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About This Author
My name is Joy, and I love to write.
Why poetry, here? Because poetry uplifts its writer, and if she is lucky enough, her readers, too. Around us, so many objects abound to write about. Once a poet starts with a smallest, most trivial object, he shall discover that his pen will spill out what is most delicate or most majestic hidden inside him. Since the classics sometimes dealt with lofty subjects with a lofty language, a person with poetry in his soul may incline to emulate that. That is understandable. Poetry does that to a person: it enlarges the soul and gives it wings. Yet, to really soar, a poet needs to take off from the ground.
 
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Everyday Canvas
"Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself."
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn
anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.
David Whyte
This is my supplementary blog in which I will post entries written for prompts.
November 30, 2015 at 12:20pm November 30, 2015 at 12:20pm
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Prompt: During a family gathering, what should we watch out for when we’re telling something like a story from our life, an anecdote, or our ideas, and why is watching what we say important during such events?
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In such gatherings, if I am not careful, I usually put my foot in my mouth, however unknowingly of someone else’s situation. Then there have been times when, even though I knew a situation, I made a faux pas, and a big one. So the first thing I must watch out for is that what I say doesn’t get somebody’s dander up. For example, if Aunt Cathy’s son is dating an Eskimo, I mustn’t make fun of igloos.
Second must be to avoid tangential info or side-bar type of a thing, so that someone else doesn’t pick on it and run away with it, changing the course of the discussion or the story. This, too, always happens.
Needless to say, politically incorrect or offensive stuff is totally out, and if someone else commits this crime, I’ll just have to ignore it. We’re together to be together and not to fix each other’s prejudices. If the other person gets far out of line, I can excuse myself and visit the restroom.
If I am the one relating an event, a story, or an anecdote out of my life, I need to set the content with the first sentence with who, what, why, where, and how, and keep it short. I know families don’t have the patience to listen to long drawn-out legends.
I must not reveal any secrets belonging to me or to anyone else in the room, as it would create a most awkward situation. If someone else does that, I must act as if the secret is unimportant, even if he or she reveals that Uncle Jay’s brother has a secret wife kidnapped from a UFO.
In addition, the impact of my words on others is another thing I need to watch out for. If they—that is, most of them—seem to be preoccupied or disturbed by the sadness or the difficulty of the experience I am talking about, it is a good time to change course. Family gatherings are not for creating stress but for having fun together through supportive give-and-take.
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November 28, 2015 at 4:59pm November 28, 2015 at 4:59pm
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Prompt: Share with us three things that make your day perfect.
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Since people aren’t things, I am not listing them. Otherwise, it’s usually the people in my life who make my days perfect.
As to things that make my life perfect, being productive heads the list. At the end of the day, I think of all that I did, and if what did during that day is at least halfway productive, I feel my day has been worthwhile.
Second thing is writing. If a day passes that I haven’t written anything, which is almost never, I feel I missed something.
The third thing is doing something recreational, such as planting something, walking by the beach, taking photos, reading, listening to music, sewing or mending something or even trying a new dish that comes out well.
Although one or two of these three things may not always be present, I am pretty much content with my days, as long as I am not sick or someone hasn’t gotten my goat,  which happens rarely because very few people can do that, but those who can do that have to get my goats by the herd, or possibly, the queen of my herd of goats.
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November 27, 2015 at 2:21pm November 27, 2015 at 2:21pm
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How do you walk the thin line with family when you really dislike one of your children's boy friend/girl friend choices? Do you tell the child involved what you see is happening to them or do you let them crash and burn on their own? Today, was the most difficult holiday I've had in many years. I have bitten my lip so much, it is swollen. I would really appreciate the advice.
Sticky stuff, here. Holidays are sometimes very difficult to handle. There's usually someone or some weird piece of conversation or gesture that gets us.
In this case, although your lip is swollen, I think you did the right thing. On the other hand, if the boyfriend/girlfriend is doing something really outrageous like being involved in crime or doing something that would hurt your child, you have the choice of counseling him in private, but only in private.
