Windfalls

Windfalls…


Unexpected gifts plunked in my lap, landing at my feet, conking me on my head. Windfalls?Blown by chance, design, or circumstance, delivered by friends, family, strangers, or nature.
I’ve had a lifetime of them, as I’m sure you have, too. And t



This year—more than I can count.


Windfalls…


Some, I’ve had to be open for, aware enough to notice and appreciate. Some have been disguised by heartache. Others, I’ve had to look real hard to see. We all receive them. Every day. A helping hand, a smile, a tiny treasure. Gifts, nudges, little hands up.


Windfalls? They’re good to pass along, too. That’s what I’d like to do. Hand windfalls out to those in need; conk someone else in the head, whisper in another’s needy ear, drop one or two into someone’s empty lap.


Someone else like me…


Me?


Well, I’m a struggling writer with more rejections than publications. More projects started than finished. I flounder, but I keep trying.


I’ve been…
A lonely girl in the back seat of a ’54 Chevy Coup writing stories on the back of cardboard boxes to pass the time. An awkward sixth-grader stumbling through puberty, aching to be Louisa May Alcott. A long-haired, hippy-inspired teenager coping with love, school and the death of her father the only way she knew how-by pouring her anguish on paper, for the grief was too big for tears. A new mother with a colicky baby and long sleepless nights to wade through. A mom with a house full of active boys whose husband worked out of town six days a week during another long ago economic ‘downturn.’ An empty nester. A primary care-giver for an elderly cancer-survivor. A fifty-something grandma.


Writing has pulled me up, dragged me through. It’s saved me.