Emma's One-Minute Writings

One Minute Writer: Six-word Saturday.

2009-06-20T10:00:00.000-07:00

The challenge today was to describe your life in six-words.

I love the six-word challenge and have done it before. Here are a couple that I've come up with that describe my life today:

- I'm doing better than I deserve.
- I'm choosing love. No more fear.
- Life's too short to regret. Live.

If you've got a minute (and you do), describe your life in six words in the comments.

One Minute Writer: Hindsight

2009-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

You've never been as wise or as foolish as you've suspected you are.

One Minute Writer: Discipline.

2009-06-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Throughout the school year, I would get up early every morning and run. Just put on some sweats and my running shoes and go.

And, I'd go and go and go.

Now, I go maybe twice a week -- not nearly as much as I used to, or nearly as much as I'd like to -- but, without classes, it's a struggle to find a reason to be out of bed so early and, by the time I finally stir, the temperatures and humidity are too unbearable.

I miss it.

One Minute Writer: Mail

2009-06-16T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Dearest Emma,

"I would like you to know that all of the things that you've done -- all of the things that you've felt guilt for, all of the things you blame yourself for, and all of the things that you've kept hidden, those things in the darkness inside of yourself that you're afraid to peer into too deeply -- they're all forgiven. All of them. Your slate is clean.

"Love always,

"God"

One Minute Writing: Hill

2009-06-13T10:00:00.000-07:00

Life isn't so much a hill as it is a cliff. Going up is hard and, often, fraught with risk but, the more effort you give, the better the view and the more accomplishment you feel looking back at where you've been.

Going down seems far easier, whether you choose the slow descent or the easy freefall. But reaching the darkness at the bottom leaves you either broken and dying or licking your wounds, resting yourself, and looking for a hand-hold to climb back out.

One Minute Writer: Storm (Friday Fiction)

2009-06-12T10:00:00.000-07:00

The wind-driven rain pounded on the window as hot white bolts gave light to the darkened sky outside. The thunder rumbled so loudly that it felt as though the bed itself were shaking. I nustled back against him, tangled together in the sheets, safe from the howling night outside.

One Minute Writer: Relative.

2009-06-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

I don't have a great relationship with many of my relatives. The ones who are older than me -- parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles -- don't understand me. I'm not sure that they ever have. There is a hint of scorn and judgement hidden in their eyes that I've never been able to happily endure for long.

My brothers understand me, to a degree. They are more accepting of whom I am and of the choices I make, even if they disagree. But their disagreements with the things I do and their interest in protecting me from people I don't need protection from would likely prevent us from co-existing under the same roof anymore.

George, however, doesn't look at me with anything but happiness.

He is nothing but smiles when I come in the room. Giggles and gurgles and big belly laughs. I'm sure I could never replace his mother, and I'm certainly not ready to be anyone's mother myself, but it still set my heart ablaze when his parents asked me to be his god-mother. It's too bad he lives so far away.

One Minute Writer: Signal.

2009-06-10T10:00:00.000-07:00

I think that my biggest goals at this very moment are, in the order that I'd like to achieve them, to a) finish school, b) get married and c) start a family.

Life, of course, sometimes has other plans. There are no green lights or red lights or stop signs, necessarily, but there certainly have been detours. There have been blowouts and breakdowns along the way.

But I can, at the very least, still see the road. I know that I'm still on it and I know that, somewhere up ahead, is where I'd like to get to. And, I think I can see the tail lights of someone pulling over to help ...

One Minute Writer: Graduation.

2009-06-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

First, learn that success comes from self-control. Have self-control, even if you don't always practice it.

Second, realize a true sense of the values of things. Then realize that there are no things that can replace the people around you or the relationships that you have with them.

Third, know that in extremes lies danger. Moderate yourself.

Fourth, do not lose heart if others around you doubt or oppose you. Instead, do your best to understand their opposition. You may find out they're right.

And, finally, do not be deceived into thinking either triumph or disaster final. Use each wisely, and push on.

One Minute Writer: Movie.

2009-06-08T10:00:00.000-07:00

"Emma (Anna Paquin) is a girl who has always struggled to be what those around her expected her to be. After finding the one she thought she could love for her whole life (Colin Farrell), she watched the world she'd come to know crumble around her when he changed his mind. Now, having overcome the subsequent darkness of depression and alcohol and men who didn't deserve her, she's finally moved on to ..."

