Sandra Heska King

daring to open doors

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Some Ramblings On Charleston

June 25, 2015 By Sandra Heska King

  I’ve been mostly silent about Charleston, stunned and saddened and totally at a loss to understand the hatred directed toward someone whose skin color just happens to be a different shade. I’ve also been hesitant to speak or write for fear of saying something too stupid, too simple, too superficial. Of speaking without understanding. Of being […]

Filed Under: Blog, stories

A Prayer For These Days

June 11, 2015 By Sandra Heska King

  Share a prayer for these days in the comments. Your own or an existing one. In the stillness, Sandy

Filed Under: Blog, stories

40 Words of Lent 2014: Day 18 (Still Saturday)

March 21, 2014 By Sandra Heska King

  “The more I thought about it, . . . I realized C.S. Lewis’s suggestion that we lay aside our fussings and frettings and come in out of the wind was the only viable alternative to a life dictated by anxiety, distraction, and fear.” ~Michelle DeRusha in Spiritual Misfit Word Count: 40 Today’s Reading: John […]

Filed Under: 40 Words of Lent - 2014, Blog, Still Saturday, stillness

40 Words of Lent 2014: Day 3

March 7, 2014 By Sandra Heska King

It hooted just southeast of my pillow, and I remembered how Abby kept her window shut after she found the feather fearful an owl would whisk her off in talons of torment or perhaps peck her to pieces. Anything’s possible. Word Count: 40   Today’s Reading: Matthew 13-18 In the Stillness, Sandy  

Filed Under: 40 Words of Lent - 2014, Blog, stories

the whisper of a fragrance

July 12, 2013 By Sandra Heska King

fragrance

  Caution: It’s Five Minute Friday, and you’ve entered a no-edit zone. ********************** The air breathes cool through the open window, wafts past the clean cotton Yankee votive that releases just a hint of fragrance. The shrub sways in time with the bell rope, and a hummingbird buzzes at the feeder, hovers in place, sips […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections

when fear rises

July 2, 2013 By Sandra Heska King

fear

I wake with a headache and a stiff neck. I shiver in the breeze of the open window and pull the sheet up to my chin. I breathe a prayer for those out west who can barely breathe for the heat of the air, for those who can barely breathe for the heat of life, […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections

and then i jump

April 23, 2013 By Sandra Heska King

jump

  I brush the hair from my mouth and eyes, pull hands up into sweatshirt sleeves, and lean into the wind as we trudge up the path. We gather under the pavilion to struggle into harnesses, clip heavy ropes to anchor loops, tighten helmets. I feel much less brave than I did when I signed […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections

five minute friday: fingers of fear

February 1, 2013 By Sandra Heska King

  I crack my right eyeball. He’s up on his left elbow, leaning over me, staring… …at the clock, I guess, on the nightstand next to me. Then he’s fiddling with his phone. Did it go off? Or not? After I complained about the radio blasting strange music at weird hours and having to wake […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections

In Which I Leave the Bedside

May 10, 2012 By Sandra Heska King

  I’m twenty years old, working as a G.N. (graduate nurse), still waiting to find out if I passed my boards. It’s 3 p.m., and I come on duty to discover I’m in charge of all the intensive care patients. I have two regularly-scheduled nurse’s aides and one practical nurse who’s never worked on this […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections

Five Minute Friday: In Which She is Afraid to Say Hello

April 13, 2012 By Sandra Heska King

  We’re on the way to school, and I tell Grace how Great-Grandpa is home and can’t drive and is lonesome since Great-Grandma died. I tell her how he likes us to call, to hear our voices. “I don’t know if he’ll be up yet,” I say, “but let’s try.” He answers on the second […]

Filed Under: stories and reflections, writing

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I’m Sandra, a camera-toting, recovering doer who’s learning to be. still. Read more…

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“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final t “And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” ~ Philippians 4:8 

#fall #southflorida #hope #thoughts #philippians4 #dayafterelection
“My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in th “My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.” ~ William Wordsworth in “My Heart Leaps Up”

🌈🌈🌈

From my back door and then from the patio. A phone can never capture the true glory of a rainbow. I hope my heart never fails to leap at the wonder of one.
We were monarch parents a couple years back, but o We were monarch parents a couple years back, but our food was not enough to support all our “children.”
🌱
But some were better parents. And next month @tspoetry is celebrating with a garden party. And you are invited. 
🌱

✨ An evening poetry celebration with Dheepa Maturi, Laura Boggess, Jules Jacob, and Sonja Johanson
✨ sign up today: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/year-of-the-monarch-garden-party-tickets-1005650847757
✨
This is called a sweetheart plant. I bought it at This is called a sweetheart plant. I bought it at a farmers market in Ponte Vedra in Feb 2023. And it hasn’t done a thing except not die. I did repot it a few months back just cuz I thought it might need it. A few days ago I noticed it was sprouting a sprout. And today—10 days after having my aortic valve replaced and the day after having a loop recorder inserted—it has UNFURLED!!! A new heart. 🩷
Looking west this morning. “Sometime, enough o Looking west this morning. 

