Tag Archives: history

Reprieve

There is no Reprieve from writing. Call it passion, obsession or both.

The writing demons in my head woke me up early in the morning, somewhere between the night and the day.

The persistent insomnia caused by the flow of ideas perpetuates itself from day into the night and vice versa. It is a dream come true for any writer; that is fluent writing time without blocks.

It is especially important now as I am moving into the publishing finale of my “Shifting Sands Short Stories.”

It is in this quiet time without outside disturbing energies, that I manage to write the most. Plus, I have the rest of the day to reflect on the morning production to improve it and carry it forward.

Just to illustrate how early this morning’s start was is that when I checked the Daily Post prompt for today @reprieve around 6 or 7 a.m. there were no responses yet. As I write this some five hours later, there were 64 interpretations of the “reprieve” prompt.

I find the reprieve theme very fitting before the Memorial Day long weekend. It will be a good quality time spent grilling, gardening and at my favorite spot on Murray Lake.

On Monday, I like to go to the Memorial Day parade in Lowell to honor the veterans at the Oakwood Cemetery.

Sexton Don DeJong makes the cemetery a place to observe history with his historical cemetery walks. DeJong has compiled the cemetery info into several books over the years. Watch for more stories.

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Boating on Murray Lake in Michigan.

I am grateful for this much-needed time off for all of us to restart again.

Copyright (c) 2017 Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

 

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Be kind, love like a kid

Be kind in an unkind world

“Change is in the air, as old patterns fall away and new energies are emerging. Consciously release what needs to be released, and welcome with a full embrace the newness you’ve prayed for and so richly deserve.”

Marianne Williamson

 

By Emma Palova

EW Emma’s Writings

Lowell, MI- I’ve never seen a more varied reaction to the happenings in Washington D.C. than this week following the presidential inauguration of Mr. Donald Trump on Jan. 20.

Any psychology student would have had a great doctoral thesis if he or she had analyzed and tabulated the responses to president Trump’s inauguration, Women’s March on Jan. 21, the first executive orders, retreat in Philadelphia, the Right to Life March and the mainstream media commentaries. Not to speak of late night shows, Saturday Night Live, and the fashion comparisons of the First Lady to historical figures and her linguistic disabilities.

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Only the death of the incarnate of the modern woman Mary Tyler Moore, and maybe watching “Charlie Bartlett” kept the weights of humanity from tipping over completely.

“So tell me what you think about all of the above and I’ll tell you who you are,” independent analysts and charlatans tested the Internet waters.

Facebook, twitter and other social media were bubbling like a witch’s potion with all the ingredients starting with hate to complete apathy, withdrawal and secure rationalization.

In between reigned ridicule, sarcasm, vulgarity, hopelessness, fear and despair.

Of course, there were observers patiently waiting to render their opinions after all others have gone first, ala “risqué” style.

I’ve tasted my share of firsts with the post “Join 10 Actions in 100 Days”, a story about a local inspiring woman Sharon Ellison, a participant in the Women’s March.

The overwhelming reaction was that the women were vulgar and inappropriate like Madonna in order to get attention.

I didn’t catch what an editor would have caught, that is a vulgar phrase on a sign accompanying the post. It cost me some.

However, one of the best observations in the last 8 days was the use of the “alternate fact” term as the means to justifying anything.

I find that term especially useful in teaching my American born protégé Josephine Marie Palova, 3, the Czech language.

“My dear Josephine, a cow is actually a horse, or vice versa, depending on what you need it to be.”

Not, that this is anything new in politics.

“What you meant to ask me, was….?” A city manager restructured my question to his prepared answer.

“What I really wanted to say was that…”

“But you said something else,” I said.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that.”

The politician’s word play is like a bad game of chess. No matter how good you are, the opposing party will claim they had won…….although in a different game.

Well, at least the Wall Street was happy in this game as the stocks soared past the 20,000 mark, if that is any indication of anything, according to ill-willed analysts.

I found some reprieve in the pacifist stance on the matter of the affairs in the union, in the world and in the universe, thanks to a post from a friend in Iowa, Sheryl Groen.

“Change is in the air, as old patterns fall away and new energies are emerging. Consciously release what needs to be released, and welcome with a full embrace the newness you’ve prayed for and so richly deserve.”

                                                                                      Marianne Williamson

 

There’s means to an end, my friend.

Be kind, everyone else is fighting a hard battle. Love like a kid, because love wins.

Featured photo thanks to Michelle Emaus of Lowell.

 

 

Copyright © 2017. Emma Blogs, LLC. All rights reserved.

Book dedication to my mother

Author dedicates book to mother

Mom Ella at Selby Garden in Sarasota, Florida.
Mom Ella at Selby Garden in Sarasota, Florida.

I embarked on this journey through my memories called “Greenwich Meridian where East meets West” on December 12, 2012 after being asked by many colleagues, friends and acquaintances to write  our story.
I have attempted several times to pen our immigration saga now spanning three generations. I saved evidence of such attempts like the personal essay, “Fire on Water.” I used the same title for my novel based on the communist experience from former Czechoslovakia. Some trace elements of the story can be found in a newspaper article about my naturalization as a U.S. citizen in 1999, “Lowell woman gets naturalized.” It was syndicated by the Associated Press and well received by the audience. I got phone calls from all over Michigan.
Finally, I decided to pursue my lifelong dream of writing for the pleasure of others. Until recently I have been writing mostly for information capturing tragedies, disasters, events, politics and corrupt police chiefs or superintendents. However, my forte are human interest stories often about ordinary people doing unusual things either by their own will or against it. The memoir is a true work of creative non-fiction in which I combine real life exotic settings like Africa with real life people, who are either put in a bizarre situation or get into one by their own doings.
Today, on this Mothers Day, I dedicate the book to my mother Ella Konecny who suffered the most in immigration because as Mr. Jan Skvor said at a Czechoslovak Conference for Arts and Science in Emigration in Horgen, Switzerland, 1970.
“Immigration is not for missies.”
For me immigration has been one of the toughest things I’ve ever done in my entire life. And that includes studying calculus, seeing my grandparents through their illness to the end and living by myself with two young children, so I could leave the country to join my husband. And now by writing about it, I am reliving it. But, I want to preserve some of the events, and to a certain point even history.
I have no regrets. America has helped me realize my dream of writing. I would do it all over again. I have a Daruma doll used by Japanese businessmen for motivation and to stay on task. One of my former editors gave it to me when I was facing a tough project. When things are not going your way, you just knock it down. A little steel ball at the bottom makes it bounce back.  You also color only one eye, and once the project is complete you color the other eye. So, Daruma has been watching me pounding away on my keyboard at early morning hours chapter after chapter.

“Life went by so fast,” said mom when we talked about immigration in Venice, Florida and at the Selby Gardens.

I completed a 50-page book proposal for Greenwich Meridian to an agent yesterday May 9th , on my birthday. This article contains some excerpts from the overview of the project.
Copyright © 2013 story  and photo by Emma Palova