Motivation

When motivation drizzles like sleeping potion over scarlet lips.

...

Sharing Love

When you are drowning in dark uncertainty one remedy is an ocean wave.

Talk to those you care about, ask tough questions - dig into the wave of emotional undercurrents. Talk about mental health and matters of the heart. Become someone's life preserver, they might be drowning.

Love with abandon and share without borders.

... 

Winter Approaches

Photo by Julia M. D'June

Winter approaches, the Alaska Paper Birch leaves pale from the outside inward, creating a medley of Cinnabar Green and Cadmium Yellow until one leaf is completely faded to Gamboge and the one right next to it retains its Hooker’s ungranulated shade. This leaf has yet to get the signal from the tree trunk that winter is coming. Time to quit your job of producing life sustaining glucose as the warmth of the sun is about to set and the moon will reign supreme. The ground still warm to the touch and has yet to release the heat gathered during the long midnight summer days. But the tree roots know something most casual observers of the forest do not, it is time for a much-deserved rest. Time to recuperate, shed this year’s foliage and set the foundation for next year’s deep breath.

The Black-capped Chickadees are inhaling a breath of freedom from the summer invaders. The chirrup-chirrup-cheerily migratory call of the American Robin gives way to the chickadee-dee-dee. A complex language of notes exchanged between the flock as they forage for insects and seeds to hide for the coming winter nourishment. Their rustle amidst the birch unsettles the leaves and some let loose their branch and drift to the ground. As the bandary flits through the trees their scratching and pecking tingles the air and washes over like a strand of music, out of key. The flock moves on, towards the next grove of birch. A Payne’s grey hue begins to build at the deckled edge of the sky. Trompe-l'œil by no means. Winter approaches.

The forest floor is rank with the tang of fungi fruiting bodies that signal the presence of a vast mycelium network of communication threads. Unlike the Chickadees calls this communication and resource sharing system is inaudible. Even the quietest observer cannot hear mycelium’s roar over the chatter of the pint-sized Red Squirrel as it collects cones from the top of a spruce tree. Biting them off their branches, letting them drop to the ground, to be secreted away for future meals. Their Red Ochre tails and flash of diluted Davy’s Grey underbelly conspicuous to their surrounding are nothing compared to the stubborn zealous defense of their claimed territory. When they sound the alarm it is obvious which trees they hold title.

Scumbling across the horizon Payne’s Grey begins to mix with Transparent Orange and brushes against Turner’s Yellow in a variegated wash of color. No man or creature holds true title to the setting sun or the rise of the moon. Each seamlessly transforming into the next. Nature knows the canvas for the change of seasons by heart and happily paints at will. Humanities role is to strive diligently to leave nature undisturbed and to render our part as observant stewards and fearlessly let winter approach.

…

When one feels smothered by winters approach and begins to panic at the sight of the setting sun, it is a good reminder that this is a necessary part of the process, one that nature needs in order to continue.

...

Load of Hay

Photo by Julia M. D'June

Graydon Handerson's existence scared the shit out of me. Not sure how Bert knew the likes of this crusty old turd or that he sold hay, I guess from the days he owned Clyde’s corner store and pizzeria down off Route 47 before he married my mom. Bert seemed to know the best and worst of the local characters, worked out well for us when we needed something for the farm we couldn't buy new, which was most things. He called it a farm but it was a hobby at its center. Never made much money but he sure enjoyed the work.

Farmer Graydon sold hay and we needed some for the coming winter to get the cows through till spring. Milkers need plenty of good hay to keep production up till the grass grows green. Bert sent me and my little brother John over to the Handerson farm with the wagon for a load.

Graydon smoked like a chimney burning wet wood damped down too tight, and sat behind a dated gold flecked, laminate, metal legged table in the dining room. His hulking form occupied most of the real-estate. In the open space of the living room there was a wood stove, no couch, no tv, no furniture to speak of. Struck me as a 'beans out of the can for supper' kind of place. Nothing but the smell of an old bear’s den farmhouse with bare floors and walls filled with faded curling nudey girl pictures. No matter where you stood you'd see boobies. Three walls of headlights flashing in your eyes. Unnerving to say the least for me and my newly minted driver’s license, but down right panic desperation for my little brother who thought getting caught looking would be the end of ever looking at any girl in the face again, let alone mom.

