By Vivi Sojorhn

This year is baked too long or too hot or too wet .

Tears fell for real, but not ENOUGH. I feel a well, an aquifer awaiting a drill to find it. Then there will be a flood.

My dreams have a cork these days to avoid adding to the sense that reality has expanded to include too many stories so that I have no idea where to begin my tales about the world, my characters, my tales again. Just stories, you know the ones with begins and ends and something in between.

Like pulling something out of my oven that is bad with good corners. The crispy caramelized kind. There is always something hopeful, but this year has too many ingredients to the point it simply is a bad year even though I have survived it, enjoyed a bite now and then

I won’t be able to forget it. I know that about myself. I will eventually sort out the bad parts to complain about, to laugh about. I have a habit of joking about these things.

The good bites will become intimate. Shared with family and the few friends who weathered these kinds of storms too.

Finally, I may sweep up the dropped bits of the year into a bowl, put something in to hold them together. Discards to start the new year.

2025(c)ViviSojorjn