WRITING CHALLENGES | PROMPTS

When You Let Your Imagination Fly

Creativity is bound to find freedom.

I received a notification from Medium that my dear friend Kathryn A. LeRoy, Ph.D., had mentioned me in a story. I had to check it out.

It’s a game of tag. She was tagged by Geetika Sethi and Deborah Christensen to write a Haiku, Tanka, or a story using “bird.”

She passed the buck with these words:

One small word can unleash a universe of creativity.

Let’s see what Tree, Amy, Timothy, Desiree, or Rasheed, to name a few, will bring to the party.

From where I was sitting, I looked up, and what did I see?

I have been staying with my children and their mother for almost six months now. She loves wild critters and feeds birds, cats, squirrels, and raccoons in the apartment complex. I helped her with installing these in the back yard. We are trying to build a garden. She already has a couple of Papaya trees that are producing like crazy, a guava tree that is growing nicely, and a single Pineapple that I started by sticking the top of the fruit into the ground.

But where are the birds?

Since you asked, here is a story I wrote last Christmas that the Medium editors selected for curation in Creativity and Writing.

I love taking pictures. I may not be the best photographer, but I have sold some traditional and canvas prints.

The featured image at the top of this story was the one I took when I visited the Oklahoma City Memorial, a few years ago; the sun was just coming up. The dove, which symbolizes peace, flew in and sat in the tree above the markers that bear the names of those who died in that terror attack. I used to live in OKC in the mid-70s; it has a special meaning to me.

A quick survey of my computer produced a few more bird images.

The bald eagle on the left is one of the pair that you see in the story above. The hawk in the middle is an experimental shot where I’ve thrown the foreground out of focus to highlight the bird in the distance using a telephoto lens.

I took the picture on the right when I visited Palo Duro Canyon in West Texas. Here, I’ve blurred the background while focusing on the bird in the foreground — photography is so much fun when you get creative.

I shot the juvenile Bald Eagle in flight near where I am currently living. The nest is on a protected property owned by a Natural Gas company. I had to extend my zoom lens to 1200mm, and then crop it some.

The photo on the right was a real labor of love that took a lot of patience. I left Houston at 4 AM and drove to Galveston, over an hour and fifteen-minute drive to get some sunrise over the bay photos. The fog didn’t lift until the sun was already up in the sky, but you can always count on the seagulls for their elegant flights. This image is the best of several good shots I got that morning. It was after 9 AM that the sun finally broke through the clouds.

Here are two birds of a different kind that I shot in California when I was walking Route 66.

Thanks, Kathryn, for the challenge. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I had no idea what I was going to do with it until I looked up. Creativity has so many faces.

And now, for the obligatory selection of victims, I mean, writer friends who could use a challenge.

Sharon needs a break from all the anti-racism stories she’s been producing.

Julia can use some distraction from all the a-holes who’ve been pissing her off lately.

If Holly can get away from tracking down the pirates of the internet, she has a bird story or two she can write. Knowing Holly, she’ll probably give those pirates the bird.

Hey Britni, maybe you can tell us about the birds and the bees since you seem to be a master, or is it mistress on the subject.

Maybe Trista has come across a bird or two during her morning walks in her garden?

And just because I haven’t mentioned your name, yeah you who’s reading this, it doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the gauntlet and run with it.

And just for the fun of it.

As always, thank you for reading and responding.

Here are a couple of related stories:

Rasheed Hooda is a published author, who has contributed to many of Medium’s top Publications; Start-up, The Ascent, P.S. I Love You, Rogues’ Gallery, and ILLUMINATION, to name a few. He is also a Top Writer on several topics.