Tag Archives: Modern Creative Life

Winter Flame

Flames of Winter

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The darkness of the whole world cannot swallow the glowing of a candle.  ~Robert Altinger

Winter FlameChristmas. Hanukkah. Yule. Whether you come from a single faith tradition, or from a family like mine, that blends and merges traditions from several cultures, there is no shortage of winter holidays to choose from.

All are radically different. Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ. Hanukkah remembers the Maccabees and their defeat of the Seleucids as well as the rededication of their temple and the miracle of the oil, which was only enough for one night, but lasted for eight. Yule originated as a Nordic and Germanic midwinter celebration that involved feasting and gift-giving (and in the oldest celebrations, sacrifices).

And yet, these winter holidays all have something in common as well – aside from the tendency to celebrate with incredibly delicious, albeit unhealthy foods. They all bring light to the longest nights of the year.

True, in this age of technological wonders when we can have books in our hands at the touch of a button, and get antsy when we’re away from our smart-phones or tablets for more than a few minutes, and are limited in our ability to work late into the wee hours, not by waning daylight, but only by our stamina and the amount of caffeine we’re willing to ingest, we no longer rely on candles or firelight for physical illumination.

And yet…

And yet we light candles to mark the progress through Advent.

We light them, one at a time, to count the eight days of Hanukkah.

We build fires in our hearths as symbolic representations of the bonfires our ancestors might have danced around, or we build actual bonfires and invite our friends to dance with us.

We fill our homes with candles that represent nothing more than a cozy glow, and we gather ’round our gas logs or Franklin stoves even when our houses are fitted with central heating systems, because there’s something – some magical thing – about fire that seems to drive away the stress and darkness of winter in a way that electric light never can.

I think we forget, sometimes, that the holidays aren’t always merry and bright. They’re not always full of smiling faces and joyous laughter.

These winter holidays come to us at the end of the year, which means they’re both an ending, a sort of finish line we’re all racing toward, and a final hurdle we must overcome before we have the opportunity to start anew. We fill our homes with those colorful candles and crackling fires as much to keep the shadows at bay and drive away the darkness, as we do to celebrate the light.

Our flames aren’t some form of denial, though. Rather, they’re sort of a nightlight for our souls. They keep our hearts warm and our homes welcoming, and remind us that all winters end.

Yule comes with the Winter Solstice on December 21st. Christmastide and Hanukkah coincide this year, for they both begin on the twenty-fifth. Whether you’re celebrating one of those old holidays, or you’ve embraced something newer, like Kwanzaa or Chalica – or even Festivus – may the flames you ignite keep you warm in body and soul this winter.

 

Originally written for Modern Creative Life

 

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

Five Things…

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Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

I haven’t used my blog as an actual journal in a few years, mainly because I’ve been writing a monthly column in the e-zine Modern Creative Life for three years and was doing something similar for the e-zine All Things Girl for several years before that. Personal essays and columns aren’t that different, and I haven’t had the need to share deep parts of myself with relative strangers lately.

But I’m sick. I almost wasn’t able to put a podcast episode together for tomorrow. I’m participating in the Dog Days of Advent, and another participant messaged me on Facebook and asked if I had something ready that she could record. The community that has formed from a bunch of podcast nerds (as one of the other participants describes us) who all commit to doing a daily podcast in the month of August and then sign on to do something similar in December is a lovely group of people. Funny, warm, bright, geeky. I’m not always terribly chatty, but there isn’t one of them I don’t appreciate.

And tonight, two of them became my – what was the term we used in the early nineties? – short duration personal saviors.

So, tonight I’m writing a right and proper blog post instead of a piece of flash-fic because it’s late, and I can’t talk (literally) and none of my usual sources for prompts are speaking to me

But the December Reflections prompt for today is “Five things about me…” (okay, it’s actually tomorrows, I’ve been using them as inspiration, not actually participating the way you’re meant to).

And the number five is resonating in my head.

The number five is a frequent number for list-posts and list-memes – five television shows you like, five things about yourself, five people, living or dead, you’d invite to dinner, five notes in the ascending arpeggios we sing in vocal warm-ups… you get the idea.

I think it’s because five isn’t an overwhelming number. Ten can feel like too many, and three is too few, but five is just right. And it’s balanced… in design you always want odd numbers of things. Five stems of irises in a vase, five candles in an arrangement.

Not to mention that humans have five fingers on each hand and five fingers on each toe.