If he or she is just being obnoxious, has bad manners, and is not fitting in well with your family, then I think, it would be better that your son or daughter sees if for himself or herself.
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Prompt: Reading a book and listening to a story is good entertainment. Does it take the place of TV Shows? Share your thoughts.
In my case, TV shows rarely take the place of reading a book or listening to a story. I would rather get lost in a well-written book than most of the TV shows that I consider crappy. If it were up to me, I would get rid of the TV altogether, but my hubby is a TV addict, and in old age, he has very few other pastimes, so I let him have his way while I am engrossed in a book.
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November 25, 2015 at 4:29pm November 25, 2015 at 4:29pm
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Prompt: Textures are everywhere. Rough edges of a stone wall. Touch of a baby's cheek. The sense of touch brings back memories for us. What texture holds special memories for you?
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The texture of steam, hot, moist, rising. I try to hold it but it eludes me, like night dreams fading, but unlike words with different textures that I love to caress. Although sometimes, my words are prickly like steel wool, yet they topple crusted dirt and sunk-in pain.
Still, the smoothness of a kitten’s fur is a magnet for my touch, as it feels like velvet teeming with plushness in intensity and depth; now, after being spoiled with the grain of this fabric that seduces my sense of touch, I need something different, like water merging its song with the skin on my face, like mud I used to squish under my boots when I was a kid, like potato chips crispy and thin when I crunch them in between my teeth.
Textures, for me, beat in tune with time, holding memories of softening hearts and hardening hearts and landslides of feelings in closeness, while our lowered voices celebrate each breath.
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November 24, 2015 at 2:40pm November 24, 2015 at 2:40pm
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Prompt: What cognitive scientist Emmanuel Trouche and his colleagues call "the selective laziness of reasoning" is this: “You are more likely to use sound reasoning if you could hear your own thoughts coming from someone else.”
What do you think about this? Does this shine a light on why we make bad choices sometimes?
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This might make sense only after or around the time we make or we are about to make bad choices. We might think, at such a time, why anyone else didn’t think of alerting us to the negatives or important questions regarding the matter, to which we already knew the correct answers deep down inside but disregarded.
In other words, if the reasoning we swept under the carpet could be voiced my someone else as validation, we might have made better decisions, or if what crossed our minds but we disregarded could be offered to us as someone else’s thought, we might have acted more to our own advantage.
I know a tiny bit about how cognitive scientists come to their conclusions. As to Emmanuel Trouche is a scholar in CNRS, Université de Lyon, Laboratoire Cerveau Language et Cognition. There’s an article for it here:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/282732160_The_Selective_Laziness_of_Reas...
Most of the studies in this lab are conducted mostly as groups versus individuals and the results arrived, like the above quote, are mostly arguments and, in my opinion, not true results. So anything they come up with is open to discussion. 
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November 23, 2015 at 10:54am November 23, 2015 at 10:54am
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Prompt: It is said that everything outside our warm, safe circle is our blind spot. Have you sometimes thought that you were blind to what was in front of your eyes?
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Yes, I was blind to what was in front of my eyes, and several times over. Yet, most of the time, I was blindsided by those inside my “so-called and should-be” “warm, safe” circle. That’s life, however, and everyone learns to live with it.
As such, life itself puts blinders on our eyes, so we can run like racehorses and never look back. If we do, we’ll fall and never make it to the finish line in one piece. Life works best when we can align our interior space with the exterior and fill the gap in between with love and forgiveness. Frankly, I take my own abilities in this with a grain of salt.
In the much larger sense if we take our warm and safe circle as our country, yes, everything that suddenly pops up outside of it and involves us somehow becomes our blind spot, only because we judge other countries according to the rules inside “our warm, safe” place. In these instances new experiences often warrant anxiety and doubt, some of it due to our one-sided perception. Others we need to be worried about and deal with proper action, and rightfully so, especially when our well-being is threatened. |
November 18, 2015 at 10:20pm November 18, 2015 at 10:20pm
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Prompt: Do you like a quiet Thanksgiving with family and a few friends or do you like being around a lot of people on Thanksgiving?
