Wispy fog hovers
Swirling into ghostly patterns
Glistening dew drops

Thank you Clare at My Creative Cosmos for inviting me to join this wonderful challenge.

This photo was taken May 8, 2015.

This is a haiku that I texted my husband the morning after I met him seven years ago. Of course I didn’t know we would eventually marry when I met him, but I did know he inspired me. Not a bad start.
I recently found a picture of the haiku that I snapped off the old phone I was using at the time. We had a habit of texting poems to each other and when I upgraded my phone I realized the record of our relationship which historically would have been archived by paper (yes, I’m “paper” year old) was going to be lost every time I did an upgrade. So, I started taking pictures of our texts so that I would have a record of our courtship (yes, I’m “courtship” years old too) and our poems. So when I found the long lost copy of this haiku amongst my photos I thought, I need to post that on my blog but since my self imposed challenge is “a poem and a photo” I had to come up with a picture. Normally by May, our days are hot enough that fog is a remote possibility so I figured I would have to hang on to this haiku until the fall. Then lo and behold, this morning there was fog swirling everywhere when I woke up. The water was still cool enough compared to the air that fog formed over night. I excitedly grabbed my phone (another internal challenge is to take photographs with just my phone) and headed outside to see what I could find. By the time I spied the dew drops forming on the bamboo, the sun was already burning off most of the fog but I still managed to get a few “keepers” before the sun baked everything dry. I kept meaning to start this challenge but life kept getting in the way. Then today’s weekly photo challenge was: Forces of Nature and a light bulb went off in my head. OK, now I have a focused theme and I can do this challenge. Fog is a more gentle force of nature but it is a mood inducing force none the less.
Was meeting my inspiring husband seven years ago a “force of nature”? I’d like to think so.

OK, here is where I am going rogue. I am supposed to nominate five folks for each of the five days I post. I even started to ask permission of a some folks of who’s blogs I love and admire if I could nominate them before realizing that these folks either have a policy about not being nominated for awards or have already met this challenge. I eagerly accepted this challenge from Clare (even though I am usually adverse to them) because I really liked it, I was inspired by what Clare created and thought it was a perfect fit for my type of blog. I was also attempting to get out of my comfort zone and expand my writing beyond the haiku (I found this aspect to be the biggest challenge especially with my hectic work schedule, not to mention my lack of writing confidence). Plus, Clare asked me ahead of her posting so I had plenty of time to decide if I wanted to accept her nomination which I did eagerly -although that was two months ago. With that being said, the only part of this challenge I did not like was asking someone else to participate. While these so-called-award nominations can be a wonderful way to honor a respected blog, they are also a vehicle for passing on the “hot potato of guilt” by putting that someone on the spot. Let me be clear, I was in no way put on the spot in this challenge but I have certainly been put on the spot before and I don’t like it. My inability to nominate folks for this challenge is my problem. So here is how I am going to tackle my problem: I am not going to pass on this guilt. If I follow you, I admire and respect your work. If you would like to take on this challenge, please do so as I would very much like to follow what you create. I will be posting four more of these photos, haiku and stories guilt free with the hope of inspiring someone else to take a shot at it. If you take on the challenge and want to follow the original rules, I think that is great so here are what the rules are supposed to be:

The Five Photos, Five Stories Challenge rules require you to post a photo each day for five consecutive days and attach a story to the photo. It can be fiction or non-fiction, a poem or simply a short paragraph – it’s entirely up to you.

Then each day, nominate another blogger to carry on this challenge.

Accepting the challenge is entirely up to the person nominated, it is not a command. Today, I invite (insert nominee here) to join the challenge.

I would like to give a special “Thanks” to all of the wonderful bloggers that follow and support me and especially to Clare for being so patient with me.

This is also a response to the Weekly Photo Challenge: Forces of Nature which inspired a theme for my five day challenge and will be incorporated in each of the five posts.