writing prompt

My name is. . .

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

Hello.

My name is Connie Kinsey.

Enough with bitchin’ and moanin’.

Prepare to laugh.

I am often funny without intending to be.  However, with that said, I do have a goofy streak and I’d much rather laugh than the alternative.  I have always infused humor into everything I do – it’s my interface with the world, but I’ve noticed something the past few years:  I have been whining far too much.  I blame the Great Pandemic of 2020 and COVID.  Things have been bad.  And then they got worse.  And then they got dire.

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Twenty-nine Palms

/ wvfurandroot / 1 Comment

I expected to love the desert.

I was born in Twenty-nine Palms, California which is part of the Joshua Tree National Forest. 

Robert Plant wrote a song titled 29 Palms. 

I feel the heat of your desert heart
(Feel the heat of your desert heart)
Leading me back down the road that leads back to you.

We left that part of California when I was very small.  I have no memory of the place.  We did drive through the Painted Desert on our way back from Hawaii, but it was night and didn’t leave much of an impression.

Thus, I hadn’t seen my birthplace since a year or so after my birth. 

I had the opportunity nine years ago to go there and I did.  I have a photo of me at what was basically the Visitors Center for Twenty-nine Palms.  For some reason, they had a metal sculpture of Cinderella’s pumpkin coach. 

I am not making this up.

I have a photo.

The Cinderella Coach was the highlight.  Well, it tied with the small oasis. 

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They Had Had Too Much

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The day the women had had enough will be remembered. 

I believe, after the dust settles and the men get over themselves, we will come to revere the anniversary of the Women’s Rebellion.  For years people have spouted that famous proverb  “When sleeping women wake, mountains move.”

We have awakened.  We are woke.   And we have had quite enough thank you very much.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

I was proud to be with the women of my town on what began as a sleepy Saturday, August afternoon.  Congress made their announcement, timed for the weekend so as to escape the news cycle.  During the dog days of summer when they thought we were sleeping.  It was my birthday and I thought,, “How dare they!”  HOW fucking DARE THEY.  And I don’t use that word.  But I used it a lot that Saturday. 

On my birthday.  To make such an announcement.  I was not surprised, but I was outraged.  I hadn’t considered that all of womanhood would be as incensed. 

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