Tag: ReenasExplorationChallenge

Reena’s Exploration Challenge – Milestones

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #180

So, here we go with our prompt word for this week

Write about what milestones mean to you, ones already achieved, and the ones you would like to reach.

Write about a journey you can’t forget.

♾♾♾

As a family, we are always celebrating milestones. Birthdays, anniversaries, special days all are remembered and celebrated. This year, or rather 2020 was different. Many milestones had to be celebrated alone or online!

The first birthdays of both the younger grandchildren had to be celebrated with just parents present and the rest of the family joining on Zoom. That said, it didn’t lessen the joy of the family and we thought that the next year will be different, better. But here we are in the fourth month of 2021 and still socially distancing and being extra careful as the third wave of covid is more deadly than the previous two.

My eldest daughter’s Ph.D. defense was online. I, the proud mother could not attend because it was for faculty only. No matter, we thought, we will attend the degree awarding ceremony. They send her a Doctorate degree by mail all the way to Pakistan from Seattle.

No dinner out on the 35th wedding anniversary as I was stuck in the USA and my husband was in Pakistan.

But these milestones matter. They mark achievements and celebrating them in any way we can, we acknowledge the occasion and its importance.

So maybe next year will be different, maybe we will be able to throw a party for my sixtieth birthday or my grandkids third birthdays.

May be…….

♾♾♾♾

#Keepitalive

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 178

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome back!

PROMPT #178

I give you the last line …

If I’m God, why do I need a bird’s eye view?

Write the remaining piece as you like, but it has to end with this line. It is okay, if the line appears more than once in the piece, in the beginning, or middle, but it has to be there at the end.

♾♾♾

I lift my joined hands in a prayer

I ask You for Your help in trouble

You the Almighty, the all powerful

You know what’s in my heart and mind

God, the all knowing, Omnipotent, Omnipresent

Before we know what’s in our thoughts, You know

Before it befalls us, it is in Your knowledge

No detail, big or small escapes Your eyes

I bring my prayers and pleas to you

It is in my prayer that I admit to being weak

And I humble myself in front of you in submission of my will

For you are God,

Why would you need a bird’s eye view

♾♾♾

I made a change in the given line as I cannot, even in verse, presume to speak for God.

I hope it is acceptable!

#Keepitalive

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge- Karma bites

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome to Week 178!

PROMPT #178

The prompt words for this week are

Karma Bites

You are free to use any medium you like to describe

〰️〰️〰️

How often we have wished that karma does its thing instantly

Instead, we desire and wait for fate to step in and do what we hope

Revenge is sweet but not everyone wants to take matters into their hands

We leave it to karma to set the balance right without our active role

It often takes its victim unawares, playing out its righteous maneuver

Generating ultimate satisfaction in the breast of the unjustly wronged

♾♾♾♾

#Keepitalive

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 177 – Distortions

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #177

The visuals from last week are still floating in my eyes. So, I couldn’t think of anything other than a visual prompt for this week.

You are free to choose any one of the two images given below, and create a piece based on it.

♾♾♾

My eyes deceive me, I think

The image in the mirror lies, I think

I close first one then the other eye to see

If it’s a defect in my vision or my brain

I still see a misshapen image of myself

And no matter how hard I try, it’s still broken

How could it be, that I, who is so perfect

Can see my beautiful face sliced up in distortion

Is it that the ugliness of my deeds and thoughts

Has surfaced and became visible for all to gaze upon?

Full of shame I turn away from my reflection

I must endeavor to make my inner self, beautiful too

♾♾♾

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge – My cover story # 176

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome to yet another week!

PROMPT #176

Our prompt this week has the potential to cover more than the written word. Think images, computer art, paints and brushes or a camera lens. Words are not going anywhere though, because that is what we are talking about.

If you are a book, what will the cover look like?

You are free to use any medium you like to describe.

I have chosen the most beautiful image I could find on Google

It shows beauty and chaos that is present in my mind

Not that I consider myself beautiful, but if I were a book

I would be full of interesting ideas and conflicting notions

There would be a barrage of diverse views on anyone who’ll read it

My deep faith gives my thoughts a sublime beauty

And my ever jumping thoughts on a variety of subjects

Will give a sensation of a journey in a fast moving shuttle

When you will see this book sitting on a coffee table

Invariably you will stretch your hand to pick it up

And flip through the pages to see what’s it’s all about

Is the cover tempting enough for you to read this book?

