Day 286 Writing Short Stories

Cherry

To make a good tea, there needs to be water boiled to perfection and leaves with a hint of cherry blossoms, and nothing else. There’s no need for sugar, honey, or milk — water and leaves, and a divine cup and good company are all that is needed to create a perfect moment, and company is optional. Book will do, or a bright sunny morning. Then again, late autumn nights with tea are to die for.

She had always treated her tea time as sacrilege—something not to be rushed. When the water boiled, she would dance or wait patiently, she would dream and prepare the leaves. There would be this whisper of tea to come. In those moments, when the tea hit her tongue, time would stop, and there was eternity to be had. And she never let that eternity pass her by. It was her moment of light and darkness. It was a moment of magic, where she could wish for the future to come.

This morning, her wish was for the stillness to stretch until the song birds would sing and the air would be hot with love and honey, and hint of magic.

Foreseen

A man foresees his child’s murder and recognizes who the killer is. I skipped this one.

Moody Teenager

Goes shopping with her mother. I skipped this one, too.

The prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

I’m not sure what to make of today. My morning was spent writing my book and watching a movie at the same time: Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Not every efficient way to write. But it was the only way I could write. My mind felt scattered, scurrying all over the place, criticizing every sentence I put down, unsure where to go. It was like creativity had escaped me, and I was sucking it back in from the movie scene by scene—a movie with such a powerful story and cast. I was borrowing its power to be awed. I got words down, and I got at least one person right as I wrote my book, and I find that is all I can ask of myself today.

The same goes for the prompts. I had to brew an extra cup of tea to make it happen. There is nothing like a good cup of tea in the morning to nourish my soul, whatever that means. Spirit might be the right word, as I don’t know about souls or what they propose. It’s too hard a concept to grasp, to pin down, to profess as truth. I wish I could yell it from the mountains as something proved right, but I can’t. But there’s spirit, not just mind as a mechanical concept. I believe in spirits. It’s more than a mood. It’s a mission. It’s your and my truth. It’s the way to relate to the world, a way to relate to oneself. And that spirit needs nourishment from a good story, tea, friendship, connection, a walk in the woods, a new blouse, an achievement ticked off, mistakes, kindness towards a stranger. Spirit is behind it all. And sometimes one needs to remember it’s there to be fed.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a spirited day!