We paid him for the hay and left his sour disgruntled face there to enjoy his breakfast beer and empty existence filled with faded boobies to count the bills.

The prospects of becoming him, of sitting around hollow in the nothingness, zilch to look forward to, scared the shit out of me.

...

Do You Miss Me?

Photo by Julia M. D'June

"Do you miss me?" his voice echoes across the landing.

"Yes," she replied, stirring in the darkness. For all rights she should be fast asleep awash in the slumber of the content, dreaming of far-off lands and happy endings.

Moments upon hours since she lay nestled on the feather bed covered in her grandma's quilt. His breathless voice at the top of the stairs, "do you miss me?"

Turning towards him, her hand on his warm chest, he was not there. He had never been there. Trickery flirted with her heart.

Desire wild, impetuous. The doves cooed.

She rolled back towards her side of the bed, put her hands in her face and wept.

"I miss you," she wailed to the bedroom walls as the passing spirit dug a drift into her heart.

...

Courage's Fire

Photo by Julia M. D'June

The strange disquieting and dare I say enlightening pandemic years brought me the oddly wrapped gift of courage. It was mid-July that first year and the Alaska midnight sun was showing signs of its reverse trajectory south. It was now or wait till Courage set its sights on me again and who knows how long that might take. Giving Courage a nod, I filled out the online admission forms for an East coast university offering a distance program. I set in motion a transfer of the meager college credits I had accumulated over the years, and waited.

Reading this you might think, why tell me the admission form was 'online,' of course they are. Well, as someone born last century, my first college experience was paper, pencil, and long lines of wide-eyed youngsters nervously clinching index cards colored with unfamiliar abbreviations and random numbers. We twisted around the gymnasium in hopes, that by the time we reached the table advertising the course we were to enroll in, there would still be a seat. If not, it was back to the beginning. All quite discombobulating in the unfamiliar. So online, strange as it sounds in 2025, is part of the larger story for me and quite possibly you.

I was a human desperate for a change, a chance to shake up my story for a different ending, the catalyst of a world pandemic was lighting a fire. Some fires are small, contained, others have more access to fuel and I burned hot with dry tinder over this one.

My first and only full year of college took me down the Alcan to Nebraska. I had chosen or maybe it was chosen for me, time has blotted out this part of the memory, to attend a junior college outside. The keys and title to our trusty 1978 Buick LeSabre, complemented by a new set of not very expensive luggage, was my parting graduation gift.

Turns out I was too far from home. The view from the overpass that crossed interstate 80 was flat and uninviting. The tilled soil felt gritty in my eyes and the musty barnyards grew rank in my nose. I yearned to be home. Come spring I sold the ol' Buick to my uncle in Iowa and flew back.

Since then, I've taken a smattering of classes but other duties kept me from fully engaging in a college degree program. Raising a family and working for the dollar tools, another universal thread that knits us together. A familiar and albeit dried out version to write about but it's a foundation for mine and many a story. There is comfort in sharing our similarities.

I was approaching the end of 30 years working for 'the man,' for 'the establishment.' The family grown and on their own. The husband situated in a career at a company that will fly him and me well into the future. Now is my time. Courage's loud and clear voice said 'it's time.' Time to gather twigs and bark, to buck and split birch, stacked high as I could reach. This fire was going to need tons of fuel, plus a hidden stack behind the shed for that just in case.

Paper and pencils at the ready I lit the match as Courage fanned the flames. Hot off the presses, soon I will celebrate unwrapping the hard-earned gift of a B.A. in Creative Writing and English! 

...

Late July ~ in corn country

Photo by Julia M. D'June

"Agnes, how are you today?" Jane leans over the back of the pew offering a hopeful smile to the old lady.

"Hot! I tell you, hot!" Agnes dramatic flip of her fan sends the musky scent of Sweet Honesty towards Jane. A grimace overflows the corners of Agnes's mouth accentuating the uneven application of lipstick. Ruby red with hints of grapefruit colored outside the lines.

The church installed central air a few years back but the old building leaks between the layers of paint. The machine can't pump the bought air into the lungs of the faithful fast enough for Agnes or her tattered cherry blossom fan. Reaching for the hymnal, her hand brushes the brass plaque with her daddy's name.

"Sit still dear, the more you fidget the hotter you'll be."

