Michele Lee Sefton's Blog, page 11

Saturday morning

“Do you remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo? It’ll be spring soon. And the orchards will be in blossom. And the birds will be nesting in the hazel thicket. And they’ll be sowing the summer barley in the lower fields… and eating the first of the strawberries with cream. Do you remember the taste of strawberries?”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

“Spring drew on… and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Thank you for stopping by! I hope your weekend is off to a pleasant start. I am taking it easy this morning – giving my brain a break after an intense week, including researching a heavy topic for an article I am working on. Grounding myself with meditation, nature, and photography help to release stress. Dancing is a bonus, which I will have the pleasure of doing later today at a Fire & Ice dance workshop (the music is categorized by the four elements, allowing dancers to discover which element best fits their style and personality). Take it easy. Michele

Our next Creative Call will take place on April 23rd. We will be discussing the findings of some creative homework I’ve assigned. The fun kind… no papers to write or grading on my part. We’d love to have you join us! Please send me a note through my contact page, if interested.

Happy note about my sundress (in photo) ~ my cousin and I recently did some secondhand shopping and I was excited to find a sundress with pockets. Yay! Ya’ll know how much I love pockets! Well, if you caught my July 2023 post: What Really Matters.

my photos of strawberries, Campsis Radicans ‘Flamenco’ bush & Palo Verde tree, and my next poetry read: All the Words I Kept Inside by P.J. Gudka & fake flowers in vase I painted years ago (my daughter is the artist ) / image of typewriter, flower & hand by Roman Samborskyi

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Begging for a balcony baptism

From her studio apartment balcony, she watched an army of small scattered gray clouds find each other. The many became one. Darkness swallowed the blue sky and sun. She hadn’t seen rain in over four months, but that did not stop her pleading. She begged the growing entity to crack open and release a cleansing on her. She wanted to be washed away; she would settle for a balcony baptism. Her legs were too tired to seek shelter for her shivering skin. On her thrift-store chair, she remained. Her mind was too exhausted to care about work. She didn’t even have the strength to call in.

Usually, if I add music, its addition is inspired by what I’ve written. This morning’s post is inspired by the music. A cover of Round Here, sung by Noah Gundersen, found me a few weeks ago, which brought me back to the original (’94) by Counting Crows (video featured). Sidenote: What I most love about Noah Gundersen’s emotional rendition are the words spoken before he begins singing. He says, “This is the song that made me want to write music.”

Round Here
song lyrics

Step out the front door like a ghost into the fog
Where no one notices the contrast of white on white
And in between the moon and you
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right

Well, I walk in the air between the rain
Through myself and back again
Where? I don’t know
Maria says she’s dying
Through the door, I hear her crying
Why? I don’t know

‘Round here,we always stand up straight
‘Round here, something radiates

Maria came from Nashville with a suitcase in her hand
She said she’d like to meet a boy who looks like Elvis
And she walks along the edge
Of where the ocean meets the land
Just like she’s walking on a wire in the circus

She parks her car outside of my house
And takes her clothes off
Says she’s close to understanding Jesus
And she knows she’s more than just a little misunderstood
She has trouble acting normal when she’s nervous

‘Round here, we’re carving out our names
‘Round here, we all look the same
‘Round here, we talk just like lions
But we sacrifice like lambs

‘Round here, she’s slipping through my hands

Woah oh oh
Sleeping children better run like the wind
Out of the lightning dream
Mama’s little baby better get herself in
Out of the lightning

She says it’s only in my head

She says, shh, I know it’s only in my head
But the girl on the car in the parking lot
Says, Man, you should try to take a shot
Can’t you see my walls are crumbling?

Then she looks up at the building
Says she’s thinking of jumping
She says she’s tired of life
She must be tired of something

‘Round here, she’s always on my mind

‘Round here, hey man, got lots of time
‘Round here, we’re never sent to bed early
And nobody makes us wait
‘Round here, we stay up very, very, very, very late
I, I can’t see nothin’, nothin’ ’round here

You catch me if I’m fallin’, you catch me if I’m fallin’
Will you catch me? ‘Cause I’m fallin’ down on you
I said I’m under the gun, ’round here
I’m innocent, I’m under the gun, ’round here
And I can’t see nothin’, nothin’ ’round here

Songwriters: Charles Thomas Gillingham, David Lynn Bryson, Matthew Mark Malley, Steve Bowman, Dan Ryan Jewett, David A. Janusko, Christopher C. Roldan, Adam Frederic Duritz.