But my other association with “five things” is from improv.  I spent years as part of the Dallas ComedySportz troupe and “Five Things” was one of our featured games. It’s a game where we use mime and gibberish to convey five activities with audience-suggested replacements. So, the activity might be cleaning a toilet, but we’re cleaning it at Elvis’s house and instead of a scrub brush we’re using spaghetti, and instead of toilet bowl cleaner, we’re using gummy bears.

So, what are five things about me. Well today, they’re:

  1. I have a sinus infection that’s settled in my ears and throat, and I can’t talk.
  2. I have very sweet friends who take time from their days to record for me so I don’t miss a day of a project.
  3. There are four dogs in the room with me, and they’re all peacefully asleep, and their breathing is the most comforting sound ever.
  4. I haven’t decorated for Christmas because we’re meant to be moving furniture around on Saturday.
  5. I’m craving salt.

I suppose I was meant to write more permanent things, but really, not much in life is permanent. And I was never much good at following rules.

*This flash-fic inspired by a prompt from December Reflections.
Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash

 

43804508 - back view of a couple taking a walk holding hands on the beach

Posted Elsewhere: Snapshots from the Shore (flash-fiction)

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43804508 - back view of a couple taking a walk holding hands on the beach

 

Read an excerpt:

“Just put your feet in,” she coaxes the man who has come to drive her to the flatlands in the middle of the country. The flyover states, they call them. Except now they’ll be the land-in states. She wonders if the wind on the prairie can ever come close to the soothing sound of her beloved waves.

“No.”

“Come on,” she urges. “Seriously, it’s not that cold. At least take your shoes off. You will not actually melt into goo if your bare feet touch the sand.

But he refuses. And she wonders if maybe she’s making a mistake in choosing someone who doesn’t love the beach the way she does. Still, she splashes in the choppy surf, dodging sharp white-crested waves and body surfing the gentler blue ones until she’s tired and sated.

Swimming in the sea, she thinks, is the only thing that even comes close to being as good as sex with the man she loves.

Visit this link to read the whole story:

Modern Creative Life: Snapshots from the Shore by Melissa A. Bartell

The Coming of the Cardinals

Elseblog: Sunday Brunch: The Coming of the Cardinals

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The Coming of the Cardinals

 

On the first Sunday of each month, I write a column called “Sunday Brunch” over at the e-zine Modern Creative Life. This excerpt is from the piece I published in November. You can read the whole piece here. You can also listen to me read it at BathtubMermaid.com.

Excerpt:

We have a whole family of those bright red birds, and they return every year. The females are feathered grey and rust and red, and arrive with the first signs of being egg-heavy. The males are brilliant crimson and scarlet, and when they cock their heads and stare at me from their bright eyes, I’m convinced they’re appraising me in the same way I’m assessing them.

At the beginning of the season, I watch them building nests, but as the fall deepens into what passes for winter in this part of Texas, they aren’t quite so visible. Instead of witnessing constant activity, a morning visit feels like a kind of gift from Mother Nature herself.

It’s not only live cardinals that come into my life each year, however. As I slowly turn the decorations in my house from fall and harvest, Halloween and Thanksgiving, to winter, Christmas, and even Valentine’s Day, these ruby-plumed birds have a presence inside my house.

eclipse

Sunday Brunch: August Nocturne

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eclipse

 

When All Things Girl still existed, I had a regular column called “Sunday Brunch.” Well, the core team of ATG launched a new ezine, Modern Creative Life, in March, and I’m writing “Sunday Brunch” over there once a month. Here’s an excerpt from this month’s post:

With the flip of a calendar page (or a swipe of finger on a smartphone) July is gone for another year, and it is August, my month. The first summer month when, even though the sun is still reluctant to set, the days are discernably shorter, and the nights incrementally longer.

I’ve always been attuned to the night. While some people are morning people, happy and chirpy at first light, the only time I typically see dawn is when I haven’t yet been to bed. I have never been afraid of darkness; rather I crave it.

I come by it naturally.

The night before I was born, there was a full moon and an eclipse. If that doesn’t lock you into a special relationship with nighttime, I don’t know what does. (Recently, I asked my mother if she remembered any of that, and she reminded me that she’d been a little preoccupied with being in labor.)

You can read the rest of the post at Modern Creative Life, and if you’re so inclined, consider submitting an essay, poem, or piece of short fiction to our next issue, which launches in September and has the theme of  Wisdom.

 

 

Image copyright: solerf / 123RF Stock Photo