On the Street Where I live – Where have the Children Gone?

Where have the children gone?

On the street where I live there are children at play. From the window I see them and my heart smiles. I think back to my own yesterdays when I would race the wind on two wheels, my hair flying about like wings to guide me. Climbing trees and playing tag filled our afternoons as the sun kept watch. Dandelions were treasures bringing twinkling stars to my mother’s eyes. One, two, buckle my shoe, we sang the afternoons away. On bright red swings we tried to reach the clouds with little sandaled toes. Before the sun set on each day we were home, safe and surrounded by our family’s love.

Oh how these memories move me. I open the door to hear the laughter I know will warm my soul and find none. The rose-colored glass of memory I’d been looking through only clouded my vision to the reality of today. Nothing is as it once was. I watch and I listen, my heart aches as I stare helplessly into the face of the world.

The songs they sing have lost their innocence. Foul expressions spew from angelic lips. The little boys are playing handheld games of electronic war, do they even know war is real and ugly and sad? A gangly little girl in last year’s shorts twirls her hair for the old man next door and he watches her, too closely. I find myself in silent prayer.

Schools are as dangerous as the streets they wander. I wonder how many fear each day could be the day someone brings a gun. Too many little girls are pregnant, their childhood given to the care of another. When I was their age I played hopscotch and boys had cooties. Games and movies depict atrocities no child should be witness to, let alone see as entertainment. We played Mad-Libs and Chinese checkers.

I don’t know just when it changed or why. Society stopped watching and teaching and caring. Parents no longer parent. It’s not okay to tell them no anymore. Everybody has to win. If they fall they know someone will pick them up so there is no need to learn to rise. Bad choices are brushed off as mistakes, excuses are made for behaviors when discipline is actually required. Thankfully, there are still those who value the way things once were, the way they should be still. Glimmers of a life once lived still sparkle now and then. I wish it was enough. I want to look out my window and see what I see when I close my eyes.

Children no longer see the beauty in the dandelions they crush beneath their feet. Sometime after the sun goes down and only porch lights and the moon brighten the night, a father drives the block in a pickup truck yelling for his babies to come home for dinner. I hope they can hear him.

On the street where I live there are children at play, I wonder what they will remember when they drift off to dream of their yesterdays.

Crystal R. Cook

On coping with writer’s block (or the lies we tell ourselves along the way)

Jun11

Black coffee and cigarettes

I haven’t written for a very long time.

I joined a creative writing class a while ago to help me through my ‘writer’s block’ – can you call yourself a writer if you don’t write? – and I managed to produce a total of 500 words over the entire four-week course. A paltry amount by any standards, though the course itself was brilliant.

One of the suggestions from my fellow writers was to write about why I don’t write. I’ve been thinking a lot about the reasons I don’t write lately so this seemed as good a place to kick off my writing again as any. And also address why I call myself a writer in the first place – a hard sell in the writing void of the last few months.

In my professional life, I have been a public relations consultant, a journalist and now, an editor. Words…

View original post 1,499 more words

They said . . .

Jun11

When they told me
he would never talk,
I taught him to sing.

I mimicked his little sounds
until he began to mimic mine.

When they told me
he may never walk,
I taught him to run.

I put his little hands in mine
and helped guide his feet
toward our goal.

I fell to my hands and knees
and raced along
the floor by his side.

When they said
he would not read,
I began showing him words
and teaching him sounds.

When they said
he would not write,
I gave him a crayon
and said you can,
and he became a poet.

When they said
he would live
in his own world
I opened the doors to mine
and waited for him to enter.

Now when they say things
I raise my voice to the heavens.

God hears me
and gives me strength
to help him overcome
the limitations
they say await him.

Crystal R. Cook

Boots

Jun11

I remember writing this the night my husband returned home from Iraq, it was his third and last homecoming from that faraway place . . . He’s since retired, the sight of those boots laying there was one of the most beautiful things I can remember seeing.

Dust from another world,
soles worn from wear,
the color of sand,
wrinkled and creased
from the miles
marched in,
fought in,
slept in.

Dappled with the
darkened stains
from fallen sweat
and silent tears.

On the floor
by the bedside
they lay,
weary from war.

Worn with pride
ready again for service,
but now they rest
beside the bed where
the soldier sleeps.

Safe, loved,
home with me.

When tomorrow comes
a little boy
will wear the boots,
clumsily making his
way around the house.

He doesn’t know
where those
boots have been,
he just knows
they are his daddy’s
and he is home
again . . .

Crystal R. Cook

Yummmmm?

Jun11

Sometimes I wonder why I have food issues, then I remember my mom used to serve us a dish called Shit on a Shingle. I Googled it. Whadya know? That’s really what it’s called!

Khalil Gibran

Jun11

Education in America

Jun10

What is happening to our educational values?

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/should-we-abandon-standard-spelling

Will the dumbing down of America ever end? I cannot believe there are teachers who actually allow this in their classrooms or parents who find it acceptable for that matter. No more cursive being taught, no need to spell properly, grammar no longer seems to matter, it’s more important to try than to get the right answer . . . I fear for our future. I really do.

Psalms 139:8-10

Jun10

Writers Angst

Jun9

I’m not good enough. It is as simple as that; I’m just not good enough. There is a wicked little voice somewhere inside of me, whispering of my inadequacies, reminding me of my shortcomings. I’ve tried to quell it with all of the positive thinking I can muster, but still it never quiets. If I could rid myself of this angst I imagine I would rise higher into the literary heights I often dream of, but alas, the beast that it is does not share my dreams.

It cannot stop the words from flowing forth; it cannot keep me bound in some wordless prison. No, all of my words are locked up right alongside of me. Every now and again I find escape. Every now and then I feel a sense of accomplishment. Each time I do however, the voice begins to babble. Each time I see my name in print it should fill me with pride and it quite often does, sadly though, it doesn’t last for long.

I question each word I write, for the longest time I kept my words hidden so no one would see. It is a small victory for me each time I show the world what lay within me. I often wonder if this battle will always be. If I will always feel not good enough, if I will ever stop waiting for someone to finally tell me to stop writing and wasting my time.

Words have been my constant companions; they have never failed me, never judged me, never left me. They let me do with them what I will; they give themselves to me without question. The voice tells me they are not mine to have, I am not worthy of them.

In my heart I do not believe it, in my heart I know my words are meant to be, I know I am worthy of them. It is not my heart that stands between me and what could be, it is my mind, my ever working, ever wondering, ever wandering mind that builds the walls I must climb.

It is a sometimes a struggle to knock them down, yet brick by brick they fall and I make my way past the rubble and travel with my head held high, praying no more walls will block my path. I know I will one day find the strength to hush the voice of doubt, for I know that small, yet powerful voice is my own.

Crystal R. Cook