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Five minutes ago was a simpler time
One where I did not worry as much
Then life changed to frantic from sublime
Forcing decisions made in a clutch

Five minutes doesn’t seem sufficient
To turn one’s life upside down
However fate appears very proficient
It laughs as it knocks you around

Five days action in 300 seconds
It seems amazing to think
Action destroys as much as it beckons
Emotions both soar and sink.

Gene worked in a small company, there were only 623 employees. He spent his days traveling from client to client, explaining to each how working with his firm would benefit them. They all agreed, rarely turning down his proposals. It was a shame Gene didn’t get paid on commission. But the perks of the job were good, and he was happy.

Then one day Gene met the woman of his dreams. She lived next door to one of his recent clients. As Gene lived literally out of a suitcase, traveling so much as to be technically homeless (he obviously preferred hotels with guest laundry services!) Gene decided he wanted to court this young lady, so he asked his client if he had a room available for rent. He did, and Gene moved his suitcase in and began dating the girl next door.

Life was good until Gene’s client started a metal band and practiced night and day. Gene and his lady friend had nowhere to go – the racket was just as loud at her house next door. So they ran off together, and fell deeply in love. When the metal band phase of his client’s life ended, Gene and his fiancé moved back into the old neighborhood.

Did I mention that Gene is an honest-to-goodness comes-out-of-bottles genie? Eh, it’s not that important.

Bruce Gholson -Genie Bottle © by Bulldog Pottery

The plant sat serenely at the side of the desk. Every leaf a memory of the passage of time. Every branch a marker of a period of its growth, periods the family had marked by hours or days or weeks or months. The plant marked them as they were – extensions of itself, new life springing, moment by moment. The plant was not static, as the humans around periodically became. It did not regard change as something to be avoided, but as something to be embraced.

Then, in an instant, the plant was toppled by the cat.

Change happens, slow or swift. We just need to adapt to it, and we will survive.

Mitch walked into the office. He was 15 minutes early for the interview, so he sat by the reception area after checking in. The receptionist smiled at him, however he couldn’t help but notice her prolonged gaze, almost as if she hesitated before telling him that Mr. Smith would let her know when he could head back.

Mitch was 20 years old, and a college graduate. He’d studied hard, and his internship at a small branch of the larger company had earned him the interview. He was nervous, but well prepared for almost anything. It turned out that no amount of preparation could have helped him in the awkwardness that was about to occur.

Mr. Smith called for Mitch about 20 minutes later. Mitch walked down the hall and was beckoned into Smith’s office by his loud booming voice. Mitch could be quite loud too, however that was with friends. Today he was somewhat reserved, sitting in a new suit, mentally ready for the barrage of questions.

Smith and Mitch looked at each other for a moment after shaking hands, as Smith got a pen and pad ready to take notes.

“Uh”, Smith began, slightly taken aback, “Where are you from, Mitch?”

“From outside Newberry”, Mitch replied.

“Newberry…. “, Smith said, rolling it around in his mind and mouth. He almost visibly shook his head as if shaking off the feeling of discontinuity. He asked Mitch several pre-written questions from a standard interview form, but stopped about 10 minutes in.

“Mitch, I gotta ask this – have we met before?”, Smith asked.

“I don’t think so, I’ve never been to the city before, and I don’t think you ever visited the branch I interned at”, Mitch replied.

“But still, you seem really familiar”

“Yes, you seem a bit familiar too”, Mitch said as he glanced around the room. Noticing pictures of presumably Smith’s family, Mitch was shocked to see people who looked familiar as well. Smith noticed Mitch’s eyes glancing and took down the photo with the most number of people in it.

“Is that your mother?”, Mitch asked as he pointed to one of several older women in the photo, “And an aunt – there – from your father’s side?”.

Astonished, Smith replied affirmatively. Mitch looked at each member of the family and guessed their relationship to Smith, guessing correctly every time. Mitch then pulled out his wallet and showed Smith several photos. Somehow, Smith was equally able to name them.

“Mitch, you just graduated college, correct?”, Smith asked after the photos had been stowed and shelved.

“Yes, in December 2011″, Mitch replied.

“I graduated in December 2001″, Smith said.

The began to compare life histories, and over the course of the hour, an hour that was supposed to be filled with questions about a prospective job, benefits, challenges, and the like, they realized that their histories ran roughly parallel, 10 years removed. They even bore a resemblance to each other physically, although they didn’t notice this until near the end of their meeting.