"Yes, Daddy. I know." Her dad had been gone some time now, yet his voice is loud as ever in the late July swelter.

The corn stands proud in the fields surrounding the church. Their tasseled caps swaying like streamers at the parade. This is the time of year when the farmer waits out the humid oppression of the perspiring corn, watchful for the growing ears in the hopes for a plentiful harvest.

"Do you think it'll be a good harvest Daddy?"

"Lord will'in."

"If so, will you buy me a pony?"

"No promises Sugar."

"Well, when you do I'll name her Rose."

'Your Momma's favorite."

The sweet sting of a crimson rose harmonizes past Agnes's vision. Momma's gone too. Only the corn remains. Drops of sweat loosen the bridge of her glasses and roll down the flat broad leaves.

He's the Lily of the valley the bright and morning star –

Jane taps Agne’s knee. A nod. A hum. A blink.

“Amen.”

Jane takes her arm, "Are you staying for potluck? I brought my macaroni salad."

Two pats on Jane's welcome assistance. "Don't mind if I do."

...

On Parenting ~ The Long Game

When a person chooses to become a parent or if the choice was a messy game of chance, being a parent changes the way a heart carries itself through a crowded street. Emotionally mature parents diligently strive to raise emotionally secure children. There are numerous pitfalls to watch for, the list longer than a new parent could ever dream up. Pitfalls, those missteps the parent and child alike make, not to mention other people who enter into the child's life can lead everyone askew. Some pitfalls you see coming and others are left-fielders. Positive healthy times as well as unhappy days layer like sedimentary rock upon the human heart.

Parenting is a long game. The investment of time, tears, and heart seem endless. The results vary, sometimes the wait is 30 years before the whistle blows and the outcome firm.

Over time assessing progress can be difficult, those yearly cards your child delivers on Mother’s and Father’s Day can serve as a kind of performance review. The marigolds growing in a paper cup brought home from school, the crayon masterpieces of family holding hands, each one a treasure. The child's glowing face beams with the joy of giving offers proof that the human heart wishes to gift, to share happiness. The engaged parent who is aware that self-esteem is on the plate receives these gifts wholeheartedly.

When the child grows into their adult shoes the handmade cards give way to phone calls or text messages. Once in a while a small thoughtful gift arrives in the mail, let's face it, for a lot of us our adult kids live elsewhere around the state or states or abroad. And why shouldn't they be living their best life, making their own choices, even if it means they live farther than 35 minutes away. They absolutely should, with the caveat that they are where they want to be and continue to foster an emotionally mature healthy life.

Becoming a parent is a life game changer stretching beyond the midnight sun. When the performance review parents have long awaited arrives in the glow of your adult 'kids' welcoming hug, you know the energy output and heartache is time well spent.

...

Kite Day

Photo by Julia D'June

The Campfire summer group is having a July kite making and flying contest and Miranda is confident she'll build the best kite on the planet! 'On the planet I tell you! It's gonna soar miles high,' she grins up into her dad's listening face. 'Higher than anyone ever thought possible!' For a home-built second grader's kite. 'So high it will be a speck, a dot in the sky. Airplanes will have to divert around my amazing high flyer.'

'It will be the newest prototype for kite flight technology.' Her dad joins in on the enthusiasm. Sure, it could happen. Anything is possible, or so Miranda's been told.

Hand sketched plans lay out on the kitchen table over the strewn about supplies, Miranda prattles in her excitement to her mother, who stands near the sink, distracted and distant. Her mom gives every appearance that Miranda is the focus of her attention but Miranda knows better, her mom’s glazed stare seldom has anything to do her. She is practically invisible to her mom. Her dad sees it too, and steadfast as he is able, tries his darndest to help Miranda feel seen and encouraged.

The side door swings open with a flourish letting in some much-needed fresh air, 'here you go kiddo!' Her dad hands her a newly fashioned wooden crank reel and spool. Just the ticket, the icing on first prize Miranda needs.

Her dad has an assortment of fancy tools in the garage and stacks of wood for just such an occasion. The kite reel is all wood, no screws just pegs and post style carpentry, with diamond cutout shapes on the palm sized handle for extra grip. 'I'll put a coat of stain on it after tomorrow's kite day.' The pride of sharing twinkles between them.

