I'd like you to meet Naomi Houston

She is a woman of forty years… and this is her story

A free spirit with a tremendous love for people, interested in everybody and everything. There is a warm understanding nature about her. Mistaking her for plain would be grossly negligent. She is insanely attractive without putting any effort into it, and it doesn't even occur to her. She is at ease wearing no make-up, a loose-hair style, and vintage or second-hand fashions. A naturally beautiful woman, beautiful within. She gives love to her ideas and the passionate ways she expresses her spirit. She wraps her heart around the beauty of the world, and around all who love her and those who need to be loved. That's her power.

Up until the age of 23, she had more than a few rotten apples tossed into her basket but she had endured it all with grace. Gracefully indeed, until that day...The day she met Jarrod August Jr. A 25-year-old soldier who was more handsome than most, just back from deployment...

Now 20 years later she finds herself in a heap on the floor of her newly acquired government-subsidized housing, wondering how she ended up here…

Scene one

Naomi was truly exhausted after pulling a split shift at Deacons Downtown Diner, then walking the quarter-mile to her apartment, only to find she’d have to climb the nine flights of stairs to her apartment. The one janky elevator that worked mostly, was stuck on the 14th floor for the tenth time this month “Government-subsidized housing is for the birds” she huffs.

She fumbles with her keys and finally gets through her door and plops directly down onto the floor by her flamingo foot tub. She is going to need to soak these bad boys if she plans on being able to walk at all tomorrow! She and the kiddos are gonna hit downtown for a taste of spring! Sitting in her physical misery there on the floor, she looks up and sees the desk there piled high with everything. Her ears began to get warm thinking about just how much everything. All the things that she hadn't bought it for. Her writings were the intent. She begins to remember.

She has been put through the wringer with her talent. Both in great and terrible ways. There have been great times for her written tales. Times where she dreamed of what it would be like to begin. Where she would start, her story, her art. How she would tell the stories that were forged in her, by her. How she might round out the edges, making sure to polish the surfaces positively radiant. Or how maybe, she would scuff it up and go in raw and unfiltered instead. There were many days of complete certainty followed by nights of absolute direction. Sadly she recalls, there came a point in her written journey, where she found dark days smothering in anxiety and doubt, causing her creativity to seek s dusty corner in her soul, to be hidden and temporarily abandoned.

Sitting there replaying those days of her life and simply being so very aware. Remembering how just days ago she had the sudden urge to write it all again! She even made a list of how to clear the table for its purpose.

She sighs and thinks, those passions of hers couldn’t forget the freedom of being! Still smoldering underneath what was either pure fear of being great or falling on her face, her creative nature has managed to force its way back into her focus. With the recent months lazily passing, and some pretty intense personal growth, her emotions have been drug from here to there. Certainly, the timing could not have been better for the writer’s revival! She desperately needed to feel something powerful again.

Naomi stood to her feet and stared at the face there in the mirror, her face. No Pain did she feel at this moment.

It was time! The time! Her Time! She will spread her wings with a tenacious spirit and fly fully into the words that lay heavy in her soul. Getting them all down, in perfect reflective order. To be great at telling her stories is the wildest of her dreams!

She turns and in one swoop of her arm, clears the desk of its contents.Why wait days because of a list. She steps over the pile, opens the drawer of the desk, and removes paper and pen.

The words that came were simple and yet so full….

and so she begins again….