I like Thanksgiving either way. It is a good holiday that has the ability of bringing together people from different backgrounds. Especially the idea of giving thanks and being thankful for what we have makes this holiday one of its kind. I could celebrate it with a crowd, or a few friends, or even alone by myself; although, the last option has never happened to me so far.
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Prompt: What moment in time from last year, 2014, would you like to relive?
2014 August is the one that jumps up to my mind when we went to Manhattan and stayed for a week in Marriott Marquis. I love the Broadway area and the theaters, also hanging out on the streets, just to watch people. I am a displaced native NewYorker, but now, I like to go back to it as a visitor, too. That is why that trip felt so great. |
November 17, 2015 at 2:43pm November 17, 2015 at 2:43pm
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Ludwig Wittgenstein said: “I wanted to write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one.”
Do you agree with Wittgenstein and believe that what you haven’t written yet is more important than what you have already written?
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Until I came across this quote, I didn’t think of the importance factor in writing. I have always written (and read even more) possibly because the people who left indelible impressions in my life also read and wrote. This whole thing with me might just have started out of admiration and the feeling of connection to those I love.
My first admiration was directed to the books I was read to at a very early age. Then out of that admiration, I taught myself to read by the time I turned four. I think I started to actually write when I was seven or eight.
As of today, if I don’t write, I don’t feel whole. Since it probably defines me, writing has always been important to me. My future writings, too, will be important for that reason. I don’t know if they’ll be more important, but I believe they’ll be as important. I certainly don’t expect myself to spew out pearls of wisdom at any one time. If such a thing ever happened, I’d be more surprised than those of you who read my blog every now and then.
When it comes to the importance of my writing for other people, I don’t know that and I won’t know that. The only thing that may happen is that my writing may last for a little bit of time in cyberspace, thus becoming a possible relic, until someone erases or deletes it for good.
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November 16, 2015 at 9:09pm November 16, 2015 at 9:09pm
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Prompt: What advice would you give to those in power--leaders of nations presidents, etc.--on the subject of handling violent extremism which keeps turning our world into a senseless one?
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Violence takes place everywhere: on city streets, in towns, in families, in schools, among countries, among ideologies. The factors that lead to violence are biological traits, family bonding, individual characteristics, intelligence and education, child development, peer relationships, cultural shaping and resiliency. Each of these factors can be affected by one another, can become a cluster of factors, and can grow into gigantic dimensions.
In the case of the latest violence against innocent civilians, cultural shaping and the need for belonging has created a dragon with many heads. Other chaotic problems within the countries and ineffective outside intervention have put this dragon on the warpath.
This one dragon now boasts its presence with the names of ISIS, IS, ISIL, or DAISH. The evil dragon ISIS has killed more people of the religion of Islam than it has killed in the western world. More than 100,000. Not to mention the displaced and maimed muslims. The odd thing is, ISIS claims it is doing it for Islam. Go figure!
We in the western world are enraged with the attacks against us, and rightfully so, as all these attacks are against the entire humanity. With its atrocities, ISIS has become such a menace that no matter how I wrack my brain, I can’t come up with a nonviolent response.
I think the best response should be immediate and harsh, but only through the combined efforts of all countries and people. We need to get rid of ISIS with all our might.
Following that, sending funds and weapons to difficult folks should stop once and for all, no matter what the interests of the west may be. In addition, we in the USA need to deal with our love of complicity in creating messes by unneeded intervention.
In my opinion, only one kind of intervention will help our disturbed planet. After the initial responses and stopping the perpetrators for good, the world should still continue to fully invest in social and economic development initiatives of all nations, and not just the select few.
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November 14, 2015 at 12:17am November 14, 2015 at 12:17am
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Prompt: Who do you trust most in this world?
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]
This is a tough question. First and foremost, I trust whatever or whoever is divine, although every now and then, I find a bit of joking and trickiness in the works.
Of the bipeds, I guess I trust most my husband, however with reservations. I trust other good people on and off, depending.
