Thought Wheel

Ann Chiappetta

Word of the Year 🦮

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs

Yellow lab Bailey lick's Annie's face. She is laughing.Annie and yellow lab Bailey licking her face

The word for 2025: Doggedness

 

Definition — persistence in effort; tenacity or perseverance.

 

I have been reading essays and blog posts about choosing an action word for 2025. Being someone who doesn’t respond well to new year resolutions I decided to try a word of intent.

 

Looking back on 2024, I accomplished many good things with my husband by my side. We also felt the strain of transition. Leaving our home of over thirty years and relocating to a different State and the death of my retired guide dog, Bailey left us reeling. Jerry and I occupied ourselves with managing the house and we both acclimated fairly well in this respect. But as we settled into our new home and routines, the pain of losing Bailey became almost unbearable for me. Not only did I miss him in a physical sense, but I missed the loss of independence he provided being my guide dog. His illness and death cut me off from pushing ahead and taking full advantage of our new life here and what the community offered.

 

Bailey died on March 16, 2024. My heart has recovered enough to welcome my successor guide, though, only a few months ago I wasn’t ready and questioned if I was sufficiently healed to open my heart so soon.

 

Parting with our lives back in New York and embracing Pennsylvania and the quieter lifestyle and less frantic pace we both longed for many years was the expected, watching Bailey suffer and pass from complications brought on by lung cancer was the unexpected.

 

The depression and grief resulting from losing Bailey dragged me down, at times the light at the end of the tunnel dimmed to a pinprick.

Losing Bailey was like losing my eyesight – again –And had doubts about the mental effort it would take to step out of the darkness into the here and now, to feel the warmth of the sun on my soul.

 

Some days I wanted to sleep the entire day away but I didn’t. The motivation to get up and fight off the sadness kept me from giving up. I got back out using my white cane and regained some lost confidence. I am still avoiding going places on my own, though. The irrational fear of being dropped off in front of a strange building with no cell reception floods me with anxiety. I don’t have my dog to keep me safe if I get lost. I don’t know where I am. The entire geography is unfamiliar, unlike New York. In New York, if I didn’t know where I was, I still knew where I was.

 

Yes, it is March, my birthday month. I’ve reached the tunnel’s end, evident by this post tapping my chest and telling my heart to get ready for dog three. Telling myself I will hold onto a harness and fly again.

 

Here is where doggedness accents my life during 2025. I will be dogged about pushing past my fears, work towards training with another guide dog, and allow myself to remember Bailey, his big yellow labbbiness, big personality and tongue, and honor him by taking a chance on another canine partner.

 

 

 

 

warm thoughts on a cold day

| Filed under blindness blogging writing Writing Life

Got cabin fever? How about some reading to help pass the time.

Hop on over to

https://pattysworlds.com/sublime-sunday-reading-presents-featured-author-of-the-week-ann-chiappetta/

 

and read an interview I submitted for Patty’s Worlds blog. If you haven’t checked Patty’s books, why not find out about them while you’re visiting.

 

August Newsletter V 2.8

| Filed under blindness nonfiction Poem

Annie Shares News volume 3 Issue 8 August 2024

anniesharesnews@groups.io

Subscribe anniesharesnews+subscribe@groups.io

Visit my Website

Follow me on my Goodreads author page or my Amazon Author page.

 

🌻  🌄  🌅  🌆

I love this time of year, late summer is peaceful and productive for me. Pittsburgh, what I now call PGH, is filled with street fairs, farmer’s markets, and indoor and outdoor performances. What a great city. It is packed with historic locations, museums and sports arenas. I also heard a rumor PGH International airport will be adding a direct flight to Ireland. I hope it happens soon, I will be on a flight to the Emerald Isle as soon as possible. ✈️☘️

 

As you know, I am a poet and I am also a lifelong learner. Improving my poetry skills is and always will be a priority for me. I am currently in a small, focused poetry critique group facilitated by award winning poet, John Sibley Williams. If you are thinking about joining a small group of poets  and truly wish to step up your crafting skills, a group facilitated by john is the way to go. He offers affordable workshops on writing, publishing and crafting poetry, fiction and nonfiction.

 

I am always looking for opportunities to share  poetry with others. I would love to connect with schools, libraries and organizations who would like to consider me as a guest speaker either in person or virtually on Zoom. I  specialize in speaking to children, adolescents and adults on blindness and advocating for people with disabilities. I have over fifteen years of lived experience using a guide dog and  my knowledge base includes other types of service dogs and the organizations training them. My contact information is anniecms64@gmail.com or 914.393.6605.

Future plans change but I will share I am working on a new novel which will not be out until late 2025 or 2026.

 

 

Until next time, Yins –

 

Enjoy this poem.

