Judith Dupree
I'll Leave the Light on for You
I have lived a long life in a world too few would recognize now. I reckon, by today’s standards, it was “old fashioned.” Simplistic? We managed to live with an ingrained sense of simplicity, of sufficiency. Our lives defied any particular sort of accumulation.
Waiting with Simeon
There in the dust and bustle and eventual hush of familiar religious practice, the Old and New Testaments interwove suddenly, quite simply. Between God’s unlikely prophet, and the newborn—the oh, so unlikely One foretold.
The Parameters of Need
We all face varying necessities...but we also contend with our desires—the hunger to thrive. The nature of our own ambivalence sends us off on endless searches. And we each, when we’re self-honest, find ourselves in this territory: segueing from wanting what we truly need, to an equivocal choice of “needing” what we badly want.
Seeds of Tomorrow
The earth, the whole of it, is our garden. Our cross-thatched Eden, a checkerboard of beauty and clutter and devastation. The fertile fields we work and play upon—and litter with our stash of trash and ravish with our wars. Our squash and our squashing.
Coming Together: On Neighbors, Fences, and Moments
Who, existentially, is my neighbor, and what does it imply, or not, in my larger life beyond my front porch? Do I owe something more than I have given to this unfathomable, unreasonable world? Do I gain something more than I have wanted, or ever missed?
Under The Rainbow...
I'm a bit of a perfectionist. I don't think I'm the only one around. Perfectionists want to do everything, umm, perfectly. We expect much of ourselves, and perhaps, others. We want to be activators, integrators, celebrators.
Seeing Sideways
It was raining again when I walked out of church—a slow spritz that would invoke a guffaw in the saturated Northeast. But in Southern California it was, Oh yay, rain! I smiled, raised my umbrella, and headed across the street. And I saw him standing there. A robust young man. Facing the church, holding a cardboard "help" sign.
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The Waking is an online literary magazine and a part of the Ruminate creative community that houses high-quality literary writing about what it’s like to be human. We are interested in short-form prose and image-text hybrid work. This art can be beautiful, it can be strange, we just ask that it feels true.