Ring
After the house is empty
curled on a too small bed,
heedless of discomfort
(it has become a world where nothing fits)
she clutches a patient stuffed animal
Ring
He closes the door of his office
leans his head against it, weary
out of new habit, removes his glasses
breathes deeply
wishes for control
Ring
A week, a month, a year
A hundred years
A thousand
Ring
Ring
I have a particular favorite book, PAY IT FORWARD. Maybe you know the story. A boy’s given an assignment to find a way to change the world. He begins a project to help three people , with the intent that they should each help three people, and so on. He executes on his part of the plan, and generates a response on a level he’d never imagined. Then, after receiving an award from the President, he is killed trying to protect a stranger.
His influence, and his project, explodes as people all over the world commit to pick up the torch – to carry his sacrifice forward. Fundamental change happens.
I wonder, looking at things like #26Acts, if perhaps we are coming, because of Newtown, to a change on that level.
Better to light a candle, they say,
and so we do.
Light them and send them out
into the world.
But not until we’ve checked their homework,
until they’ve brushed their teeth.
Until we’ve taught them how to cross the street,
or walked them, till they know.
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness, they say
But when your candle is put out
oh, the darkness.
We trip, we fall, the landscape that we knew
irretrievably altered and strange.
We curse with pain, and then we cry –
we reach for each other,
and in doing so,
light our candles again.
I see you pacing through the shabby rooms
your little world, its children flung
away to safety, seeds upon the wind,
and you alone, your face set for the fires.
They come, a miracle, or not
no saviors, reavers
without blood portfolio –
fight, still fight, alone against them
low down dirty deceivers.
Believe in all you’ve done and will.
Believe you’ll find
Serenity.
watching feeling falling calling fear, then the resolve the steady tramp up stairs standing choosing reaching moving forward, then the resolve to bear witness to bear history to continue up the stairs
There was a moment,
when the world was young,
when we would amble
on a country walk, with
time enough to whistle
and no need to fear –
remember?
And all that was important,
all we had to know
was where the fishing hole was –
oh, and how to whistle.
Lord, how we would laugh…
Remember?
–Lydia Ondrusek, 7/3/2012
Punch!
[OmniLit] [Kindle] [Kindle UK] [Kindle DE ][Nook] [Smashwords]
Ray’s parents are divorced and shuttling him back and forth. Nobody seems to realize how hard this has become for Ray. His only comforts are eating, and hiding out in video games. Now, gaming at school has gotten him suspended. Will taekwondo help him lose weight? Give him more discipline? His parents hope so. It’s the first thing they’ve agreed on in ages.
His gran doesn’t think Ray needs to worry about losing weight. She does agree he needs taekwondo, though. Taekwondo will mean somewhere to go, friends his age to spend time with outside of school, and something for Ray to feel good about besides his skill at video games.
Ray finds out that no matter how bad he thought things were, they can always get worse–and that when life punches you in the heart, it’s good to rely on friends who aren’t made out of sugar or pixels on a game screen.
Block!
[OmniLit] [Kindle] [Kindle UK] [Kindle DE] [Nook] [Smashwords]
Erin has never been secretive, but she’s starting to wonder; is it still keeping a secret if you just don’t tell anybody? What if nobody asks?
Could what Margret and her friends (or henchmen) are doing be Erin’s secret? Erin is being bullied at school. She hasn’t reported the abuse to anyone in charge, not her teachers, or her parents–she hasn’t even talked to her twin brother Tim about it. Erin believes her reasons for not discussing what’s going on are good. Or she did. She’s not so sure anymore.
The bullying has gone from insults to physical attacks that are getting dangerous. They’re bad enough that now Erin is scared to go to school. It’s stopped feeling like a safe place to be. Can what she’s learning in taekwondo help?
Life isn’t fair, Mark Holden knows that. The doctor says he has Asperger’s Syndrome, and nobody knows why. What they do know is Asperger’s makes it harder for Mark to understand how other people think, including teachers.
At a taekwondo school, though, you don’t have to figure out what people mean or how they think. It’s a physical activity. Everyone starts the exact same way, in a white uniform with a white belt. You’re only better if a belt you’ve earned says you are, and respect for others is a requirement. Mark likes that.
He thinks a roomful of white belts looks pretty much like a roomful of marshmallows, though. Not like the black belts his mom talks about, in the Olympics; not very tough at all. And who wants to be king of the marshmallows?
When he starts taekwondo, Mark discovers that he and four other kids from his school are in a class full of adults! They’ll have a lot to learn, the faster the better, about taekwondo and each other – but they’ll find there’s nothing like a little heat to make marshmallows stick together.
Episode #1
Ready! by Lydia Ondrusek (Ages 13+)
[OmniLit] [Kindle] [Kindle UK][ Nook] [Smashwords]
Mark’s Asperger’s Syndrome makes things hard for him at school. Mark’s mom and dad think MORE school is the answer. They can’t be right–can they? When they enroll Mark in the new taekwondo school nearby, he finds that his class is filled with adults–and four kids from his school he’s never met before. So now he’s got to meet new people (ugh), learn MORE new skills (ack), and oh yeah…somewhere in there, he’s got to figure out how not to flunk English.
Because this is where you go to find out what I’ve been doing lately — which is to say, where you can find stuff I’ve written. So if that’s something you want to do, this is where you should be.