Balancing Act

She caught her handbag as it plummeted off her shoulder before the cup of coffee she was holding spilled all over her new suit. It was going to be a good day; that was the best omen she knew, even better than arriving in front of the elevator bank and finding an empty car waiting for her.

She set her cup down on her desk and put her kamikaze purse into her bottom drawer. She lowered herself gratefully into her chair and kicked off her shoes; they were gorgeous, but they pinched. Thank heavens for desks that hid everything from the waist down; her feet could recover while she checked her messages.

She dealt with her email swiftly; the delete key was her friend. Phone messages were a bit stickier; if people actually bothered to call, they usually needed some sort of a response. She was in a race against time to clear them out; her next meeting started in less than an hour. Leaving them for later was not an option. Later, there would be more.

Downing her coffee before it went cold, she set to work.

© 2011 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel

Personal Use and Teacher's Editions Tutorials are available in my ArtFire Shop.

There's a light

Helene raised her lantern as high as she could, feeling (rather foolishly) like a girl in a gothic novel.

The fog had swept up through the canyon on the back of the wind, and it took very little imagination to turn their campsite in the California hills into a windswept moor in Victorian England.

"Heathcliff?" she whispered, and was startled to hear an answering, "Cathy?"

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel
Trellis Series rope tutorial by NED Beads Artisan Jewelry, Ionic Polyhedra beaded beads pattern by beAd Infinitum. Hand fabricated.

Times Squared

She thought about Sylvia Plath as she walked from the subway to her office. Not for the usual reasons; she wasn't a poetry groupie or the sort of person who identified with tortured souls.

No, her thoughts of Plath were purely practical.

As a teenager, she'd read The Bell Jar and remembered only one thing from it; the image of the heroine walking across New York City, late at night, counting the blocks across the grid of Manhattan to her destination. She counted them, too. And worked them into math problems.

She called then her Plath patterns.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel lIonic Polyhedra beaded bead designed by beAd Infinitum. Snake Chain designed by Good Quill Hunting Hand fabricated.

Skaði

She cupped her hands and gently blew over her palms; the children saw only the snow, falling from her fingers. She was tall, very tall, and slim as an icicle. Her skis flew down the mountain she loved; straight as the path of an arrow, and twice as fast.

She loved winter; she was never cold, never tired of snow and ice. Her mother had known her name in the womb; Skaði, Skaði, Skaði she whispered, sending chills down her mother's spine.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel Glass icicle by Glasswich. Beadwoven from seed beads; embellished with quartz chips, angora rovings and vintage glass.

Darkness into light

She rolled over and squinted at the clock. 3: 04. Wide awake, she'd hoped it was later than that. The light from the neighbor's yard made it look like dawn in her bedroom, even through her shades.

Groaning, she turned her face resolutely to the wall and tried to go back to sleep. It's not morning, she told herself; not even close. If I get up now, I'll be ready for bed at 7:00 tonight.

Click. The light turned itself off automatically. It was night again.

At least until the next raccoon wandered by.

© 2010 Cynthia Newcomer Daniel
Time Machine Beaded Bead Pattern by Gwen Fisher and Florence Turnour of beAd Infinitum.