Shirley Belk
Bio
Mother, Nana, Sister, Cousin, & Aunt who recently retired. RN (Nursing Instructor) who loves to write stories to heal herself and reflect on all the silver linings she has been blessed with :)
Achievements (1)
Stories (333)
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A Glimpse
As a child I loved going to the planetarium. I loved it from the beginning until the very end. I hated it to end. I loved taking a journey upwards and being surrounded only by imagination. A beautiful orb where this loud world ended in a dark room and a new one began. A silent awesome and endless floating where you could become one with the stars. And there were no walls, no boundaries, no need for gravity. Just still beauty. And peace. Nothing missing and nothing broken. Like the mystery of childhood with innocence eternally intact. Yet, you don't feel small or fearful. You just feel free.
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Poets
Calling out Jezebel
"Oh, Jezebel, oh Jezebel, we call upon thee from the bottom of the River Styx to aid us into this spell we tell..." And there they were. The popular ones. The pretty ones. The "fake" ones. The ones that wore heels and only carried purses with a name brand. Not a hair out of place. With pouty lips colored red and fingernails manicured precisely... almost as sharp and pointy as their countenance, critical remarks, and haughtiness; the lot of them, all gathered together in one clump of unadulterated, manipulating, scheming.
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Fiction
Pen Pal Chat
https://shopping-feedback.today/writers/write-me-a-letter-challenge My Dearest and Newest Pen Pal, Heather, I was so happy to hear from you and I want to learn so much about you. So far, you sound very interesting. And thank you for taking an interest in me, as well. I don't get out much since I've retired. I moved to a "new old place" three years ago. (I'll explain a bit later.) So, having a pen pal is so nice.
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Humans
The Black & White World of 1938
I think we see the world from eighty-five years ago only in stark black and white. Old photos, old movies, old stories. And the rules and social mores were pretty much in black and white, too. The greys of culture then were hidden, attempting to blend in and disappear, even though there was some pushing still going on for the greys. But pretty much, in those days, as I see it, people didn't have too much time to rebel because they were too busy putting food on the table. After all, it was near the closing of a decades long Great Depression. So, it was indeed, a basic black and white existence. I try to hold onto all of what I have left of my family from that era in a few of those old photos, some stories, handwritten letters, and other scattered memorabilia. But the problem is, that the story from my family's 1938 life needed some factual answers and some color. I wanted to uncover the true story of their lives. I wanted to really get to know them. They deserved it and I needed to learn from them.
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Chapters
My Surprise. Top Story - October 2023.
I was fourteen that summer, and it had been five years since I had last seen him. Meeting with him again had not been my idea, but my grandmother's. She had planned it as her little "surprise." But it hadn't seemed like such a good one at the time. In fact, the whole scenario had struck me with such discord, that even now, some fifty years later, I care very little for surprises. They are to me, just neatly wrapped packages of deceit bestowed upon the unwilling. They are the gift bearer's way of manipulating or controlling the receiver. In short, I do not trust surprises!
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Psyche
Some Things Never Change
I started college in my thirties. (That was thirty plus years ago.) I did everything backwards in those days. I got pregnant, then got married, then finished high school. I had four children at home and in school when I decided that soap operas and housework were just not for me. My mind screamed to learn, to create, and to "become." Even before collegiate English essay writing, I had written. This is one of my first attempts at storytelling, entitled MY COUNTRY AUNT:
By Shirley Belk2 years ago in Families
What I Need You To Know
Over the course of a twenty year marriage you gave me many things. Things like financial security, an occasional shoulder to cry on, a sounding board in the times I was perplexed at the world, a laugh or two, another ticket at the movies, flowers on special occasions, a shared political view, and help with the animals in our lives.
By Shirley Belk3 years ago in Humans
