to survive. And then—somewhere in the wreckage—we catch a glint of the person we’re trying to grow into. It’s never clean. It’s never cinematic. But it’s real. And it’s ours.

Maybe this is the quiet mercy of the whole thing: you are allowed to return to yourself as many times as it takes. No failure in not knowing. No shame in wandering. Just the slow, stubborn truth that becoming isn’t a destination—it’s a rhythm. Lost. Unlost. Lost again. And still here, still walking, still listening for the next version of yourself calling from somewhere just beyond the edge of today.

Reflective Prompt

When was the last time you returned to yourself without announcing it to anyone?

Can You Read a Person’s Soul in Five Seconds?

2025/11/16Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2124, family, humanity, life, love, racism, The Daily's, writing6 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

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When I was young, they drilled it into us: “First impressions are lasting impressions.”
Dress right, talk right, act right.
Show people the best version of yourself and they’ll treat you accordingly.

Then I stepped into the world as a Black man in America and learned the fine print they never bothered to mention:
some folks made their impressions before I even opened my mouth.
They’d look at me and decide who I was, what I was, and where I belonged.
Then came the compliments disguised as praise—“articulate”—like I’d crawled out of the woods dragging a club and a grunt.

I wish I could say that nonsense is ancient history.
That we’ve evolved past it.
But I’ve lived long enough to know you can pull down statues, rename buildings, and rewrite curriculum, and still never undo the generational damage.
When I was a kid, history class felt like a bragging session: Look what we did to these people.
The day I discovered the truth about President Lincoln—his contradictions, his motives, the myth vs. the man—I blew up in class and got tossed out.
Didn’t help my GPA, but it sure helped my clarity.

Funny thing is, I didn’t let that anger harden me.
I kept reading.
And the more I learned, the more Lincoln felt like someone I could actually respect—someone I could sit down and have coffee with, contradictions and all.

Years later, my daughter came home with a school assignment about Lincoln, and I saw my opening. I had the knowledge. I had the books. I had the truth.
But something said, Slow down.
So I asked her, “Do you want the truth, or what they teach you in school?”
She chose school.
And I understood.
The whitewashing had already reached her generation.
Her innocence was intact.
Her hope was intact.
And I wasn’t ready to be the one to crack it.

That same daughter once refused to watch movies about racism.
Hands on her hips, chin up, she said, “It isn’t like that anymore.”
A moment of pride mixed with dread.
Because I knew she was wrong—not out of foolishness, but out of youth.
I knew one day the world would show her its teeth.
And the worst part?
There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it.

Eventually, she came back to me with another assignment—Malcolm X this time.
She knew exactly what she was doing.
The moment she said his name, I switched on like a breaker panel.
I dragged out every book I had. I told her everything school would never teach her.
That kid didn’t lift a finger for that assignment.
I did the whole damn thing.
Yep—she played me.
I still tease her about it.

But I’d be lying if I said I don’t make snap judgments of my own.
When you’ve lived long enough, patterns get etched into you.
But every now and then, life steps in and reminds me I don’t know everything either.

Once, in Wyoming, I’d forgotten my shower kit and wandered into a general store expecting the usual sideways looks.
Instead, the woman at the register glanced at my items and said, “Honey, you forgot…”
She pointed out what I missed, sent me back for it, and checked everything again when I returned.
“Now you’re ready,” she said.
Simple kindness.
Caught me off guard.
Still makes me smile.

Another time, in Montana, a freak storm trapped us in a Chinese restaurant. Power went out, candles came on, and the kitchen kept rolling like it was nothing new.
I went to the bathroom, and an older gentleman nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw me.
I said, “Hell, I’m not gonna cook you and eat you.”
Let it hang there.
He burst out laughing. We walked out with nods of mutual respect—two strangers caught in something human.

Later that same night, a man walked up to my table—me and my biracial friend—and asked, “You having fun?”
Same words, twice.
Same smile that doesn’t smile.
My friend tensed. I put a hand on him to settle him.
Storm wasn’t going anywhere.
No point making our own.

And here’s the thing:
When America talks race, everything gets framed as Black vs. White.
Two sides. One battlefield.
But history wasn’t that small.

Black folks and White folks just had better publicists.

Because while America was glued to civil rights marches on TV, every marginalized group in this country was fighting their own battles:

Asian immigrants finally broke through racist immigration quotas with the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
The Chicano Movement reshaped labor rights, education, and political identity.
Native activists occupied Alcatraz, formed AIM, and demanded sovereignty.
In 1969, N. Scott Momaday became the first Native American to win the Pulitzer for Fiction.
Japanese Americans were fighting for redress after internment.
Filipino farmworkers sparked the grape strike.
And the Stonewall uprising ignited the modern LGBTQ+ movement.

Everyone was fighting.
Everyone was changing the country.
But America prefers a tidy narrative.
Reality never asked for one.

So let me be clear before someone tries to twist my words:
This isn’t a Black vs. White essay.
Not even close.

Because hate?
Hate is colorblind.

It doesn’t care about race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or whatever else we invent to justify cruelty.
I learned that the hard way.

I was overseas once—a situation that turned violent fast.
Not combat the way we trained for.
Not patriotic speeches or heroic music.
Just raw hate aimed at a group of Americans who looked like the whole world shrunk into one squad.
Black, white, brown—none of it mattered.
They didn’t hate our skin.
They hated our nationality.
And they came at us like it was sport.

We came home bonded by survival, only to step back into a country where the old assumptions waited like unpaid bills.

These days, I laugh—but not because any of it is funny.
I laugh out of frustration and exhaustion.
Because sometimes that’s the only release valve a man’s got.

So first impressions…
they have their uses, I suppose.
But I’ve seen them lie, and I’ve seen them reveal the whole damn soul of a person.
Sometimes they’re nothing but noise.
Sometimes they expose the heart.
You learn to pay attention—not to the surface, but to the truth leaking around the edges.

And while folks are busy misjudging me on sight, I remind myself of one truth:

We fought to protect “God and Country.”
So if you’re out here treating me falsely,
just remember—
I defended your right to do it.

Damn, I’m good at my job.

What We Pretend Not to See

2025/11/15Posted in The Daily'sTagged book review, books, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2123, Fiction, reading, The Daily's, writing7 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What book are you reading right now?

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It’s never as simple as answering, “What book are you reading right now?” I usually have four or five going at once — most of them nonfiction. Histories, craft books, philosophy, the “how did this happen and why does it still matter?” kind of material. Somewhere along the way, I forgot how to read purely for pleasure. Training does that. Once you learn to take stories apart, you stop seeing them as entertainment and start seeing them as machines.

Even when a novel doesn’t fully work, I still take a wrench to it.
I listen for the knock in the engine, the missed beat in a line of dialogue, the moment the writer blinked instead of pushing through. I can enjoy a book, absolutely — but I enjoy it like a mechanic listening to an engine idling just a little rough.

And here’s the part I’m almost embarrassed to admit: I can’t bring myself to write in books. Feels like a cardinal sin. So instead I’ve got notebooks scattered all over the house — pages filled with scribbles, arrows, fragments, arguments I’m having with an author who isn’t in the room. I finally gave in and bought one of those e-reader gizmos that lets you highlight the digital version. It feels like cheating, but at least I’m not defacing paper. A technicality, but I’ll take the loophole.

So when someone asks what I’m reading, they expect a title.
But the truth is, I’m running an autopsy.

And the books on my desk right now — Under the Dome by Stephen King and L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy — are the kind that don’t give up their secrets easily. Which is exactly why they matter.

Stephen King gets labeled “the Master of Horror,” but that’s just a convenience for the shelf. King’s real mastery is building pressure systems — closed environments where the air tightens and ordinary people start showing their real faces. In Under the Dome, the dome could be aliens, magic, or a freak atmospheric event; it doesn’t matter. It’s a magnifying glass. It forces truth to the surface.

King understands that people don’t transform under pressure — they’re revealed. Chester’s Mill doesn’t turn violent because of the dome. The dome just takes away the freedom to pretend.

And that’s where the cognitive dissonance hits.
You read something wild — a man electrocuted by an invisible barrier, the town fracturing into fear and paranoia — and your mind rejects it. “People aren’t like this,” you think. But rewind thirty seconds. You heard a crash outside your window, put the book down, checked it out, and watched your neighbor scream at a trash can like it betrayed him. You shook your head at the nonsense, then came back to a fictional scene that suddenly feels easier to believe than real life.

That’s King’s trick.
He shows you something unbelievable so you finally acknowledge the truth you’ve been ignoring.

Ellroy, on the other hand, doesn’t need supernatural pressure.
He starts inside the rot.

In L.A. Confidential, corruption isn’t a plot device — it’s oxygen. The moral decay isn’t creeping in; it’s already soaked into every wall, badge, and handshake. His characters don’t break down over time. They begin the story already fractured, already bent by pressures they barely acknowledge. Ellroy’s cognitive dissonance comes from the reader wanting to believe people aren’t this cruel, this compromised, this hungry for power and absolution.

But then your phone buzzes with a news alert and disproves that hope in under four seconds.

Ellroy doesn’t distort reality.
He removes the polite language that keeps us comfortable.

King writes about what happens when the walls close in.
Ellroy writes about what happens when the walls never existed in the first place.

King exposes human nature by turning up the pressure.
Ellroy exposes human nature by turning off the excuses.

One town collapses because the dome forces truth to the surface.
The other city collapses because truth was never allowed to stand upright.

Both men understand something we work very hard to avoid:

The unbelievable is always happening.
The unbelievable has always been happening.
We just prefer to call it fiction.

So when someone asks what I’m reading, the short answer is Under the Dome and L.A. Confidential.

But the real answer is: I’m reading two authors who drag the human condition out into the open, each in their own way — King through the surreal, Ellroy through the hyperreal. Both force you to look at the reflection, even when you’d rather look away.

And maybe that’s the part we pretend not to see —
the truth isn’t hiding from us.
We’re hiding from it.

Quote of the Day – 11152025

2025/11/152025/11/14Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Albert Camus, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection:

Camus wrote about survival the way other people write about prayer — quiet, desperate, honest. This line isn’t optimism; it’s recognition. The “invincible summer” isn’t sunshine or ease. It’s that small, stubborn warmth that refuses to die when everything else has gone cold. The kind that hums low inside you when the world stops making sense.

We all have winters — the kind that steal color from the days and reason from the mind. They teach you what kind of strength doesn’t show up in photographs. Not the loud kind. The enduring kind.

There’s a point where you stop asking the cold to end and start asking what it’s trying to show you. Because winter, for all its ache, has its own truth: clarity. No noise. No camouflage. Just the bare structure of what remains when everything unnecessary has fallen away.

You learn that the warmth you were waiting for doesn’t come from outside. It’s generated from friction — the rub of loss against gratitude, despair against endurance. You realize that light isn’t something you chase; it’s something you protect. And sometimes, the act of protecting it is the only faith you have left.

When everything feels stripped bare — that’s when you meet yourself without decoration. No roles. No noise. Just the raw pulse of being alive. That pulse is your summer. It’s been there all along.

The beauty of surviving winter isn’t in forgetting the cold — it’s in remembering you carried heat through it. That you were the shelter you needed. You don’t come out of it the same. You come out tempered. Clear-eyed. Grateful.

Camus wasn’t promising endless sunshine. He was saying: You are not as breakable as you feared. The world can freeze around you, but somewhere beneath it, something inside keeps blooming — steady, defiant, alive.

That’s your invincible summer. You don’t find it; you become it.

Reflective Prompt:
What has your winter taught you — and what quiet warmth have you been carrying all along, even when you thought it was gone?

The Bookstore I Never Opened

2025/11/152025/11/14Posted in The Daily'sTagged Alternative Careers, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2101, The Daily's, Used Bookstore, writing3 Comments

What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?

When I think about alternate paths, I don’t lean toward regret so much as curiosity. I made the choices I needed to make—provide for my family, show up when it mattered, carry the weight I was handed without folding. That path shaped me, and I don’t flinch from it.

I’ve always wanted to write, and I’m doing that. I wanted a life that mattered to someone beyond myself, and I lived that out as a soldier. And the best job I’ve ever had—the one nobody prepared me for but I’d sign up for again without hesitation—is being a parent. Nothing outshines that.

But there were other lives tugging at me from the edges.

If you were to look at my bookshelves, you might think I was quietly running a used bookstore out of my living room. My grandchildren even thought I lived in a library for a while. I just smiled and let them believe it. Honestly, the only thing keeping me from opening a bookstore is the part where you’re expected to sell the books. I understand the business model—I’m just not convinced it’s for me.

Books and music have always been my constants. If life had tilted differently, I could’ve easily become the old guy at the record store or the corner bookstore—the one who knows exactly which album you need on a bad day or which worn-down paperback might knock some truth loose in you. There’s a version of me in another timeline handing people vinyl and saying, “Trust me,” then going back to alphabetizing the Miles Davis section for the fifteenth time.

Maybe that’s the thread through all of it: stories and sound have always been the places I went to breathe.

And the wild thing is, I’m basically living that alternate life now. Not in a storefront, but through the work I do—curating, writing, sharing pieces of music and meaning, building spaces where people come to find something they didn’t know they needed. Turns out you don’t need a counter or a cash register to play that role. Just shelves full of books, stacks of vinyl, and enough stubborn joy to keep the doors open in your own way.

So yes, there were other paths I might’ve walked. But the one I chose? It mattered. And the one I’m building now—this mix of writing, art, story, and sound—might just be the closest I’ve ever come to living all my alternate lives at once.

I Didn’t Grow Up — I Got Drafted

2025/11/142025/11/14Posted in The Daily'sTagged childhood, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2088, family, life, love, mental health, The Daily's, writingLeave a comment

Daily writing prompt

When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?

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Some people swear I was never a child. They talk about me like I came out of the womb already irritated with humanity—scowl pre-installed, voice warmed up and ready to yell at strangers. And honestly? I get it. I spent over twenty years raising my voice for a living. Hard to picture a guy like that in a onesie, getting hyped over stickers and suckers.

But I remember it.
I remember rolling my eyes with the kids and grandkids—performing the whole too cool for this act—but also hoping, in that quiet place you don’t admit out loud, that nobody ever broke their hearts or stole their joy. There’s something about watching innocence that makes you want to stand guard, even if you pretend you’re above it.

Still, none of that made me feel grown.
Not the early milestones everyone swears matter. Not the first kiss, the first heartbreak, or the first time I put on a uniform and pretended I knew what I was doing. I hit all the checkpoints without crossing the threshold.

Adulthood didn’t sneak up gently.
It came as a year—a tight, unrelenting twelve months—where mortality stopped being philosophical and started breathing down my neck. I remember one night in particular: stepping outside after an incident, dust still floating in the air, adrenaline refusing to let my hands settle. That was the moment I understood life wasn’t theoretical. It could vanish, just like that.

And somewhere in that stretch, something inside me shifted. Not a big, cinematic revelation. More like an internal fracture you can’t ignore once you hear it.

The kid in me didn’t disappear; he just stopped driving. Maybe he stepped back. Maybe he grew quiet. Maybe he finally understood the stakes.

Because once I walked onto a battlefield, I knew I wasn’t a kid anymore.
You feel the ground vibrating under your boots, and it rearranges something in you. Permanently. After that, youth stops being a phase and becomes a memory.

People love to believe adulthood is a choice—something you claim, or celebrate, or ease into with birthdays and responsibilities.

For me, it arrived in the dirt and the dust and the dark.
A draft notice I never signed, delivered on a day I can’t forget.

I didn’t grow up.
I got drafted.

The Place That Doesn’t Ask Anything of Me

2025/11/14Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, daily-prompt, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2122, life, Life Lessons, love, mental health, The Daily's, wisdom, writing6 Comments

Daily writing prompt

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?

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If I could live anywhere in the world, I’d choose a place that doesn’t demand explanations or performances. I’ve lived in cities, deserts, the deep woods — turns out I can settle in just about any landscape as long as it leaves me room to disappear a little.

These days, I picture a small town within driving distance of my hideaway. A place where the market clerk nods without prying, and the librarian teases me about my tattered books but respects the depth of them. Guppy wouldn’t trust her at first, naturally. But a few well-timed treats would work faster than diplomacy ever could. Age catches up with all of us, but if anyone’s going on a diet, it’s her.

Most mornings would start the same: a meditation-heavy book cracked open, a good pen waiting, coffee steaming, my thoughts wandering until Guppy yanks me back to earth with a judgmental meow. Just enough contact with the world to keep me grounded — not enough to get invited to supper. (People get touchy when you say no.)

What I’m really chasing is a chance to breathe. A place where the air isn’t sharpened by worry, where everything isn’t a potential threat even when it isn’t one. Somewhere I can write without the static of the world pressing in, where anonymity isn’t loneliness — it’s relief.

And at the end of each day, I’d know I chose right: Guppy stretching and settling into her next perch, the porch light catching dust in the evening air, the quiet presence of night creatures moving around me. They don’t disturb me. I don’t disturb them. Just a mutual agreement to exist without fear.

Hard to ask for more than that.

Quote of the Day – 11142025

2025/11/142025/11/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Mangus Khan, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection:
We talk about peace like it’s a luxury reserved for quiet places — a cabin in the woods, a meditation hall, a Sunday morning before the world wakes up. But most of life isn’t built that way. The refrigerator hums, the neighbor argues, the mind won’t stop rehearsing the same tired fears. The truth is, the world never actually gets quiet. The only silence that exists is the one we learn to make inside ourselves.

And maybe that’s what peace really is — not the clean absence of sound, but the ability to listen differently. The ability to hear the chaos without letting it dictate the rhythm of your heart.

Noise isn’t the enemy. It’s information. It tells you where your boundaries are, where you’re leaking energy, where you’ve been refusing to pay attention. The chatter of the world mirrors the clutter of the mind. You can’t mute it into submission; you have to translate it.

The hard truth is that sometimes the noise comes from within — the self-criticism disguised as ambition, the anxious loop of what-ifs, the memory you keep replaying because it still hasn’t forgiven you. And the more you resist it, the louder it gets. Real peace begins when you stop negotiating with your noise and start listening to what it’s trying to say.

For me, the lesson came late. I used to believe calm required control — that if I could just fix everything, I’d finally get to rest. But control is just another kind of noise. It’s fear dressed as order. You can’t think your way to stillness. You have to surrender to it, one heartbeat at a time.

Peace is a skill — one you practice in traffic, in grief, in uncertainty. It’s learning how to hear the storm without becoming it. To feel the weight of the world without mistaking it for your own. It’s not passivity; it’s presence — the discipline of staying open when everything in you wants to shut down.

Eventually, you realize the noise was never against you. It was your teacher. It forced you to listen, to slow down, to separate what’s urgent from what’s true. When you can hear the world screaming and still keep your soul steady, that’s not luck — that’s mastery.

Peace doesn’t arrive when the noise stops. It arrives when you no longer need the noise to stop in order to feel whole.

Reflective Prompt:
What part of your life feels the loudest right now — and if you listened closely, what truth might that noise be trying to tell you?

What I Found, What I Kept, What I Became

2025/11/13Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2121, family, life, Life Lessons, love, The Daily's, writing5 Comments

A simple sewing kit, a lifetime of inherited rhythm.

I ended up with my mother’s sewing kit after she crossed over, though “kit” might be too generous a word. It was a simple plastic box the color of old Tupperware, caked in decades of dirt and lint and whatever life had rubbed off on it. I emptied the contents, cleaned it, and put everything back the way I remembered. Funny thing is, I didn’t think I remembered much—until I did. Muscle memory is honest like that.

She used to have me sit beside her while she ran her old Singer like it was a locomotive. Heat built up around that machine. The motor would hum, fabric would spark with static, and the whole room felt charged—like electricity and summer trapped in a small space. My job was simple: keep the needles threaded and the bobbins loaded. I’d keep a couple wound and ready so she’d never have to stop. Every time she hit her groove, something new for my room came out of it. I didn’t buy store-bought sheets until I got married.

I learned to sew, knit, crochet—“girlie things,” the world called them. I say that with a smirk because later, when I had daughters, I taught them the same skills I wasn’t “supposed” to know. Nothing shuts down a stereotype quicker than a man who can backstitch better than you.

After she passed, I didn’t want to use her kit. That box felt like sacred ground. I told myself I’d build my own—fresh basket, fresh tools, fresh start. I even wrote out a supply list. But finding the right basket turned into a ridiculous odyssey. I mentioned the problem to a friend, and she told me, “You know, it’s okay to use your mom’s.”

I refused without thinking.

