Rhena Writes

Category: Daily Writing Prompt

  • I am the book.

    Daily writing prompt
    What book could you read over and over again?
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    I am a book. My body is a book. My life is a book. My home, my heart, my spirit … all are books. Some of these were tucked away in hidden tomes in the special reserved section or banned altogether. Each day, each moment, I open another volume, a chapter, a paragraph, a sentence, a word, the spaces between the letters and the punctuation. I’m returning to this same book of me over and over but each time, it’s different. The textures, the language, the characters, even the story itself, it’s a slippery something, evolving, endlessly entertaining. A choose your own adventure only better, unbound.

    I am the book that I read over and over again.

    And the novel I am writing is one that I read over and over again.

    And the bound book, Beloved, by Toni Morrison is one I could read over and over again.

    I hope Toni Morrison wouldn’t take offense that her work isn’t first on my list. She did, after all, say, “If there’s a book that you want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.”

    To read me over and over again is to write me over and over again. Each day. Each hour. Each moment. Each breath. Each word.

    And so I begin. Anew.

  • I don’t know about the animals, but I know what made me the worst pet owner.

    Daily writing prompt
    What animals make the best/worst pets?
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    My sophomore year of college, my three roommates and I went in together on getting a pet. It must have been around thirty or forty bucks each that we each contributed to the tank and the items we thought we needed to keep the chosen animal: a snake.

    I’m not sure what kind it was specifically, just that we named it Oscar and kept it in its tank on a table in the room which was meant to be a dining room.

    In retrospect, I was not well suited to roommate living. Perhaps it’s a by-product of having grown up in a large (my American standards) family of five children or perhaps it’s just who I am, but I later on found that I preferred living by myself. In fact, I enjoy being alone.

    Oscar also would have done better under different circumstances. So much better, that at some point, Oscar took off to be on his own. Was that Oscar 1 or Oscar 2? My memory betrays him. I’m getting ahead of myself.

    At some point, a snake named Oscar grew large enough that he managed to push open the lid of his tank and slither out.

    Where did he go? We had no idea. Even though he was strong enough to push open the lid, he was still quite a small snake. Although, who wants to find a snake, of any size, in their bed? Not me.

    Fortunately, it wasn’t my bed where I found him, some time later. It was under the garbage can when I picked it up to empty it. I screamed. There he was curled up. “Pick him up!” my roommate screamed back at me. Nope. Wasn’t going to be me. This was one of many signs that I was not cracked up to be a keeper of snakes. We learned enough at that point to put a rock on the lid of the cage.

    But now that I’m thinking about it, that must have been Oscar 2 because clearly he had gotten big enough to escape. Oscar 1 (only retroactively named such) didn’t make it to such a size.

    Oscar 1 (and Oscar 2) ate baby mice, called pinkies, which we kept in our freezer. They only at maybe once or twice a week, but part of the appeal (to some of the denizens of our house anyway) of having a snake was watching it unhinge its jaw and then swallow the little pink rodents whole. It was something from a nature program right in our very own living room.

    We kept a heated rock in his tank and it was on this rock where we’d let the frozen mice slowly defrost. The rock was also supposed to provide warmth for this cold blooded animal there in our rental house in frigid Wisconsin. Turns out: one heated surface is not enough for a snake. One day, one of us found in him in his tank, curling himself into an actual knot. We had no idea what to do. It seemed he was sick. Very, very sick. By morning, Oscar was done writhing. He was dead.

    The pet store employee seemed to think that he wasn’t warm enough to properly digest his pinkie, which meant that it rotted inside him.

    So maybe this question, to me, isn’t so much about what makes a good or bad pet, but what makes a good or a bad pet owner.

    I wasn’t a good roommate and this made me a bad snake keeper. I was a go along to get along person, unwilling to say “no” to other people. More importantly, unable to say, “yes” to myself. I would have been much happier living by myself, but I hadn’t yet given myself the self awareness to know that at the time. I was also too worried about being the “weirdo” who lived by herself. And maybe I was also too worried about being the uncool one who said “no” to chipping in to buy a house snake. And then a second. And for that, I’m sorry, Oscar 1.

  • The two jobs I already do for free: parenting and writing

    Daily writing prompt
    What job would you do for free?
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    Would I like to make money from both of these jobs? Sure! Who would say no to money? It’s the strings attached that I haven’t been able to accept.