 

TROPHIES

By Ann Chiappetta

 

Burnished figures on pedestals

Inscribed electroplate

Into households they gather, insidious

Conniving onto shelf and mantle place

 

They represent childhood paragons

Foster a competitive edge;

Rally spirits when called upon

As we leap and clear the proverbial hedge

 

They possess our emotions, sentiments

woven into beliefs

A bit of blanket, a toddler’s treasure

Photos that trigger grief

 

Even in death we cannot escape

Carved markers above bones underneath

Grassy knolls peppered with maudlin

Guardians, trophies the dead bequeath

 

Yet the living tend the reminders

While the dead are set free

What a breath holds dear

Spirits don’t need.

 

2005

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A burst of Creativity 🌅

| Filed under blindness Fiction nonfiction

Media Release

 

Contact Ann Chiappetta 914.393.6605 anniecms64@gmail.com

 

Anthology Includes Local Author

 

July 17. 2024 Monroeville, PA —   The creative works of local poet and author, Ann Chiappetta,

will be in the newest literary anthology published by Behind Our Eyes, Inc.

 

Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst is the third literary anthology

by writers with disabilities, who don’t let their disability define

their life. The topics range from memoirs, fiction, and poetry sharing slices of life, speaking to universal themes and common experiences, involving loss and grief, adversity and fear, love and

passion. You’ll be thinking of these stories long after you’ve put the

book down.

 

Copies of “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst” edited by Mary-Jo

Lord are available through Barnes&Noble and Amazon.Com. Contact the author, Ann Chiappetta  anniecms64@gmail.com or visit her website: https://www.annchiappetta.com

Visit  Behind Our Eyes to find out more about the organization and how to support their  enriching literary programs for writers with disabilities.

Text of cover image courtesy of Be My AI: The image is the cover of a book titled “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst.” The subtitle reads, “The Third Literary Anthology of Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers with Disabilities.” The book is edited by Mary-Jo Lord. The background of the cover is gray, and the text is in yellow. Below the text, there is an image of a bright, fiery sunburst, showing intense solar activity with vivid orange and yellow colors.

Text of cover image courtesy of Be My AI: The image is the cover of a book titled “Behind Our Eyes 3: A Literary Sunburst.” The subtitle reads, “The Third Literary Anthology of Stories, Poems and Essays by Writers with Disabilities.” The book is edited by Mary-Jo Lord. The background of the cover is gray, and the text is in yellow. Below the text, there is an image of a bright, fiery sunburst, showing intense solar activity with vivid orange and yellow colors.

 

Missing Mouse 🖱️

| Filed under assistive technology blindness

Living the life and being a blind assistive technology user means  interacting with my pc from a `keyboard. I ditched the mouse when I began navigating a computer with JAWS software. We refer to the various text-to-speech software programs for blind and low vision as screen readers, not to be confused with a live person reading aloud.  These programs accomplish much more  like assisting me in writing, formatting and interacting with the internet when posting blog content, holding interviews and attending virtual meetings, or checking my Facebook account.

 

The mouse, and to an extent, a touch screen for a laptop or desktop computer isn’t useful because I can’t see . For example, the mouse for my system is tucked on the little shelf beside my laptop.  Unless Jerry needs to assist me with something on my pc, it stays there gathering proverbial dust. One day I was cleaning the real dust and cat hair from the desk and the mouse tipped over and slid down the back of the desk, wedging itself under the floor mat behind the desk. I didn’t notice. The following week I noticed odd things happening on my pc like the windows jumping around and arbitrarily closing.  Then our pet dog, May  started sleeping under the desk where it’s cooler and I finally realized her napping was somehow responsible for my pc acting weird.   I confirmed the mouse wasn’t in the usual place next to my laptop. I slipped off my shoe and located the  mouse, easing it out with a toe.

 

Now I have the mouse back and in a safe place. May can go back to laying on the remote on the bed and changing the channels instead of  laying on the missing mouse and messing up my documents.

 

 

 

Remembering Bailey a poem for NPM

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs Poem

Your Name

Ann Chiappetta

 

Bathing my life in slobbery joy you

Accepted me unconditionally

If only love could  sustain you and

Let you live forever

Everyone knows a dog named Bailey

Yellow Labrador guiding  my heart

and memories.

 

For Guiding Eyes Bailey 1BB13 April 2013-March 2024.

 

Yellow lab Bailey lick's Annie's face. She is laughing.Annie and yellow lab Bailey licking her face

dreaming of a Dog

| Filed under blindness Guide dogs Poem

Double Dreams of My dog

Ann Chiappetta

 

I

Dreamt of

My dog’s escape

The door was open

Heartsick I panicked

Searched, begged

fruitlessly

for his

return. I watched

all those I   lost

drive off with Mom

Bailey Bailey Bailey

I called

Silence

But then

Someone called,  urgently

I have

him

My hand

Touches the leather

this collar  familiar but

Not my dog

Could this

Dream

Dog Be

my future partner

or is it merely

a wishful

thought?

Yellow lab Bailey one year old standing at the shor in Maine. Photo taken by his puppy raiser. Bailey died March 16, 2024, he was ten. We miss you buddy.