The two men parted company but promised to consult with family and friends, looking to see if somehow they were connected. Obviously Smith liked Mitch, and recommended he be hired. Some months later, Mitch received a call from his great-grandmother, who was ill and normally not able to talk. She was feeling good that day, and wanted to speak to her only great-grandson. Mitch asked her about Smith, telling the matriarch the details of their meeting.

“Well Mitch”, the old woman began, “When you reach my age, you realize something. We’re all fundamentally living the same lives, just years apart. Some times it’s more noticeable than others, such as with you and your friend there. And you, my child, have hopefully saved yourself a lot of grief by learning this life lesson early.

“What do you mean Grandma?”, Mitch asked.

“It’s easier to spend life recognizing the common threads that bind us together, and not focus on the loose ends that distinguish us.”

ONE HUMAN FAMILY © by inazakira

Cliche to say
True To me
When I’m Sixty Four
Meaningless this all will be.

Research reports
and I believe
Happiness is manufactured
We all hold our key.

Today evolves
Tomorrow, we’ll see
I can’t miss the life
Given generously to me.

Happiness © by ernohannink

The beans are soaking, plans for the week no more complex
days of exceptions are gone, days of comfortable regularity ahead

The bag is packed, tools suitable for 95% of the life lived
days of special additions are far ahead of the wayward commuter

The alarm is set, the same time it usually wakes it’s victim
days of circadian upset are scarce in the immediate vicinity

Normal may mean dull – but dull brings about it familiarity,
familiarity brings about it a mind able to put more pressing worry aside.

Hudson River © by Shan213

The author sat there amazed at the very thought he had as he decided to write today’s part of a larger whole.

“I’ve been cheating the last few days – I must put something substantial together today!” It was second nature to think like this, in terms of effort put in. Despite the author’s knowledge that the art of writing (in which he doesn’t claim to be an expert… or even an intermediate…) is a non-linear one, old habits and beliefs of “quantity superiority” still persisted.

“Wait a moment”, the author mused, “Who am I cheating exactly?”

It was true – in this particular project he had no editor to appease, no deadline to meet, and perhaps as little as 1 regular reader. Who was he cheating if he ‘phoned a few in’, he wondered. It was only after he sat there for a moment, moving things about his desk, trying desperately to reorganize a life previously in motion of the past few days into one revolving around routine, that he realized that the only one he cheated was himself. A promise he had made, a goal he had set. And in cheating in the project, he was cheating himself. Being his harshest critic but also a critic who could shift perspective, the author knew he was too being too hard on himself. Another goal might be to let himself slide every once in awhile.

“Maybe I can phone in just one more”, he reasoned with himself, “After all, I did have a good idea earlier I could flesh out for tomorrow”. Reluctantly, the part of him that kept the rest so strictly in check let loose.

“Just don’t make it too obvious”, it warned as it allowed the seldom slacking off.

Honest Abe, Honest Tea © by ElizabethHudy

“Not again”, the writer said as he looked at his email. “No, I’m not writing about myself in that story – and yes my marriage is fine, thank you”.

It happened all the time. He wrote interesting stories about a variety of odd characters and somehow, someone he knew, would link some eccentricity of the character back to him. Or maybe something the character was going through, or maybe some setting.

“Ah, you wrote about somewhere within 500 miles of where you once lived as a child huh?”, a friend might start, “Bet Bob Weezilville is really you as a kid, isn’t he?!?”. The writer merely forced a chuckle and said “No, Bob isn’t me”. It was getting absurd.

So he sat down and crafted his polar opposite:

Wanda, a 87 year old female who lived in Argentina but was of nordic descent. Wanda gardened her whole life, had 10 children, married, divorced, and remarried 4 times, and spoke only a rare dialect of Himalayan folk language. Wanda ate nothing but carrots, drank coconut water, did not drive, but did enjoy ice skating and skiing when the weather allowed. She was also an irate, angry, bitter woman who nobody liked.

Satisfied, the writer penned Wanda’s first story. A simple piece about her gardening, a task that the writer himself actually abhorred, and learning a life lesson through radishes. He sent it to his publisher, and it appeared in his regular column in the next weeks paper.

The day after its publication, another email came in. The writer was overjoyed to see it was positive about Wanda’s story, and didn’t draw any allusion to the writer’s own life. That is, of course, until the last line, which read…

“Man, I never knew you had multiple personalities – next time Wanda comes out, give me a call – I gotta speak to her!”

Disappointment © by quinn.anya

The lake rolls by, it’s water holding the experiences of its embraced.