She didn’t push. She just said softly, “She wouldn’t mind.”

But that was the thing—I minded.

The kit sat there for years. Cleaned, restored, untouched.

The turning point came the day I wandered into a store to look at sewing machines. I wanted something that felt close to her old Singer, though I knew nothing like it existed anymore. The man behind the counter didn’t ask what kind of stitch work I did or what machine I learned on. Didn’t ask about thread tension or feed dogs or bobbin types. He just talked price.
Over and over.
Like money was the point.

I walked out without saying much. If the first thing you bring to me is cost instead of purpose, we have nothing to talk about.

I went home and opened her kit again. Those old Singer needles were still inside—delicate, outdated, impossible to replace. I picked one up and threaded it without thinking, the way she taught me. When I pricked my finger, I could practically hear her: “Where’s your thimble?” The kind of thing she’d say with half-exasperation, half-love. I stuck my finger in my mouth like a kid, and for the first time since she crossed the veil, I smiled.

She once told me, “I’m teaching you all this stuff because knowing you, you’ll marry a woman who doesn’t know how to do anything.” She said it with affection, the way mothers do when they’ve already figured you out.
She was wrong, of course. I didn’t marry a woman like that.

I remember a visit where Mom and my late wife argued—good-natured but firm—about who spoiled me the most. According to them, I was spoiled rotten. According to me, I’m just a man who thinks things ought to be done a certain way.

Hell, right is right, right?

You know, the precision of that first stitch—after all those years—hit me harder than I expected. Something about it was too perfect, too familiar, like my hands remembered a language my mind forgot. And now that I’m older, I find myself full of questions I’d ask my mother and my late wife if the veil worked both ways. It never does. There’s always a million things you want to say to someone once they’re gone.

Looking back, I think teaching me all that sewing and knitting wasn’t just about preparing me for some imaginary woman who couldn’t thread a needle. I think she was keeping my hands busy, slowing down a mind that ran too hot, too fast. At the time, I didn’t believe there was a woman on this planet who couldn’t sew, stitch, or fix something. Then I dated one. Funny thing—I even thought about marrying her. Maybe my mother knew something I didn’t.

There’s something about using my hands that stills me. Crafting, repairing, working with tools—it forces my mind to slow down and focus in a way nothing else does. Writing pulls me outward into worlds that don’t exist yet, chasing the unknown. But when I sew, or mend, or make something real, the world narrows to the size of the task. It started with that old sewing kit on the shelf. But it grew into something much larger. Using her tools isn’t about the past anymore.
It’s how I keep my hands steady enough to build the future

Daily writing prompt

What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)?

View all responses

Quote of the Day – 11132025

2025/11/132025/11/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Mahatma Gandhi, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection:
We talk about peace like it’s something waiting for us at the finish line — a reward after the storm, a condition we earn once everything else is settled. But Gandhi cuts that illusion clean: there is no path to peace, because peace isn’t a destination. It’s a direction. A way of walking.

It’s easy to mistake stillness for peace — to think quiet means calm. But real peace doesn’t depend on silence; it lives inside the noise. It’s the steady breath in chaos, the choice not to match the world’s violence with your own. Peace isn’t passive. It’s discipline.

Most of us are at war with ourselves long before the world gets involved. We want peace, but we feed on conflict — our outrage, our fear, our need to win. We keep waiting for life to calm down before we start living gently, but that’s not how it works. You don’t find peace — you practice it. Every moment you choose restraint over reaction, compassion over certainty, awareness over distraction — that’s the path.

Peace is an act of rebellion in a culture addicted to noise. It asks you to move slower in a world that profits from your panic. It asks you to listen when everyone else is shouting. And sometimes, it asks you to let go of being right just to stay whole.

It’s not easy. It never was. But each time you choose calm over chaos, you reclaim a small piece of yourself the world doesn’t get to touch.

Peace isn’t what happens when the world finally makes sense. It’s what happens when you stop needing it to. You begin to see that your stillness isn’t weakness — it’s presence. That you can walk through fire without becoming it.

There is no path to peace because peace is already under your feet. Every breath, every pause, every deliberate act of kindness — that’s the way forward. You don’t chase it. You become it.

Reflective Prompt:
When was the last time you stopped waiting for peace to arrive — and started creating it, one quiet choice at a time?

Quote of the Day – 11122025

2025/11/122025/11/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTD, Thomas Campbell4 Comments

Personal Reflection:
There’s a stillness to remembrance that feels heavier than silence. It’s the pause between breaths when memory starts to move — slow, careful, alive. Campbell’s words are simple but unflinching: To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. He doesn’t offer comfort through denial. He reminds us that love is a kind of continuity, a quiet rebellion against the finality of loss.

You never really stop missing the people who shaped you. You just learn to carry them differently — in gestures, in stories, in the things they once loved that now feel like yours. Sometimes, the memory hurts because it’s supposed to. That ache is proof of connection — the echo of life refusing to let go.

Grief doesn’t move in straight lines. It lingers in doorways, rewinds conversations, haunts the ordinary. You think you’ve made peace, then a smell, a song, a laugh drags you back to the rawness of absence. But maybe that’s not regression — maybe that’s devotion. To remember someone deeply is to keep them alive in the only way that matters: through continued presence.

We talk about closure as if it’s an achievement, but real love doesn’t close. It lingers. It evolves. You begin to understand that grief isn’t an interruption of life — it is life, reshaped. The sharp edges soften. What once felt unbearable becomes a kind of sacred weight — not to crush you, but to anchor you.

And maybe that’s the point. Memory keeps us tethered to what’s human. It humbles us, slows us, makes us gentle. You start realizing that carrying someone’s story forward is not a burden — it’s a quiet act of grace.

Eventually, you stop asking the loss to go away. Instead, you start walking beside it. You realize the people you’ve lost haven’t vanished — they’ve just changed forms. They live in the kindness you offer without thinking, in the patience you didn’t used to have, in the courage you borrowed from their memory.

Love doesn’t end. It just finds new ways to speak. To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die — it’s to echo, to ripple, to remain.

Reflective Prompt:
Whose memory lives quietly within your daily rituals — and how do they still speak through the way you move in the world?

Quote of the Day – 11112025

2025/11/112025/11/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Dan Millman, QOTD4 Comments

Personal Reflection:
We treat the ordinary like it owes us more — more excitement, more revelation, more proof that something’s happening. But maybe the problem isn’t that life is mundane. Maybe it’s that we’ve forgotten how to notice. Millman’s line feels like a quiet dare: what if this moment — the one you’re in right now — is the sacred one you keep waiting for?

It’s easy to find wonder in the big stuff — love, loss, miracles, chaos. But the quiet repetitions of daily life — the coffee spoon, the traffic light, the creak of the same floorboard — those are the parts of existence that actually hold it together. The world doesn’t need to shout to be alive. Sometimes it just hums.

We keep postponing our presence, waiting for something “worth” our full attention. But the truth is, most of life hides in the in-between. You’ll miss entire seasons if you’re only looking for meaning in the highlights. The morning light through the blinds, the warmth of your breath on cold air, the pause before you answer a question — these moments are small, but they’re honest. They’re the evidence that you’re still here.

Maybe there are no ordinary moments because life itself refuses to be ordinary. Even pain, when you stop running from it, carries its own strange beauty. Every scar, every silence, every flicker of kindness between strangers — they all make up the anatomy of now.

You start to realize that the miracle isn’t the event; it’s the awareness. The act of seeing. Gratitude is not a reaction; it’s a stance — a way of standing in the world that keeps wonder within reach. When you catch yourself chasing the next big thing, stop. Look around. Feel the pulse of something steady beneath all the motion.

There are no ordinary moments because every second carries a chance — to notice, to breathe, to exist without apology. Maybe holiness was never hiding; maybe we just forgot how to look.

Reflective Prompt:
What ordinary moment did you rush past today — and what would it mean to truly see it before it’s gone?

Quote of the Day – 11102025

2025/11/102025/11/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Internet, music, Paul Auster, QOTD, random, writing13 Comments

Personal Reflection:
Regret has a peculiar way of lingering — not loud, but constant, like background static. You can’t touch it, but it hums underneath the day. Auster’s words cut close: We are haunted by the lives we don’t lead. The choices we didn’t make, the versions of ourselves we left hanging in the doorway. We tell ourselves we’re fine with how things turned out, but every now and then, something stirs — a half-remembered song, a familiar street, a name we don’t say out loud — and we feel the ghost move again.

We don’t like to admit it, but we build entire lives out of what we didn’t choose. Every decision erases a hundred possibilities, and those absences don’t disappear — they follow quietly behind us, a shadow of what might have been. Maybe that’s what nostalgia really is — the ache of parallel versions of ourselves still trying to be born.

I think about the person I might’ve become if I’d stayed, if I’d gone, if I’d said yes instead of no. But every alternate life has its own price tag. Even the ones that look golden from this side of the glass would’ve demanded a different loss. Maybe the haunting isn’t punishment — maybe it’s memory’s way of reminding us that every path costs something.

And sometimes, the hardest ghosts to face aren’t the lives we never lived — they’re the parts of ourselves we abandoned along the way. The ones we outgrew too fast. The ones we silenced for approval. The ones we dismissed as weakness when they were just unguarded.

We are all haunted, but maybe haunting isn’t a curse — maybe it’s a form of tenderness. Proof that we’ve imagined more than we could live. Proof that somewhere inside us still believes in what’s possible. The trick is not to banish those ghosts, but to listen to what they’re trying to say: that life is not a single straight line, but a chorus of unfinished songs.

You don’t have to live every life to be whole. You just have to make peace with the ones that never happened — to thank them for showing you who you could have been, and then keep walking toward who you still might become.

Reflective Prompt:
What unlived version of yourself still lingers at the edges — and what might happen if you stopped mourning them and started listening to what they’re trying to tell you?

Quote of the Day – 11092025

2025/11/092025/11/08Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Mangus Khan, QOTD6 Comments

Personal Reflection:
I grew up believing there was always an answer — that effort could fix anything if you just pushed hard enough. Work the problem, find the crack, patch it up, move on. It’s a tidy myth, and it keeps you busy enough to mistake exhaustion for purpose. But life doesn’t run on equations. Some problems aren’t puzzles; they’re mirrors. They don’t want solving — they want acknowledgment.

It’s a strange kind of arrogance, thinking you can be everyone’s medicine. You convince yourself it’s compassion, that you’re being noble — but if you strip away the performance, it’s fear. Fear of being useless. Fear of being replaced. Fear that if you stop fixing, you’ll disappear.

I’ve been the rescuer before — the one patching leaks in other people’s lives while my own foundations quietly rotted. You learn eventually that the act of fixing can become its own addiction. You start confusing love with labor, healing with control. And when things still fall apart, you feel betrayed — by them, by yourself, by whatever god you thought was keeping score.

Sometimes stepping back isn’t surrender; it’s sacred restraint. There’s mercy in recognizing where your reach ends. You can offer presence without performance. You can love without solving. You can bear witness without carrying the weight. That’s not indifference — it’s integrity.

I used to think letting go was a weakness. Now I see it’s the only way to stay whole. You learn to sit with someone’s chaos without trying to quiet it. You learn that love doesn’t mean repairing — it means remaining, even when there’s nothing left to fix.

Freedom begins when you stop trying to be the solution and start listening for what the problem is trying to teach you. Sometimes, what it’s saying is simple: You’re not the cure — you’re the companion. And that’s enough.

Reflective Prompt:
Where in your life are you trying to be the solution — and what truth might reveal itself if you stopped trying to fix it?

Quote of the Day – 11082025

2025/11/08Posted in Quote of the DayTagged life, love, QOTD, Rumi, spirituality2 Comments

Personal Reflection:
Silence has a weight you can’t measure — only feel. It presses gently against the edges of thought, waiting for you to notice it. Most people rush to fill it, terrified of what it might reveal. But Rumi knew better. Silence doesn’t flatter, it doesn’t negotiate — it just tells the truth. The way still water reflects your face, silence reflects your soul. It’s honest even when you’re not.

We live in a world allergic to quiet. Even our grief has a soundtrack now. We drown in commentary, afraid that stillness might expose how much of what we say is just noise. There’s a strange intimacy in silence — the kind that makes you confront your own mind. You start to hear things you’ve been avoiding: the echo of unfinished forgiveness, the ache beneath your composure, the fear that if you stop speaking, you might finally have to listen. Silence is an unkind teacher, but an honest one. It reminds you that clarity rarely comes with comfort.

And yet, silence also keeps us alive in ways noise never can. It teaches you to wait, to observe, to recognize the faint pulse of what is real. When you sit inside it long enough, it begins to reorder your senses. You stop needing to explain yourself. You start to understand that truth doesn’t need your defense — only your attention.

Maybe silence isn’t absence — maybe it’s the soul’s original dialect. Every time you return to it, you’re reminded that life doesn’t need to be narrated to be lived. The quiet doesn’t lie because it can’t — it has nothing to prove. If you can bear its stillness, it will tell you everything you’ve forgotten to hear: that peace was never lost, only buried under noise; that grace has been waiting for you to shut up long enough to arrive.

Silence doesn’t demand faith — it demands presence. It’s not passive; it’s participatory. It’s you, meeting yourself without a script.

Reflective Prompt:
What truth hides beneath the noise in your life — and what might happen if you stopped filling the silence long enough to hear it?

Confessions of a Horrible Student II: The Connie Winford Diabolical

2025/11/07Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2115, family, Fiction, life, love, The Daily's, writing4 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What was your favorite subject in school?

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“Because sometimes the lessons that shape you come folded, ink-stained, and intercepted by your parents.”

The last time we talked, I narrowly escaped the fallout from The Battle.
I still don’t know why my father even put up a fight. In situations like that, Mom wins—she always wins.

Dinner was late that night, and Dad’s last nerve; frayed. He moped around the house like a rejected understudy in his own life. Mom chuckled every time she passed him—quietly, of course, out of his line of sight.

But enough about The Battle. I’m here today to tell you about my next misadventure: The Connie Winford Diabolical.

Suppose you’ve ever been twelve and suddenly realized that girls weren’t carriers of incurable cooties but mysterious, magnificent creatures who smelled like shampoo and danger. In that case, you already know where this story begins. And what were those bumps on their chest? Some mysterious growth? Were they dying? Nope—they were boobs. The downfall of man.

Middle School.
The arena of hormonal confusions, bad decisions, Grey Flannel, and Drakkar. The mixture alone was enough to make anyone hurl. But back then, we had the constitution of gods—right up until alcohol got involved. That’s a story for another day.

By then, I’d graduated from class clown to romantic visionary. English was still my thing, which meant I’d discovered a weapon far more dangerous than spitballs—words.

I started writing notes. Not just any notes. Masterpieces. Folded with precision, tight enough to survive the perilous journey across the classroom. Each one a mini-drama of doodled hearts, overwrought metaphors, and shamelessly borrowed Hallmark poetry.

Shakespeare would have been proud.

However, evidence suggested otherwise.

Then came The Note.

She was new—a transfer student, with curly hair, a smile like she’d been warned not to use it in public. Connie Winford. A name that still sounds like a trap.

I slipped her my finest work: a declaration of eternal middle-school devotion written in purple ink. It included the words destiny, soul connection, and—God help me—forever.

She giggled. I took that as a victory. But she showed her best friend, who showed another, and by lunch, the entire cafeteria knew I’d pledged undying love. They had thoughts. Loud ones.

I tried to play it cool. That lasted six minutes. Then, in a fit of damage control, I wrote a second note claiming it was all a joke. She didn’t buy it. My teacher, who intercepted note number three, definitely didn’t buy it.

By 2:15, I was in the principal’s office. By 3:00, my parents had been called.

Home.

My father was furious. “No man in this family conducts himself like this,” he said.

Mom countered, “What about Uncle Butch?”

My father popped, “You think this is a laughing matter?”

I braced myself for the usual surrender—Mom softening, saying something like, Of course not, dear.

But not my mama. No way.

“Yep, freaking hilarious,” she said. “You act like you didn’t pass me notes in school. If I recall, your note was worse than his. Plus, your folding was terrible. Everyone knows it’s about the presentation. Eat your peas.”

Dad said nothing. Just stabbed at his plate, probably reconsidering all his life choices.

That night, I did what any self-respecting, lovesick fool would do: I called her. The house phone was mounted on the kitchen wall—the kind with a coiled cord long enough to lasso a small horse. I dragged it down the hallway into my room and whispered my apology, voice trembling like it carried state secrets.

Things were going well—until I heard it.

A click.

The quiet death of privacy.

My parents were listening in.

Mother’s voice came first: “That’s a mighty long cord for a short conversation.”

Then Father, dry as ever: “Son, next time you write a love note, use better paper. That cheap stuff smears.”

This from a man who knew his folding game was subpar.
Was I adopted?

They tag-teamed me. There was no escape.

I hung up the phone, face burning, dignity in ruins.

The next day, my teacher sentenced me to read from the dictionary during lunch. I didn’t mind. It felt poetic somehow.

That’s the day I learned two things:

Love makes geniuses stupid.
Parents have a sixth sense for dial tones. Some may even say, they feel a disturbance in the Force.

And maybe—just maybe—that’s when I became a writer. Because if you’re going to get in trouble for your words, they might as well be worth reading.
Until you get in trouble saying nothing. Again, a story for another day.

Quote of the Day – 11072025

2025/11/072025/11/07Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Maya Angelou, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection

Life will leave its fingerprints on you — that’s inevitable. No one gets out clean. You can armor yourself all you want, but living means being touched, shaped, even scarred by change. Angelou’s words strip the myth of resilience bare. She’s not talking about bouncing back; she’s talking about bending without breaking — the kind of strength that doesn’t require applause. To be changed is to evolve; to be reduced is to surrender what makes you you.

We talk about resilience like it’s a performance — a hashtag, a brand of toughness. But real resilience is quieter. It happens when no one’s watching. It’s the night you cry on the bathroom floor and still get up in the morning. It’s realizing that pain rewires you, and sometimes, you’ll never be who you were — and maybe that’s the point. Change is inevitable; reduction is optional. There’s a difference between growth and diminishment, but when everything hurts, they can look the same. We learn early to equate vulnerability with weakness, and so we shrink. We trade authenticity for acceptance, softness for survival. But smallness doesn’t save you — it erases you. Angelou’s defiance is a warning: you can adapt without disappearing.

Maybe resilience isn’t strength in the traditional sense. Maybe it’s endurance with soul — the refusal to let your compassion rot into cynicism. It’s being able to say, Yes, I’ve been changed, but still mean it when you say, I’m here. Because wholeness isn’t about being untouched; it’s about staying human despite what touched you. The truth is, every scar, every heartbreak, every cracked place is a proof of life — not reduction, but record. And if someone ever tells you to “get over it,” tell them you’re not trying to get over it. You’re learning how to carry it without letting it crush who you are.

Reflective Prompt

What have you survived that tried to reduce you — and what part of yourself did you fight hardest to keep alive?

The Negotiation of Light: Notes on Screens, Silence, and Stillness

2025/11/06Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2114, life, mental health, social-media, The Daily's, writing5 Comments

Daily writing prompt

How do you manage screen time for yourself?

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In the mornings, when I sit on the porch with my coffee, I watch the world before it fully wakes. The birds navigate from post to post, wings catching the soft light as if they were practicing choreography from a higher rehearsal. I imagine their laughter in bird-speak — gossip about Gary, the feathered fool who embarrassed himself at last night’s “Bird Watch.”

I marvel at how they not only fly but know where they’re going. Then it hits me — magnetism, the original GPS. Nature had built-in navigation long before we turned it into a subscription model.

The squirrels join the morning rush soon after, leaping from limb to limb with effortless grace. There’s a small platoon that passes by daily — the same crew, the same route. I can almost hear them cheering one another on: “Look at you! We’re almost there — ten more minutes!”

And there I am, coffee in hand, watching this unfiltered world unfold — no buffering, no pop-ups, no endless scroll. Just life doing what life does best: being.

Several years ago, I wrote a short line on social media:

“Curb your addiction; Netflix is not a lifestyle.”

At the time, streaming was the new religion. Everyone worshiped the next series drop like it was gospel, and I was no better. I said it partly to be clever, partly as a confession. Because let’s face it — I wasn’t preaching from a mountaintop; I was speaking from the couch.

Even now, I still believe we should spend more time reading, thinking, and being with the people who matter. But the reality is more complicated. These days, screens aren’t just entertainment — they’re the medium of our lives. I’ve written novels, edited photographs, designed worlds, and built entire digital ecosystems from a laptop screen. I’ve written on this blog nearly every day for months straight, and much of it was done on my phone between sips of coffee and the next notification.

