But first…. Please join us later today, or any Thursday at 3 pm PT / 6 pm ET for the Prompt of the Week on Zoom. There’s no need to register, just click here. You can always find the Zoom link in the footer at imaginativestorm.com.
Last night Xu couldn't sleep. Xu is my beloved friend Helena's chihuahua, and Helena was in the hospital. She'll be there again tonight, and maybe the next night too. Xu is confused and desolate. He wandered all around the house, inside and outside--we're in Puerto Vallarta, so it's an inside/outside, open-air kind of house--sniffing, making little moaning sounds, and howling on and off through the night. I could hear his toenails on the tiles, back and forth, back and forth, as he searched for Helena.
Xu's distress mirrored our concern, the night before major surgery. And I thought, if I were writing this scene for a prose story or a screenplay, I would focus on Xu.
That reminded me of one of my favorite lines written over three years of Prompts of the Week. It's the second-to-last line of this poem, written in 10 minutes by Elaine Heveron:
How Could This Be?
How could this be? My expansive desolation ends with technology? The miracle I waited for— when, where, how— what was the code? How would I find my peace within the flock of the hearing? My paradise of endless live music was lost to near deafness. No more music, not even background on TV sitcoms. I would mute the blood burling noise. It was frostbite to the slight remains of my hearing. But now, this week— the thrill of birthing sonar In the deep: one click; high tech I can hear you. Cautiously I pop a CD in the player. Tears rise in my eyes. Music is news to my kitten; paradise returned to me.
Elaine's hearing deteriorated further since this poem was written, and last week she got a cochlear implant. She told us that she would have to learn to hear again, since to begin with, all deep voices sound like Darth Vader and all higher voices like Minnie Mouse. Isn’t that fascinating? Navé and I begged her to write a "manageable memoir" about learning to hear--a short piece each day for 100 days, or a different length of time of her choosing. I am LONGING to read it.
If you'd like to know more about our concept of the Manageable Memoir, check out our 90-minute online course.
By the way, that poem is in my 3rd collection of poetry, Notes From Paradise (Plain View Press 2023)
Hahahaha!