That is the movie that the self-centered part of me would like to see; my own story translated to script and played out on the big screen.

The motivation, of course, wouldn't be the fame or the money that would come from selling my story (such as it is), but rather so that I could buy it on DVD and skip to the end to see how everything is supposed to turn out.

My more adventurous part, my internal Ellie Fredericksen, is always there to remind the self-centered part that that would spoil the surprise and, really, what fun would it be to know the ending before you know how you got there ... ?

One Minute Writer: Lobby.

2009-06-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

The topic of today's writing is what you would lobby for, were you a paid lobbyist in Washington, DC.

I will be skipping this particular writing because, honestly, I'm thoroughly disgusted with both political parties and I feel that lobbyists are a large part of what's wrong with our political system.

Neither party seems to care a whit for what the principles and ideals that our country was founded on, giving up representation 'of the people, by the people, and for the people' in favor of whoring themselves to special interests and the campaign donations that they can provide.

Lobbyists are a symptom of the cancer that is bringing rot to our nation.

One Minute Writer: Trust.

2009-06-06T10:00:00.000-07:00

I stand at the side of the pool, my arms in orange floats to protect me from sinking. The water is blue and cool and deep. Deep enough that I wouldn't be able to touch the bottom if I needed.

"It's okay," he says, arms outstretched. "I'll catch you."

My knees are already bent, readying for launch, but they wobble.

My fear causes me to hesitate. I tell myself that he's never lied to me before. He's never let me fall. He'd never allow harm to come to me.

So I fill my mouth with air. I pinch my nose. I squeeze my eyes as tightly shut as I'm able. And my toes leave the tan concrete as I leap.

One Minute Writer: Breakfast. (Friday Fiction)

2009-06-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

I came down the stairs in my satin robe, hair still chaotic, untamed and tangled from sleeping (and not sleeping) the night before, unconscious that I was twisting the new rings on my left-hand finger.

I stumbled into the kitchen and found him there, pouring a small glass of milk and putting in next to a steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," he said, kissing me on the forehead before picking up the morning newspaper from the counter and sitting down next to the place he'd prepared for me to read it.

A single hard boiled egg, already peeled. Two pieces of French toast, lightly covered with powdered sugar and soaked in maple syrup. Half of a grapefruit, already sectioned and sprinkled with just enough sugar to make it palateable. All sitting alongside the coffee and milk.

"I made you breakfast."

One Minute Writer: Illness.

2009-06-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

I had been kept home for the day from school, sent to spend the day with my grandmother, sick with chicken pox.

Tiny blisters turned itchy and then turned to tiny scabs which were even more itchy. To ease my urge to scratch, my grandmother sat me on her musty, blue-flowered divan in her sunroom and dabbed calomine lotion onto me with a cotton ball, leaving my tiny body covered head to toe in bright-pink polka dots.

One Minute Writer: Clothing.

2009-06-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

I stepped into the panties I had chosen for the evening.

They were an intricate black lace that allowed a teasing glimpse of skin. A scalloping of lace trim at each leg and a tiny pink bow on one hip made them even more feminine. They were the kind that practically begged aloud to be peeled from your body.

I stood, barefoot on his hardwood floor with the morning sun cascading over my otherwise bare body as I pulled them back on, still smiling at his inability to resist their invitation.

One Minute Writer: Lottery.

2009-06-02T10:00:00.000-07:00

I put my dollar bill on the counter for a chance to win the gigantic PowerBall lottery. $222 million dollars.

I had already planned how I'd spend it -- at least, in part. A house with a porch that wrapped around the front, a large swimming pool in the back and a backyard that stretched clear to the horizon. I dreamed of being able to sit there and write and not worry if I was never published.

I had simpler visions, too. Visions of a car that didn't need so many repairs. And of being able to not say no the next time a charity called.

I'd have been better off spending my dollar on a chocolate bar. The gratification would've been greater.

One Minute Writing: Nature.

2009-06-01T10:00:00.001-07:00

I'm standing ankle deep in a frigid mountain river, helping my brothers search for salamanders under the smooth, moss-covered rocks while my parents spread a picnic blanket over old cedar table and begin unpacking the cooler the summer that we went to the Rockies.