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I’d Like to Buy the World a Chocolate Bar
Today’s question of the day from WordPress reminds me of another childhood favorite, the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Chocolate changes impoverished boy Charlie Bucket’s life for the better. He, and other children who are superfans of Wonka’s chocolate bars are chosen for an exclusive tour of the enigmatic Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory,…
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A Little Princess By Frances Hodgson Burnett
Today’s daily prompt asks, “Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?” For me, this question could be answered with various titles. My love for books began early in life. My mother used to read to me from Little Golden Book adaptations of Disney fairy tales, classic picture books by Richard Scarry and Beatrix Potter,…
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Back to Life
Confession? I’m not the biggest fan of change. Whenever someone comments how boring it would be to live the same day over and over again, I always respond half jokingly, “Well, I’d do it if it was a nice day!” Which day, exactly, would I choose to live over again? A good day at work?…
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Lessons From The Tale of Genji
I am currently reading the classic 11th century Japanese novel The Tale of Genji. It was written in 11th century Japan, the Heian era. This was a time of relative domestic tranquility in Japan, but also a time when the wealthy aristocracy lived a rareified existence very isolated from the common people. The retainers of…
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Grief, Family, and Faith
I have talked about the loss of my great-grandmother in previous posts, including my latest post before today, Love, Loss, and Dreams. This is the first significant loss of my life. As cliche as it may be, it has driven home that death is inevitable. We will all have to face only more loss as…
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Love, Loss, and Dreams
Maybe, sometimes, we dream the dreams that feel more comfortable than what we truly want. But, how do we separate which is which? How do we change perspective? For a long time, I have yearned with all my heart for a family of my own. To fall in love, to have children. I craved the…
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Kay’s Library: Book Club Pick 5, The Priory of the Orange Tree
In an increasingly turbulent world, we look increasingly towards the extended metaphors of speculative fiction to voice inconvenient truths and audacious hopes about our own lives and times. In fiction, cloaked in the archetypes of Shadow, Mentor, Goddess, and Hero, we can utter the “J’accuse!”s to those who have abused their power, and answer the…
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A Peaceful Life is Justice
Once, I private-messaged one of my favorite authors at the time via social media asking when or if she was going to write another book in the series that had launched her career, a series of paranormal thrillers. She was promoting a memoir about her divorce at the time. She responded to me that sometimes…
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(Not) Waiting For the Man
How do you write a love story when you’re not sure if you’re destined to experience romantic love in real life? When you’re not sure what romantic love looks or feels like? That is the question that I have been struggling with for months now. I can’t, at this time, properly say that I am…
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Kay’s Library: Grieving and Reading
My life has changed immeasurably since the last post I wrote. About two weeks ago, my great-grandmother died unexpectedly. While my family’s grief has been profound, having none of us ever dealt with such a major loss before, there has also been lots of love and beauty in the process of letting go. In a…
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Bloganuary 12: Making Peace With Chores
Confession: I have a love/hate relationship with chores. As a teenager, I did my assigned weekly chores on the weekends, and in exchange I got $20 for allowance money. Back then, in 2007-08, I was able to stretch that far enough to buy a CD, a spiral notebook, a pack of ink pens, a paperback…
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Bloganuary 11: Defining Success
Today’s Bloganuary prompt asks a hard question for me to answer: “How do you define success?” In yesterday’s post, I discussed how an unlikely book, Fifty Shades of Grey, inspired me to go to college. Its young heroine, Anastasia Steele, with her aspirations to enter the publishing industry, became something of a role model for…
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Bloganuary 10: The Book That Changed My Life
Books have changed my life many times over the years. This year, after much spiritual searching, I found my faith again. The words of the Bible, but also many Christian devotional writers, have been a guide to me. I have also derived a lot of healing and knowledge from philosophical texts, and poetry. As a…
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Bloganuary 9: The Most Memorable Gift
I am very blessed. My family gives very thoughtful gifts, tailored to what the receiver of that gift most needs or enjoys in life. We don’t bother with much secrecy, even at Christmastime. Sometimes, we are right alongside the gift-giver as they pick out and purchase the intended gift. Some would say this spoils the…
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Bloganuary 8: Family Trees
