This is what happens when you start your day reading an emotionally rich, well written, best selling novel: in this case it was “Hello Beautiful” by Ann Napolitano

Haiku 17/37

Entire head stuffy

Each and every feeling –

Stories connect us

I don’t think that final line is the right one. I’m being impatient because I want to get on with my day. It’s 7:18 am the days a’wastin’!

I have no idea where I picked up that phrase, but being the daughter of an early riser and having given birth to early risers may be a part of it.

I read more than 150 pages this morning, I’ve been reading since 5 am and refused to move until the last words in the book. This doesn’t feel like wasted time, it feels like enrichment.

I would have loved “Hello Beautiful” even if it didn’t pay homage to Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” but with many twists and turns along the way. William isn’t Laurie – or is he? I always thought of Laurie as Thorea-like, but William is… much more like a blend of my son and me. The book opens and closes with words of him and words spoken by him.

“But if you’ll allow me, I’d like to help.” Spoken by William, who was a newborn in the first line of the book, “For the first six days of William Water’s life, he was not an only child.”

That first sentence from the book is almost like a koan, one of haiku’s cousins.

I have more to say and that last line of the haiku to rewrite, but a red cardinal is outside telling me to get on with the day. Last night perhaps it was the same cardinal who flew quickly toward the porch and then darted away before it sat down close to me, seeming to be shocked by my presence.

It is time to go downstairs and begin my day. The clogged head from tears cried and tears held back has lessened.

What is favorite book you have read in 2023?

Julie JordanScott is a Creative Life Coach, an award-winning storyteller, actor and poet whose photos and mixed media art graces the walls of collectors across the United States. Her writing has appeared on the New York Times Best Sellers List, the Amazon best sellers list and on American Greetings Holiday cards (and other greeting cards). She currently lives in a manse in Sussex, NJ, where she has recently finished her most recent book project, hugging trees daily and enjoys having random inspirational conversations with strangers.

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