So, how do I manage screen time? I don’t always manage it. I negotiate with it.

My desktop is for heavy creative work — the serious stuff: film editing, image manipulation, long fiction. My laptop is for writing in motion. But when I pick up my phone, that small rectangle becomes a world all its own. It’s easy to get lost in that glow — the infinite scroll of headlines, half-truths, dopamine, and distraction.

I once read that researchers call this Small Screen Addiction. I laughed — mostly because I recognized myself in the diagnosis. It’s that quiet pull to check just one more thing, that phantom buzz you swear you felt. The addiction isn’t to the device; it’s to the anticipation of something happening.

That’s the real danger. We’ve become a generation of watchers waiting for something new to arrive on our screens — a message, a miracle, a moment of validation.

These days, I try to make peace with it. I’ve set small rituals: no screens before coffee, no scrolling after midnight, and at least one hour a day where I stare at the ceiling or the sky instead of pixels. It’s not perfect, but it’s balance — or something like it.

And then the day winds down. I return to the porch, this time with tea instead of coffee, preparing for whatever remains of the night. Sometimes I play an audiobook I’ve already heard — something familiar enough to let my mind wander through the spaces between words, where new ideas like to hide.

The glow shifts now — from screens to the eyes of nocturnal creatures beginning their day. They watch me, curious, trying to decide if I mean harm or if I’m one of them. I smell different, but I’ve earned their tolerance through time and quiet. Yes, this is my home — but it was theirs long before me, and it will be theirs long after I’m gone.

It’s funny, the things you learn when you sit, watch, and listen. Their stories begin to braid themselves into yours. Something to be shared — not uploaded or streamed, just lived.

And maybe that’s the best screen management there is.

Author’s Note

We’re surrounded by light — digital, artificial, celestial — and each one demands something of us. Some burn fast and bright, while others whisper in frequencies older than language. The trick, I think, isn’t to turn them off, but to listen long enough to know which ones deserve your attention.

The Bloom and the Blade

2025/11/06Posted in Dispatches from the Splinters of My MindTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, Dispatches, fantasy, Fiction, Fiction Series, flash fiction, short-story, writingLeave a comment

Entry Eleven: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind

I found her in the middle of a killing field that should have had no place for beauty.

The moon sat low and full behind her, a pale coin pressed into the sky, casting that cold lacquered light across armor, bodies, and the drifting ash of trampled blossoms. The night smelled of copper and rain. Around us the dead refused to stay still; wind pushed their rags like restless sighs.

I had already decided the day was lost—too many screams, too many men swinging at ghosts. But then I saw her, and the world tilted. She stood where no one should have stood: upright, unhurried, her robe heavy with embroidery, dark as ink, stitched with peonies and waves that shimmered when the moon looked her way.

The first thought that crossed my mind was: Who brings flowers to war?
The second: Maybe the flowers brought her.

They grew around her feet, low white clusters, fragile as breath. Some had taken root in the soft mud, others hovered midair like they hadn’t decided what kind of thing they wanted to be. A faint perfume drifted off them, too clean for this place. And then I realized some of them were growing from her—the side of her face, her shoulder, the line of her arm. A bloom of defiance carved into flesh.

Behind her stood four figures draped in similar black silk, motionless. Their eyes were lowered, hands clasped before them. Attendants, perhaps. Or echoes. Even from where I stood, I knew they weren’t here to fight. They were here to witness.

I tightened my hand on my sword because habit is older than reason.

The ground sucked at my boots as I stepped closer. Somewhere to my left, a man still dying called for his mother. Another, somewhere behind, recited a prayer halfway through his blood. But sound thinned the closer I came to her. Like the air around her absorbed noise and left only pulse.

She looked at me when I was five paces away. Not before. Not after. Like she’d measured the exact distance between recognition and threat.

Her eyes were half-lidded, the color of tarnished brass. Her mouth was calm, as if the ruin surrounding her had been a foregone conclusion. One petal rested just below her cheekbone, pale against the skin. She didn’t brush it away.

“You walk like a man who has forgotten why he still draws breath,” she said.

Her voice was quiet but cut through the air like string through silk.

“I’ve followed death long enough to know his rhythm,” I said. “Some nights he leads. Some nights I do.”

She inclined her head, just enough to show she’d heard. “You are ronin,” she said. “A sword with no oath.”

“Whatever name suits you,” I said. “You stand where no one should stand.”

She looked past me toward the moon. “Where else would I be? When blades sing, flowers bloom. The field requires witness.”

She had no weapon in her hands, yet everything about her said blade. I’ve met killers who strutted under banners, and others who killed softly with no name to anchor their ghosts. She belonged to neither. Her stillness made me feel the way a boy feels before the first snow—expectant, humbled, afraid to speak.

“You should leave,” I said. “When dawn comes, they’ll burn what’s left.”

“You mistake me,” she said. “I came to see who is worthy.”

That word bit. Worthy. I’d watched too many noblemen rot in palanquins to trust it. Worthy is what the dying call themselves before the blade arrives.

“Worthy of what?” I asked.

“Of the sword. Of the bloom. Of carrying death without becoming it.”

The field groaned. A survivor staggered from the smoke—young, wild-eyed, clutching a short spear he didn’t know how to hold. He saw her, and some idiot fire lit behind his teeth. Maybe he thought she was a reward for surviving. Maybe he thought the gods had thrown him one last chance to matter.

He ran at her, screaming.

In battle you have seconds to make a decision. Whether wrong or right, it needs to be made. One of the fastest ways to learn someone is not what they say, but how they fight.

For one breath, I froze. I had seen too much to believe in rescues. The smart thing—the living thing—was to watch it unfold. Yet something in her stillness reached me, a quiet that felt older than every order I’d ever followed.

I moved before thought could argue. Maybe it was reflex. Maybe guilt. Or maybe—and this is the truth I won’t soften—I moved because her movement deserved a blade.

I drew, stepped forward, and cut low. The arc found his thigh. He stumbled, confused, half alive. I turned the motion, cut again—clean, deliberate, final. His blood came hot, red against moonlight. It splashed over the flowers at her feet.

They didn’t stain.

The droplets slid off as if the world itself refused to let his death take root there.

She looked at me, not with gratitude but recognition.

“You took him before he had time to be afraid,” she said. “That was mercy.”

I laughed, short and dry. “That’s a generous name for what I do.”

“There are cruelties worse than steel,” she said. “You gave him a swift exit. That counts.”

Her calm should have offended me, but it didn’t. It steadied something that had been shaking inside for too long.

I studied her again, this time the way I studied opponents before the first strike. Every warrior moves according to what they believe: greed, fear, pride, duty. The body tells the truth the mouth hides. She stood like someone who believed in balance—not victory, not survival, just the quiet between breaths.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“A name is only a sheath,” she said. “Tonight, I am what you see.”

“I see a woman blooming on a battlefield.”

“And I see a man who still listens for music in the clash,” she said. “We are both out of place.”

The four behind her lifted their eyes then—slowly, together. Four sets of dark irises, moonlit, unreadable. The air thickened, like waiting for a storm that didn’t come.

“You could have struck me,” I said.

“I could have,” she replied. “But you already offered your sword.”

“I fought even though it wasn’t my fight,” I said. “Your movements deserved my blade.”

She gave the smallest nod, approval or farewell—I couldn’t tell which. “Then peace, ronin. Not the peace of victory. The peace that lives in the breath between strikes.”

For a long moment, we stood there—two still figures in a world still burning. Around us, the wounded moaned, the fires licked the edges of the field, but none of it entered the space between us. The night had carved a small silence and decided to let us share it.

I let the sword drop, tip resting in mud. Not surrender. A bow to something rarer.

When I looked again, the blossoms at her feet had multiplied. Their pale glow shimmered faintly in the dark, each one perfect, each one refusing the ugliness of what surrounded it.

The moon sank. The smoke grew thicker. I blinked, and she was gone. The four attendants too. Only the flowers remained—untouched, unstained, rooted in earth that should have been ash.

At dawn, when the officers returned with torches and the day’s excuses, they found me sitting beside the blossoms. I told them nothing. Some truths need soil and silence more than words.

I carry her still. Not her image—images fade—but the moment itself, caught behind the ribs like a splinter of light. That memory is my wound and my mercy both.

Because now I know this: even those made for killing can recognize beauty when it stands unafraid.
And once you’ve seen it—truly seen it—you carry it. Always.

Quote of the Day – 11062025

2025/11/062025/11/05Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Mangus Khan, QOTD10 Comments

Personal Reflection:

A world where stillness is sacrilege. We treat quiet like failure, reflection like wasted time. Everything demands our reaction before we even know how we feel. Yet devotion begins in the pause. The moment you stop rehearsing and actually witness what’s in front of you, you reclaim something sacred that this world keeps trying to trade for speed.

Paying attention sounds simple until you try it. It asks you to slow down in a culture that worships motion, to sit in the ache of what is instead of racing toward what’s next. It’s not glamorous; it doesn’t make headlines or fill your feed. But when you really notice—really see—something ordinary becomes almost holy. The dust floating in morning light. The pulse behind someone’s trembling hand. The small mercy of being alive long enough to witness either. Attention is the first language of devotion; it’s how we whisper, I’m here.

There’s danger in awareness. The moment you begin to see clearly, the noise you’ve been using as armor starts to crumble. Silence creeps in. Reflection gets heavy. Attention drags old ghosts out of hiding—the ones disguised as ambition, distraction, or pride. To pay attention is to be unguarded before your own life. It means watching yourself fail, ache, forgive, and try again without looking away. Most people don’t avoid stillness because they’re busy; they avoid it because stillness tells the truth. And truth—unlike chaos—doesn’t flatter. It exposes. It humbles. Yet within that humbling, something soft stirs: recognition, grace’s earliest echo.

Grace doesn’t crash in like a miracle. It slips in quietly, through the cracks awareness leaves behind. It’s the hush after honesty, the exhale that follows surrender. The moment you stop performing for your life and start living it. Devotion isn’t about worship—it’s about attention. And grace isn’t about reward—it’s about presence. When you finally look closely enough, even at the ruins, you realize you’re standing on sacred ground.

Reflective Prompt:

What in your life have you been moving too quickly to notice—and what truth might appear if you dared to look longer?

Everything Must Go… Time Is Running Out

2025/11/05Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, books, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2113, life, mental health, The Daily's, writingLeave a comment

The Time Machine Files, Vol. 3

Depends. You selling or giving it away?

People love to talk about time like it’s a membership program — renewable, limited, and probably ad-supported.
“There’s not enough time in the day.”
“I wish I had more time.”
“Time just got away from me.”
We all say it. I’ve said it too.

The thing about time, though, is it’s always been the same amount since we started measuring it. The only thing that changes is us — or more precisely, how we try to package it.
We’ve gone from lunar calendars to solar calendars to whatever daylight-saving-time fever dream we’re still pretending makes sense. The problem isn’t time. It’s that we keep treating it like software that needs constant updates.

So naturally, someone’s going to say, “We just need to manage it better.”
Cue the parade of Day Runners, Franklin Coveys, and every other trendy organizer that promised to make us “more efficient.” We’ve become so efficient that people now have time to buy multiple organizing systems, compare them on YouTube, and make affiliate links ranking which one saves you more of your already wasted life.

So I wonder if the next big thing will be the ability to purchase time in blocks.
You know — “Now available in convenient six-hour increments!” Buy one, get a bonus fifteen minutes for self-care. Maybe throw in a loyalty program. Because nothing says progress like turning eternity into a subscription service.

They’ll probably call it something sleek and stupid, like Chrono+ or The Timely App.
“Reclaim your minutes!”
“Upgrade your life!”
“Don’t waste another second — for just $19.99 a month.”

(A bright, sterile retail space. Muzak hums in the background. A counter gleams beneath fluorescent lights.)

Sales Associate: Good evening, ma’am, can I help you?
Customer: Yes, I’d like to purchase a time block.
Sales Associate: Certainly. How much were you thinking?
Customer: Hmm… I’m not sure.
Sales Associate: We’re offering thirty percent off any blocks over ninety days, if that helps.
Customer: Really? Oh, Jeremy — stop that! Don’t put things in your mouth. What have I told you about putting things in your mouth? What is that? Spit it out! Right now, young man. Thank you.

(A pause. She straightens her coat, smiles politely.)
Customer: I’m so sorry, where were we? Oh, yes. I’ll take one ninety-day block and three one-hundred-twenty-day blocks. Time flies so fast — you can never be too careful.

And that’s exactly the problem.
We’ve turned time into a product, a project, and a panic attack — all rolled into one. You can color-code your planner, automate your calendar, and stack every “optimization hack” known to humankind.
You still can’t out-organize mortality.

Maybe the trick isn’t getting more time. Maybe it’s using the time you already have without acting like you’re auditioning for it.

So, do I need time?
Not really. I need less of it hanging over my head and more of it sitting quietly beside me — the kind that doesn’t come with notifications, countdowns, or motivational quotes.

If I ever finish the time machine, maybe I’ll try deleting the concept altogether. No deadlines, no clocks, no “you’re running late.” Just motion and memory. Just the sound of life moving forward without asking permission.

Until then, I’ll keep what I’ve got —
a half-wired machine,
a cup of cold coffee,
and a future still on backorder.

Daily writing prompt

Do you need time?

View all responses

Quote of the Day – 11052025

2025/11/05Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, entertainment, poetry, QOTD, science, writing4 Comments

Personal Reflection

There’s a strange kind of bravery in simply being visible. Not loud, not armored — just seen. Even braver is to allow yourself to be seen. One can stand quietly and visible, but still move within the shadows of the environment. Put simply, one blends in. There’s an old Nordic tradition that says when a person visits, they should allow themselves to be seen — so the people know they aren’t ghosts or spirits. It’s a way of saying, I’m real. I’m here. In a world addicted to performance, that kind of presence feels like rebellion. Estés reminds us that courage doesn’t always roar; sometimes it just refuses to vanish.

We’re conditioned to protect the softest parts of ourselves — to hide them behind humor, intellect, or distraction. One is taught, the more you know about me, the more you can use against me. Let me tell you, that’s a very true statement. However, we as a society crave connection. There’s data linking mortality rates to isolation — people who live without meaningful interaction die sooner than those who don’t. I know that sounds like hulcum — my grandmother’s word for nonsense — but I’ve read the data. It’s real. The problem is that because of our performance addiction, people can be ruthless. We’ve learned to turn vulnerability into spectacle or weaponry, not intimacy. But soul doesn’t survive in hiding. Every time you show it, even trembling, you steady the ground beneath someone else’s feet. That’s the quiet power of authenticity: it ripples outward, unannounced, and changes the room.

To show your soul isn’t a performance — it’s an offering. It’s saying, I’m still here, even after the storm tried to erase me. And maybe that’s what resilience really is: not surviving untouched, but standing — cracked, luminous, and unashamed — in full view of the world. In the stillness of simply being, you dare the ones around you to get to know who you really are. And if they don’t like what they see? Then they can kick rocks — because you don’t need any additional madness. Everyone’s got enough already.

Reflective Prompt

When was the last time you showed your soul — not your strength, not your mask, but your unguarded self?

Oh Look, Another Time Travel Question

2025/11/04Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2112, future, life, love, mental health, reflection, Snarky Puppy, The Daily's, time travel and writing, writing11 Comments

They asked what my life will be like in three years. I told them I’m still trying to figure out next Tuesday.

Some men build time machines. Others read about alien pods and synthetic sheep, hoping to understand what went wrong with the species. I do both — coffee optional, cynicism not.

Every time someone asks about the future, I picture a crowd of anxious humans trying to schedule the weather or negotiate with fate via Google Calendar. It’s adorable. Come here, let me pinch your cheek. Really—this obsession with pretending we’re in control. I’ve met potholes with a stronger sense of inevitability.

Three years from now, I’ll probably still be working on the time machine in my basement. People keep asking why. I tell them it’s cheaper than therapy and safer than dating apps. Besides, time travel makes more sense than “five-year plans.” At least with time travel, you accept the paradox. With planning, you just lie to yourself more efficiently.

So, keep endless scrolling and doing your TikTok dances. Because apparently no one needs cable anymore, and I suppose that makes you a public servant now. So—high five? What? Get away from me… weirdo.

In three years, I hope to have mastered the fine art of not giving a damn about metrics. Maybe I’ll finally stop apologizing for slow progress and start celebrating that I’m still moving at all. I might have fewer teeth, more coffee stains, and the same bad back—but I’ll also have more stories. And if that’s not progress, what is?

If the time machine works, I’ll visit future me just to see if I ever stopped procrastinating. My bet? Future me is standing in the same spot, muttering something about “calibration issues” and sipping cold coffee. If that’s the case, I’ll pat him on the shoulder, tell him he did fine, and leave him to his nonsense.

Because maybe that’s the secret: it’s not about what the future looks like. It’s about showing up for the weird present we’ve already got—even if the gears grind, the circuits smoke, and the timeline refuses to cooperate.

Because no one needs body snatchers—thank you, Jack Finney—or android replicas of Philip K. Dick. Be yourself. Live in the moment. Don’t be a pansy.

So, what will my life be like in three years?

Hopefully still under construction. Hopefully still mine.

And if the time machine’s finally working by then… I’ll let you know.

Daily writing prompt

What will your life be like in three years?

View all responses

Quote of the Day – 11042025

2025/11/04Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTD, Tennessee Williams2 Comments

Personal Reflection

Tennessee Williams understood something most of us spend our lives denying — that light and shadow don’t exist apart, but entangled. He wasn’t glorifying pain; he was confessing a truth artists rarely say out loud: the things that torment us also teach us how to see.

We spend years trying to cauterize our wounds, to sterilize the parts of ourselves that frighten us — fear, obsession, desire, despair. But those same forces carve depth into us. Without them, there’s no contrast, no compassion, no reason to create. Williams wasn’t celebrating madness; he was acknowledging that art and anguish share a bloodstream.

Maybe resilience isn’t about exorcising the demons — maybe it’s about learning to live with them without letting them drive. To take their fire, but not their chaos. After all, what’s an angel but a fallen thing that remembered how to rise?

Reflective Prompt

Which of your inner demons has taught you the most — and what would you lose if they were gone?

International Chucklehead Day

2025/11/03Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2111, dark-humor, Fiction, humor, InternationalChuckleheadDay, life, short-story, The Daily's, writing5 Comments

No one remembers who started it. Probably someone who said something so catastrophically dumb that laughter was the only way to keep the world from collapsing in on itself. That’s the real magic of it — turning foolishness into fellowship.

Every year, on the first Friday of November, we celebrate the sacred art of not having it all together. A holiday for the half-aware, the overconfident, and the beautifully human.

There are rules to this madness, of course — because even fools need structure.

How to Celebrate:

Step 1: Confess Your Foolishness

Start the day by admitting your latest act of nonsense — the thing that made even your reflection sigh. Write it down on a scrap of paper. Don’t overthink it; the truth works best when it’s still raw.

Fold it up.

No name, no excuses.

Drop it into the Crowning Ceremony Drawing — a sacred bowl, coffee mug, or whatever container hasn’t been repurposed as an ashtray.

It’s not about shame. It’s about liberation — the moment you realize your worst mistake has become everyone’s favorite story.

Step 2: Craft the Crown

Tradition states that the previous year’s Chucklehead Supreme must craft the crown for the new one. It’s a sacred duty — part redemption arc, part creative punishment.

No two crowns should ever look alike. Some are wrapped in tinfoil and regret, others in duct tape and leftover wisdom. A few have been rumored to include receipts from bad decisions and one brave attempt at origami.

The important thing is effort. The crown must be made by hand and offered with the solemnity of someone who’s learned their lesson — or at least pretended to.

Step 3: Acts of Absurd Kindness

At some point during the day, pay someone a compliment so strange it bends their sense of reality for a second.

Say, “Your left eye is particularly dazzling today.”

Say it straight-faced. No grin, no flinch.

Pick a word you’d never use — dazzling, radiant, exquisite. The kind that belongs in perfume ads or embroidered pillows. Use it anyway. Because for one brief, shining moment, everyone deserves to be a little ridiculous.

Step 4: The 3 P.M. Chuckle Ritual

Wherever you are, tell the worst joke you know. No winners. No scoring. Just the shared sound of collective groaning to remind us that laughter, even bad laughter, is still holy.