Today’s Bloganuary asks, “How far back in your family tree can you go?” For my family, this question still lacks a definitive answer. Years ago, my mother and other relatives discovered via a genealogy website that our family’s origins lie in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, although the names of our ancestors are…
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Bloganuary 7: Rain
The Rain Remembers I’ve heard that water remembers, that it holds memory within mists The rain remembers me It remembers the way I danced in summer downpours, barefoot upon the sunwarmed sand The fragrance of petrichor perfuming the air as raindrops met hot earth It remembers gathering at the heart of the horizon and rolling…
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Bloganuary 5: What Brings Me Joy
Today’s prompt asks, “What brings you joy in life?” This question is a joy to answer! Last year, I had to ask myself these very questions. So much of my life has changed, due to several factors. The pandemic changed things, but I also moved to a new town. I left behind some personal relationships…
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Bloganuary 4: Treasures
So far, I am really enjoying the way Bloganuary’s prompts ask me to dig deeper as a writer and a person, to ponder the prompt and come up with an earnest response. Today’s prompt asks, what is a treasure that’s been lost? For me, for a long time, it was my love of reading. I…
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Bloganuary 3: Earliest Memories
Today’s Bloganuary prompt asks, “What are the earliest memories you have?” I’m blessed. Most of my early memories are very happy ones. That’s thanks to the adults in my life. No children had been born in our family in a long time. A new arrival, especially a little girl, was a novelty. My mother and…
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Bloganuary 2: How Are You Brave?
I discovered #Bloganuary by reading another blog, and I’m all in! I love writing challenges. I wasn’t always a fan of writing prompts, but now I love how you always find out something new about yourself and grow as a result of pondering the prompt’s answer. Todays’s prompt asks, “How are you brave?” If you…
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Kay’s Library: Book Club Pick #4, I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
There are few things more familiar and instinctual to me than heading to the manga shelves on a trip to one of my favorite bookstores. As a Millenial, I grew up during the global popularity explosion of manga and anime franchises like Dragonball, Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, and Bleach, as well as the feature…
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Falling in Love With Yoga Again
I’m so pleased that the response has been so favorable to my post My Yoga Journey. It took on a life of its own in a way that I didn’t foresee, and in the wake of that I pondered, “What will I write next about the topic of Yoga?” As I touched on in the…
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Kay’s Library: Book Club Pick #3, Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb
This year, I have been trying to make positive choices and get to know myself better. That means going back to basics, and doing the things I love. My mother fostered a love of reading and books in me and my siblings at a young age, and that love has endured. I loved analyzing classic…
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A New Beginning
A few days ago at work, I was in the breakroom watching an NHK news documentary about nurses in Japan during the early days of the COVID19 pandemic. A nurse was visiting with a monk, who told her a story about the Buddhist deity Quan Yin. Known in Japan as Kannon, she is the goddess…
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This is Now
This is now- the sweat on my forehead, the laughter of my siblings, and the sound of children playing on a warm spring night my mother calling my name, me running up the stairs to hand her something she forgot, and then hugging her goodnight the book beside my foot waiting for me to pick…
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The Fullness of Silence
I miss you. No- I miss who you pretended to be when you would have said anything to win me When I was all yours’, I began to see the cracks appear in your mask that was welded with veins of iron rather than gold: Sarcasm, Inattention, Lies; by then I was alone with you…
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The Scent of Lillies
The scent of lilies wet, fresh, sharply sweet, with a pulpy musk, catches my attention, and clears my mind; it reminds me of the dark, promising earth of spring beneath the green, sprouting grass, of long gone gardens and youthful days in a home left behind, it reminds me of the grace that has brought…
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My Happy Place
Everyone needs a space of their own, a place where they abandon the cares of the day, the thoughts weighing on their mind, let go and let loose a bit. For some, that is their home, where they can take refuge from co-workers, friends and family for some alone time with their furry babies and…
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Poem 1
What if is what we say when a dream begins to bloom in us, and the frost of fear breathes on it What if I’m ugly? What if they won’t like me? What if I said too much? What if I end up alone? What if I get hurt? What if I’m not the one…
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K.L.Castle 