Her dad's Mercury Comet flies down the road towards Camp Ripley parade grounds just north of town, her dad lightly humming along to the radio. He's a quiet man, says a lot without words, expression mostly, the way he holds his hand always a tell for what's on his mind. The one ring finger tap, deep in thought about something that's got his goat. Three fingers drumming on the arm of the chair, all is well in the world from his outlook.

Miranda gleefully signs the welcome roster, brimming over with excitement, and they take their designated place on the field. Her dad is there mostly as a presence for encouragement; the kite operations is all up to Miranda. There's only a slight breeze which means there is a bit of running around happening by the participants to coax their kites to take flight. Back and forth. Arms stretched high, tug down low. 'Fly! Come on. UP!'

There are a few kites getting aloft, then a few more. But Miranda's kite refuses, utterly refuses to leave the ground. The tail's too heavy, she thinks. Adjustments made. Run faster, she thinks. That's the trick. But nothing. Swirl. Swish. Inches off the ground then nose down. Her kite refusing to claim its first-place title.

Heavy and unbalanced her pride gives up quicker than her dad would have liked. He wants to see her succeed. First prize is great and all, but any amount of flight is praiseworthy, he could work with that. He wishes for that. There were too many disappointments as of late and a small win would be nice. But this is not that win.

Miranda slunks off the field, shoulders askew, defeated, kite dragging behind her cartwheeling over the ground and marring its artwork with bright green streaks on the long trek to the car. She crawls in the front seat sinking onto the floorboard, her bitter tasting tears of disappointment soak the seat.

Her dad closes the passenger door with a ginger touch, picks up the kite and all its entrails for storage in the trunk. Settling in behind the wheel he pats Miranda's shoulder hoping to ease her tears and drives home.

...

The Luncheon

We had an afternoon luncheon down at the Episcopal church. It was Sunday afternoon. Of course it was because who would want to disrupt a weekday sullen faced afternoon sit on the porch swing resenting the evening breeze late arrival. You know, those days when you are bored out of your ever lov'in mind. Nope, had to be Sunday. When there was the morning service fuss to put on your best, Sunday supper to prepare, and evening service begrudgingly dragging your sorry ass.

We all had to wear hats, gardening straw hats something flashing a purple ribbon for maximum comment. We're 80 years old for God's sakes. We have to wear hats! A stipulation like we're in eighth grade. We have to wear bangled friendship bracelets and wear our hair in the latest ponytail arrangement to belong. Aren't we beyond this? Didn't we outgrow this type of behavior? And yet, here we sit, eating charcuterie cucumber sandwiches and tiny desserts dipped in gelatinous marshmallow coating.

This is the highlight? This is what I've been waiting for?

Where is our authenticity? The depth of who we are, what we've done with 80 years of our life. Okay granted the first 20 might not count. Aren't we an eclectic combination of all our adventures? The different things we've done, the places, pictures we've taken, words we've written? And, yet, we get together at 80 for luncheon to wear purple laced gardening ornaments. Throw our lives aside to talk about frivolous hats and the balmy clingy you can't breathe weather?

"Oh, how delightful you look, isn’t this just lovely!"

"So nice to see you."

Overflowing gullets and empty hearts, we go home.

"Can't wait to do this again."

"Soon!"

Hollow words peal in my ears like poison oozing from djinns bottle of eternal misery. My tossed hat lands in the trash can as I pass into the house.

...

Accidental Mother

As I emotionally work through Mother's Day, motherhood and what it means to be a mother whose role has changed from being her children's hero to something different, I reflect on my own mother. As a person she is broken. Her unresolved childhood living with an aggressive alcoholic father, who would have preferred the first born be a son, and an anxious mother, left deep scars.

Her father had four siblings, all brothers. His own father was a hard, harsh man. Growing up in an era when emotion was not something to share. He never learned how to share. He was a masculine man and wasn't sure what to do with a daughter.

My mother is an accidental mother, during her first year at college as the semester came to a close she and my Dad had a dorm room fling. She spent the summer living with her grandmother, she was pregnant and her mother didn't want her father to find out.

When my parents met back up at college in the fall my Dad was in for a surprise. Their entire life trajectory rearranged. It was a quickie marriage. Marriage was something you did at the time, no discussion, no other choices, you got pregnant, you got married.

