When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.
Got back on the horse tonight, meaning I sent the beast out again. Click. And with it every wish I’ve ever had since I wrote my first pear. A good friend recently said, all you can do is get it out there. I am a murderer of dreams. So, here it is, the foot on the other shoe, the cake you made, now sleep in it. We must, we must, we must increase out bust. This is your brain, this is your brain on submission. The only bad review is no review. Does the word matter if it sits in your desk, if your desk belonged to Jackie O, if the night and sleep are the best part of the day only you can’t sleep. The bed is cold. Your nightgown holds on to its last button. Where is the Benadryl? Click and you are dust, you are golden, you are sitting on the train, and out of the left window a sunrise that means absolutely nothing. This is not a sign.
Do you see signs?
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Betsy Lerner 
Yes. And I buy lottery tickets. (and you certainly don’t murder dreams – you set the bar to where we all want to be)
I do see just a purple mandarin on a yellow branch, here
I don’t know if I see signs, but I love fortune cookie fortunes and I always read my horoscope a day late to see if it came true.
Yes, but every one of them says the same thing: “You are here.”
Last Wednesday, I opened a fortune cookie which read, “You will witness big changes for the better.” The same day, my horoscope (which I very seldom bother to read), said, ” Determination and resolve will pay off, though it would be nice not to feel that life is an uphill battle. Everything you do shouldn’t require such a great deal of energy.”
I felt both vindicated and hopeful.
And you, my dear Betsy, are definitely golden. Keep believing.
I’ve been on the horse so many times that I can’t tell the difference anymore between galloping and falling on my ass. And I don’t really care. Sometimes I hate myself and sometimes I don’t hate myself as much. The latter are good days.
Do I see signs? Yes. I like to sit in the exit row, just in case.
I also sit in the exit row, or at least on the aisle and I always, always where ever I am face the door.
Good for you, Betsy. I hope your dreams find a home. And I think it’s important you walk the road every aspiring writer has to travel. The journey will keep you humane.
Okay, I admit it. I see signs everywhere. Not only that, I get all excited when I see them. They make me feel like I’m not just some dot in the Universe but that I’m special, that great things are expected of me, and that I’m where I’m supposed to be. I don’t care what science and statistics try to argue. Signs make me happy.
The most ordinary sign is a change in pattern- someone who usually returns calls quickly slows down, is a little reserved or careful; Face to face, it’s distance, posture, expression, and words, in that order, pretty much.
I’d rather read riffles and catspaws, feel the wind clock, veer, and build, or see the moon’s halo. Then I know what to do with the signs.
When I took the packets of the paper to the post office, I saw signs. Now that it’s online, I worry about typos.
The signs say, Make another beast.
No insight here. Just a good luck whispered into space.
I really need coffee…
Me too.
You my dear do not murder dreams; you help build a path to them.
Signs are everywhere, God-winks, little-coincidences, angel hic-ups, whatever you want to call them. I am not ruled by them but they give me comfort. I do not understand the steering mechanism but I believe there is one and I am on board.
Usually in retrospect, a day late and a dollar short.
And, while not necessarily a sign, this post is encouraging. Today I woke up as a crab, clawed through my morning chores, read notes from the night (yuck), read this and thought, only a few are ever really sure and a gentle sunrise is as good a way as any to start the day.
I’ve only just started to see them, but suddenly I see them a lot. I don’t know if that means I’m finally doing what I’m supposed to be doing or whether they’ve been there all along, I just didn’t know where to look. Either way, I find them wonderfully reassuring.
I hope you’re able to recognize yours.
Sunrise out the window of a train chugging through a French forest. A dream of 1945. Sheared braids in a shallow stream. Peeing through the boards of a moving cattle car. A letter in her pocket. I woke up to these signs and quickly wrote the first 7 pages of what would become a published short story in a decent journal.
Do I believe in signs? When it comes to my writing, they’re pretty much all I’ve got. When it comes to submitting that writing, it’s stubborn determination alone.
The brilliant magnolia blossoms–a striaed, speckled pink of lovely rounded proportion– outside my window have turned a light muddy brown from last night’s plunging temps. Is that a sign?
I love people who see signs, but I don’t. Maybe that’s because there are no signs for me. Or maybe I’m not tuned in to them. That’s preferable. Worse would be that I’m not seeing signs because there are none or because I’m going the wrong way. so I love people who see ’em.
I read sign. The horsemen of the apocalype rode this way not an hour ago. The dung is still smokin’ hot.
Just the one on my little gray bracelet: FTF.
“Feed the felines”?
That music makes me feel like a pole is about to descend from the ceiling. If the fluorescents turn to strobe, I’ll take it as a sign.
Sometimes your posts feed my paranoia. This is one of those times.
Yep, what goes around usually does come around. But, think about it this way: Maybe this is a sign that its time to connect with the people whose dreams are sitting on your desk! Whether you accept their work or not, your understanding of and identification with their submission anxiety (agony?) might help you respond to them with particular lovingkindness. And that lovingkindness will then surely come back around to you! Good luck!
Love and kisses,
Pollyanna
Signs? nope. I’m seduced by patterns: light/dark, numerical sequences, alternating textures, kindness after evil, quilt blocks, ripples in a puddle and the geometric shapes printed on tissue paper and folded into envelopes bearing the label Vogue (mostly). That may be one of my problems – I’m too distracted by the patterns to read the signs.
One of my writing gurus used to say some people see a door, you see a poem. We can’t help ourselves. We make it up as we go along. Reasons for the unreasonable. Signs in the dark.
They call it submission, but it sure is hard to be strong when you’re on your knees!
I wish I could see one. Then I’d know what the hell to do next.
I saw three signs last week. The third was a license plate – P327 FTF. And I will.
Sending positive vibes your way and,unlike my 12 year old self, I no longer want to increase the bust…
I want to decrease mine.
Is that a lion? Pitiful looking. Should I consider that a sign about my puma story?
An American Bald Eagle (why do they look so pure? They are scavengers.) flew in front of my car so close, so beautiful against a clear Florida sky. The deal on my house fell through.
The UFOs portended nothing.
I saw _________’s ghost and s/he gave me a scolding. I’d pay big money for ______’s writing desk. The clouds in the sunset sky form a giant, bloody heart. Good luck to you, and may the birds and clouds and ghosts align.
I used to look for, and see, signs everywhere. But mysticism is SO exhausting, and people look at you funny when you go on about omens and such. Now I just ask God to lay it out straight, and He usually does. Except He’s keeping mum as to the whereabouts of my cell phone. If it doesn’t turn up in 48 hours*, I may take that as a sign to buy an iPhone5 when it comes out.
*I always give Him a deadline, ’cause, y’know, He’s got, like, all the time in the world? BUT I DON’T.