When the last chuckle fades, everyone assembles for the Crowning Ceremony Drawing. The folded confessions are placed in the center — a bowl, a hat, or a leftover candy dish from last year’s failed diet.

One confession is drawn. One truth is read aloud.

And somewhere in the room, the new Chucklehead Supreme exhales and steps forward to claim their crown.

Step 5: Crown the Worthy

Present the handcrafted crown in a mock ceremony — bonus points for a kazoo processional or a slow clap that lasts slightly too long.

The new Chucklehead Supreme must wear it proudly until someone else out-chuckles them. It’s not a punishment. It’s an acknowledgment: you’ve officially joined the noble order of people brave enough to look foolish and laugh about it.

Step 6: For the Retired & the Wise

Same rules apply — only now the arena has changed. Gather your fellow retirees at your usual hangout: the diner, the park bench, the coffee shop that knows your order before you walk in.

Write down your foolishness on a napkin if that’s all you’ve got. Drop it in an empty sugar packet box. Tell the same bad joke you’ve told every week since ‘92.

Crown the winner, or the loser — depending on how you look at it — and raise your mugs in solidarity. Because time doesn’t make you immune to foolishness; it just gives you better material.

Why We Celebrate:

Because perfection is a myth sold by people who’ve never burned toast.

Because humility ages better than pride.

Because every one of us is a walking blooper reel trying to look composed in public.

And maybe because, after a lifetime of getting it wrong, I’ve learned the trick isn’t avoiding the fall — it’s learning to laugh when you hit the floor.

So pour your coffee. Wear your invisible crown. And remember: the world doesn’t fall apart when you screw up — it just becomes a little funnier.

Long live the Chuckleheads.

Author’s Note:

This piece was written in celebration of imperfection — the kind that keeps us honest, humble, and human. Somewhere out there, someone’s still wearing last year’s Crown of Cluelessness. If that’s you, your left eye is still dazzling.

Daily writing prompt

Invent a holiday! Explain how and why everyone should celebrate.

View all responses

Quote of the Day – 11032025

2025/11/03Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Nina Simone, QOTD4 Comments

Personal Reflection

Simone didn’t mean it as poetry. She meant it as warning.

To create honestly is to bear witness — to feel the weight of a world that keeps breaking and still refuse to look away. It’s not the kind of duty that wins applause; it’s the one that leaves you raw. Because to reflect the times means letting their noise live inside you — letting the chaos, grief, and hunger scrape against your ribs until it finds a sound that feels true.

There’s a loneliness in that kind of honesty. You stop making art that pleases and start making art that confronts — the kind that doesn’t ask permission to exist. Every brushstroke, every word, every note becomes a confession. This is what it’s like to be alive right now.

Simone understood that silence is not neutrality — it’s surrender. She didn’t sing from distance; she sang from the fire itself. Her voice carried the truth that art isn’t decoration — it’s resistance, it’s reckoning, it’s the memory of who we were when the world forgot itself.

If you’re lucky, your work will outlive you. But before it does, it should undress you. Strip away the illusions you built for safety until what’s left is unfiltered, unpolished, unafraid. That’s not art for comfort — it’s art for survival.

To reflect the times is not to mirror the surface — it’s to reveal the soul of the era beneath it.

Reflective Prompt

What part of your truth have you softened to make it easier to share?
If you stopped protecting your audience, what would your work finally dare to say?

Cigarettes and Coffee: The Sound of Staying Awake

2025/11/022025/11/02Posted in TunageTagged creative non-fiction, creative writing, daily exercise, Song Lyric Sunday, writing31 Comments

“It’s early in the morning / About a quarter to three…”

— Otis Redding

Nicotine stains my fingers, and there’s a coffee ring bleeding through the corner of my notebook. My shoulders ache — that familiar, loyal pain that’s been with me longer than most people. You get to that stopping point, the one where you promise yourself just one more thing so the mind can shut off without guilt or shame. Not that you’ve done anything wrong; it’s just the brain’s way of punishing ambition. You light up, take a sip, and the room hums like an overworked transformer. No bacon, no eggs — just the stench of being fried.

I’d been pulling an all-nighter, trying to wrestle systems into order before the next sunrise. Sleep wasn’t an option — at least that’s what I told myself, and once you start believing your own lies, they might as well be true. Somewhere around that blurred hour when the clock forgets which side of midnight it’s on, my wife came in with that look — half worry, half why in the hell aren’t you in bed next to me. The first two parts I could shrug off; the last one carried weight. She stood there, watched me for a moment, then went to put on a pot of coffee.

She was the wife of a soldier, so she knew the score. She didn’t like it much, but she knew it all the same. She looked at the clock and chuckled, that kind of laugh that carried both resignation and love.

“This is your theme song, right here,” she said. “Metal something — you’re always going on about it.”

“It’s Metallica, babe,” I said, “and the track is Am I Evil.”

She lit her own cigarette, slow and precise, the way she did everything that mattered. The smoke rose along the side of her face, curling like a slow dance with the light. One eye squinted through the haze as she looked my way — then in one easy breath, the smoke was gone.

“Shit, you say,” she replied, and I laughed — a small, grateful sound. The kind that breaks tension without fixing a thing. I took another sip of coffee. The bitterness hit just right, grounding me in that narrow space between exhaustion and clarity. Otis was still humming through the speakers, like an old friend keeping score of the hours we’d lost.

Otis Redding’s “Cigarettes and Coffee” came out in 1966, tucked into The Soul Album, a record overshadowed by his bigger hits. No stadium anthem here — just the quiet gospel of survival. The band plays soft, steady, respectful. Al Jackson Jr. keeps the drums whisper-thin, Duck Dunn anchors the bass like a heartbeat, and Steve Cropper’s guitar flickers in and out of the light.

It’s a sparse room of sound. You can almost smell the studio air — the tape reel humming, the smoke hanging low. Otis isn’t singing to anyone in particular. He’s talking to whoever’s still awake, whoever’s chasing purpose through fatigue.

“I’m sittin’ here talkin’ with my baby / Over cigarettes and coffee…”

That’s not romance. That’s ritual.

It’s the sound of two people trying to stay human when the night’s too long and the world’s too loud.

People love to say the sixties were a musical revolution. You hear it your whole life, like gospel. But you don’t really understand it until you’ve lived long enough to see how hype survives every generation. They didn’t have social media then, but they had slogans — peace signs, protest anthems, movements branded before they could breathe.

Today, the noise just comes in technicolor. Everything trending, nothing sticking. But Otis — he stuck. He already had his name etched in wax by the time this song landed, but “Cigarettes and Coffee” wasn’t for the spotlight. It was for the back room, the insomniacs, the men and women sitting at their own breaking points.

That’s what makes it timeless. It’s still talking about what we’re still living — the quiet wars we fight with ourselves, the long nights spent trying to hold it all together.

Every time I hear this track, something in me unclenches. It doesn’t lift me up — it settles me. Makes me honest. There’s a weight in Otis’s voice that feels like a man exhaling after carrying the world too long.

The song doesn’t fix anything; it just reminds you you’re not alone in the fixing. It says peace isn’t about rest — it’s about acceptance. The kind that comes when you’ve worked yourself down to silence and realize the silence feels sacred.

For a few minutes, I stop fighting the fatigue. My hands ache, my eyes burn, my shoulders protest, and somehow it all feels right. The song gives the exhaustion purpose. It turns the ache into evidence — proof that I’m still in motion.

That’s what makes it beautiful. Not joy. Recognition. The shared breath of the living tired.

Music provides the soundtrack of our lives — checkpoints across time, a kind of living mythos. We all move through the same years differently, but the songs mark us just the same. A verse here, a chorus there — little coordinates reminding us who we were before the noise got too loud.

It’s strange, isn’t it? Two people can walk side by side, hearing the same song, and still be living two entirely different truths. That’s the thing about music — it doesn’t belong to an era; it belongs to the listener.

That’s why Otis still matters. “Cigarettes and Coffee” isn’t nostalgia — it’s memory work. It’s here to keep us from forgetting what it feels like to be awake in the dark, searching for balance in the hum of a tired world.

Music is here so you don’t forget — how to feel, how to love, and how to weep. It’s a reminder that even in the long nights of rebuilding, there’s still rhythm left in the wreckage. And if you listen close enough, you might just hear yourself breathing in time with the song.

Pull Quote:

“It’s not a love song — it’s a mirror. A hymn for the living tired.”

Author’s Note:
This piece was written for Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday challenge, where writers and music lovers gather each week to explore songs through memory, meaning, and emotion. This week’s theme — coffee or tea — led me back to one of Otis Redding’s quiet masterpieces, “Cigarettes and Coffee.” What started as a late-night listen turned into something more personal — a reflection on rebuilding, resilience, and the art of staying awake long enough to make sense of it all.

Quote of the Day – 11022025

2025/11/022025/11/02Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Leonard Cohen, music, QOTD6 Comments

Personal Reflection

Cohen understood something most people spend a lifetime avoiding — that joy and sorrow aren’t opposites, they’re partners in the same waltz. The beauty that moves us to tears is the same beauty that reminds us we’re temporary. The song doesn’t ask for your permission to feel; it simply reaches into the softest part of you and starts to play what’s already there.

We chase peace as if it means never aching again, but music teaches a different kind of peace — the kind that coexists with longing. You can close your eyes and still see everything you’ve lost, still feel the echoes of what once mattered. But in that ache, something holy hums. It’s the reminder that sorrow isn’t a wound to be healed; it’s a place the light passes through.

There’s a moment — quiet, heavy, sacred — when the melody hits something you didn’t know was waiting. Maybe that’s the soul recognizing itself. Maybe that’s what Cohen meant when he said the spirit soared. Not upward, but inward — toward the place where pain and beauty stop competing and begin to hold hands.

That’s what music does. It doesn’t cure the ache; it makes it sing.

Reflective Prompt

What song still finds the version of you you thought had disappeared?
When was the last time you let the melody hurt — and thanked it for remembering you?

Delicious Lie

2025/11/022025/11/06Posted in Dispatches from the Splinters of My MindTagged creative writing, daily exercise, Dispatches, fantasy, Fiction, Fiction Series, life, short-story, writing7 Comments

Entry Ten: Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind

An image-driven meditation on beauty, decay, and the quiet art of passing for alive.

White comes first. It always does. I dust the night from my face with a powder the color of absolution and tell the mirror a soft white lie: you are whole, you are warm, you belong to the day. The mirror nods like a priest who’s already decided my penance. I let him; he’s one of the few men who listens. The powder smells faintly of lilies and old hotel sheets—clean, practiced grief. It cakes where sweat used to live. Underneath, skin hums the slow song of bacteria doing what they do best: recycling hope. Purity photographs better that way. Besides, no one suspects the dead of good lighting.

The birds come next—two shards of sky trained to settle across my eyes. They know their marks like altar boys at a funeral mass: left wing grazing the brow, right wing cooling the cheekbone, claws light against the temple. Their feathers shine the blue of high altitudes where breathing is theory. Blue is the color of transcendence, or so the books say. In practice, it’s the color of numbing—detachment dressed for church. I didn’t choose them for beauty; I chose them for temperature control. They keep my expressions chilled, my thoughts neat, the heat from showing. They smell faintly of ozone and hairspray, like the backstage of heaven. I can feel the air around me losing interest.

I open my mouth. They tilt their heads, listening. They remember the rules better than I do. The first sound they stole was laughter—too spontaneous, too human. They took it the way crows take rings: quick, gleeful, final. The second was the small sigh I made each morning while practicing the art of appearing alive. By the third—my name said to no one—I understood that silence is a currency, and I was rich in withdrawal. I keep my tongue behind my teeth the way some people keep money in a Bible: near God, far from thieves. Sometimes I miss how a real word tastes—like pennies and possibility—but the birds look so proud of me when I behave.

Grey arrives without asking. It bleeds in through the window frame, through the paint I swore was dry, through the place in my chest where memory used to turn red at the edges. Grey is the hallway color, the corridor between rooms, a suspended breath that never quite chooses air. Days collect in it like lint. The birds blink in unison, blue against the grey, and the room looks like an old photograph waiting for a pulse that won’t come. I practice gestures of aliveness—a nod, a smile, a hand smoothing the same invisible wrinkle. It’s choreography learned from the living. The trick is to blink at correct intervals. Dead eyes give it away. I’ve learned to count my blinks like prayers; no one notices faith when it’s rhythmic.

They call what I do resilience. I call it advanced taxidermy. Everything soft stuffed with survival slogans and stitched closed with polite smiles. I stand upright, lips faintly glossed, eyes decoratively haunted. People nod, impressed. “You look great,” they say, and I do. Death, when moisturized, is surprisingly photogenic.

At night, when the light loses its discipline, the birds twitch. Their wings quiver like unspoken apologies. They hate uncertainty—it smells too much like life. I tell them to relax, that nothing here moves unless I schedule it. They don’t believe me. They can sense the old pulse under the floorboards, that stubborn animal rhythm I keep sedated. Sometimes, if I listen too hard, I hear it muttering: Still here, you fraud. Still beating in the dark.

Grey has personality now—kind of an accountant with a god complex. It tallies what I didn’t say, what I pretended not to feel, every emotional expense I tried to write off. I owe everything. I keep paying in composure. Some mornings the debt collector is the mirror; some mornings it’s the ache behind my jaw. Both smile as they itemize.

I remember warmth in flashes. A mouth that used to taste like smoke and sincerity. A day when laughter didn’t feel like theft. The red comes back in small riots—a pulse in the wrist, a fever under the tongue, a dream where color doesn’t apologize for itself. Red is the rude friend who won’t stop showing up uninvited. It whispers, You can still want, you know. I tell it to shut up. Wanting is expensive, and I’m already behind on my rent in reality.

There was a man once—there always is, because tragedy likes a good straight man. He said my quiet was “mystical.” I let him think that. No sense disappointing the audience. He kissed me like he was trying to wake me, poor thing. I let him. The living need their illusions too. When he left, I smiled so gently you’d never guess the birds were choking on the heat inside my mouth.

People assume silence means peace. It doesn’t. It’s just a better brand of noise—high-end, minimalist, with clean lines and no bass. Inside it, everything still screams; it just does so politely. That’s the delicious part of the lie: it tastes like calm if you chew slow enough.

Sometimes the rot gets ambitious. It stretches under my skin, flexing like it wants out. I tell it we have a reputation to maintain. “Decay,” I whisper, “but quietly. We’re professionals.” It listens, most days. When it doesn’t, I add more powder and a higher neckline. Elegance covers almost anything.

I’ve been congratulated for my strength so often I should invoice for it. People mean well—they always mean well—but their compliments sound like eulogies now. “You’re so composed.” “You’re such an inspiration.” They don’t know that composure is just rigor mortis doing ballet, that inspiration is what happens when exhaustion gets good lighting.

Tonight, the air tastes different. There’s something electric in it, the flavor of coming storms or confessions. The birds sense it, feathers rustling like gossip. Blue, once loyal, starts to falter—its chill turning translucent, its sanctity cracking at the seams. Underneath, a hint of red—raw, seditious—tries to breathe.

I stare at the mirror. It stares back, unimpressed. “How long can you keep this up?” it asks without moving its lips. “As long as it looks good,” I answer. We’ve had this conversation before. Neither of us ever wins.

Black waits behind everything, patient as gravity. Not malicious—just inevitable. It’s the color of what doesn’t flinch anymore. When I close my eyes, it hums like an engine. It’s not the absence of light; it’s the womb of it. Maybe that’s comforting. Maybe it’s just where truths go to compost.

The birds fidget. Their claws scrape skin, soft warnings. They know what’s coming. I’ve been thinking dangerous thoughts—words forming without permission, meanings unapproved by management. I can feel language waking up in my throat like an old addiction. I used to love words. They made me visible. Then they made me trouble.

“What happens if I speak?” I ask. My voice sounds foreign, like someone rearranged the vowels while I slept. The birds freeze, their blue fading to the dull of forgotten sky. One pecks at my brow, delicate threat. The other trembles near my cheek. For a moment, even they look tired of sanctity.

I touch their wings. They’re colder than honesty. “Shh,” I tell them. “It’s just a syllable. A small one.” I open my mouth, and something almost warm slips out—a sigh, maybe, or the ghost of laughter coming home. The sound isn’t pretty, but it’s real, and real is an endangered species around here.

The mirror blinks first. Always does. “Well,” it says in that judgmental silence only mirrors manage, “look who’s back.” I shrug. “Don’t get excited. I’m still dead; I’m just taking the scenic route.”

Color rearranges itself. White gives up pretending to be mercy. Blue goes transparent, embarrassed by its own chill. Grey loosens its tie. Red stretches like a cat finally acknowledged. Black opens one lazy eye and grins, proud parent of the mess.

I let the birds slide off, set them on the sill. They glare at me, little auditors of sin, and I swear I see envy in their beady eyes. “Go on,” I tell them. “Find someone holier.” They flutter away, leaving a faint scent of ozone and resignation.

The air without them feels indecently warm. I breathe it in. It tastes like pennies and possibility. The mirror, for once, doesn’t offer a verdict. Maybe it’s learning boundaries. Maybe I finally bored it into honesty.

Outside, the sky wears an honest blue—the kind that knows the ground exists and loves it anyway. I could try that. Tomorrow, maybe. Tonight, I’m just going to sit here, rotting politely, beautifully, honestly.

Author’s Note

Part of the Dispatches from the Splinters of My Mind series—image-driven fiction that explores the architecture of silence, self-performance, and the strange grace of decay.

Memoirs of Madness — When the inkwell weeps, I howl.

Do’s, Don’ts, and Dumbshit: A Brief Guide to Time Travel

2025/11/01Posted in The Daily'sTagged #aging, #time-travel, blog, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2109, life, mental health, The Daily's, Travel, writing2 Comments

Aging isn’t the problem — it’s the reruns. A tongue-in-cheek survival guide for anyone who’s ever looked back and thought, “What the hell was I thinking?”

Daily writing prompt
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
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This could be an interesting question, depending on how you look at it.
If we’re talking about glory days—back before the gray, before the knees filed for early retirement, before hangovers started needing a recovery plan—then no thanks. I have no time for foolishness and even less to say on the matter.

But if we’re talking time travel—now you’ve got my attention.

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve been building a time machine in my basement. No one believes I’ll ever get the damn thing working. Their “lack of faith in the Force is disturbing.” One woman told me, “It’s not my lack of faith in the Force—it’s my lack of faith in time travel.” I rolled my eyes, of course. Time travel is real—just like dragons. What, don’t look at me in that tone of voice.

So, I decided it was necessary to create a short list of do’s and don’ts. Some of these should be obvious, but you and I both know humans are notorious for dumbshit. What follows is my rough draft of the guide.

Time Travel: A Practical Guide for the Chronologically Curious

Bring humility, not luggage. You can’t pack self-awareness into a carry-on, but it’s the only thing that makes the trip worth it.
Wave, don’t interfere. Watching your younger self screw up is part of the fun—it’s a rerun with better lighting.
Ask the questions you were too proud to ask back then. “What the hell were you thinking?” still counts.
Thank the ghosts. The people who left or broke you were part of the architecture that got you here.
Notice the details—the color of the room, your mother’s voice, the way your laughter used to sound before the world got louder.
Come home. Time travel’s a sightseeing tour, not a place to live.

DON’T

Don’t try to fix anything. You’ll only trade one regret for a newer, shinier model.
Don’t warn your younger self. That idiot needs to learn. You’re living proof they eventually did.
Don’t chase old flames. The girl who didn’t pay you attention the first time still doesn’t give a damn about your ass now.
Don’t drown in the what-ifs. That’s not nostalgia; that’s self-harm in prettier clothes.
Don’t justify your present by rewriting your past. If you’re lost, that’s on today’s version of you.
Don’t forget to bring back souvenirs—perspective, closure, forgiveness. They travel light but change everything.

Once I stop procrastinating and actually finish building the damn time machine, I wouldn’t use it to relive anything. I’d just visit long enough to remember that every mistake had a purpose and every joy had an expiration date. Then I’d come back, pour some coffee, and—I don’t know—maybe write my thoughts on a blog called Memoirs of Madness. Then get on with the business of living whatever version of now I’ve got left.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Quote of the Day – 11012025

2025/11/01Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTD, Rumi6 Comments

Personal Reflection

There’s a strange violence in release. We call it growth, but sometimes it feels like grief — like watching the parts of yourself that once felt sacred crumble into something you can’t hold anymore. Rumi knew that letting go isn’t graceful. It’s necessary.

