The mind can calculate, but the spirit yearns,
and the heart knows what the heart knows.”
Stephen King
I walk along the snowy path,
Dawdling really
Despite the chill,
In no hurry to return
To the stuffy, overheated room
Full of stuffy, self-important
People dressed
In expensive finery,
Who laugh pompously
As they judge everyone around them
With malicious scorn.
By pedigree I am one of them,
But by nature I am not.
I see more to life,
Want more from life,
Than money, power,
And material wealth.
I don't want
A mansion in the Hamptons
Or a luxury apartment
On Park Avenue.
I don't want someone
Chosen for me
From their exalted
Genetic pools.
I want to share my life
With a man of
Simple honor
Of my own choosing,
In a simple house
Filled with love
And all it entails.
I want to own a farm
Where I can sell produce
By the roadside
And Christmas trees
During the holidays,
And I want children
Who are allowed
To be kids:
Active, inquisitive,
Sometimes aggravating,
But always loved.
I want what I've never had:
A simple life
Filled with simple joys
Free from the shallow artifice
Of accepted Society,
Free to be the me
They will never accept.
This poem surprised me because at first glance it is a major departure from your usual work.
But upon reflection, you are a romance writer, and your heroine is a very romantic figure dreaming of a simple life with no obligations. Haven't we all at one point romanticized a lifestyle we are completely unfamiliar with. When I owned a Victorian house, I pictured women with long flowing skirts gliding down the staircase. I didn't think about the lack of hygiene or independence or any of the harsh realities that went with the life of a Victorian woman.
Even beyond that, while I personally cannot relate to your heroine wanting to get away from it all with her family, I bet a lot of people can.
And I can relate to the fact that along with everyone I know, regardless of money, status, or social class, would dearly love to simplify their life and cut out a lot of the tedious obligations, people and clutter they have accumulated.
So while this not my favorite piece, I applaud you stretching your writing boundaries and taking the risk of writing something different from your norm. And, in all fairness, you did an excellent job.
Kimberly has gone from a well-paid female executive one minute to a desperate woman the next. Thinking her day can't possibly get any worse, she finds out how wrong she is when she goes home. The only way to set things straight is to get even.
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But upon reflection, you are a romance writer, and your heroine is a very romantic figure dreaming of a simple life with no obligations. Haven't we all at one point romanticized a lifestyle we are completely unfamiliar with. When I owned a Victorian house, I pictured women with long flowing skirts gliding down the staircase. I didn't think about the lack of hygiene or independence or any of the harsh realities that went with the life of a Victorian woman.
Even beyond that, while I personally cannot relate to your heroine wanting to get away from it all with her family, I bet a lot of people can.
And I can relate to the fact that along with everyone I know, regardless of money, status, or social class, would dearly love to simplify their life and cut out a lot of the tedious obligations, people and clutter they have accumulated.
So while this not my favorite piece, I applaud you stretching your writing boundaries and taking the risk of writing something different from your norm. And, in all fairness, you did an excellent job.
Bravo
And very few of us get to choose who we end up with. More likely it is a more mutual thing of agreed to agree.
Children are never promised to a good man and woman. Some have many, while some have none.
Good luck with your request for perfection and peace in the simple life that I've been living for a very long time.
Ron