Yellow lab bailey posed with blue skies and clouds in the background. 

 

 

 

 

Annie Shares News plus bonus link to new article

| Filed under blindness blogging Writing Life

Annie Shares News Volume 3 Issue 1 January-February 2024

Subscribe: Anniesharesnews+subscribe@groups.io

Web: www.annchiappetta.com

Blog: www.thought-wheel.com

 

🥳  🌚  💝

I am behind on this newsletter and should have sent it out sooner. The last month was full of obligations and family activities.  We rang in the new year  together from the comfort of the new sleep number bed in our house. We are settling in well, the animals love the space and quiet positive energy.

 

Jerry and I registered to vote, got new  State identification, met with our respective medical care providers,  and checked off many of the post-move tasks each day. Trips to the home store and hardware store depleted our finances a bit but it needed to be done. Apartment living doesn’t require a leaf blower, ice melt, garbage pails for weekly pickups, outdoor lighting, video door bell and back door camera, updated alarm system, a ladder, rake, shovel, HVAC filters, five rooms of furniture and so much more.

 

Our daughter visited with her fiancé and her cat at the end of January. It was rewarding for us to offer a guest room. We appreciated the open and welcoming living space this home  offers.  We all got along wonderfully.

 

📚

Get ready for my next contemporary fiction novel, Imperfections, scheduled for a March 2024 release.

Listen to an interview with  DJs Sam Jasmine, Charlene Dahl  and me on KFAI radio’s Disability and Progress: https://kfai.org/player/?episode_id=52048

 

More about the book:

For Lainie and Efren affirming their love  for one another comes with consequences and his name is Shane.  Will his stalker mentality erode their love or will Lainie and Effren be strong enough together and  be free of Shane’s cruelty for good?

 

 

My poem “What the Heart Lives” placed third place in the Oprelle spring 2024 anthology.  I am hoping to take part in readings and book fairs in 2024 and I am hoping to complete a nonfiction book about the human and service animal bond by next year.

 

Visit this bonus link to read my newest blog article for the American Printing House and Career Connect series:

http://tinyurl.com/2ct3ybjt 

Until next month,

Peace

🐲  🌚

 

 

 

The Word River

| Filed under assistive technology blindness writing

 

Being an author, I am often asked about the writing process. Where do I write? What is the time of day I am the most creative? What equipment or software do I use? How do I get my ideas? The answers are straightforward. I write in my office and prefer the daytime from mid-morning to early evening. I type all my work on a pc with Windows and assistive technology   software for the blind. I edit my work with this technology, listening to   documents with text-to-speech access.    Ideas come to me via observation, examination and experience. They  form through dreams, news, conversations I hear, observing the sensory  information and what surrounds me. Curiosity  leads me through it all.

 

Once an idea reveals itself, I make a mental note to   track it. . If it persists, if I fall asleep mulling it over and it is there the next morning, I know it is a subject or idea I must  relax into for it to develop.  When I say develop I mean a piece of something  destined for words taking hold and growing. Setting an idea free means being conscious of it while it travels through  my gray matter, collecting relevance and resonance  until we meet again.

 

The most difficult question regarding the writing life is describing the creativity involved in the writing process. There isn’t a short answer, it’s more like paddling a canoe along the sluggish tidal pools and terrifying rapids of a miles-long river .  An idea is the starting point. What if the dream  I woke up remembering  could be written into a short story? What if the influx and pattern of birds and their hierarchy at the feeders could be described in a poem? What if the  blog articles I’ve already written on a particular topic could  be organized into a handbook of some kind?

 

Once I know the idea is forming, I write a brief note to myself and  step back, absorb my effort into another writing project. This is essential for the idea to continue developing.

 

For example, I got an idea for an urban fantasy short story about garden gnomes  playing a major role in helping rescue prisoners of human trafficking in China with dimensional magic. I sketched out the timeline, location, characters, and other details. I researched elements in the story following a rough outline. I am a hybrid of a planner and a Pantzer, creating enough of a timeline of scenes and the story arc to follow but loose enough for it to  flex as the story expands.

 

Next is the typing, word play, placement of scenes,  theme of the story, plot, and deleting, replacing and revising.

 

When the story stalls, because inevitably it will stall as part of the evolution of the story, I go onto another project. I do not believe in writer’s block. I believe the story will write itself as long as I have faith it will do so. If the story is meant to be written and I am purposeful about writing it, it will get done.

 

Sometimes the ideas lay dormant for years, others seem to call to me in a more creative urgency. Some stories , after a few hundred pages sit in my manuscript folder on Drop Box because I wrote myself into a corner.  I think about them all the time, consider pulling one up and begin the revision process.  I am not the only author to lament unfinished work laying in the manuscript closet.    Maybe a few will eventually be revived and become something for the masses, but I do not question. This is how my first two novels were completed. When the piece beckons, I’ll take up my creative paddles,  push off into the word river and ride the current, trusting the words will come.