I guess I am coming across as a doubting Thomas where humans are concerned, but I have good reasons to be one. A good reason happened today in Paris, France, reminding me of 9/11.
Despite my reservations and doubts, I still go with Mother Theresa’s advice on this issue, when it comes to people.
Here they are, the words attributed to Mother Theresa that I like very much:
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered.
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and some true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight.
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous.
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough.
Give the best you've got anyway.
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November 13, 2015 at 12:05pm November 13, 2015 at 12:05pm
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Prompt: Friday the 13th.
Superstitions temporarily aside tell me something you wish was "glow in the dark". Why would you like it to be that way? What purpose would it help the most in your life.
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Friday the Thirteenth hit me big time today. Hubby hurt her back. Fridge went kaput. Some of the freezer stuff is in the cooler. My kitchen is a mess, and the guy who can look at it can only come tomorrow, and it’s iffy. And between hubby’s BenGay and emptying the darn thing, my eyes are crossing into each other. To top it off, Microsoft put in updates doing away with my open files, but this was the easiest of it all. As to NaNo, maybe I’ll stick in the event of fridge-going-kaput into the story.
To tell you the truth, nothing glows in the dark at this very moment, except my sense of humor. Yeah, I guess I could never live in this world without laughing at all the unforeseen mishaps. One thing I learned in my too long life (it feels too long today) is to laugh everything off. We’ll see if I’ll still be laughing by the evening.
*Edited to add: If nothing else says Friday the thirteenth in November is off-putting, what happened in Paris clearly is scary for the entire world, or at least for the civilized part of it. As we mourn with the French, whatever I wrote earlier about my tiny little life seems to be so senseless. Yes, it still may be my little life, but there are much much bigger issues facing our human family.  
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Do you need to step away from an area of your life? Like a bad situation or spending too much time at doing something?
No, I don’t think so. Not now, anyway.
I did, however, walked away, ran away, or even flew away over the ocean from uncomfortable and bad situations in the past. Should push come to shove, I’d still do my utmost to stay away or run away from a toxic situation.
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Prompt: We’re all victims of what life deals out. It's how we handle it, that's important. Nora Roberts Do you agree?
Yes, I agree. Most things in life do happen as the results of our choices, but then there are things that take place out of the blue or without us having to do anything with them. For example, we can’t choose our parents, the country we are born in, or what our bodies have inherited.
Instead of buckling under pressure, living in spite of and above the negatives of what life deals out is what may be called a successful living. How we handle what is thrown our way, whether we fight or flee or just walk away shows our mettle. It never works out when we live our lives as zombies, still floundering in a bad situation and doing nothing about it.
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November 10, 2015 at 12:42pm November 10, 2015 at 12:42pm
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Prompt: Each person has a like or dislike when it comes to novels and some people will not bother reading certain kinds of novels. What do you think a novel should entail to make you read it?
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Some people take to certain genres for reading. Granted we all have our likes and dislikes, but I wouldn’t want to read a badly written novel in my favorite genre. On the other hand, I’d take a well-written one in any genre.
A well-written novel, for me, has to have fully developed characters and a good construction. Proper and relevant scene depiction, good use of the language, pace and fluidity are the other requirements. It would help if in some way the novel would talk to me; in other words, if it would make me empathize with the characters and situations in it. Yet, whether a novel does the latter or not, I’d still read it if it had the former basic requirements of what a good novel should have.
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Prompt: Sometimes parents, lovers, partners, and friends--knowingly or unknowingly--tell untruths about a person’s life. How would you handle such a false narrative of your life, if untrue stories and presumptions were said about you especially by someone close to you?
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The idea for this prompt came to me while waiting in line at the supermarket and eyeing the tabloids. Those VIPs, one has to feel for them with all the nasty untrue garbage thrown at their lives.