This song, Round Here, got me thinking about my character, Jade. She’s the unnamed character in this post’s short piece that touches on desperation, poverty, and isolation. These motifs and others, including hope, are woven into my novel, Jades’ Broken Bridge, to be released in October of this year. Thank you for visiting and reading. Kind regards. Michele

featured photo of woman standing on a road, looking back into the fog by Alexey Tikhomirov / my photo of a boy bouncing a basketball by himself, taken from the passenger window while traveling in Mexico (I intentionally left the image uncropped and unstraightened) / neighborhood photo with parked car and clothes drying on a line

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Truth before thriving

Fly toward freedom
Fly with truth
truth clears dust
truth has wings
wings expand possibilities
wings brush heaven
heaven is with you
heaven is within
within seeks peace
within is eternal
eternal is the soul
eternal are the stars
stars sparkle the night
stars capture wishes
wishes are delicious
wishes blow out candles
candles start with a strike
candles light your eyes
eyes don’t lie
eyes speak silently
silently rain falls
silently we endure
endure another day
endure what is necessary
necessary is death
necessary is breath
breath gives life
breath on your neck
neck tie too tight
neck covered in pearls
pearls are polished irritants
pearls take time
time is fleeting
time is flowing
flowing love for you
flowing rivers offer life
life is a mystery
life begins with a seed
seed stuck in my tooth
seed the soil
soil needs tilling
soil supports living
living alone is revealing
living is more than surviving
surviving on hope
surviving toward thriving
thriving is a color explosion
thriving means to never stop growing
growing takes courage
explosion of insight

In the spirit of National Poetry Month and trying something new, I thought I’d give a Blitz Poem a try. Goodness me! Felt like a britz brain dump. I wrote the first thing that came to mind, with few edits. I am now blitzed out. Time for a brain break. I invite you to give it a try and to check my work. Thank you for stopping by! Kind regards. Michele

Here are the guidelines for the Blitz poem, created by Robert Keim:

Line 1 should be one short phrase or image (like “build a boat”)Line 2 should be another short phrase or image using the same first word as the first word in Line 1 (something like “build a house”)Lines 3 and 4 should be short phrases or images using the last word of Line 2 as their first words (so Line 3 might be “house for sale” and Line 4 might be “house for rent”)Lines 5 and 6 should be short phrases or images using the last word of Line 4 as their first words, and so on until you’ve made it through 48 linesLine 49 should be the last word of Line 48Line 50 should be the last word of Line 47The title of the poem should be three words long and follow this format: (first word of Line 3) (preposition or conjunction) (first word of line 47)There should be no punctuation

featured photo of girl and dog running toward the sun by maxim ibragimov / my recent sunset photo of ducks on a lake

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Breakthrough

Love
a light
that fractures night

“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.”
― Dalai Lama XIV, The Art of Happiness

Although the demands of the day are calling me away, I couldn’t not share a gorgeous morning unfolding in the Sonoran Desert. Thank you for visiting! Wishing you a beautiful day and upcoming weekend. Kind regards. [image error] Michele

my sunrise photos of sun breaking through the clouds and a solo bird in flight surrounded by wispy clouds

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Renew y’all

Mr. Taxman is knocking on my door
telling me he wants more,
                                                more,
                                                                        more

            can barely afford to buy crackers at the store

The wheels on my car are spinning along,
            lacking fancy gadgets and sophisticated electronics
            choking on gas prices
            used, but still going strong
My wardrobe is dated; my jeans are faded
            just a little longer and they’ll be vintage
            soon to be a hipster, celebrated
Work is taxing my restless brain, keeping me
            from my inner child who wants to play
Mailbox full of tempting offers and glossy invitations
            that kill trees and waste my precious zzz’s
A million things to watch, any hour on any clock
for a small amount (that renews at the start of each month)

Hold on, wait a minute… I can’t take one more second of this madness
of the endless nonsense, distracting all of us from our brilliance

Please pause the noisy chaos and shallow breathing
Let’s take five to turn up the sparkle and celebrate living