A tree doesn’t argue with winter. It doesn’t try to keep what’s dying attached. It sheds, not out of despair, but wisdom — the knowing that life can’t thrive under the weight of what’s meant to fall. The tree doesn’t call this death; it calls it preparation.

We, on the other hand, cling. We hold on to people long after their presence has turned into silence. We keep carrying beliefs that don’t fit the person we’ve become. We confuse endurance with devotion, even when the holding has hollowed us out.

But the truth is, nothing real is lost in letting go. What remains after the shedding — that’s who you actually are. Bare. Honest. Stripped of performance. The wind moves through you differently when you stop pretending you’re still in bloom.

And maybe that’s the quiet power Rumi meant:
to know when a season has ended,
to stand unadorned,
and trust that what falls away was never yours to keep.

Reflective Prompt

What are you afraid might die if you stop holding on?
What if that death is only a clearing — making space for what’s been waiting to grow in the open?

The Price of Stolen Time

2025/10/31Posted in The Daily'sTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2108, history, The Daily's, writing6 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What historical event fascinates you the most?

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As a lifelong student of history, I’ve never been able to pull one event from the timeline and say, “This is my jam,” or “This right here—this is the shit.”

I’ve said it, of course. Probably said it too often. But none of them ever stick, because the truth is—it’s all the jam. Every revolution, every backroom betrayal, every random Tuesday that accidentally changed the world. History is the world’s longest mixtape, and it never skips a track.

I remember friends saying, “History’s boring.” Or worse, “So what?” I’d sit there thinking: You mean to tell me you can scroll for hours watching conspiracy podcasts and true-crime breakdowns, but a real story about an empire eating itself alive doesn’t do it for you?

History isn’t boring. It’s gossip that got serious—a mirror that never lies.

And sometimes, buried in the margins, there’s someone like Henrietta Wood.

Henrietta Wood wasn’t supposed to be remembered.

Born enslaved in Kentucky around 1818. Freed in 1848. Kidnapped back into slavery in 1853 by a man named Zebulon Ward—an opportunist who saw her freedom as a clerical error he could correct for profit.

He sold her into slavery in Mississippi and Texas. Twelve years gone.

Then emancipation came, and instead of fading quietly into “freedom,” she filed a lawsuit. Not a complaint. Not a plea. A bill.

In 1870, she sued Ward for $20,000 in federal court—a number so bold it had to make the room flinch. The trial dragged for eight years because that’s what the legal system does when it owes you something. In 1878, she won $2,500, the equivalent of about $65,000 today.

Ward paid.

Henrietta used the money to send her son to law school.

Tell me that’s not poetic symmetry.

She didn’t change the system. She cracked it—just enough to let the light in.

“Arthur H. Simms graduated law school in 1889, made his mark in Chicago—living proof that a mother’s lawsuit wasn’t just a story, but the starting gun for a lineage.”

Most people would’ve spent it fast, but Henrietta played a longer game.

She had principles and foresight in a time when most folks were just trying to breathe through the next day. Survival back then wasn’t a metaphor—it was the whole assignment.

She was awarded her money just after the crash of 1877, when the country was bleeding out from economic collapse and labor riots. Chaos in the streets. Blood on the rails. And in the middle of all that noise, there she was—a newly wealthy Black woman in America. By any measure, that was nothing short of miraculous.

She didn’t just win a case; she won proof that the system could be forced, however briefly, to recognize her humanity—

and the humanity we had fought for a hundred years earlier.

Just one year before her victory, Black people had officially become citizens under the Reconstruction Amendments. On paper, anyway. But the ink was still wet, and the promise hadn’t been delivered. Citizenship didn’t come with safety, or wealth, or power—it came with a target on your back.

It’s wild when you think about it: Lincoln said “four score and seven years ago” to define what America was supposed to mean, and here we were, a single score later, still trying to cash that promise. Henrietta Wood’s lawsuit was more than a demand for money—it was a demand for the score to finally be settled.

But history doesn’t balance its books that easily. Her win was a down payment, not a clean ledger.

Nearly five full scores—ninety-five years—passed between the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, which declared Black people citizens, and the 24th in 1964, which finally said they could vote without paying for the privilege. Ninety-five years between being written into the Constitution and being let into the booth. That’s not progress; that’s a slow bleed dressed up as democracy.

And that’s what makes Henrietta Wood’s victory so damn profound. She didn’t wait for the Constitution to catch up. She didn’t wait for permission. In a time when her citizenship was still a technicality and her humanity was a debate; she walked into a courtroom and forced the system to do what the law had promised but hadn’t yet learned how to deliver—recognize her.

The same law they had fought and bled for before they were even citizens. Before the ink on the 14th Amendment, before the word freedom stopped needing quotation marks. Henrietta stood on that battlefield of paperwork and principle and made the country do what the statue in the bay only claimed to represent.

She settled her own score nearly a century before the nation even realized the debt existed.

That’s why I study history. That’s why I never found it boring. Because every century, every headline, every name carved into stone is part of the same damn argument about who gets to be human and who gets to send the bill.

Henrietta Wood didn’t just win money—she won meaning. She took the same law they fought and bled for before they were even citizens, and she made it do what the statue in the bay only pretends to: stand for liberty, not theater. She didn’t ask for mercy. She demanded math.

And that’s what history really is—math written in blood and ink. Every generation adds up what the last one promised, and we’re still carrying the remainder.

So when people tell me, “History’s over,” I just laugh. The score’s not settled. Somewhere between 1868 and now—between Henrietta’s courthouse and that statue still holding her torch over borrowed water—the light keeps flickering like a warning.

What did Led Zeppelin say? “The Song Remains the Same.”

That’s the jam. Every damn time.

Author’s Note

I love history. So much that I’m building an entire website for it—and for everything else that refuses to be forgotten.

We make history in every breath we take. Every choice, every fight, every story that doesn’t get told.

How in the hell can that ever be boring?

Quote of the Day – 10312025

2025/10/31Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Halloween, QOTD12 Comments

Personal Reflection

Halloween is the great masquerade — chaos wrapped in cellophane, laughter stitched with unease. We dress up, get loud, and for one night, the world stops asking us to make sense. The absurdity feels like oxygen. Maybe that’s why we crave it — the freedom to be ridiculous without apology.

But beneath the laughter is an ancient kind of truth. Every costume hides a longing — the wish to slip out of our own skin for a while. To stop performing the version of ourselves we built to survive the daylight. Behind the mask, we can breathe. Pretending becomes its own kind of confession. Because pretending, at least, admits there’s something real we’re running from.

Maybe that’s why Halloween feels honest. It’s not the monsters that scare us — it’s the mirror. It’s knowing that when the mask comes off, the performance doesn’t. The faces we wear every other day just cost more and come without eyeholes.

Reflective Prompt

Who are you when no one’s watching — and would you recognize them if they looked back?

No Cheap Shit

2025/10/30Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2107, family, life, love, The Daily's, writing4 Comments

The Lab’s gone quiet tonight. Just me, a dead desktop, and the taste of old regret. Turns out, every shortcut comes with a bill — and this time, I paid in time I can’t get back.

Daily writing prompt

What’s something you believe everyone should know.

View all responses

NO CHEAP SHIT.
That’s my one rule in the Lab — the hill I’ll die on — and the one I just broke.

The glow of the screen paints my hands in soft blue light. LibreOffice hums open, and for a second it’s like stepping through time. The last time I used this suite, it was still called OpenOffice — back when nobody could afford Microsoft, and we were all running on hope and cracked CDs. I remember the word-processor wars: Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect, Microsoft Word. That was the golden age of making do, when half the job was convincing old machines not to die mid-save.

I’ve been thinking about all that because today I pulled a machine out of rotation. She’s sitting on the shelf now, waiting to be stripped for parts — fans still warm, power light still pulsing like a heartbeat. She’s only a few years old, but she never earned her keep. Truth is, I knew better the day I bought her.

I broke my own rule.

See, when it comes to my Lab, I don’t buy cheap — I buy right. I wait. I build machines meant to last longer than the mood I’m in. Every four or five years, I rebuild. Every eight, I start from scratch. Even the retired ones still hum like old blues records — tired but proud. One of my boys calls dibs early every cycle. Says, “Your shit be like new.”

But this one? I knew she was weak from the start. My editor warned me, and I said the four dumbest words in my vocabulary: “It’ll get me by.” She sighed — that kind of sigh that comes from knowing a man who refuses to learn the easy way. My late wife used to give me the same look.

She’d drag me through electronics aisles, make me put back laptops like they were bad decisions with price tags. “You don’t buy tools,” she’d say. “You buy time.” And she was right.

Cutting corners never saves you anything — not in money, not in effort, not in peace. It just delays the reckoning.

That off-the-rack desktop was only the second prebuilt I’d owned in forty years. First night I had it, I was already cussing under my breath. Adobe CC lagged, the fan howled, and I called tech support just to have someone to blame. Yeah — I was that guy.

Now here I am, working on a ten-year-old laptop running Linux, and she’s humming like a jazz trio at midnight. Ten years old and still moving smooth because I built her right, upgraded her right, respected her limits. Forty-eight hours into a fresh burn-in and not a single stutter.

So here’s what I believe everyone should know: don’t cut corners.
Not on your machines. Not on your craft. Not on your life.

The easy route always comes back around to collect its fee.
Because the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do in life — is the right thing.
And doing the right thing almost always takes longer, costs more, and hurts like hell in the moment.

But it lasts.

Nothing worth a damn comes easy.

Buy the right tools. Take the time to build things that endure.
Because when you cheat the process, you’re not saving time — you’re stealing it from your future self.

And time’s the only thing the Lab can’t rebuild.

Quote of the Day – 10302025

2025/10/30Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Anais Nin, Personal Growth, QOTD4 Comments

Personal Reflection

You don’t wake up one morning and decide to bloom. You reach a point where staying closed starts to hurt. It’s not courage at first — it’s exhaustion. You get tired of pretending safety feels like peace. You start to feel the pressure building under the surface, the ache that comes from containing too much life inside too small a space.

Nin understood that pain is a kind of compass. The bud doesn’t split because it wants to; it splits because it has to. The same is true for us. We stay sealed until silence becomes unbearable, until the cost of stillness outweighs the comfort of hiding. That’s when the soul begins its quiet rebellion — not loud, not triumphant, but necessary.

Growth isn’t graceful. It’s messy, tender, and often lonely. You lose parts of yourself in the process — not because they were wrong, but because they were temporary. What remains is raw, trembling, alive. And even if no one sees it, the act of blooming itself becomes an act of truth.

Sometimes healing isn’t a return. Sometimes it’s an opening.

Reflective Prompt

What have you kept sealed out of fear it might not survive the light?
What if the thing you’re protecting isn’t your fragility, but your becoming?

Quote of the Day – 10292025

2025/10/29Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Octavia Butler, QOTDLeave a comment

Personal Reflection

We like to talk about rebirth as if it’s beautiful — all gold feathers and glowing wings — but the truth is, it’s mostly smoke and silence. The fire doesn’t ask for your consent; it just arrives, uninvited, and takes everything that’s no longer meant to stay.

Rebuilding isn’t the triumphant act people make it out to be. It’s slow, deliberate, sometimes cruel. It asks you to look at what you’ve built — systems, habits, identities — and admit what’s rotting beneath the structure. That’s the part no one romanticizes: the self-audit. The dismantling. The sound of your own certainty collapsing.

Butler understood that burning isn’t the end; it’s the cost of clarity. The ashes aren’t a metaphor — they’re memory, residue, proof. To rise means to remember where you fell, and to carry the weight of that lesson into the next version of yourself.

The MKU rebuild isn’t just about reassembling hardware and code — it’s about confronting how we clutter our own creative systems with ego, sentimentality, and noise. It’s about building with intention this time — knowing what to keep, what to bury, and what deserves to burn again if it ever loses its purpose.

The phoenix doesn’t rise because of the fire. It rises through it. And that’s the difference between those who rebuild and those who simply replace.

Reflective Prompt

What part of your life or work are you still trying to rebuild on ashes that were meant to scatter?
What would it look like to stop saving what’s already served its purpose — and let the new architecture rise clean from the flame?

Forged from an Old Soul

2025/10/28Posted in ProseTagged creative writing, daily exercise, FOWC, Ink and Wounds, writingLeave a comment

He wasn’t born lucky. Nobody handed him a map.
He learned early that some of us come into this world half-built, and the rest is on us.
So he carved his name into time, steady and deliberate — a slow rebellion written in scars.

The city didn’t raise him. It tolerated him.
Concrete and glass can’t teach you much, but they’ll listen if you bleed honest enough.
He made peace with that kind of silence — the kind that hums between streetlights and memory.

There was a facility once — a place that smelled like rust, regret, and second chances.
He wasn’t supposed to be there, but he stayed.
Sometimes, a man doesn’t need comfort — he needs a place where the noise inside his head finally echoes back.
In that echo, he found rhythm. In rhythm, he found himself.
No blueprints. No saviors. Just repetition.
Each motion a prayer, each mistake a gospel of survival.

He doesn’t worship. He works.
He doesn’t beg. He endures.
And if you ask what drives him, he’ll tell you the truth —
it’s not pride or anger, not anymore. It’s the memory of a boy who promised a broken world he’d walk out standing.

Half in shadow.
Half in light.
All his.

The Draft (working title)

2025/10/27Posted in SplintersTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, Fiction, flash fiction, life, short-story, Splinters, writingLeave a comment

The ticking from the clock on the wall beat like a hammer against a concrete block—dust and debris flying, and every now and again a spark. That was my writing tonight. I had a head full of ideas but nothing with any heat. Then I heard something slide under the door. I froze for a second, thinking it might be the landlord bringing that “good news”—you know, thirty days and then it’s the bricks. But I remembered I’d caught that gig upstate with those high-class folks who wouldn’t know the blues if it hit them in the face, so I was good.

I walked to the door and looked down the hallway. Nothing. Then I saw Woodrow—the rat—gnawing on something. He paused long enough to size me up, then went back to work. I didn’t have the energy to do anything about it, and he knew it. Ms. Pearl, the neighbor’s tabby, slipped in through the gap and rubbed against my leg. I let her stay. Gave her some kibble, then hopped up on the edge of my desk. The page sat there, daring me to write something.

Someone once told me that’s how it starts: just sit in front of the typewriter and speak. Never worry about what you’re going to say; that part works itself out. Just don’t bitch out and you’ll be fine. Lamont Norman said that the day I bought his suitcase Royal typewriter. I laughed, thought he was kidding. He didn’t even smile. “I bitched out,” he said. “Good luck.” That was years ago. The typewriter’s still here—metal scarred, keys sticking like old grudges. I keep waiting for it to start talking first.

That’s when I noticed the envelope. Plain white. No stamp, no handwriting—just my name in black ink that bled a little, like the paper had been sweating. Inside: You are invited to The Draft. Midnight. The Double Down Tavern. That was it. No signature. No RSVP.

I laughed anyway. It sounded like something a drunk poet would dream up at closing time, but I stared at it longer than I should’ve. By eleven-thirty, I was tuning the Gibson, putting on the least-dirty shirt I owned, telling myself I wasn’t going. By midnight, I was already halfway there.

The Double Down? I’d heard of the place, but no one I knew had ever been there, and certainly nobody knew how to get there. It was one of those names that floated around in late-night stories—half joke, half rumor—always mentioned right before the bottle ran dry. I went down to the bodega on the corner for a pack of Luckies and to ask Mr. Park about it. Mr. Park knew everything worth knowing in this neighborhood: who owed rent, who got locked up, who was sleeping with whom.

But tonight he wasn’t there.

I can’t remember the last time I’d walked into that store and not seen him behind the counter, sitting on his stool, eyes glued to that little portable TV wrapped in enough tin foil to bake a potato. When the picture went fuzzy, he’d rap the side with his knuckles, nod, and mutter, “Everything just needs a good tap now and then.” The sound of that tap was part of the neighborhood’s heartbeat. Without it, the place felt wrong, too quiet, like the air had skipped a beat.

There was this strange woman behind the counter, somebody I’d never seen before, popping her gum slow. Who the hell pops gum slow? She didn’t even look at me when I asked for a pack of Luckies. Just slid them across the counter like she was bored of gravity. I decided to go for broke.

“Hey, you wouldn’t know how to get to the Double Down, by chance?”

She didn’t answer, just stepped out of sight for a second. When she came back, she slid a folded piece of paper across the counter. No words, no smile.

I opened it. It was an address. Nothing else.

I turned and walked out of the store, paper in one hand, cigarettes in the other. Halfway through the door, I looked back to thank her. She nodded without looking up, eyes still fixed on something only she could see. But in the glass of the door, I caught her reflection—and for half a heartbeat, I could swear her eyes were sparkling. Not with light. With recognition.

The address on the paper looked ordinary enough—just a number, a street I didn’t recognize. I lit a Lucky, watched the smoke coil off the end, and decided to walk. It wasn’t far, according to the city grid, but the grid had a habit of lying after midnight.

The streets were half empty, half asleep. A drunk kid laughed at a joke nobody told. A siren moaned somewhere uptown, fading slow like a horn section dying out. My shoes echoed too loud on the sidewalk; even the sound seemed to flinch.

I passed storefronts I swear I’d never seen before: a pawnshop that sold only typewriters, a record store where every sleeve in the window was blank white, a barber shop with a red neon sign that read OPEN but no reflection in the mirror.

The farther I went, the fewer streetlights there were. The city felt like it was backing away, leaving me to walk inside its ribs. I checked the paper again. The ink shimmered faintly, as if wet, and I realized I wasn’t reading a map—I was being led.

As I got close to the address, a drunk staggered out of the shadows and poked me in the chest. “Whatcha doin’?” he slurred, eyes glassy and mean. “You think you ready?”

I didn’t answer.

“You?” he barked again, then broke into laughter—loud, jagged, wrong. I pushed past him and kept walking, but when I looked back, the sidewalk was empty. The laughter stayed, close, right beside my ear.

I stopped cold, heart hammering. Took another drag of my straight, exhaled slow. When the smoke cleared, I turned toward the street—and there it was, standing where the map said nothing should be.

The Double Down.

The door didn’t look like much—just wood and paint tired of each other—but the air around it hummed like a bass string. I could feel the groove before I heard it. Slow twelve-bar, heavy on the bottom end, something that could drag your sins across the floor till they begged for mercy.

I grabbed the handle. The damn thing was warm. When it opened, the sound hit me full in the chest—smoke, whiskey, perfume, electricity—all of it moving to the same beat. The door sighed shut behind me like it had been waiting to breathe again.

Inside, the room stretched wider than geometry allows. Corners bent. Shadows leaned the wrong way. Tables sweated rings from drinks poured before I was born. Every light was gold, every bottle looked like it had a soul trapped inside praying for one last round.

The crowd was a mix of then and now: drunks in denim, poets in funeral suits, a few specters in clothes older than jazz. One cat had a typewriter balanced on his knees, keys twitching on their own. Another wore a fedora that flickered in and out like a bad reception. Every time I looked straight at him, the air shimmered.

Behind the bar stood a woman with silver hair and a stare that could sand wood. She polished a glass that was already clean. The jukebox switched gears—Howlin’ Wolf growling through busted speakers—and the floorboards started to tap back.

I took a seat near the door, playing it cool. The bartender poured something the color of regret and set it in front of me.

“On the house,” she said, voice smooth as gin and twice as dangerous.

I looked around. At the back, a stage the size of a confession booth glowed red. A man sat there, guitar in his lap, fingers resting easy like he’d been born holding it. He didn’t play; he just watched me. Smile sharp enough to slice a chord.

“Place got a name?” I asked.

She half-smiled. “You tell me.”

The drink burned good going down—smoke and sugar and bad decisions. I blinked, and the room changed. Every face turned my way. No talking, no movement, just the weight of attention pressing down.

Then a man in a white suit stood by the jukebox and tapped his glass. The sound cracked the silence like a snare drum.

“Welcome,” he said, voice rolling through the room slow and mean. “Welcome to the Draft.”

The crowd answered with a low hum that crawled up my spine.

I could see there were a few guys like me who didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. Then there were the ones who thought they did—scribblers with confidence and cologne, already imagining the book deals. I knew that breed. They never last. If it wasn’t so funny, it would’ve been tragic, but instead it was just pathetic.

The muses began to move—slow, gliding, half smoke, half skin. Each one shined in its own color. The room buzzed like a hive. They touched foreheads, whispered, and kissed some poor souls right on the mouth. Wherever they touched, something happened: laughter, sobbing, a glow under the skin.

Names were called. Not mine.

