Posts Tagged ‘best-selling romance’

The Soul of the Matter: Not knowing when the dawn will come…

Tuesday, October 30th, 2012

“Not knowing when the dawn will come I open every door.” ~~Emily Dickinson

This poem opens so many windows in my mind, which is why I selected it to lead the first chapter of Mallory Phillips’ story. She’s lost and running and yet searching so hard for a home to call her own, just like Polly, the little girl who barges into her life one chilly fall morning.

dawn

The world (and Polly) barrels into Mallory’s life, whether she’s ready or not. Her chance has arrived to open her heart and truly believe in the power of change and redemption and transforming herself by letting others in so they, too, can be all they were meant to be. And all they’re meant to be to her.

Like many of us, Mallory’s tried and failed in the past. She’s feeling like the emptiness inside her is all she’ll ever really know. She’s living in the midst of a beautiful world she’s fought so hard to make a home in, and like Emily Dickinson Mallory’s feeling just as alone as she ever did, unable to connect with the people and places and holiday beauty around her.

Except she can’t NOT identify with Polly’s longing for her mother. (more…)

The Soul of the Matter: “Hope is the thing with feathers…”

Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

Emily Dickinson charmed me with the very first poem of hers I read as a little girl: “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul…” There’s something about the way she puts words together that mesmerized me. There’s a loneliness to her thoughts, but also a bravery. A sense that isolation drives her to create, but that she’s also dreaming of the day she’ll be set free. Her internal journeys spoke to mine, I guess, and they still do today.

hope with birds

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.

Do you see what she does here?

Hope feather

Hope is alive, even when it’s merely a captive in our hearts. It may not have a voice yet that we can hear, but it won’t stop. It won’t be silenced. It’s perched and waiting to soar just as soon as we’ll let it. (more…)