The child who learned to swim by paddling to her mother.

The teenager who learned about love and lust on the sandy beach.

The group of good buddies who talked about life’s conquests while launching the jet skis.

The group of middle-agers desperately hoping the boat will enforce family time with the fleeing teenagers.

The solitary man who tells his life story to the dog who sleeps, and fish he catches.

The same water, binding like the collective unconsciousness. A soul of its own.

Lake Erie

Jenna sat on the plane, at the start of her two hour flight home. She’d been away for a few weeks, and was eager to get back to her world. As she at buckled into her window seat, she began to think about her life.

Always a bright girl, she had just finished four weeks at a prestigious summer program for teens who were entering college the next year. She had graduated as the valedictorian of her high school a month earlier, and had forgone the summer of partying with her friends for the two week program. In those four weeks she had  taken two accelerated college courses, which would transfer to her college in the fall, exempting her from two requirements she would otherwise have to take. The coursework was exhausting, and she was drained tonight as she had taken (and passed) the two final exams for the courses just hours earlier.

The plane taxied to the runway and before Jenna knew it, they were in the air. She peered out the window at the darkness, seeing the lights of the airport and city begin to disappear as the plane went higher and higher into the pitch black sky. She felt the attack starting as she mused in her mind the next few weeks.

Jenna was first diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder when she was 12. She had been having trouble sleeping, and her mother had noticed quite a few behavior changes in her. She became irate every time something went wrong, couldn’t concentrate in school, and seemed tired mid-day, well before her quite active siblings even began to peter out. Since the diagnosis, she had worked with a therapist employing cognitive behavioral therapies to try to control her anxiety. Tonight as she squirmed in her seat, she began to go over the techniques they had worked on.

But alas, not much of it worked. Around an hour into the flight, the woman sitting next to Jenna reached down and picked up something off the floor. Jenna saw it was her own cell phone, which must have shifted off of her lap as she moved around in the seat. She had been so pre-occupied by her own thoughts, that she hadn’t noticed it had fallen.

“Is this yours, dear?”, the lady asked.

“Yes, thank you”, Jenna replied as she took the phone back and put it into her purse.

“Are you alright?”, the lady asked.

Jenna was a bit annoyed – it was obvious that she wasn’t doing alright based on her body language, but the last thing she wanted was to get into a conversation with the lady next to her about her own psychological issues. But in the end, she figured the remaining hour of the flight might be better with an ally rather than the enemy that lived within her mind, so she decided to talk.

“I’m just a bit anxious”, Jenna said.

“You don’t like flying?”, the lady replied.

“No, it’s not flying. It’s just that I have a lot of things going on right now, and I don’t handle them especially well”.

Over the next hour, Jenna told the lady, whose name was June, about her life. June listened attentively as Jenna detailed the expectations she had of herself, the problems she perceived, and the stress she was dealing with. In the end, as they began preparing to land, Jenna finally finished talking and allowed June to get a word in.

“GAD?”, June said.

Jenna was a bit shocked – she hadn’t told June specifically what she had been diagnosed with. When June said the abbreviation, Jenna was taken aback.

“Me too”, June said reassuringly.

“How do you deal with it?”, Jenna said.

“It’s all about control”, June said.

“I know that I should be able to control it”, Jenna said sadly.

“That’s not what I meant”, June began, “I mean, you might not be able to control how your mind obsesses about things, or how distorted your world seems, or how the smallest thing can become a catastrophe. But you can control how you feel about the whole state of it”.

“What do you mean?”, Jenna said.

“I simply mean that when you find yourself falling into all of it, you shouldn’t become angry at yourself for how you feel. You should just understand that those feelings are how your mind operates. I found that once I let myself ‘off the hook’, I felt more in control of the whole thing. And once I had that, I could begin to rationally think about things. But if you’re too angry with yourself for how you feel, you’ll simply spiral out. I know, I did it too many times before I stopped yelling at myself for what I was feeling”.

By the time they finished talking, they’d both sat at the arriving gate for 30 minutes. They walked to baggage claim and found their bags had been taken to an airline office, where they retrieved them a few moments later.  They then exchanged email addresses and went their separate ways.

Author Note: There is still quite a bit of stigma associated with mental illness, especially disorders like GAD and other anxiety/depression/mood conditions (By those who think “just suck it up and deal with it”). If you know someone who needs help, please help them. You don’t need to understand why they feel the way they do to be supportive. 

Spiral 2 © by Vlad Nikitin