One by one, the seats around me emptied. The writers who’d been chosen vanished, or maybe just slipped sideways out of time. The unlucky ones sat frozen, pretending it didn’t matter, staring into their drinks like they could find meaning in the ice.

I kept my eyes down. The drink had gone warm.

A man near the jukebox started laughing too loudly. “Didn’t get the call, did ya?” he said to no one. “Guess you’ll be writing grocery lists now.” His laughter spread, nervous, contagious.

I waited. Nothing. No muse came my way.

The smug ones still sat upright, chins lifted, waiting to be crowned. I’d seen that look before at open mics and literary festivals—the face of somebody convinced the universe owed them a round of applause.

If it hadn’t been so funny, it would’ve been tragic. But right then, it just felt pathetic.

A thin, cold panic crawled up my spine. I was the last fool at the table. The muses had moved on. The man in white was clinking his glass again, ready to close the show.

I told myself I didn’t care. I told myself I’d been through worse. But I felt hollow—like a joke everyone else was in on.

I couldn’t believe this shit. I didn’t even know what The Draft was until an hour ago, and now it was already over. I didn’t get picked. Harry Lucas gets the nod? What the hell is going on?

To add insult to injury—Terry Best. Terry damn Best. Man hasn’t written a line worth reading since the Carter administration, and suddenly he’s chosen? Harry and I carried that sorry bastard for years. I’m jealous, sure. Harry’s good—better than I’ll ever admit out loud—but still, it stings.

“Congrats, you lucky fuck,” I muttered, raising my glass to no one. The drink burned all the way down, a reminder that some fires don’t keep you warm; they just scar you.

The room was thinning out. The chosen ones disappeared into the smoke with their shiny new partners. The rest sat there staring at the bar like it might offer consolation. Nobody spoke. The music died, the hum faded. For the first time all night, the silence had weight.

That’s when the folded piece of paper slid across the counter, slow and deliberate.

No one was near me. Nobody close enough to reach.

I hesitated, then picked it up. The paper smelled faintly of cigar smoke and cheap lipstick.

I unfolded it. Two words written in lipstick.

END

Mercy Street

2025/10/27Posted in SplintersTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, fantasy, Fiction, short-story, The Seven Day Mile, writingLeave a comment

A Seven Day Mile Story

Neon hummed like a migraine that wouldn’t quit, the kind that sits behind your eyes and waits for you to flinch. Rain slicked the street in lazy sheets, turning the city into a mirror that didn’t want to see itself.

He sat in the car, engine off, watching moths bump into the streetlights over and over—addicted to pain or maybe just tormented by the routine. They couldn’t help it. Neither could he. The radio crackled; he’d forgotten it was even on.

He waited for the speakers to spit louder. Voices chased one another, desperation disguised as competence. No one was fooled, but they were all too polite to say otherwise—the kind of manners born of dread and regret. He popped a couple of Rolaids into his mouth, chewed, then swallowed without a chaser.

The moths chased one another. Were they playing? Children, maybe—the streetlamp their merry-go-round. The thought made him laugh once, sharp and dry, before the static swallowed it.

A mess of transmissions blurred together, dispatch calls bleeding into the wheeze of cheap speakers. Mostly noise: arguments, false alarms, ghosts trying to sound important. Then one word cut through the distortion—Rogue.

He didn’t move. Just reached for the half-crushed pack in the cup holder, thumbed a smoke free, and watched the rain carve faint scars across the glass. He flicked his thumbnail against the wooden match, let the light burn a moment before touching it to the cigarette. The first drag went deep; he held it there, letting the nicotine do its job.

“Always the good ones that break first,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure if he meant her or himself.

The cigarette burned low, ash clinging stubbornly to the tip. He cracked the window just enough for the wind to take it. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, leaving the air thick with metal and wet concrete.
Raindrops caught the streetlight like cheap diamonds. Down the street, a siren came to life, and a dog sounded its alarm on the opposite side. Windows lit up—shadows of witnesses who’d never seen a thing. It was safer that way. They just let the Night play.

He turned the key halfway and let the dashboard flicker to life. The radio hissed again—fragments this time, coordinates maybe, or names swallowed by static.

“Thunder Island” perforated the silence. He wondered if a place like that even existed. He turned down the car radio and turned up the police band. Nothing is more dangerous than being the target of someone looking for something. They rush in, do things they can’t take back. Then they have the nerve to say they’re sorry—and worse, there are tears. Even worse, they actually mean it, and spend the rest of their lives shattered.

He didn’t bother writing anything down. Whoever was still talking wasn’t talking to him.

He leaned back, the seat creaking under his weight, and watched smoke crawl toward the open window. He told himself it was time to move, but his body didn’t buy it. There was a comfort in the stall, in pretending the world would wait for him to catch up.

When the transmission finally cleared, the voice was colder, official—clipped consonants, no room for mercy. A woman’s voice, maybe. The kind that used to mean something.

“Target confirmed. Proceed with caution.”

He took one last drag, killed the radio. The smoke burned; his eyes began to water as he started the vehicle. That deep rumble of the police interceptor always brought him joy. Agents were supposed to turn in the old cars years ago, but he and the motor sergeant had history—the kind that stands a lifetime without a single word needing to be said. The kind no one questions, because you wouldn’t like the answers.

He let the engine idle a moment, lights off, watching the rain bead and slide down the hood. Then he shifted into gear and rolled into the dark.

The rain washed the streets, but they’d never come clean. Too much poverty in the cracks, too much sorrow in the gutters, and just enough hope to make it cruel. Everyone still wanted everything—guilt, happiness, grace.

At a red light he watched a man curse his demons. He didn’t see them, but he knew they were there all the same. His own had a permanent seat beside him, rain or shine.

At the next light, a woman staggered down the block, stopped, and threw up her dinner—or breakfast, hard to tell at this hour. She braced herself on her knees, took a breath, and sat right there on the sidewalk. Wiped her mouth with her sleeve like it was just another thing to get through.

The wipers dragged across the glass with the sound of bones under cloth. He kept the lights off until he turned onto a narrower road, the kind the city forgot about except when it needed somewhere to dump its secrets.

The address came from memory. He didn’t need to check it; some places get branded into you like scars. The building looked smaller now, windows boarded up, the brick dark with age and rain. A single light glowed in the hallway upstairs—thin, yellow, and nervous.

He parked across the street, engine idling low. The smell of exhaust and damp asphalt mixed with whatever passed for courage. He sat there a long moment, thumb worrying the cigarette burn in the steering wheel, thinking about the last time he’d seen her face.

Not that it mattered. The past was a closed room; this was just cleanup duty.

He slipped the car into park, checked the glove box for the piece he never quite admitted carrying. He never liked the man he needed to be when he carried. There was a click as he fastened the sidearm in its holster. His boots and the wet pavement had a brief disagreement.

The rain had started again, softer now, whispering against his collar.

By the time he reached the door, the light upstairs was gone.

The hallway reeked of urine, stale beer, and mildew—the ghosts of the unspoken past everyone tries to forget but never does. The farther he went down the corridor, the more the aroma changed. He wished it hadn’t.

Wallpaper peeled in long curls like it was trying to escape the situation. The ceiling light flickered, revealing the old scabs beneath the peels. Even the walls were wounded.

He moved slowly, letting his boots announce him—no point sneaking when everyone in the building already knew the sound of trouble. He hoped these ghosts and his demons would play nice. He hoped he wasn’t too late, but he feared the damage had already been done. The only thing left was to manage it.

A door creaked somewhere up ahead. He stopped, listened. Nothing but the groan of pipes and the faint hum of rain slipping through the ceiling. Then a floorboard gave—deliberate, weighted.

He slid along the wall until the narrow window gave him a slice of the alley out back. A figure stood there, half in shadow, a hood pulled low. Not moving, just waiting.

He exhaled through his nose. Always the same dance—the waiting, the pretending nobody had to bleed tonight.

The back door stuck before it opened, metal swollen from the damp. He stepped out into the alley, smelling of trash and rain thick as old coffee. The figure turned, slow and calm, hands visible but empty.

“You came alone,” the voice said.

He almost smiled. “That’s what I do best.”

The silence stretched, tight enough to hum.

Rain hissed against the dumpster, each drop a small explosion in the puddles. The alley light above them buzzed and died, leaving the world painted in shadow and breath.

He kept his hands visible. No need to startle a ghost with old habits. The figure’s hood fell back just enough for him to see the face—tired, older, eyes like a mirror that didn’t want to reflect him.

“You shouldn’t have come,” the voice said.

“Maybe not,” he answered. “But I never was good at staying gone.”

She—or maybe it was just the shape of what she’d become—tilted her head, rain streaking down her cheek like sweat.

“They said you sold me out.”

He took a slow breath, the kind meant to buy time, not truth.
“You know better.”

She stepped closer. Close enough for him to smell the rain in her hair, the metal tang of adrenaline.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

He looked past her, at the alley mouth where light threatened to crawl in.
“Seriously? When did you start believing dumbshit?”

The silence that followed was heavier than the rain. She didn’t lower the gun, but her hand shook just enough to show the years between them.

“You always did know how to ruin a moment,” she said.

He almost smiled. “Guess some things don’t fade.”

The safety clicked off—soft, final.

Author’s Note:
Today’s plan is simple — celebrate a friend who’s been the steady hand behind the chaos.
It’s my editor’s birthday (yeah, a little late — story of my life), and she’s the reason this machine keeps running when I’m ready to set it on fire.

She spent her day listening to me whining about rebuilding the Lab, cleaning up code, catching my typos, and quietly holding everything together. That’s how she works — no spotlight, no noise, just precision and patience.

So this one’s for her. She hasn’t read Mercy Street yet — but she’s in it. Not by name, but in every line that holds restraint where rage should be, in every small mercy that refuses to die.

And since it’s her birthday, I’ll be posting a few extra stories — wouldn’t want her thinking she’s getting off easy or anything.

Happy belated birthday, Editor Extraordinaire.
Here’s to late nights, clean drafts, and the kind of loyalty that never asks for applause.

Guppy, Mojo, and Does Anybody Have a Cigarette?

2025/10/25Posted in ProseTagged books, creative writing, daily exercise, Fiction, life, love, Random Thoughts, writing11 Comments

(Memoirs of Madness — Return Post)

When my system went down, it seemed like divine intervention—a forced pause. I took the chance to stop fighting the noise and reset my creative energy.

I sat there for a minute, half expecting the room to fill with people saying, “We’re here because we love and care about you. We’re worried. You don’t seem okay.”
Instead, it was just me—and Guppy, staring like she’d seen this movie before.
I muttered my customary “Kick Rocks,” and she gave me that look:
“What’s going on with you, human? Pet me. Feed me. Clean my poop.”

Fair enough.

And because the universe clearly thought I needed a little more chaos, I decided to quit smoking. Yep, that was a moment of brilliance right there, buddy.
I can’t remember the last time I built a machine, wrote a line, or rewired a circuit without a cigarette hanging from my lips or burning down in the ashtray. The old routine: light another while one’s already smoldering, forget which is which, call it inspiration.
Now I’m in the cut back phase. Pray for me, light a candle, or call a hoodoo man to lay down some mojo—I can use all the help I can get.

Somewhere in the middle of all that nicotine withdrawal and digital resurrection, I pulled up the storyboard and looked at the mess. Dozens of storylines—some finished, most not. I decided it was time to clean house.
So I’m finishing what I started. Focusing on the long fiction threads and promising myself that from here on, quality comes first. The foundation’s solid, but there’s still plenty of building to do.

You’ve all been patient, loyal, and willing to walk through my corridors of madness while I rebuild piece by piece. You deserve the best I’ve got—and that’s exactly what’s coming.

I suppose I should be pulling my hair out… wait, I’m bald—so I’m good.

When the Milk Crate Was the Cloud

2025/10/24Posted in ProseTagged #Creativity, #Mindset, #Rebuilding, #resilience, #SelfSufficiency, creative writing, daily exercise, healing, life, mental health, Random Thoughts, writing4 Comments

Understanding begins where the noise ends.

“The cracks are where the future gets in.” — Nick Cave

Earlier this week, I wrote about dealing with multiple system failures — digital, emotional, creative. The kind of breakdown that makes everything feel heavier. Every keystroke. Every thought.

I couldn’t even open a text editor without feeling like the machine and I were daring each other to quit first.

So, I did what any rational person does when their world starts flickering — I tore it down.

Every wire. Every drive. Every application.

I started looking at everything — the hardware, the software, even the mental clutter I’d built around them. And I started cutting. To borrow a writer’s term, I’ve been killing my darlings. Not just the old drafts and half-finished files, but the stuff I’d been keeping out of sentiment — tools I didn’t use, folders I hadn’t opened since the Obama years, plans I wasn’t brave enough to admit were dead.

It’s strange, what survives a purge. The things you thought mattered crumble under scrutiny, while the quiet essentials — the things that actually serve you — emerge stronger, cleaner.

That’s when it hit me: maybe this isn’t just about computers. Maybe it’s about life architecture.

The Breakdown Phase

Sometimes the system has to fail so you’ll finally stop pretending it’s fine.

When the screens went dark, it wasn’t just technology collapsing — it was me running into the edge of my own maintenance backlog. You know the one: the projects, bills, and habits that pile up in the background while you tell yourself you’ll “get to it.”

Then, one day, everything gets to you instead.

But here’s the gift buried in the crash — it forces you to re-evaluate everything. To sit in the silence after the hum fades and ask: what’s still necessary? what’s still mine?

Back When We Built Our Own Fixes

I come from a time when computers didn’t “just work.” You had to earn them.

You didn’t buy plug-and-play — you built plug-and-hope. You traded parts out of milk crates, scribbled command lines in pencil, and held your breath during the boot beep because you weren’t sure if the whole thing would smoke or sing.

We understood our machines because we had to.*

There was intimacy in it — a relationship between curiosity and consequence. You learned to think like a system, to troubleshoot your way through the mess.

Now everything’s sealed, optimized, “user-friendly.” But friendly to whom?

The less we have to know, the less we understand. And when we stop understanding, we lose something fundamental — the muscle memory of resilience.

We used to break things and fix them.
Now we just replace them and complain.

The Rebuild

So I went back to basics.

I started rebuilding my system piece by piece, checking every connection, testing every drive. And as I did, I realized this wasn’t just a technical reset — it was a personal audit.

I’ve been doing the same thing with my finances: cutting unnecessary subscriptions, auditing expenses, trimming the fat. I’m tired of auto-renewed everything — the digital equivalent of dust.

Same with my creativity. If a tool doesn’t serve the work, it’s gone. No more chasing new apps, new aesthetics, new noise. I’m rebuilding for efficiency, not ego.

There’s a strange peace in it — this deliberate stripping away. It reminds me that clarity isn’t something you download. It’s something you earn, line by line, dollar by dollar, decision by decision.

The System and the Self

The truth is, we’re not that different from the machines we build.

We run on energy and memory. We slow down when cluttered. We crash when overheated.
And sometimes, the only way forward is to reformat.

But unlike machines, we get to choose how we rebuild.
We decide what stays. We define what’s worth running.

This whole process — the wires, the drives, the self-audits — it isn’t about perfection. It’s about understanding. I don’t need things to run flawlessly. I just need them to make sense.

Keep Going, Responsibly

Here’s the part nobody romanticizes: rebuilding is exhausting. It’s unglamorous. It’s long hours, slow progress, and endless testing.

But it’s also the only way to ensure what you’re building can stand on its own.

Sometimes you have to keep going — not because it’s easy, but because stopping would mean accepting confusion as normal.

I’ve learned that keep going doesn’t mean sprinting through burnout. It means moving with intention.
It means knowing when to step back, when to unplug, when to rewrite the damn script.

Because in life — just like in code — the smallest syntax errors can wreck the whole thing if you never stop to look.

“Sometimes you just have to keep walking, even if the map burned up a few miles back.” — Unknown

Author’s Note

Patience is a kind of engineering.
You learn it by failing, by pausing, by realizing not everything needs to be fixed immediately.

Lately, I’ve been reminding myself that understanding — real understanding — takes time. Systems crash. People do too. What matters is how we rebuild, not how fast.

So if you’re in one of those messy seasons — where every wire feels tangled and every drive hums with static — breathe. Slow down. Learn your system before you rewrite it.

You’ll get there. Just not all at once.

By Its Light

2025/10/21Posted in SplintersTagged creative writing, daily exercise, family, Fiction, flash fiction, FSS, Grief, life, love, Resilience, Splinters, writing18 Comments

We learn to live with death the same way we read by firelight—slowly, painfully, beautifully.

No one prepares you for the feeling of loving something that Death has touched.

I sit here looking around his cabin—now mine. The air smells of pine sap, old smoke, and the faint tang of whiskey soaked into the floorboards. Dust floats through the thin light that leaks between the curtains. Each corner is stacked with books—subjects as varied as anatomy and jazz theory. A shelf of vinyl lines the far wall: Coltrane, Bessie Smith, Robert Johnson. Then, tucked behind them, a few heavy metal records—Sabbath, Maiden, Priest. My father, it seems, was a closet metalhead. I smile at that. Maybe I inherited more from him than just a pulse: the music, the books, the need to understand the noise inside.

Warmth slides down my cheeks before I realize I’m crying. The tears catch the scent of dust and woodsmoke, grounding me. I never knew him growing up. He and my mother had a moment in their teens—one of those sparks people mistake for destiny before life smothers it with reason. She was in law school; he was home on leave from the Army. They met at a party through a mutual friend, made promises under a drunk moon, and a week later, he shipped out. Nine months later—technically ten, if you’re counting the way we do in obstetrics—I arrived.

I became a doctor partly to make sense of what my mother wouldn’t talk about: biology, infection, the way life insists on being messy no matter how sterile you keep your hands. That’s where I met my father—though I didn’t know it then.

He came into the ER after an accident. I was covering trauma, running late for my weekly lunch with Mom. She’s a federal judge now, but every Thursday we make time—just an hour to remember we’re still mother and daughter, not just professionals orbiting duty.

When I finally reached the ER, Mom was already there. She’d come looking for me, irritation etched into her face. But as I began to explain, she froze. Her gaze fixed on the patient lying in bed—multiple fractures, head laceration, vitals unstable but holding. The antiseptic smell and hum of monitors felt suddenly foreign, like I’d stepped out of my own body.

“Mom?” I asked.

She stepped closer to the bed. Her hand rose to her mouth, and for the first time in my life, I saw her cry. Real tears—silent, unstoppable. She reached out, caressed the man’s forehead, her fingers trembling like someone touching a ghost.

“Mom, what’s going on? Do you know him?”

She didn’t answer. Just kept tracing the lines of his face, as if memory might come alive under her touch.

“Mom!”

Finally, she turned toward me, her voice steady but low.
“He’s your father.”

Then she pulled a chair to his bedside, sat down, and called her clerk to clear her docket.

My chest tightened. My legs went weak. I recognized the physiology even as it overtook me—tachycardia, dizziness, shallow breath. I nearly hit the floor before someone caught me.
Carol—my charge nurse, my right hand for ten years. A skinny little thing, but deceptively strong.

We weren’t just colleagues. We were friends.

“Sue, what’s going on?” she asked, her voice sharp with command. I heard her barking orders, but the words blurred into static. The next thing I knew, I was staring at a white ceiling, the steady beep of a monitor tracing the edge of my humiliation.

I tried to sit up—irritated beyond measure—but Carol pushed me back down with one hand. For such a small woman, she was a brick wall.

“Pilates?” I asked, breathless, trying to find my bearings.

She grinned, pouring me a cup of water. “The Judge filled me in. Your dad’s a hottie, by the way. Banged up and all.”

I snorted. Of course, she’d say something like that. That was Carol—always trying to make me laugh when she knew I was about to unravel. The water tasted metallic from the cup, cold against the desert of my throat.

She stood beside me, one hand resting over mine, thumb tracing small circles like she was smoothing out the tremors beneath my skin. Neither of us spoke for a while. The monitors filled the silence. Somewhere down the hall, a code was called, and the world kept spinning as if mine hadn’t just tilted off its axis.

After a few minutes, I was steady enough to stand. Carol and I walked back to my father’s room. The corridor smelled faintly of disinfectant and rain-soaked concrete from the ambulance bay. Mom sat beside his bed, holding his hand. The look on her face—devastation mixed with fierce worry—nearly broke me. When she saw me, she stood and came toward me, wrapping me in a soft and trembling hug.

“You okay? I know it’s a lot,” she said.

“It must’ve been one hell of a week,” I quipped.