    I pay to publish my writing here on this blog. Once upon a time, I paid for the privilege of writing in the form of graduate school tuition. (Guess which one costs more?) For brief periods of time I was paid to write. Although I didn’t really get to write what I wanted to. Other times, I’ve tried to get paid to write, but I just never seemed to be able to figure out what, exactly, publishers and editors were looking for in spite of all of the time and energy I put into trying to figure it out. Sometimes I even paid a few dollars for the privilege of having one of these publishers or editors take a look at my writing and decide whether or not it was what they wanted. It never was. My writing suffered for it. And as a result, I suffered for it. Always trying to guess at what these other people wanted meant that I spent very little time considering what I wanted.

    Octavia Butler worked what some would consider “menial” labor (as if there is such a thing) to support her writing. (For more information about Octavia Butler, her work, and her “work”, please read this essay by Dedria Humphries Barker.)

    I try to remember this whenever I taste a little bitterness at the thought that I don’t get paid for my writing, that I pay to publish. The good Lord didn’t bless me with the kind of discipline, the kind of commitment to her work that He bless Octavia Butler. He blessed me with the financial stability that allows me to do both of these jobs for free, few (or at least tolerable) strings attached.

    As for my job as a parent? Sure, it would be nice to be paid for that too. I try to call to mind all the women who weren’t (aren’t) allowed to raise their own kids because they had no choice but to raise other people’s kids.

    A blessing is a blessing no matter the relative size.

  • What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most and why is it women’s gymnastics?

    Daily writing prompt
    What Olympic sports do you enjoy watching the most?
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    Last summer, I took a much needed week-long holiday to the beach with my family. The trip was right at the end of an eight week stretch of two types of chemotherapy (administered every other week) and right before I was going to start three months of a second type of treatment (administered weekly). The only thing I really had energy for was a few hours on the beach in the morning. I’d then go to the couch for the hottest parts of the day. Fortunately, the couch had a TV in front of it. Fortunately, this was the week of the 2025 Summer Olympics in Paris. Fortunately, the TV could have four different stations playing simultaneously.

    In the thick of chemo/ cancer brain fog, I didn’t have the focus to be able to read much or paint or write or really do many of the things that bring me joy but involve some attention. I was pretty weak and my tastebuds were completely obliterated so that even eating together with my family was not the most enjoyable. The chemotherapy had also made my skin photosensitive so when I was at the beach, I was under the shade when I could be and usually completely covered up when I couldn’t. Oh, and I was also bald so I was sensitive not only to the sun but I felt chilly at the slightest wind or temperature drop.

    But watching the Olympics, indoors? That I could do. The narratives that emerge feel so fundamentally human that I could pick up on them and even enjoy them through my brain fog. When I mentioned women’s gymnastics in my title, I was really just doing that as an attempt at a cheap laugh. The truth is that this past summer, I enjoyed all the sports. I, too, was wondering, “who is this male gymnast in glasses who seems to be meditating but hasn’t competed yet?”. And was stunned when Steve came out to dominate the pommel horse in the last rotation. I was also smiling along with Snoop Dogg as he c-walked holding the Olympic torch. I also occasionally ended up watching hand ball and wondered, “What on earth is this?”

    At the time, I was too foggy to put it all together but now, I can see that part of me, I think, was really grateful to have a week of being constantly reminded over and over of what human beings are capable of and what, specifically, our bodies can do.

    I’m in the radiation portion of my treatment. It’s exhausting. But I’m walking and exercising everyday. I’m sticking to my routines which allows me to have moments of spontaneity and growth. And I can feel myself getting stronger each day. I’m not saying that I’m ever going to be an Olympic athlete. I’m middle aged. Even without cancer, I’m far past my physical prime. But it’s not Olympic gold that I’m working towards here. It’s being able to get back in the ocean, swimming and battling the surf with my kids. It’s being able to walk my son to school. It’s being able to enjoy a few sun salutations. It’s having the energy to be able to say yes when one of the kids wants to dance. Or even when I want to.

    In fact, you know, that one Australian breakdancer’s routine doesn’t seem all that out of reach…

  • How do you improve a community that was someone else’s dream?

    Daily writing prompt
    How would you improve your community?
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    I live next a six lane highway.  I am deeply resentful of it. The county I live in is one of the wealthiest in the country. My neighbors are mostly working and middle class and immigrants. The highway is maintained by the state (of Maryland) but the sidewalks on either side are the responsibility of the county. Except for when it snows, when it’s the responsibility of the individual home owners. Except for the bus stops, which might fall under the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. Or maybe the county. It’s unclear. 

