“The vast landscape was never ours to begin with, we are all tenants of the same good earth. Surrounded by the enchanting tourist attractions, one forgets. One becomes enamored by the sounds, smells and tastes. Time? Time mattered less.” – Jacqueline Cioffa
“I have loved, laughed, cried, hurt, chose the empty life, until love finally found me a home.” – Jacqueline Cioffa
THE VAST LANDSCAPE current Amazon Best Sellers Rank: Free in #KDPSelect #Kindle
#1 Psychological #1 Sagas #3 Literary
I believe in combat boots, beat-up leather backpacks, brown boys, spiked red hair with a blond streak, freckles, Cali, stars, sea, spectacular dreams and a well-loved, purposeful life.
How about you?
My love of the ocean runs deep. My love for the sun does too.
My love of a friend who understands and gets this, well that is the brightest kind of shine.
Shine on.
We are all like it or not, intertwined.
The way the stories breeze through my mind, much like the people I have loved and let go.
As I watch helpless, I cringe at the chaos that surrounds. These are dangerous times we live in. To love, dream, practice uncomfortable kindness. To choose hope.
I leave this place with tales spun from grass and held together by frayed twine.
Living is scary. Not living is well nothing, nothing at all. Moments scribbled on forgotten parchment, moving images I recall.
Will it matter, probably not. But, it matters now. Right here. Right now.
It was real for a moment, in my head and my heart.
It was so nice to dream.
excerpt Georgia Pine by Jacqueline Cioffa
“There is something about a seashore dwelling, how the wind blows steady, sweeping and swooshing problems away. They magically evaporate out to sea. Harry couldn’t know how blessed time and living inside that house would be. The home was evergreen, oversized planks, cool to the touch but so very warm inside. The picnic bench carved with etched markings, familiar names, some recent, others worn. Barely legible grooves recorded a family.”
Going Back To Cali Book Tour
The Chopra Center Self awareness, body, mind and spirit, meditation, restoration. Reconnect.
“Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.”
— Deepak Chopra
…one must be more specific
There is beauty in ice sculptures, black leaves, sand granules and zebra mussel shells
Someone carved a number into the willow
251
I wonder what it meant and how long it’s become piece of the bark
Are they dead and buried, the secret etched inside the tree’s history?
I cannot say
251
I had not seen before
The biting winter air keeps me alert, alive noticing the minute details
I slow my pace, paying no attention to time and space, focusing on the grays above
and the black ripples before me
When dreaming of a beach one must specify the horizon
Lupe and I skipped right over Thanksgiving.
And we’re grateful.
Family fortified 365 days a year.
Love and light y’all.
I could live inside the world of film. A matinee during the week, when the whole world is at work, one of my most favorite things. Moving images. Images so crucial to how my writing process works. Boots and a bag. Simple, basic image right? Not so much, the picture stays with me for weeks, turning over possibilities, the jumping off point.
Those boots and that bag left home with me at eighteen, the naive girl with movie star dreams. Passing them down to Harrison, the protagonist in The Vast Landscape allowed me the freedom to visit worlds I would never see. The sunburst orange, black diamond jagged beach, I see in fantasy. Picturing the house so clearly, I can feel the jagged edges of the wood, splintered fingers, precise dimensions of sand, time granules as they slip through my fingers. The Vast Landscape leads to Georgia Pine., symbiotic. One story does not exist without the other. Much like us humans, we cannot thrive without our tribe. The breathtaking ethereal, haunting girl, gazing out into reflective pools of water, somber and mysterious. Flowing locks of crimson, scream come with me. I’ll tell you a story. And, so I go willingly into the dreamstate, the image drawing me in. Into the intimate, still images, the matinee that does not end abruptly in one afternoon.
Jacqueline Cioffa 