Writing Journey

I upset a pair of cardinals in my magnolia tree, as I was inspecting the blossoms. The blossoms make up for the spring they lost the lost the battle with frost. This baby jumped or fell from the tree about ten feet up. I knew there was a nest as the couple chit and chattered, growing louder with more concern as I searched with my eyes the branches for the nest. I felt badly as this little guy landed on the ground. Stunned, he sat for a while.

He can't fly yet. He doesn't look like a cardinal. Would they protect another type of bird's baby? Or are they this brown to protect themselves? I thought baby cardinals had the soft brown like the mother. It looks like a baby robin. He keeps trying to fly, once the startleness wore off. Now, it's near the road, but in the sun. Does that give him strength? Like the sun does for me?

Everyone is chirping, but not as wildly as when I was under the tree. Momma's watching it as he was on the road with his attempts getting stronger. Oh, Baby, do well.

Lightning bugs like my flowers in my hanging pot. This is my second morning seeing them there in the morning.

Papa and Momma are teaching Baby how to fly. Luring him to the bushes across Cohassett. His flight times increase, but the height of the flights are still puny. Then he flew just inches across the street.

Japanese beetles ruin the magnolias before they have a chance to bloom and pot mark the leaves. Is that how my writing feels? Summer, yet, I'm still distracted by "bugs."

In the spring before I was out for the summer, I struggled with time for my writing. I felt like my magnolia with promise of full blooms that is then crushed by late snow or frost. They hung there all brown. I knew in summer, the blooms would come back and so I hoped my writing would, too.

I work as a nurse at a high school and sometimes elementary. I'm not the certified school nurse, so I have been told I can't call myself "school nurse." Even though the requirements are to be an RN, my position is labeled "Nurse Aid." I refuse to call myself that. This past year, I wrestled with that. The worse came when our time sheets started being on line. Every day, I had to see "Nurse Aid." I have been a professional nurse for forty three years. Yes, I feel insulted.

I'm coming to peace that with my age and a fractured - a bad fracture- femur two years ago, I need more of a desk job. A few incidents the last few weeks clarified, I'm to work with teens. They talk to me with no hesitation. I'm praying for the next school year.

My writing may not be as full as I wanted it to be in the spring. I felt flat, crushed and ragged. The summer refreshes me. I've been to the shore. I've attended a writing conference and was a nurse for our church's camp. I swim. I encourage a teen to make friends of kids that go to another school. I talked to teen girls on a walk. So, I am confident that while life goes on, I will soar.

So, to introduce myself, I've always wanted to be a writer, but made sure I had a stable daytime job. Although at first, I worked five years of midnight, then another five years of afternoon turn, until I started home health in 1992. That career path of nursing truly found me in my calling.

I journaled mostly. Challenged in 2000 by a writer on the radio, to write daily, I did. The story finally found me in 2010 and I hid my writing on the PC, only writing in early morning hours or when everyone was away in the evening. My first novel, truly a novella, completed. The story found me as my English teacher, my senior year, encouraged me, maturity would bring the material. He believed in my writing.

By 2016, I had self published four novels. In January 2024, my fifth novel joined them. I'm writing the sequel to that one, working on it being done this year. I have a few more that also need written or completed.

I read about this platform this morning. It sounds promising, so with hope like my magnolia tree and the baby cardinal, I'm venturing on my writing journey.