    I’m an average homeowner and resident but I know more about those inner workings of the roads because living at the intersection of a county road and a state highway necessitates it. When we first moved in here, there was no sidewalk in front of our house in spite of the fact that it’s right next to a bus stop. I spend a lot of time emailing and on the phone with various people trying to get a sidewalk installed. Representatives of the county tried very hard to dissuade me. I kept sending pictures of elderly people walking in the road to get to the bus stop. One of my neighbors was a wheelchair user at the time and I told anyone who would listen about the time that he called for a ride share because the medical building he needed to go to was inaccessible to him in spite of the fact that he can see said facility from his front porch. 

    A man was killed when he was struck by a driver crossing the highway (at a crosswalk) about a mile up the road. The audit of the intersection resulted in removing a small section of fence that stood between the sidewalk and the crosswalk button. 

    A driver ran her car off the road and hit the fence around my property. My children were playing on the other side at the time. Needless to say, a sidewalk with an appropriate curb would have stopped her. 

    Eventually they installed the sidewalk. It was one of my greatest victories. A few more crosswalks were put in where neighbors and I had requested them, mostly near the parks and schools. But not much was done to actually slow drivers on the highway on our surrounding residential streets. 

    But I was still emailing and calling and tweeting (this was back in the days when I was still using that site), trying to get the speed limit lowered on the highway or at least some speed cameras and enforcement. On many nights, I could lie in my bed and all I would hear was cars (many with modified mufflers) drag racing up and down the highway outside my house. I’d call the non emergency police number many nights. Little changed. 

    The highway we live on connects outer ring suburbs to downtown Washington, DC where the streets are largely laid out on a grid, except for these wider roads, which shoot out from the center of the city likes spokes on a wheel. The highway I live next to is one of these spokes. The next spoke over would potentially be just as inviting to drag racers, but the residents along that spoke are wealthy enough that they have their own private security force replete with speed cameras. So the drag racers converge on spokes like ours where the residents rely on the county and state for safety and security. 

    A little girl died two blocks from my house in a car crash that was a result of this drag racing. 

    Some time after that, the speed limit was lowered. Some time after that, speed cameras were installed. 

    Too late. 

    Once upon a time, this place might have been the American dream of the suburbs. Single family homes, green lawns all the way from the front door to the street. No need for sidewalks when Dad can just hop into the car and drive into the city for work! Hey! The developers even left out the curbs so that homeowners can decide where exactly to place the driveway! No need to think about the messiness of women and children or oh, I don’t know, poor people? (You know the people who build and care and clean to maintain these beautiful homes and offices and the roads that connect them?)

    My six year old loves nothing more than to punt a ball as hard and as high as he can. (Ok, maybe he loves lego slightly more.) The problem is that the ball often ends up over the fence and in the street. We take him to the park a few blocks away from time to time. It’s just a big open field and a large parking lot. There’s no playground (in spite of promises made by the county that one would be coming). Sometimes there are a few neighborhood kids there  but mostly it seems that people use it as a spot to pull off from the highway. I see people eating or sleeping in there cars there. Sometimes people are working on their cars. Once after a recent snow, three pick up truck drivers used the parking lot to film themselves spinning doughnuts. That was nice (/s). 

    I’m always tense walking there. In spite of the crosswalk, I still worry about drivers coming off the highway too fast. We have strict rules about where the kids can and cannot bounce the ball to minimize them ending up in the middle of one of the more dangerous streets. 

    The other evening, as we approached, we could hear music. Soon, a man sitting at one of the benches playing a saxophone came into view. 

    My son turned to me. “How does he play so good?” he asked. I didn’t know. 

    The sky was moody above us. We could see dark clouds gathering next to the field. And the man kept playing. The wind was picking up a bit. And the kept playing. And my son booted the ball to himself and kept chasing after it. And I tried to pause to listen to the music but also my son kept asking me to play with him, to kick the ball or throw it to him. And so sometimes I did. And the man kept playing his saxophone. And the clouds kept clustering. And the wind kept doing its thing. And it was a maybe a jazzy tune but maybe all saxophone sounds like jazz to me. And my son kept playing. And the wind blew the man’s sheet music about and he got up to collect it and we started to leave. And he shouted something at us. And I couldn’t hear him and maybe he said “Rhena!” But he smiled. So I did too. And the traffic didn’t slow. No one came back to life. The drivers didn’t stop and exit their cars and pick up litter or even stop to listen. And he kept playing even as we walked away and even through the first drops of rain.