They drove East from college in the opposite direction from my mother's parents, to the small town where my father's family lived. Got married, moved into an apartment, and my Dad got a job at the Oscar Mayer meat processing plant. Before and after work he'd drive out to the family farm to help milk the cows. He worked, my mother waited. For me to be born. For something unknown, something else.

The broken bits of my mother languished. Stuck in a place where her youthful plans withered. Unable to fully embrace the role of mother or wife. She tried. There is photographic evidence of these attempts to validate her life as happy, fulfilled. Yet, the walk-offs outnumbered these attempts. One minute she is present, the next drifting off path. Unable to fully engage with herself or her daughter.

The broken unvalidated unseen child became the un-validating absent emotionally immature mother.

Over the years there were times when we seemed the best of friends. Turns out it was the subconscious tool of enmeshment which led to the appearance of emotional attachment and acceptance. Over time we have been estranged for months at a clip. Barely talking. Separate orbits, separate lives.

Then my father died.

She needed me, for a while. Then she hated him. Then she hated me. Even turning a blind eye towards her grandsons. All those broken bits resurfaced. Scars exposed and raw.

Sometimes I can hear my mother's tone in my words, sometimes I can see her in the mirror. I wish these glances were filled with good memories but they're not.

We carry these parts of our parents within us, the good, the bad. The negative aspects show themselves when we least expect it, when we least want them around. Therapy can help us recognize and process these negative bits when they unbury themselves bleeding into our adult relationships and life roles. Yet, there is no overarching cure.

I will never fully be cured, if cure is a word for these negative influences because in truth there's nothing she or I can do to change the past. I can't rid myself of them. I can't wash it out. I can't burn it out with acid or fire. I am the child of two people who raised me in the best manner they knew how at the time, one being broken, both being young, barely adults.

My childhood upbringing, the positive and negative emotionally nurtured traits impact the relationships I have as an adult. The relationship with my husband, with my children, my friends, relatives, with people in general.

If you look for it you will find these broken pieces hiding in plain sight. Each day is work to dampen their history. To change the narrative. To pass along only emotionally mature behaviors and to recognize that these negative bits are not part of my true self.

A true self that is human. Imperfect. Slightly damaged. Filled with self-compassion and doing my work to embrace the healing truth of my own story.

...

Is it... am I...

When one begins to wonder... am I? Are you? Or is it the wind? That has ruffled the world so.

...

Wellness

The word wellness is a vast net that can catch even the smallest of quarks (in other words, the topics of discussion are varied and diverse like snowflakes or grains of sand); for me the list below constitutes a fraction of the fundamental enhancements gained from the study of the concept of wellness:

• Wellness is a commodity, a currency that some sell - be mindful of what you purchase.
• Biases of thought and actions are prevalent among humanity – by questioning biases, in all their forms, critical thinking will deepen.
• Each person’s understanding of wellness, health, and what it means to live well are subject to their biases, perceptions, and lived experiences. Embrace these differences; as the sun sets, we are in step together in the journey.
• Language is a powerful architecture of culture.
• Lastly: we live in an unpredictable world – open the door each day with the hope for predictability and be able to adapt to nature’s own impulses and whims.

As a future horizon thinker, it is with some certainty that I say, in 100 years, when the world is peopled a new, they will look back at this centuries beginning and grimace. Some may laugh at our ill attempts to create solutions to our current problems. Some may wince in disgust that our generation ever thought such-and-such was a good idea.

A personal strongly held belief, a bias of mine, is that continued industrial progress and over consumption of commodities, which damage and drain our natural world, will continue toward the “law of diminishing returns” and “our bigger-and-better society is now like a hypochondriac, so obsessed with its own economic health as to have lost the capacity to remain healthy” (Leopold vii-ix).

...

Works cited

Leopold, A. (1948). The Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There. Oxford University Press.

Behind You

Photo taken 2003 in Northern Arizona! And yes they were, nice people!

You know where you are because you know where you are not. Your destination is yet to be written. Each day, each step a riddle unfurling like a fiddlehead warmed by springs' gaze. As you go forward traveling to places that ignite dreams, it's worth remembering, we are your fellowship. Steadfast. Constant. Faithful.

You know where you are because you know where you have been and who's behind you.

It's worth remembering, there are "nice Indians behind you!"

...