To my surprise, she roared with laughter—real, unrestrained laughter. I didn’t think it was funny, but she lost it in the middle of the ER.

“It was, actually,” she said, still smiling. “We made you.”

Her eyes drifted off somewhere far beyond the fluorescent lights. It’s strange how memory works—how it lets you step back in time, not just to see it, but to feel it, every heartbeat replaying as if the past were still happening right now.

I had two years with him. Two years I’ll never trade for anything. I’d never seen my mother happier. Watching them together, I understood their brief story hadn’t been some teenage fling—it was a spark that waited decades to breathe again. For a while, it felt like the world had given us a second chance.

Then the disease came, and everything changed.
Nothing was ever the same after that.

So far, the disease had cropped up in five different towns, ravaging everyone and everything in its wake. My father was one of them.

I begged my mother to leave the area, but her stubborn ass wouldn’t budge.

“I won’t hear of it! Nothing’s running me from my home,” she snapped.

I couldn’t believe people actually said that kind of thing outside of old movies. I figured it was one of those lines characters use when they’ve already decided they’re not going anywhere.

Then she gave me that look—sharp, deliberate—and sighed.
“Okay,” she said finally, downing her afternoon scotch. “When are we leaving?”

“I have patients, Mom,” I replied.

She smirked faintly, that judge’s confidence slipping through the exhaustion. “So do I, honey. Mine just happen to sit in courtrooms instead of hospital beds.”

“We just lost Albie to this shit. I won’t risk you as well,” she said.

That stopped me cold. Mom never swore. That was Dad’s thing. Hearing it from her snapped something loose inside me. I looked at her, really looked, and saw the fear beneath all that steel.

We stood there in silence, and in that silence we understood what needed to be done. If it was going to end, let it end like this—on our feet, fighting.

“Sue, honey, you die with your boots on,” my father had told me when he first started showing symptoms. He’d been delivering meds to the infected zones, refusing to stay home. I begged him to stop, but a daughter’s love isn’t enough to turn a man away from his calling.

I wish it were.

Back at the cabin, the world felt smaller, quieter. The disease had moved on, taking what it wanted and leaving the rest of us to sort through the ruins.

I sat in Dad’s old rocker, which creaked like it still remembered his rhythm. The fire popped softly in the hearth, smoke curling through the faint scent of pine and old varnish. A book lay on the end table—Judas, My Brother. Of course. Trust Dad to pick something that questioned everything. I turned it over, thumbed through the pages soft from use, and slipped on his glasses. The prescription was surprisingly close to mine. The world blurred for a heartbeat, then settled into focus—clearer, heavier.

Mom had built the fire and sat on the couch with her usual scotch, watching the flames without speaking. The glass glinted amber in her hand. She didn’t have to say anything. The silence between us said everything—loss, endurance, maybe even grace.

I read a few lines, hearing his voice in the space between words. Then I closed the book, leaned back in his chair, and let the rocker creak like it was breathing for him.

No one prepares you for the feeling of loving something that Death has touched.
But you learn.
You learn to read by its light.

Author’s Note:
Inspired by Fandango’s Story Starter #223.
Thank you, Fandango, for the spark — this one burned quietly but deep.

Quote of the Day – 10212025

2025/10/212025/10/21Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTDLeave a comment

Personal Reflection

There comes a point after the breaking, after the rebuilding, where words stop being useful. The noise of explanation fades, and you find yourself in a quieter kind of space — not healed exactly, but emptied of the need to defend your scars.

Silence isn’t absence. It’s an invitation — the kind that makes you uncomfortable at first because it offers no distraction, no applause. Just you, sitting with the echo of your own pulse. For years, you filled the quiet with stories about what should’ve been, what could’ve been, who you might have been if life had been kinder. But the soul doesn’t whisper to your potential — it speaks to what’s real.

That whisper doesn’t flatter. It doesn’t beg for recognition. It just asks: Are you listening yet?

To live from that place — the still, unhurried center — is to understand that peace isn’t the absence of pain; it’s the willingness to stop resisting it. It’s knowing that sometimes the most radical act of strength is to be still long enough for your soul to find its voice again.

Reflective Prompt

When was the last time you let silence speak without interrupting it?
What might your soul be trying to tell you beneath all that noise?

Quote of the Day – 10202025

2025/10/202025/10/20Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Ernest Hemingway, QOTD7 Comments

Personal Reflection

We spend our youth believing we can outrun the breaking. We think strength means staying intact, uncracked, untouched by loss. But the world has a way of teaching otherwise. It doesn’t ask permission before it takes something from you — it just keeps carving until all that’s left is what can’t be taken.

Hemingway understood that kind of strength — the kind that’s not visible until after everything else is gone. The kind born from what survives the fracture. Brokenness doesn’t make us less whole; it makes us more true. The places we seal with gold, with grit, with sheer will — those become our proof of living.

The mistake isn’t in breaking; it’s in pretending the wound never happened. The body remembers, the soul remembers, and if we’re lucky, we learn to move differently — not out of fear, but out of reverence.

Sometimes strength isn’t the rebuilding of what was lost. Sometimes it’s learning to carry the crack like a scar that hums when it rains — a reminder that you’re still here, and somehow, still capable of beauty.

Reflective Prompt

What part of your story did you once call broken that now carries your strength?
Can you trace the light that seeps through the cracks you tried so long to hide?

Well Shit, There Is Never Enough Duct Tape

2025/10/202025/10/20Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2096, Resilience, The Daily's, writer's life, writer's on writing, writing8 Comments

Weathered, Hard Knocks Wisdom

Well shit. There is never enough duct tape.

Guppy and I are sitting in the middle of chaos again. She’s perched on the edge of the desk, licking her paw like she’s above it all. Around us, the lab looks like a hardware crime scene — cables spilling from gutted towers, screws scattered like confession pieces. A half-drunk cup of coffee cools beside me, burnt and bitter, the official scent of frustration.

She meows right on cue, the sound sharp and knowing. I look over. “Yeah,” I tell her. “I did it again.”

Outside, the truck’s still dead in the driveway. The house keeps popping up new problems like it’s auditioning for a demolition reel. And inside, my computers — the ones that run everything I’ve built — have decided to crash in unison. It’s a full symphony of failure.

It kinda feels like life bitch-slapped me. I’m standing there, half laughing, half wondering what cosmic fuse I blew this time. Then, in my mind, a ghostly finger points right at me and says, in that whiny little voice only the universe uses: “You know why.” The kind of voice that grates — part guilt, part game show host.

So I sit there, breathing through the noise, because reacting to chaos never resolves anything. There’s never enough duct tape for that kind of mess.

I’ve been fixing broken things since I was a kid. Did my first tune-up at eight years old — or what I thought was a tune-up. Standing on a kitchen chair in my school clothes, wrench in hand, trying to change plugs and set points. Madre nearly lost her mind when she saw the grease stains on that chair. But when that engine coughed back to life, I felt it — that quiet click inside that says, You can fix this.

Then came the eighties and my next addiction: computers. Back before color screens and mouse pads, when hope fit on a floppy disk and syntax errors were life lessons. We typed code line by line, fingers crossed, praying the damn thing would run. Our instructors were learning right beside us. When we figured out how to make a 5.25-inch floppy dual-sided, we thought we were gods.

We wrote everything down back then — notebooks, sketchpads, pages of half-finished programs and circuit doodles. There weren’t breaches in those days, just broken noses if someone got too close to your notebook. Hidden between the pages, you’d find a floppy or two — our version of a flash drive. Everything we built lived by hand, by instinct, by obsession.

I remember the early version of Memoirs of Madness. It wasn’t even a site yet — just an idea and a laptop I built from scavenged parts. I used to walk to the local library to borrow their Wi-Fi, fingers freezing on the keyboard, trying to post something before the battery died. My first “lab” was a pile of junked machines I dragged home and resurrected. Every boot-up felt like a small miracle, a little defiance against the void.

Then I got fancy — started buying ready-made machines, the kind that come preloaded with operating systems that assume they know what’s best for you. Windows. Loud, bossy, always watching. So I went back to Linux. The hard way, of course.

And naturally, it couldn’t be as simple as clicking “install.” There are, what, fifty different Linux distros to choose from? (It’s probably not fifty, but in the middle of a rebuild, it sure as hell feels like it.) Matching distro to hardware… don’t even get me started. The world’s built for Windows and Mac, not for the stubborn few still willing to build their own bones.

My old MacBook’s still around, though. She’s slow, loyal, and half-retired. She’s got the heart for it, just not the legs. I can’t bring myself to replace her. We’ve been through too much — too many drafts, too many late nights, too many little resurrections.

Every crash, every patch, every clunky restart just reminds me: I’ve been here before. Different machines, same madness.

It’s that time of year again — the anniversaries of loss, the kind that pile up quietly. Some losses don’t stay buried; they just wait for the calendar to circle back. And it’s in moments like these you pause, wondering what the right response to chaos even looks like. Because reacting never fixes it — there’s never enough duct tape.

The machines hum again now — not perfect, but alive. The house still leaks. The truck still sulks. I’ll fix what I can, curse what I can’t, and keep rebuilding in the meantime.

Guppy jumps into my lap, head-butts my beard, and purrs like she’s proud of me for surviving another day. I scratch behind her ear, take a sip of cold coffee, and sigh.

So, what am I working on?

My life.

And for now, it’s still running — a little buggy, sure, but running all the same.

Groove, Guppy… Guppy? Groove, please… ah, yes, thank you.

🎧 Soundtrack: “Help Me” – Sonny Boy Williamson II | “The Stumble” – Freddie King

Daily writing prompt

What have you been working on?

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Quote of the Day – 10192025

2025/10/19Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Clarissa Pinkola Estes, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection

The world teaches you early how to hide. Not maliciously — just insistently. It rewards composure, not truth; appearance, not presence. You learn to smile when you want to scream, to make peace with things that gnaw at you in the dark. Hiding becomes habit, and habit becomes identity.

But there comes a breaking point — subtle at first — when the performance starts to hurt more than the exposure ever could. That’s where Estés is pointing. Standing up and showing your soul isn’t rebellion for its own sake; it’s survival through honesty. It’s saying, I will not vanish to make you comfortable.

To show your soul in a storm is not to transcend fear but to let it stand beside you. To let the world see your tremor and your teeth, your tenderness and your rage — unedited. Because calm doesn’t mean silence; sometimes calm is the stillness that remains after everything collapses and you refuse to collapse with it.

The soul isn’t a performance. It’s the quiet insistence that even if the world doesn’t listen, you’ll speak anyway — not to be heard, but to stay human.

Reflective Prompt

Where in your life have you been mistaking composure for peace?
What would happen if you stopped shrinking to survive and started letting your unguarded self breathe in full view of the storm?

When the Room Goes Quiet

2025/10/19Posted in ProseTagged blog, creative writing, daily exercise, life, love, mental health, Random Thoughts, writer's life, writers on writing, writing5 Comments

“Fear doesn’t always mean run. Sometimes it means you’ve finally cornered the truth.”

Let’s start with an admission: I’ve never liked the sound of my own voice.
Not the way it cracks when I speak too quickly, or how it forgets itself halfway through a thought. Writing has always been safer — the words obey there. They arrive dressed and deliberate. Out loud, they stumble.

Before I speak, my body stages a small rebellion. My pulse climbs. My jaw tightens. The air feels heavy, as if the room is waiting to see what kind of fraud I’ll turn out to be. That’s what fear does — it turns attention into judgment, curiosity into threat. Only when I’m speaking about my writing does this happen — as if some inner voice hisses, “How dare you think your work is worthy of commentary?”

Yet outside the creative world, I’ve never hesitated to speak. Giving orders? No problem. I did it unapologetically. If someone broke down or got their feelings hurt, my answer was simple: “It’s not my fault your parents raised you to be a pansy.” Was that wrong? Of course. But it was effective — more often than not. That’s why the transition to civilian life hit me like a slow collapse. You can’t bark your way through vulnerability. You can’t command creativity. It doesn’t answer to rank.

But it isn’t really the audience I fear. It’s exposure.
Writing lets me curate my confessions, polish the edges, make the mess beautiful. Speaking strips that away. It demands the raw version — the one that still shakes. And people are strange — sometimes cruel. Some need to be publicly flogged for how they treat others. I laugh when life gives them a taste of their own medicine. Not because two wrongs make a right — they don’t — but because it’s human to feel that flicker of satisfaction when justice shows up wearing irony’s grin. What always gets me, though, is how quickly the guilty feign ignorance. “I’ve done nothing,” they say. Or worse, “All I did was…” as if cruelty came with a receipt and a refund policy.

Sometimes I wonder if the page has made me soft. Soft in that pansy way I used to mock. Where are the tissues? Did you just hand me the cheap stuff? Man, you better give me the Puffs if we’re gonna do this right.
Thank you.
Where was I?
Right — softness. I can write about grief, about love, about the parts of me that never healed. It’s almost easy to do so from the shadows, where no one sees your face or knows your name. A brave soul or a coward? Maybe both.

What do I look like without my mask? Will it fall away, or do I have to peel it off piece by piece? It’s okay to be frightened by what you see. It’s okay to scream aloud as you stare at the stranger in front of you — until you realize it isn’t a stranger at all.
It’s you.
And that’s the moment the voice in your head mutters, “The shit just got real. Damn it, man.”

Could I say these things out loud without flinching? Could I bear the sound of my truth without a backspace key to hide behind?

Maybe that’s what this season of my life is about — learning to live without the safety of revision. To understand that fear, pain, and uncertainty aren’t evidence of weakness, but proof that I’m alive — proof that I matter. The pounding of my heart, the sweat along my brow, the tingling at my edges — they’re all part of it. Then somewhere amidst all of this, I clear the mechanism. Serenity appears. It doesn’t replace the fear, pain, or uncertainty; it listens to them. They have a conversation while I exhale.

I don’t know if I’ll ever love the microphone. But I’m starting to think the page and the stage aren’t enemies. They’re just two mirrors — one for the voice, one for the soul — and I’m standing between them, trying to recognize my own reflection.

Reflective Prompt

What would your truth sound like if you stopped editing it mid-sentence?
Say it out loud — even if your voice shakes.

Author’s Note

Sometimes honesty is a fistfight between who we were and who we’re trying to be. This one left a few bruises — the good kind.
Now, if anyone knows where I left the ice packs… or hell, even a bag of frozen peas — I’m open to suggestions.
Where’s the love, people? Where’s the love?

Tell Yourself Whatever You Need To

2025/10/18Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2095, emotional honesty, healing, human behavior, identity, Introspection, introvert, life, love, memoir, mental health, Perception, personal essay, reflection, self awareness, silence, solitude, The Daily's, truth, vulnerability, writing5 Comments

Most people think I’m loud — the kind of person who fills a room just by showing up. The one cracking jokes, telling stories, holding court like I was born to. I let them believe it. It keeps things easier, smoother. But truthfully, I’m an introvert in disguise — a quiet man who learned that silence makes people nervous.

I’ve actually heard folks say they were scared of me when I didn’t talk. Something about my face, maybe — the way it rests heavy, unreadable, like I’m thinking too much or judging too hard. I guess that’s my curse: I look like trouble when I’m just tired.

So I talk. Even when I don’t want to. Even when the words feel like sand in my mouth. I talk to make other people comfortable, to smooth over the awkwardness that silence seems to bring. I know that probably sounds weak, but it helps things along. It makes the day move easier. And sometimes, pretending to be the loud one is less exhausting than explaining why I’m quiet.

When I worked in offices, coworkers would say things like, “Are you judging me?” or “You’re judging me right now, aren’t you?” or “You look like you’re about to call me a name.” I’d laugh it off, but inside, I wasn’t judging anyone. I was probably thinking about a story idea, or how lunch wasn’t sitting right, or why the hell the printer only jammed when I used it. But try explaining that without sounding like a weirdo. It’s easier just to say something funny, make them laugh, keep the peace.

Even my ex used to tell me, “Let me know before you go dark.” She meant the quiet spells — those stretches when I’d retreat into my head, writing or reading or just not talking. To her, silence felt like absence, like a door closed without warning. But for me, it was never about her. It was how I reset. I don’t disappear out of anger; I disappear to breathe. But try convincing someone of that when they’ve been taught that noise means love.

The truth is, I can go days without saying a word and feel completely fine. The quiet doesn’t scare me — it steadies me. It’s where I make sense of things. Where I untangle the noise I swallowed all week. My desk becomes a refuge. A book, a pen, and a cup of cooling coffee are enough to rebuild the parts I’ve spent too long bending out of shape for other people’s peace.

But silence has its own cost. You start to wonder if anyone ever really knew you beneath the performance. If they’d still come around if you stopped making it easy for them. If they’d sit in the quiet long enough to realize you’re not angry — just tired of having to explain your existence.

So yeah, I’m loud. But not because I love attention. I’m loud because silence unsettles people, and I’ve spent too many years trying not to be someone’s reason for discomfort. Maybe that’s my weakness. Or maybe it’s another kind of grace — learning to speak, even when the world hasn’t earned your voice.

Before I go dark.

Daily writing prompt

What’s something most people don’t know about you?

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Quote of the Day – 10182025

2025/10/182025/10/17Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Flannery O'Connor, QOTD, self-discovery6 Comments

Personal Reflection

Truth doesn’t wait for your readiness. It doesn’t knock before it enters — it walks straight through the front door, dripping rain and dirt across the floorboards of your comfort. We spend years pretending we want it, when what we really crave is permission to keep lying — softly, politely, to ourselves.

The truth shows up anyway. It doesn’t shout. It sits in the corner like an old ghost, watching you rehearse the same story about who you are. And when it finally speaks, it doesn’t ask for belief — it asks for surrender.

There’s a moment, quiet and awful, when you realize your reflection has stopped negotiating. You can’t hide behind good intentions or clever reasoning anymore. The truth has no interest in the version of you that survives through performance. It wants what’s underneath — the trembling, unvarnished you who still flinches at the sound of your own name.

We call that pain. I think it’s grace. The kind that doesn’t comfort but cleanses — the kind that strips you down to bone so you can finally stop pretending you’re made of anything else.

Reflective Prompt

What truth have you avoided because it threatened your favorite lie?
And if you faced it now — no armor, no story — what part of you would it ask to die so the rest could live?

Quote of the Day – 10172025

2025/10/17Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Lao Tzu, QOTD5 Comments

Personal Reflection

Most people chase knowledge like it’s armor — how to read a room, how to outthink, outmaneuver, outlast. But Lao Tzu wasn’t speaking to the mind that conquers. He was warning the mind that hides.

Knowing yourself isn’t gentle work. It’s the slow dismantling of every story you’ve been told about who you’re supposed to be — the cultural scripts, the self-help slogans, the identities you inherited and performed until they hardened into skin. When you peel all that away, what’s left isn’t serenity. It’s fear. Vulnerability. Indecision.

And that’s the point. Those aren’t flaws to fix — they’re evidence that something real is surfacing. We were never meant to overcome fear; we were meant to understand it. Vulnerability isn’t weakness; it’s the seam where truth leaks in. Mastery, in the truest sense, isn’t dominance over emotion but intimacy with it. It’s standing inside your own uncertainty and not reaching for a mask.

The work of self-knowledge doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a lifetime of dissolving illusions at the speed of honesty — a slow unlearning of the urge to control. Enlightenment isn’t an event. It’s the moment-to-moment practice of not turning away from what you find.

Power isn’t the absence of weakness. It’s the courage to remain whole in the presence of it.

Reflective Prompt

When the performance falls away, what remains that’s still you?
What truth waits behind the fear you keep calling failure?
Sit with that — not to fix it, but to finally hear what it’s been trying to tell you.

Quote of the Day – 10162025

2025/10/16Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Blaise Pascal, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection

Pascal wasn’t dismissing reason — he was reminding us that logic alone can’t explain why we ache, why we love the wrong people, why we stay when leaving would make sense. The heart lives by its own compass, unbothered by the tidy arguments of the mind.

We try to dissect our feelings until they make sense, but the heart resists translation. It knows things reason can’t touch — the weight of silence, the pull of memory, the strange faith that something unseen still matters. To live by reason alone is to flatten experience into facts; to live only by the heart is to drown in its tide. The tension between the two is where we become human — trembling, inconsistent, and alive.

Maybe the heart’s “reasons” aren’t irrational but ancient — the echo of something older than language, something that recognizes meaning long before we can explain it. The challenge isn’t to silence one or the other but to let them speak in turn: the mind for direction, the heart for purpose.

Because the truth is, reason can chart the path — but only the heart can tell us why we’re walking it.