♾♾♾

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 175

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #175

A year back, the prompt on Exploration Challenge was “Woman”.

I decided to reverse it.

In this week, write a story/anecdote/non-fiction piece which does not involve a woman.

♾♾♾

A father

Seldom celebrated

Infrequently acknowledged

He bears the burden of financial responsibility

Carries the concerns of his family deep in his heart

Often unable to articulate his love and care in words

His actions sometimes deemed harsh, judgmental

But look into his heart and his worried eyes

And you will find a love that parallels that of a mother

Yet seldom celebrated or realized, but just taken for granted

♾♾♾

I was thinking of my own father, the kindest man I’ve ever known, or my husband who is a kind and caring father. But my children think him strict and there are often arguments when they declare that papa doesn’t get them!

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 174m

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

Welcome back!

PROMPT #174

➰➰➰

Training young minds or trapping them in a vise

Wanting them to think like you, react like you

Breaking their individuality, raising them as a mini-you

~*~

Let them grow up to find their own groove

Allow them to explore life and how they want it lived

They are not yours to own, just to raise and nurture

~*~

Respecting boundaries is often difficult when you’re the parent

But it’s the most important part of being a parent, oft-ignored

Let fresh ideas and approach wash out the dated methods

Don’t force things onto them just set good examples

~*~

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge- Flow

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #173

We have a one-word prompt this week.

FLOW

Flow is a state of mind where one is fully immersed in the task involved, and delivers a lot with minimum effort.

Flow is a software by Microsoft, which facilitates team functioning.

Flow is poetic, as in the flow of words, water, winds – taking something from one place to another.

All you need to do is just ‘flow’ with your creativity.

➰➰➰➰➰➰

The flow of my notions goes unhindered

One thought merging into another like a cascade waterfall

I start from a tiny idea and let it expand

Many thoughts and notions coalescing and expanding

There is a whole world of ideas, stories, and characters

Vying for my attention, trying to get priority

I let this parade of ideas go unchecked, unchallenged

I don’t interrupt the flow or I will lose the thread of my thoughts

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( To my mind this is how a creative good writer writes)

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 172 – Time

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #172

The theme is

Components of Time

Your take can be poetic or sci-fi or fiction or a piece of art , whatever catches your fancy.

To whet your imagination a little (actually, it’s more than a little), find 6 minutes to watch the video below.

https://aeon.co/videos/there-was-nothing-quick-about-how-we-arrived-at-the-standardised-second

⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰

One second passes faster than I can blink

Yet it can linger an eternity when I’m trapped in time

Days compressed into minutes and weeks into days

All coalescing into one long unbroken stretch of time

Time is what makes all the difference in everything

It is the great equalizer in all things worldly

Whatever we feel is ours to boast of or treasure

Slowly decays into nothingness with the passage of time

Youth or beauty, charm or talent all eroded

Power or even wealth losses it’s importance in

The ruthless grind of mill of time that never stops

Take whatever bit of time allotted to you

And use it wisely to create a difference in your part of universe

It’s an opportunity that just comes once, like flowing water

This second is already gone, never to return

One second passes faster than I can blink

Yet it can linger an eternity when I’m trapped in time

⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰⏰

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Reena’s Exploration Challenge # 171

Reena is the host of Reena’s Exploration Challenge

PROMPT #171

We have a dialogue prompt this week …. with a twist.

What is the twist?

You need to take it forward from the perspective of the opposite gender, not yours.

You may use the dialogue as a theme, beginning or end. Your piece can be fiction, poetry, an anecdote, historical fiction, biographical sketch, an essay on perspectives, or anything you can think of, with your fingers on the keyboard.

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

I watched as she glowed in the limelight of success. It was me who stood behind her while she pursued her dreams. Dreams of becoming the CEO of her company.

I provided support, financial and moral when she needed it. It was not a solo effort but always a joint one. And now that she was being hailed as one of the ten most influential women in the country, she was jubilant.

And me…

I was standing in the shadows, looking at her. Neglected and relegated to anonymity. It was always me but now she has forgotten all about my role in her success.

Now it’s all about her….

➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰➰

#Keepitalive

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