This has happened a lot to me, somewhat, be it in a positive way or a negative one. It started in childhood. Since I was the oldest of a certain group of cousins, anytime a mischief was discovered when we were together, I would be the one to be blamed, not that I was so innocent all the time either. In several of these instances, I wasn’t even there when stuff happened, and I was still blamed. Once I went shopping with an uncle unbeknownst to the other adults, and something happened at home with the other kids. When we came back, a couple of the adults got on my case. My uncle was so furious at them, it was unbelievable. He told them they were scapegoating me because I didn’t have a father and not looking at things squarely. I think that day my luck turned for the better.
Then I went into my teens and young adulthood. By this time, I had formed a good reputation in the family, one that I could do no wrong. They always assumed I received the highest grades, for example. I didn’t, at least not some of the time. Later on, someone started a rumor that I was engaged to a certain person. Nothing could be farther from the truth. That person was a friend of the family, and we didn’t go out together at all, not once. Gosh, we weren’t even alone in the same room. Several years later, I found out that this rumor was started by my mother's distant cousin who taught we would make a good couple. She said she did that, if it came to people's minds, it would happen. Go, figure what crazies can do! She was very wrong, anyhow. We would have made a very bad couple. Thank God, for my hubby, who entered my life in the middle of this hullabaloo in my silly family.
How did I handle all this? I did nothing. Things usually took care of themselves. I don’t know what people can do if they were to encounter a much worse untruth about them that involved the justice system. I wonder how many people are jailed or killed due to false imaginings. I believe in the truth, and I hope nobody ever assumes or makes up stuff about other people. If anyone wants to imagine anything, we do have fiction writing, don’t we?
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November 7, 2015 at 11:21am November 7, 2015 at 11:21am
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Prompt: Do you think it's better to be a recognized expert for one thing, or known to be really good at lots of things?
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Either way is good enough, for me. As long as a person is not recognized as a total loser or a criminal.
One can be recognized as an expert, but is any expert really an expert? My opinion is, the expert has become the person who has paid attention to only one thing in life and has learned all that can be learned at the time. Since knowledge changes through the ages, even that expertise will be passé through time.
Yet, being good at lots of things makes one’s life richer for himself or herself, even if he or she doesn’t have the clout the expert does.
All in all, it comes to personal choice, doesn’t it!
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Prompt: What is one place you need to see to feel like your life is complete?
For my life on earth to feel complete (i.e finished), I’d like to see Heaven.
My younger son, after his second day in Kindergarten, announced: “I learned enough!”
Now like him, I learned enough, also, after being to a few different places on this planet. I discovered that backgrounds as to scenery, food, and customs change, but only in nuances; however, I found people to be the same everywhere and people matter to me the most. People don’t change when you really look into them, when you look into why they do anything.
The way I see it, their ways and thoughts that drive their actions I can easily file into certain groups. This is the same everywhere. For example: Some act with the thoughts of, “I am the greatest. I am so hot, I can do anything, get away with anything, and no one can ever reach to my heights.” Another group thinks and acts on the premise, “I feel low some of the time, but this okay. I am not the greatest, but at least I can do a few things passably well and hopefully help some along the way, if I can.” Then there’s another group with the mindset of, “I can be good or bad. It doesn’t matter. This place is ruled by something divine (a being outside of the planet, person, or any other element), and what or who I consider divine rules.”
From this point of view, like my son, I learned enough, too. So, now, I’m wondering about the denizens of Heaven: How good can they get?
As to the opposite of Heaven, no, thank you! That kind of knowledge, I have no use for.
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Prompt: Like Elsa of "Frozen" sings: "Let It Go." What things in your life have you had to let it go?
A person cannot live without letting go. I’ve let go of just about everything: places, people, things. I have such a long list that I couldn’t even begin to count.
It matters, however, how much the element we let go means to us and how much this letting go hurts us. With this in mind, what affected me the most was letting go of some people.
I've let go of people, some to death, some for their own good, and others for my own good. When we live long enough, many people pass through our lives. Some just come and go easily; others we get attached to and is difficult for us to let them go. Then there are a few others that, we find after many decades, although they have passed through our lives, we have never let them go, and this hurts the most.