Thank you for taking, not quite five, to stop by. I am deep in deadlines this week and in an effort to keep the frown lines at bay, I am pausing to join Nicole’s April Poetry Challenge: a list of daily poetry ideas she put together, inspired by the National Poetry Challenge. Today’s prompt is: “Renewal. Any style of poetry.” This poem, “Renew y’all.” is my submission. Thanks to Nicole for putting the list together. Cheers to creative escapes and dance breaks, of course! Kind regards. Michele

photos of older dancing people dressed in colorful clothes by Roman Samborskyi

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Petal vision

Filtered

through nectar

She is focusing

Thank you for stopping by! I would like to give a shout out to author Dawn Pisturino, for recently nominating me for the “Sunshine Blogger Award.” Although I do not participate in blog awards, I would like to publicly thank her for thinking of me, which I find beautifully kind. As a prolific published writer who shares creative poems, engaging personal essays, well-informed research, and steadfast support for others, Dawn is a writer’s writer and one who I greatly admire and respect. Thank you, Dawn! Wishing you a pleasant week. Michele

My poem follows the hay(na)ku structure: a six-word tercet with the first line being one word, the second line being two words, and the third line being three words, invented by Eileen R. Tabios.

featured photo by Floral Deco / my photo of a solo bird near a water feature taken in my hometown

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Lifeteller (writer spotlight)

No two lives are the same and no life is without pain or sorrow. How one chooses to manage the pain, in all its forms, is an individual decision, though sometimes the pain is too great and it does the choosing for us, for a weekend or for a season. Creative expression offers a way to move through life’s troubles – not eliminate them but transform them.

Creative communities, like those that exist in WordPress, give individuals a space to connect with a larger body – humans (not robots) making their way through the day to day, doing their best to show up for others, for themselves, for their art, and not just when moods are elated, or conditions “just right.”

We just show up – sharing whatever compels us – our efforts, accomplishments, hopes, dreams, discoveries, frustrations, laughter, fears, fantasies, tears, family sagas, personal dramas, travels, and on and on the subjects and emotions roll, delivered through poetic lines, punctuated prose, brush strokes, photos, published works, musical notes, dancing toes, and countless other ways that give us, the individuals, a vehicle to express all that flows through us.
I am grateful for this space, a colorful tapestry of creative individuals who add their own brand of artistic beauty to this world, even when the style reveals elements of life that are dark and depressing. Especially then. Without the ability to express all facets of the human existence, what greater purpose does art serve?

Storytelling can entertain and offer escape, but those with the courage to offer life telling – exposing destructive situations and sinister behavior that can lurk in the shadows – offer a path for change.
Author Tremaine (trE) L. Loadholt is one such lifeteller, a term I thought of (last night) when thinking about her storytelling abilities. She does captivate the reader with her writing; however, she writes stories that reflect real life, which can be real tragic, abusive, and not always have a happy ending. I applaud trE for weaving difficult subjects into her short story collection, Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction. Her stories offer hope, too, which highlights this writer’s ability to not only write about darkness and evil but attempt to transform it.

Séduire is separated into fourteen stories that introduce a variety of characters who seem so real, it is hard to believe that they aren’t! The author’s talent for character development is what stood out to me when I finished reading her collection and what compelled me to send trE a few questions, which she graciously answered (below). For those who appreciate real life scenarios, complex characters, and diverse dialogue offered in short story form, I highly recommend Seduire, and if you’re a writer, you may also be inspired to become more observant about human behavior after reading trE’s book.

To learn more about the author, who is also a bold and talented poet and passionate pet parent, please visit her blog: A Cornered Gurl.

Séduire: Serial Tales & Flash Fiction, is available for purchase at Lulu.

Questions for trE about reading and writing:

Tell us about the inspiration for your characters. (real people, movies, other books, observations, a combination)

To be honest, characters speak to me. They present themselves to me whether I want to be an intruder in their lives or not. They come to me with their problems, their joy, their sadness, accomplishments, etc. And they will NOT SHUT UP until I’ve written their story.

I wish there was something else I could tell you, some writing exercise that I do to coax a story or character to life, but really that’s mainly it. They speak. I listen. Then, I write.

Who is your favorite character from a book you’ve read and what makes that character stand out?

