Author: Melissa Snyder

Melissa Snyder https://awriterbecoming.wordpress.com Melissa Snyder is an introvert with a flair for the dramatic in her writing. She is a wife, mother, teacher, compulsive writer, voracious reader, and fierce defender of Love and Imagination. She likes to write about faith (her own and faith in general) and self and emotion and society and hobbies, as well as revealing the myriad paracosms that inhabit her mind. These paper bullets of the brain live in her blog and on Facebook where she endeavors to write about life and Imagination boldly and share honestly.

Soul-Lift

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How often we wish for another chance
to make a fresh beginning.
A chance to blot out our mistakes
And change failure into winning.
It does not take a new day
To make a brand new start,
It only takes a deep desire
To try with all our heart.
To live a little better
And to always be forgiving
And to add a little sunshine
To the world in which we’re living.
So never give up in despair
And think that you are through,
For there’s always a tomorrow
And the hope of starting new.

Author – Helen Steiner Rice

Not the End of the Story

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1491606_624325770975867_589373496_n What is the part of the story that most readers fear/enjoy most?  That’s right: the end. Sometimes, the end of the story is satisfying, with all the ends tied up in a way that makes sense and gives a feeling of closure to the tale. Sometimes, the ending leaves us wanting to tear our hair out and going, “WTH did you just DO?!” But something that all of us realize throughout the reading of the book, – the ones that are the most impactful, the most life-changing – is that it’s not the end until the end. So when the characters, such as Eleanor of Aquitaine in Alison Weir’s Captive Queen, are going through hell, we as the readers know that it’s not the end, not yet. So we keep reading. We don’t just stop, because the bad times are not the end of the story.

That was the sentence with which I began my week: Bad times or wrong things are not the end of the story. I was sitting in church, this past Sunday, letting my brain and heart work back over the past few weeks, searching the Bible for guidance and encouragement. Honestly, I felt a bit downcast and distraught. But, then, during open worship, a member of our church stood and said something extraordinary that has stuck with me all week. She said that she was so thankful that the bad times or the wrong things that happen to us are not the end of the story. We don’t have to give up because we aren’t at the end yet and we can trust God to carry us through. And that lodged itself in my heart and has stuck there all week. I emailed her that evening to tell her thank you for sharing, that what she said what just what my heart needed to hear, to be reminded of.

A few days later, the above picture showed up in my Facebook newsfeed, posted by a friend. I couldn’t help but smile and say to myself, “I guess this is my theme this week. Bad times are not the end of the story.” And I found myself using that phrase over and over again throughout the week in attempts to encourage others who have been having a rough time. It’s not the end of the story. You’re not done in yet. Just hold on, hang on. Just a few more pages, a few more chapters. The story is not done. Choose each day to end the story as well as you can. End well. That is another phrase that kept popping up in my life this week. The story is not done, you can choose how the next chapter looks. Yes, there will be things in our lives that throw us for a loop, hurt our hearts, and oppress our minds. But we can still choose to write the next pages well, even if it is just in little ways – choosing to give a smile, asking someone else how they are doing and trying to give an encouraging word, spending some time in the sunshine. Little things, day-by-day choices, words on the page. Words add up to sentences, sentences to pages. Bad times are not the end of the story. Keep going. It’s not the end. Not yet.

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It’s been a rough two weeks, with gloomy, cold weather, pain, sickness, and disrupted schedules. I haven’t pulled totally out the funk yet so my writing has been lax, I admit. I’m also not quite sure what to say about my past two weeks either. What’s the point of having a blog with nothing to say, or nothing I can say, really? Well, there are things that I can say, but they aren’t all that cheery.

I’ve honestly felt useless these past two weeks. I’m a stay-at-home mom currently and I feel like I’m failing at the stay-at-home duties.  My house is a mess. My laundry basket is never empty anymore, no matter how I try. There are dishes in my sink, clutter in my kitchen, hall closet, and den. Our clothes and belongings need to be weeded out, sorted, and sold/donated.  My writing has been lackluster or nonexistent over the past two weeks. It just hasn’t been a very good time for me lately.

But, as someone very aptly said today, “The wrong things (or bad times) aren’t the end of the story.” And I am hoping and taking solace in that.

The Curvature of Light

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breast-augmentation

Originally published on The Well Written Woman:

It was the light that woke him, peeking through the curtains and obstinately bright, warming his cheek and winking over his eyelashes. Finally, he acquiesced. Turning over silently in the bed, he found the place next to him cold, only the soft duvet left behind. Opening his eyes, he learnt then that he would thank that overzealous star for waking him so early. He’d never been able to catch her at it, this private pre-morning ritual, and, even now, he remained still so as not to startle the current picture from its frame.

She sat on the upholstered stool of a vintage vanity table, the mirror an oval sheen of silver before her. Luckily, he was just out of its view so he could watch her unimpeded and unnoticed. The sheet from the bed was draped around her form, pooling at her hips and leaving her back bare. Her hair was drawn over her shoulder, coiled from its evening braid, and there was a soft, even sound whispering throughout the room as she drew a brush through the tendrils slowly. But it was her naked back that drew his gaze, perusal, and admiration. Her neck was an elegant pillar, sloping down into graceful shoulders. Her shoulder blade flexed with strength as if she would sprout wings and take flight into the early morning. As she moved, he could see the muscles undulate beneath soft skin, and would openly regard the cunning arc and bowl of her spine, the s-curve of her waist as it arched into the heart of her hips.