Revolutions

Revolutions and resolve circle overhead like a Raven on the hunt for their next tasty morsal. I circumnavigate a path only in its newness through my eyes. Many shadow the same passageway. We orbit. We pass time. We celebrate the day of our birth. We make resolutions crowded with hope, hungry for change.

The world says I have been 56 years old for 361 days. In other words, today I am 56 years, 11 months, and 28 days old, and I am in my 57th year since I first took breath. Shortly I will start my 58th year. Not that I want to rush but accurate reckonings have been circling overhead.

As I approach the start of a new revolution and celebrate the end of my 57th year with 57 candles. I am resolved to no longer cry over spoiled milk.

…

Word Flu

When a word spreads through a society like a contagion, infecting our ears, our thoughts and conversations with their drumming numbing elixir of poisonous intoxication.

...

Remain Calm

Sometimes I feel like we're in the middle of a lake in a miniature rowboat, rowing across a vast expanse in a fierce thunderstorm. The wind howls, the water churns, tossing us every which way. Then someone in the boat stands up, flails their arms, and screams we're all going to die. 

And I keep having to yell over the snarling waves, you have one job right now and that's to sit down, hold on, remain calm.

Remain calm! You've got this!

...

What is Wellness

The darkness is passing. The light from the sun returns slow and steady, reaching farther over the tree tops each day. Wellness at latitude 61.2 North is an obscure concept wrapped in shadows in the winter and overpowering light in the summer. Light and dark rule our sense of wellbeing with unyielding extremes. Forty-five years living in Alaska from the northern most village of Utqiagvik to our state’s largest city of Anchorage, it is with confidence I say wellness is found in the daily amount of vitamin D and C intake, with a moderate dose of B12 for good measure.

Wellness at this latitude suggests being mindful of how the bodies production of serotonin and melatonin affect us physically and psychologically. The extremes of balance between light and dark will change how you conduct your daily life, awareness is a step forward in maintaining healthy stability.

Wellness is found by embracing the seasons of lightness and darkness with an acceptance where no amount of bargaining, wishing or coercion can change this state of existence as long as I choose to live here. The psychology of positive thinking; the mind/body connection says “we’ve got to believe” that in the moments of darkness there will again be light, a trick of the mind some might say. By accepting this reality, the negative manifestation of external stress becomes manageable. Along with a winter trip outside to Hawai’i. Toes in a warm sandy beach, the ocean waves in rhythm drowning others distractions. Sunlight in your eyes and vitamin D through your skin – this could be the good life – that’s it I’m moving. Ha – I’ve strayed off topic. What are we talking about? Oh, yes, wellness.

Wellness is used as a buzzword without a clear definition of an axiom. Is wellness a commodity which society is currently selling? How much will it cost the individual, in their dollar tools, their time, or their self-esteem?

...

Truth of Consequence

Truth of Consequence (yes of not or)

Jumping jumbled opinions surrounded by the "look here... no wait... look here," moving from one disjointed thought to another are diversion tactics not unlike the trickery sleight of hand of a master magician. When we blindly listen to loosely connected ideas we can more easily be swept away in the torrent of misinformation.

In order to make sense of what is truth and what is merely a plausible falsehood, our due diligence requires that the information and details that we are presented with be broken down into individual segments. Individual ideals or dogmas that can be further explored and researched in order to uncover truths that we are willing to accept.

Critical thinking is the foundation with which we are able to explore "what is truth?" without letting another person’s paradigm of a belief system interfere with the process.

Oh, and it is a known fact that you can't possibly be lied to if you are also listening to classical music.

...

Vanquishing Formidable Foes

English, in its written form, has been my nemesis since second grade. On the other hand, oral rhetoric has in no way been problematic for me, just ask my grandpa, I can talk the cows ears off and drive them to the yonder field with numerous words as sharp as a dog’s snarl.

The written concept of the English language can dish it out and I will volley my best return. I aim to vanquish this formidable foe. Even the naysaying poetry workshop instructor can take their best jab at shooting down my satellite. I intend to remain in orbit.

Oh, and I almost forgot, although I actually try quite hard to do just that, forget. Forget my seventh grade English class filled with the mortifying comments by Mr. Shea. The public shaming of my spelling skills set me on a long path of self-doubt as a writer.

Time to pay homage to what was misplaced through the years. It is time to seek the long-desired degree. Bachelors of Arts in Creative Writing and English, I see you!

I will vanquish this formidable foe!

...