Tangy Mae, a character in the book The Darkest Child, by Delores Phillips. Tangy is brilliant. She is resilient while living a life full of struggles and dealing with a mom who verbally and physically shows her disdain for her children. She is a fully-developed character who made my soul ache, and I will read that book a million times over to feel what I feel each time I read it.

It is apparent in reading your work that you have great empathy for others. Please describe how writing may help you process all that you may feel in relation to the burden of others.

Writing is a release. I am hypersensitive and an Empath; so much so that in the past, when I didn’t have quite the best grip on my emotions and how the pain of others would affect me, I would be in physical pain because I would take on the hurt of my loved ones.

That is not a healthy life to live. Writing and therapy have helped me with continuing to acknowledge the pain of others but to detach from it. I can be aware and stand in solidarity with the hurting ones and recognize their voices should be shared and heard without hurting myself.

What do you find most challenging about creating and developing characters?

Honestly, it’s not really creating characters that’s a challenge for me, it’s getting them to be quiet. Sometimes, I don’t feel like writing. I would rather not experience their pain or tell a happy tale or share their defeats with others. But I’m forced because these fully-formed characters will not let me rest until I’ve completed their life’s story. I actually have more of a problem letting go of some of the characters I’ve created, and some readers do, too.

One character, Aunt May, from an ongoing series I did had reached her end–I wrote her death into an installment and then, the funeral in the next. Readers were LEGIT mad at me for months for killing off the character, but she was becoming such a a part of my life that it was going to be harder to let her go if I didn’t do so when I did.
………………..
Anything else you would like us to know about Séduire or your writing process?

I write because I have to. I write because it is a healer. It has given me life that I needed and had forgotten I could live. If you read Séduire, I am almost certain, you will feel that.

Thank you to trE for gifting us with her talent and for taking the time to answer a few questions and thank you for reading! Kind regards. Michele

featured photo of apartment windows lit up at night by Khuroshvili LLya / image of  human profile and abstract elements by Agsandrew / photo of woman in bookstore by LStockStudio / my photo of Séduire

2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Their time to shine

“Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Laughter is sunshine, it chases winter from the human face.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Thank you for stopping by! Warm regards. Michele

my beach photos of people showered in the sun’s rays taken in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico (Nov. ’24)

 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Giddy-up, you got this! (w/video)

Celebrating some small wins from my long day; maybe share a few smiles along the way.

Going Up The Country by Kitty Daisy & Lewis (the song, in video, that inspired a little extra pep in my step) Thanks for stopping by!

Going up the Country (song lyrics)
by Kitty, Daisy & Lewis
I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
Take you to some place I’ve never been before
I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine
I’m going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
Gonna leave this city, got to get away
Gonna leave this city, got to get away
All this fussing and fighting, man, you know I sure can’t stay
Now baby, pack your leaving trunk, you know you’ve got to leave today

Just exactly where we’re going I cannot say, but
We might even leave the USA
‘Cause it’s a brand new game that I just want to play
No use of you running
Or screaming and crying
‘Cause you’ve got a home, man
And I’ve got mine
I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
I’m going up the country, babe don’t you wanna go
Take you to some place I’ve never been before
I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine
I’m going where the water tastes like wine
We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
Gonna leave this city, got to get away
Oh, leave this city, got to get away
All this fussing and fighting, I know I sure can’t stay
You better pack your leavin’ trunk, you know you got to leave today
Now just exactly where we goin’ I can’t say, but
We might even leave the U.S.A.
‘Cause it’s a brand-new game that I just want to play
And no use of me running
Or screamin’ and cryin’
Because you got a home, man
And I’ve got mine
Songwriters: Alan Wilson

featured vintage photo of women dancing by Everett Collection

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife

Sweetly Singed

Sweet orange blossoms
bursting open
a juicy future
in front of me

A blue morning
igniting sky flames
swirling memories
behind me

“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists… it is real… it is possible… it’s yours.”
― Ayn Rand, Atlas Shurgged

Thank you for stopping by! Wishing you a wonderful weekend, with your own blend of sweet juice and energizing fire. [image error] Michele

P.S. I will link this share to Hammad’s Weekend Sky post, when available.

featured photo of woman holding a lit lotus behind a vase of flowers by Jozef Klopacka / my morning shots (orange blossoms and fiery sky)

© 2019-2025 myinspiredlife