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November 3, 2015 at 11:17pm November 3, 2015 at 11:17pm
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Prompt: Many of us had imaginary friends as children. If your imaginary friend grew up beside you, what would his or her life be like today?
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I was an only child. I did have an imaginary friend out of the blue when I was a toddler until maybe to the age of about three or four, but my mother worried about me having such a nonexistent friend or maybe about me losing it. So she made sure that the girl who lived at the end of our street about a year older than me came and played with me some of the time. I still wanted my imaginary friend more, but my mother told me he wasn’t real. So he disappeared into the blue from where he had come.
I do believe that imaginary friend is a part of me now. If he were to be alive today and separate from me, I wouldn’t know what his life would be like, but I somehow felt that my friend in my imagination to be always with me throughout my life, and any problem I had, he helped me to solve it if I slept on it.
It is well known that children play pretend games and interact with their toys as if they are alive. Some of the children also create an invisible friend through their imagination. Whatever we humans imagine is also a part of us, sometimes a part of us unknown even to ourselves. We writers know that when we freeflow. What pops up even surprises us.
Thus, an imaginary friend is just that: imaginary. If he were to come alive, his magic would be lost.
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Mourning for an Angel
It was such a shock to learn about our dear friend SHERRI GIBSON  's passing. She was one of the jewels Writing.com was proud to have on its crown. Sherri was everyone's friend. She made all of us feel better about ourselves. I'll miss her greatly.
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November 2, 2015 at 11:27pm November 2, 2015 at 11:27pm
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Prompt: “I feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that’s your responsibility as a person, as a human being — to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don’t contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you’re not thinking.” -- Malcolm Gladwell
In reference to the above quote, do you think changing one’s mind regularly is a good thing?
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If the situations and results change, I don’t see any problem with changing one’s mind with the assessment of circumstances. Just to change one’s mind, however, as if a prescribed drill, is false practice, the way I look at it. I don’t think the underlying, essential truths ever change, but the events, times, and needs may. When that happens, it is fine to change one’s mind or course of action.
Possibly, the quote could be about staying informed and being on top of things mentally. I have no quarrel with that, but changing one’s mind just for the sake of change is feeling like some form of a mental instability to me.
I can see how and why the experts in science and history need to change their minds with the constant barrage of discoveries, newly found facts, and innovations. That is definitely a virtue for the advancement of our civilization.
What I don’t see is why I should change my moral code, way of life, my likes and dislikes in general, just to be fashionable in the so-called “thinking” world.
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November 2, 2015 at 11:03am November 2, 2015 at 11:03am
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Prompt: They say you’re only crazy if you think so. Can you think of some crazy writing ideas, and what is the craziest writing idea you ever attempted?
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Here’s a list, which is what I can think of right now.
1. Writing while walking = I’ve done that
2. Writing in a moving vehicle = Done that, too.
3. Writing while standing up = I bought a tall laptop table for that, but my writing goes slow when I am standing. Surfing the net, however, is okay. You’d think writing while standing up would help the brain; it doesn’t mine. Nothing helps mine.  So I adjusted a swivel desk chair to it; I am now still sitting and writing while my laptop rests on the tall laptop stand. Much ado for nothing.
4. The writing prompts that are far out:
• The erotic love life of someone respectable or making fun of an idea or belief you or others revere-I haven’t tried that, possibly out of fear; you know what happened to Salman Rushdie.
• Thinking from the POV of some object that can’t think and having it take an active role in the lives of your characters; come to think of it, not a bad idea. All those 'think's here. Maybe too much thinking is counterproductive.
• Write in another language you know little or not at all. I did that while learning a language or two with dire results, making my teachers reach for their AK-47s.
• Have your inner critic write for you. Gotcha, Inner Critic!
Never mind the list I just came up with. The craziest writing idea I ever attempted is the one I am doing now, for NaNo. The idea is not too bad, but it might lend itself better to a novella thought better with a good amount of preparation and written while taking a longer time; not for NaNo in a month and with the 50,000 words hanging over my head like the sword of Demosthenes. 
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