“Sometime, enough of us should plan
to gather and form our own
luminous cloud.” ~ Luci Shaw in “The Weight of Air” (from The Generosity)
Security is on the job. Security is on the job.
So after 13 years of checkups and annual echos, it So after 13 years of checkups and annual echos, it's finally come to this. One week from today I will have my aortic valve replaced. Eeeek! I know it's done all the time--piece of cake. But that's to other people. 😂 Speaking of cake, I've always hoped to blow out 100 candles (at least), and I keep singing this line in my head...

"And my heart will go on and on." Thanks to @celinedion. 💕
Hi! Long time, no post. So… I grew this from a Hi! Long time, no post. So…

I grew this from a pineapple top. We repotted it again over the weekend. Still no fruit, though. Our neighbor has a baby growing on a small plant, though. What’s up with that?

(Also, I do not have a green thumb. Currently the only things still living are this, an avocado, and a little Boston fern.)
We got out here early today, but it was already so We got out here early today, but it was already soooooo hot (later on the"feels like" was 110), and I was just plodding one foot in front of the other wishing I was still in bed. There was not much to see--except the crane family, some blackbirds, a dove. And it was buggy. And a deer fly bit me on the forearm, and it swelled up, and I still have a 1- x 3-inch reddened area. But then... a pink parade.
Just snapped a couple photos of a normal looking s Just snapped a couple photos of a normal looking sky from my back patio with my iPhone! I grew up in Michigan and never saw them before! #northernlights #westboca #southflorida
“So they took branches of palm trees and went ou “So they took branches of palm trees and went out to meet him, crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, even the King of Israel!” ~ John 12:13
🌴
🌴
PALMS

He had a date with them. ~SHK
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🌴
~ Six words I wrote on my blog in 2015 as part of a daily “One Word Less for Lent” series.
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Photo taken in Israel, 2022.
Dressed for success... Dressed for success...
“Sing, hope, to me” ~favorite line from “The “Sing, hope, to me” ~favorite line from “The First Spring Day” by Christina Rossetti via Every Day Poems and @tspoetry in my email this morning. 
❣️
Whole poem (with lots of favorite lines) here:
❣️
https://open.substack.com/pub/everydaypoems/p/the-first-spring-day?r=3acod&utm_medium=ios
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Wild red poppy anemones from our spring trip to Israel in 2022. And, of course, red is the color of hope. 
❣️
#dipintopoetry #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram #tweetspeakpoetry #everydaypoems
Sweet baby colts. Just one parent. Apparently the Sweet baby colts. Just one parent. Apparently the other was hit by a car. 😭💔
Bufo serenade AKA the Ballad of the Bufo Bufo serenade AKA the Ballad of the Bufo
South Florida is confused. South Florida is confused.
“Somehow she learns to breathe.” ~ @gyoung9751 “Somehow she learns to breathe.” ~ @gyoung9751 in “The mermaid breathes,” a woven poem from tweets. In my email today from Every Day Poems via @tspoetry.
🌱 
#dipintopoetry #everydaypoems #poetry #poetrycommunity #poetsofinstagram #poetsofig #tweetspeakpoetry
"You have what you need / is what the birds sing a "You have what you need / is what the birds sing all morning" ~ Annie Lighthart in "Conditions of Happiness."
🌱
In my email this morning from 
Every Day Poems via @tspoetry.
🌱
#dipintopoetry #poetry #poetrycommunity #everydaypoems #poem #poetsofinstagram #tweetspeakpoetry
If you’ve made it this far, the rest of the week If you’ve made it this far, the rest of the week should be a snap. #wednesday
Stay behind me. I’ll protect you. No worries. So Stay behind me. I’ll protect you. No worries. So will all those shots. Mostly.
🦝
D still has PTSD from the Great Possibly Rabid Raccoon Brouhaha of 2021.
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