Reflective Prompt

When has your heart led you somewhere reason warned against? Did it end in ruin or revelation — and what did it teach you about the cost of trusting what cannot be explained?

The Geography of Silence

2025/10/15Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2092, The Daily's, writing10 Comments

Daily writing prompt

What makes a good neighbor?

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A good neighbor knows when not to wave.
They nod from across the street, maybe lift a hand if the mood strikes, but mostly—they stay put. They don’t wander over with gossip wrapped in small talk or ask what that noise was last night. They know everyone’s got ghosts, and some of us like to drink coffee with ours in peace.

A good neighbor minds their lawn, their lights, and their damn business. They understand proximity isn’t friendship—it’s geography. The best ones don’t pretend otherwise. They’re the kind who’ll pull your trash bin up to the curb when you forget, but never ask why you forgot in the first place.

But here’s the part no one admits: good neighbors save us, quietly.
They remind us we’re not alone even when we choose to be. The sound of their footsteps, the faint hum of their television through the wall—it’s proof of life, the fragile kind that keeps you tethered when the world starts feeling too wide. We may never speak beyond a passing hello, but that’s not indifference. It’s understanding.

The secret isn’t in being close—it’s in being considerate. It’s in knowing that kindness sometimes looks like silence. And if you’re lucky, it’s in the neighbor who nods at you through the blinds, both of you quietly agreeing that the best relationships are the ones that never need explaining.

Quote of the Day – 10152025

2025/10/15Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Charles Bukowski, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection

Bukowski’s honesty is never graceful — that’s what makes it real. He understood that survival isn’t about glory; it’s about accumulation. The bruises we carry, the choices that aged us, the regrets that keep whispering — these aren’t failures to erase, but evidence that we kept showing up when we didn’t have to.

Life doesn’t move in a clean line of progress. It staggers, loops, and limps through us. We build meaning not from perfection but from persistence — the ability to keep gathering the broken parts and calling them experience. The small victories aren’t glamorous. They’re getting out of bed when your bones feel heavy with yesterday. They’re forgiving yourself for another false start. They’re learning to see beauty in the unremarkable act of continuing.

Maybe that’s the quiet miracle Bukowski was naming — that survival itself, however messy, is its own kind of art. The fact that you’re still here, still trying, still writing your name across another day — that’s not failure. That’s the unfinished triumph of being human.

Reflective Prompt

When you look back on your own story, what small victories do you overlook — the quiet moments where you showed resilience, grace, or stubbornness just to keep going? What would it mean to see your survival not as luck or accident, but as a deliberate act of creation?

Quote of the Day – 10142025

2025/10/14Posted in Quote of the DayTagged books, Carson McCullers, EmotionalTruth, InnerJourney, poetry, QOTD, Quote of the Day, quotes, Travel7 Comments

Personal Reflection

McCullers was never writing about geography. She was writing about that quiet fracture between who we are and who we ache to become — the homes we build in imagination because the real ones never fit quite right. There’s a particular loneliness in that, a nostalgia not for the past but for the version of ourselves we lost along the way. We crave a place that holds our contradictions without judgment — something both foreign and familiar, like memory speaking in a language we almost remember.

We carry our restlessness like an heirloom. It shows up in the urge to move, to start over, to burn everything and begin again. But what if the places we long for aren’t physical at all? What if they’re the internal landscapes we abandoned — the wonder we traded for control, the softness we sacrificed to survive? Maybe the “foreign and strange” McCullers speaks of isn’t elsewhere — maybe it’s the uninhabited corners of ourselves we’ve been too afraid to enter.

We mistake longing for direction. We chase what’s distant because it feels safer than sitting still with our own ghosts. But the truth is, we’re all homesick for something intangible — the feeling of being entirely known, entirely unhidden. And perhaps the work of living isn’t about finding that home, but creating it — brick by tender brick — inside the ruins we already occupy.

Reflective Prompt

When you trace the map of your own life, what places do you return to — not the ones on any atlas, but the ones that live behind your ribs? Where does your spirit feel most unfinished, most in-between? And if the home you long for has never existed, what would it look like if you began to build it within yourself — from memory, imagination, and the fragments of everything you’ve survived?

Quote of the Day – 10132025

2025/10/132025/10/13Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Charles Bukowski, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection

There’s a strange ache in Bukowski’s words — not from cynicism, but from clarity. To “exist” is to follow the motions: to breathe, work, repeat. To “live,” though, is an act of rebellion. It means feeling everything the world keeps trying to numb — the loss, the love, the quiet longing between both.

Existing is safe. It demands nothing but endurance. Living, however, asks for presence — to stand unguarded in the noise and feel it all press against your ribs. Maybe that’s why it hurts. Because to truly live means you can no longer look away from your own truth. You begin to see the difference between what keeps you busy and what keeps you alive.

Bukowski wasn’t glorifying chaos; he was exposing the hollowness of a life without pulse. To live, in his sense, is to wrestle meaning out of monotony — to dig through the static until you find something that still burns. Maybe that’s the quiet tragedy of adulthood: we forget that aliveness and comfort rarely share the same room.

Reflective Prompt

Where in your life have you been merely existing — following routine without passion or pulse? What would it take to live again, not in grand gestures, but in small, deliberate acts that remind you you’re still capable of feeling deeply?

When Nobody’s Watching

2025/10/13Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2090, life, love, mental health, relationships, The Daily's, writing2 Comments

On the kind of truth that doesn’t need an audience.

I’ve always felt that people who do things “as a matter of principle” are full of it. Too often, they cling to their moral code like a lifeboat, even when the water’s shallow enough to stand. I don’t think most of them mean harm — they just get caught up in being right, afraid to face the possibility that they might be wrong. It’s human nature. We mistake conviction for truth because it’s easier than questioning ourselves.

The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that all our so-called principles are built on experience — the good, the bad, and the ones that broke us open. What we value changes. What once mattered deeply starts to fade. Acceptance doesn’t come easy; denial usually wins the first few rounds.

Over time, I stopped pretending I needed a long list of virtues to define me. I stripped it down to what felt real — two principles that anchor everything else: honesty and integrity.

Honesty keeps me from lying to myself, especially when self-deception would be easier.
Integrity keeps me from betraying who I say I am, even when it costs me something to stay true.

Everything else — compassion, respect, perseverance — grows from those two. I’ve found that when I hold to them, I don’t need much else. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.

I recall people talking about staying up with the times — as if evolution meant trading in your soul for a newer model. But some things shouldn’t change. Things like being true to yourself and paying attention to what actually matters — the choices, the people, and the moments that leave fingerprints on the rest of your life, whether you notice them or not.

I still hear my Madre’s voice when I start to drift:

“You know the difference between right and wrong. No one has to teach you. But I will remind you from time to time.”

That line stuck with me. Maybe because she was right — deep down, we all know. Life just tries to talk us out of it.

Some people call it character, others call it discipline. I just call it doing what’s right when nobody’s watching. The kind of thing you don’t brag about, because if you have to, it probably doesn’t count.

Daily writing prompt

What principles define how you live?

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Ghosts, Deadlines, and the Cool Monitor

2025/10/13Posted in The Daily'sTagged creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2089, Deep Reflections, healing, life, love, mental health, writing3 Comments

Somewhere between the ghosts that won’t shut up and the deadlines that never arrive, I learned the trick — just keep writing anyway.

In 2023, my writing team accused me of procrastinating. I was offended — we’d built blogs, workshops, entire worlds together. How could they think I wasn’t doing enough? Then my senior editor cornered me one afternoon. It wasn’t a talk so much as a scolding — the kind that makes you feel like a kid again, thumb hovering near your mouth, waiting for the cue to say, “I’m sorry. I’ll never do it again.”

She wasn’t wrong, though. She asked a single question I couldn’t answer:
“Why haven’t you finished your novels?”

I had no answer then, and I still don’t. I’ve told myself plenty of stories — excuses dressed up as reasons — but none with any iron in them. They clang hollow, like empty promises we whisper to ourselves when doubt starts pacing the floor.

Since my reemergence, I’ve kept writing. Slowly. Unevenly. Each sentence feels like a step back toward the part of me that once trusted the words. My editor’s been kinder lately — maybe because I’ve stopped hiding behind excuses, or maybe because Ursula, my muse, stopped sulking now that she’s getting her pages again.

But somewhere along the way, I forgot how to do it. I can’t recall the moment it happened — it slipped away in the night, like a silent rogue with perfect aim. Maybe I was its willing victim. Not the kind that dies, but the kind that lives haunted by the absence of what was taken.

You’d think that once you recognize what you’ve lost, it would be easy to reclaim. But it isn’t. It’s like I hid it in some special place — the one where I put all the things I swore I’d never lose. Now I stand at the door, staring into that room, unable to remember where I left it.

So I wait. I search the corners. I listen for echoes of the writer who once trusted the words to come. With patience, I know I’ll find what’s hidden — the secrets, the treasures, the grace buried under dust and doubt.

Believing in myself is the key. The rest is just remembering how to turn it.

By 2025, the ghosts have quieted. I’m no longer haunted by my demons — I think they took a cruise or something. But their cousins pop in from time to time, usually uninvited, always loud, never staying long. I let them talk. Then I get back to writing.

Still, despite the progress I’ve made, there’s something holding me back — something keeping me from reaching that place where I can be completely at ease with who I am as a creator. I don’t want to cross to the other side of the veil wondering if I could have been more.

Of course, there will always be unfinished work when we cross over. That’s the nature of it. But I don’t want to be one of those guys replaying fragments of what I could have been.

So this year, I’ve started making moves to change that — to turn my writing and art into something more than what sits quietly on my hard drive. I’ve focused on quality rather than quantity, and I’m learning, finally, to get out of my own way.

You know how embarrassing it is to trip over your own feet? Talk about losing cool points. The Cool Monitor’s in the corner, shaking his head and deducting them one by one.

But this time, at least, I’m still walking forward.

Maybe the real work was never about finishing — just refusing to stop.

I’ve made peace with the ghosts in my process. They’re lousy tenants — leave coffee rings, mutter bad advice, rearrange my ideas when I’m not looking. But I’ve learned to write through their noise. Some days, that’s what it means to be an artist: to keep typing while the past heckles from the cheap seats.

I’ve spent years chasing the version of myself I thought I was supposed to be — the novelist, the mentor, the unshakable voice. Turns out, I don’t need to become him again. I just need to keep showing up — pen in hand, imagination slightly bruised, heart still willing.

Once I realized that, I’ve written some of the most powerful stuff in years.

Reflective Prompt

Take a moment. Unplug from the artificial ether and tap into the one we were born with — the raw signal beneath the static. Acknowledge the things you wanted to do, the things you left hanging, the things you can still do. What are they?

Don’t dress them up as goals or resolutions. Just name them. Whisper them back into existence. Some will sting. Some will make you laugh at how small or strange they seem now. But all of them are proof that you’re still reaching — still alive enough to want.

Maybe that’s the real work of this life: learning to live with the unfinished, to walk beside the ghosts of what we almost became, and still make something worth remembering.

Daily writing prompt

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

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Quote of the Day – 10122025

2025/10/12Posted in Quote of the DayTagged QOTD, Stanislaw Lec6 Comments

Personal Reflection

Lec wasn’t speaking about a literal limp. He was speaking about the way the soul walks after it’s been fractured — the uneven rhythm that comes from surviving what was meant to end you. The limp is what remains after the world has tried to take your stride. It’s the visible mark of invisible wars.

To limp is to continue in spite of the damage. It’s not about returning to who you were; it’s about carrying forward what you’ve become. There’s a quiet rebellion in that — a refusal to disappear. Lec understood that progress isn’t always graceful; sometimes it drags, sometimes it stumbles, but it endures. The limp is living proof that the wound didn’t win.

In a world obsessed with appearances and perfection, the limp is a dangerous kind of honesty. It exposes what survival really looks like — imperfect, asymmetrical, raw. And yet, it moves. That’s the defiance Lec is whispering about: the beauty of motion after meaning has collapsed. The limp is consciousness made visible — a body aware of its own fragility, yet stubborn enough to continue.

Maybe strength isn’t about walking straight after all. Maybe it’s about limping with purpose — about accepting that every step forward carries a story the unbroken will never understand.

Reflective Prompt

When you think of the ways you’ve been altered by what you’ve survived, where do you still feel the limp? Not in body, but in memory — in the quiet spaces where strength became something slower, more deliberate. What would it mean to stop hiding that uneven rhythm, and instead see it as proof that you refused to stop moving?

Quote of the Day – 10112025

2025/10/11Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Emotional Resilience, Introspective Writing, QOTD, SurvivalAndGrace2 Comments

Personal Reflection

Strength is rarely the gift we want — it’s the inheritance of survival. It’s not handed to the lucky; it’s carved into the ones who’ve learned how to keep breathing when the world goes silent. This life — the one you didn’t choose in all its weight and wonder — asks for something deeper than optimism. It asks for persistence when faith falters. It asks for motion when meaning disappears.

The truth is, you don’t feel strong when you’re becoming it. You feel undone, hollowed, threadbare. You question whether it’s worth it — this constant fight to hold yourself together. But maybe that’s what this quote gets right. You weren’t chosen for an easy life; you were built for the hard one. For the slow rebuilding after loss, for the quiet compassion born of scars, for the small, defiant act of still being here.

Strength isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It lives in the pause between collapse and continuation — that sacred moment when you choose to rise again, even when no one’s watching.

Reflective Prompt

When did strength stop feeling like triumph and start feeling like endurance? What have you carried — quietly, faithfully — that proves you were strong enough for this life, even when you doubted it?

Quote of the Day – 10102025

2025/10/10Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Vernon Johns, writing5 Comments

Personal Reflection

There’s a rare honesty in this quote — the kind that cuts through the polite illusions we build around “purpose.” Johns isn’t romanticizing contribution; he’s demanding accountability. He’s calling out that quiet cowardice that disguises itself as caution — the way we postpone our lives in the name of preparation, waiting for the mythical moment when the fear will fade and the path will clear.

But the truth is, most of us hedge not because we lack ability, but because we fear insignificance. We hesitate, edit ourselves mid-sentence, and bury our ideas in “someday.” We tell ourselves the timing isn’t right, that the world doesn’t need one more writer, one more painter, one more dreamer. Yet contribution isn’t about scale — it’s about offering what only you can. Sometimes that means creating something raw and imperfect, sometimes it means showing up for someone who’s about to give up. Either way, it requires the courage to exist unapologetically.

Maybe the shame Johns speaks of isn’t moral but existential — the ache of realizing we let fear keep us small. Perhaps our only real task is to live in such a way that when the end comes, we can say we tried. Not perfectly. Not painlessly. But honestly.

Reflective Prompt

If you stopped hedging — if you stripped away the excuses and met your own potential head-on — what would you create, build, or give? What would your version of “contribution” look like, not in grandeur, but in truth?

Quote of the Day – 10092025

2025/10/09Posted in Quote of the DayTagged Clarice Lispector, Introspection, QOTD2 Comments

Personal Reflection:
There’s a kind of honesty that can’t survive translation—the parts of us that speak in silence, that move beneath words. Lispector’s confession feels like a mirror turned inward: the recognition that who we are in public is only the outline, never the pulse.
We spend years constructing a self that can be explained, one that fits inside sentences tidy enough for others to understand. But the interior life resists definition—it mutters in metaphors, hides behind small gestures, aches in ways even language can’t reach.
Maybe that’s what truth really is: not something that demands to be known, but something that asks to be felt. The raw, shapeless, holy mess of being alive before we name it. Maybe the truest parts of us are the ones we can’t post, can’t polish, can’t fully confess. They exist in fragments—between breaths, between sentences—and that’s where meaning quietly builds its nest.

Reflective Prompt:
What would your life look like if you stopped trying to make it understandable?
What truths have you hidden simply because they don’t fit the version of you others recognize?

When the Words Stop Belonging to Me

2025/10/08Posted in The Daily'sTagged blog, books, creative writing, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2085, life, mental health, The Daily's, writing2 Comments

Somewhere between the promise to finish and the fear of release, I found the echo of a voice that used to steady me. Maybe finishing isn’t the victory—it’s the letting go.

The hardest personal goal I’ve set for myself was deciding to finish a manuscript by the end of the year. I made that promise quietly—no big declarations, no social media countdowns—just a whispered deal between me and the page. I told myself that this time, I wouldn’t stall, I wouldn’t second-guess, I’d simply finish. And for a while, I did. The words came like a slow, steady thaw after a long winter.

But somewhere along the way, I lost my nerve. I’ve been published before, but that was before my wife died. Back then, I wrote with a kind of reckless courage—like someone who still believed the act of creation could outlast the ache of being human. Now, everything I write feels like an echo of the life we built together, the silence between us inked in every line.

People call it fear, and maybe they’re right. But I think it’s more complicated than that. Fear can be fought. This… this feels like standing at the edge of something sacred, knowing that once I let the work go, I can’t pull it back. It’ll belong to the world—and not to her, not to me.

Still, I keep returning to the manuscript, the way you revisit an old photograph. There’s grief in it, but also grace. Maybe finishing isn’t about conquering the fear at all. Maybe it’s about learning to live with the ghosts that remain—and letting the story carry them somewhere new.

Author’s Note:
We talk a lot about fear in creative spaces, as if naming it will banish it. But sometimes, fear isn’t the enemy—it’s the proof that what we’re doing still matters.

Daily writing prompt

What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

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Quote of the Day – 10082025

2025/10/08Posted in Quote of the DayTagged creativity, Mangus Khan, QOTD, writer's life, writers on writing2 Comments

Personal Reflection:
We like to believe we know ourselves, but the page has a cruel way of proving otherwise. It strips away the rehearsed versions—the masks we polish for public view—and leaves us standing there, naked with the truth we almost buried. Writing doesn’t always heal; sometimes it exposes the wound we’ve been pretending isn’t there.
Yet, that’s the beauty of it. The page doesn’t demand perfection, only presence. Each sentence becomes an act of courage, a conversation between who we think we are and who we’re becoming. It’s not the ink that transforms us—it’s the willingness to face what the ink reveals.

Reflective Prompt:
When was the last time your writing surprised you?
What truth emerged from your words that you didn’t know you were ready to face?

Detention, Da Vinci, and the Making of a Misfit

2025/10/08Posted in The Daily'sTagged Art, books, creative flow state, creative writing, creativity, daily exercise, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2084, life, The Daily's, writer's life, writingLeave a comment

I wouldn’t know the names of the masters if you paid me a million dollars. I can’t look at a painting and tell you who brushed what stroke or why it matters. There are a few comic book artists I really enjoy, but again, I couldn’t tell you their names. I just know when something stops me in my tracks.

The feeling I get when I look at art… I don’t really have words for it. It’s like trying to explain why a storm feels beautiful while it’s tearing through your neighborhood. You just feel it. Despite that, I spend my time trying to create the same kind of reaction in other people—through writing, art, film, photography—whatever medium happens to grab me that day.

I recall giving a speech in class once. When I finished, there was silence. No applause, no eye rolls—just my classmates staring at me like I’d confessed something I shouldn’t have. My teacher asked what inspired it, and I told him I made the whole thing up. He didn’t believe me. They sent me to the counselor’s office to “discuss my feelings.”

It took a while, but I finally convinced an adult that it was a work of fiction. I had my notebook with me, filled with half-finished stories and wild ideas. That notebook saved me. It proved I wasn’t broken—I was just a writer.

It was after that little incident I landed myself in detention for running my mouth. I’ve got a habit of voicing my disdain in its raw, unfiltered form. Come to think of it, that might’ve been what led my mother to suggest I give up profanity for Lent. Hmmm.

Meanwhile, back in detention, I checked out an art book from the library and started leafing through it. I found a Da Vinci sketch—nothing fancy, just a face drawn with impossible precision. I tried drawing my own version, and something in me shifted. After that, I started drawing everything. Then, write everything. Strangely, that was the birth of Mangus Khan.

Funny how things happen, huh?

Since then, I’ve learned that every work of art hits everyone differently. I’ve written things I meant to be serious, only to have people burst out laughing. There’s no predicting what someone will feel. You just roll with it, cherish the experience, and most of all—feel.

Author’s Note:
Don’t let anyone crush your creative spirit. They may not understand what you’ve created—and that’s okay. You never know how it will affect the next person. So create. Always create.

Daily writing prompt

Who are your favorite artists?

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Rumi’s Poem (Full Examination)

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Chapter 2

The Magnificent Seven, Mangus Style

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Personal Reflection

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Personal Reflection:

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Personal Reflection

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Personal Reflection

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