It was a picture he wanted to photograph, to paint, to sketch, to do whatever was necessary to preserve a beauty that she never observed in herself, in that side of her that forever followed her. But he knew – knew – that nothing would ever be able to fully capture the sight before him at this moment. It was a fluke that he was even awake to spy such wonder so he just laid there and watched, burning the image and its magnificence into his mind. It was this image that he would call up at the most arbitrary of times, the image that would forever remind him, even on the darkest days, that there is untold beauty in this world that passes by, unbeknownst to most, every single day.

She turned her head and spied him watching. This moment’s spell was broken and another woven in the next when she smiled.

Good Things

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So I have been so very blessed with opportunity lately that I am entirely chuffed! ^_^ I had the fabulous chance to edit a Master’s thesis project for a good friend, which I really, really enjoyed, and he was entirely too kind and credited me in his project – a new roleplaying game.

I also have the continued blessing and pleasure to be contributing to The Well Written Woman. Camicia and Lauren are simply amazing and I am ever so thankful for them giving me this chance!

I was also contacted by the editors of Myth Ink Books about a new collection that they are developing of works that were published in Parma Nole, the Journal of the Northeast Tolkien Society several years ago. They have offered me the opportunity to have one of those papers published once again in the new collection this fall, and I am very excited that I get to revisit, revise, and update one of my favorite literary works.

So many opportunities, so many blessings! I can hardly believe and I am so thankful for it all! 🙂

My Senses, My Memory

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I just had a bit of summertime in the early spring, a delicious bit of nostalgia, divine deja vu. It was in the way that the fan blew on my skin, in its coolness exhaled on white noise breath. It was in the cloudy shadow of the room I sat in at the back of the house. It was in the way my heart sat in my chest, and it ached a little bit with the memory brought up. Though the memory itself was “long ago and in a land far away”, the feeling is still sweet.

My senses are my memory. My mind is cast back by a touch that raises gooseflesh, the particular way the sun winks at me of a morning, a smell that makes me pause and sigh, a song that makes my chest ache with emotion. Memories tied to senses, captured by sensations, scents, and sounds. I laugh, I cry, I feel like all I want is a nuzzle and inhale, the warmth of someone’s embrace, the texture of tendrils of hair gliding through my fingers. My sense memory is raw and visceral and I know no other way to remember.

Nothing on the Shelf

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So…today, I faced a unique problem. Well, unique to me. I couldn’t find anything to read. We were in Target and, of course, I decided to spin by the books. I picked up book after book and put each down again in disappointment. Every book was a “tragic love” and two in a row were about a woman being left with a pregnancy by the man who broke her heart. After about the fourth of fifth book, I shoved the last back onto the shelf with an audible, “Arggggh!” I wanted a book to grab me, to capture me with its story, not with the tragedy and helplessness of its protagonist.

I found one book to interest me, finally: Glitter and Glue: A Memoir by Kelly Corrigan. I’m not entirely certain that this is what I was looking for but this was the closest I had come in twenty minutes of searching. Unfortunately, I am on a tight budget right now and $27 for a hardcover was out of my price range today. I might pick it up on Kindle in a little while but, I have to admit. I was little disappointed today. It was like echoing the woes of a satellite subscriber: Hundreds of channels and nothing to watch.

I know, I know. First world problems.

The Joy of Alone

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10009813_1475881882626096_2055759745_nThe day was gloomy and rainy, reflecting the weariness that she felt in her very bones. All week long, it had been go, go, go. Meetings and lessons, get-togethers and dinners. People. All week: people. Finally, it was today. She stepped up to the window, asking for one ticket to the movie. The attendant might have looked at her a little askance but, if they did, she didn’t notice or at least affected not to. She garnered herself a small popcorn and a drink, inhaling the warm buttery smell of the theatre. It was smell that never failed to take her back to childhood when this was an unforeseen treat: going to the movies. Strolling through the multiplex, she made her way to the screening room where her chosen movie was showing. Stepping into the already semi darkness, she mounted the stairs to the very top row of high-backed, plush seats, scooting down the row until she was centered with the giant screen. The sweet spot.

Finally satisfied, she lowered herself down in her seat, stowing her bag,  drink, and snack, and making herself as comfortable in her temporary little nest as she could, padding it with the soft of her coat. And then, at last, she slouched in the chair, exhaling a heavy siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Alone. It was early, the theatre was practically empty, and she was alone. And the only word she would use to describe it?

Joyous.

As the theatre darkened and her favorite part of the movie-going experience (the previews) began, she snuggled down into her seat, grabbed her popcorn, and inhaled its nostalgic scent once more. This. This was joy. If just for these moments. Just…being alone.

No Words

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A full heart but an empty mouth.

Thoughts swirl and build and fill, but the words necessary to express them just aren’t there.

Maybe they do not exist yet, words with the exact meaning to convey such thought.

Maybe they do exist but in a language I do not know.

Would I understand them if I heard them? Would I take them to heart and make them mine?