Christmas in a Hotel

My family is my daughter Jessica, the only one of my 4 children who wants me in their lives.  She is having a baby soon, the only grandchild I will see–unless things change.  Jessica spent Christmas with me in a nice (but inexpensive) hotel in Ontario, California. We stayed there before–during the Miss California competition and Thanksgiving.  The hotel has a cheerful, red-hued lobby; a pool; and walkways with a gazebo and rose gardens.  It reminds me of hotels I stayed in throughout China.  We gave away some of my books to curious staff members and enjoyed green tea, butter cookies, and a few wrapped gifts.  I am thankful that, though I do not own my own home, this year I was not homeless.  I have a good job and can afford a hotel near to where Jessica lives.

Jessica read the story of the first Christmas as written in the Bible’s Gospel of Luke.  As a Messianic Jew and a Christian, I could be criticized for celebrating Christmas, a holiday not well steeped in valid history.  However, I love Christmas for the songs whose words I memorized when I was a child, the tiny blinking lights, angels, and evergreens.  Jesus came as the “light of the world.”  He died on a tree, our sacrifice to wash away our crimson sins, and rose again to bring new life.  Somehow these ideas do not erase older traditions of Hanukah, but fulfill.

How was your Christmas?

God is My Refuge

God must be my refuge this year.  As I read the Gospel of John and Psalm 91 today, that thought became clear.  Funny how I took a photo of this window with the moon above it. Please read about the moon (and its beauty, symbols) in my books.

Woman Down

I watched the most life-changing film, “Man Down.”  Not only veterans get PTSD   I have had it since I was not yet 5 years old, when my father shot himself in the head–in front of me–on Christmas Day.  Through abusive men, cancer, and near-fatal car accidents, trauma has returned repeatedly.  Jesus help veterans and all of us who have PTSD.  Woman Down.

You can read all about my journey with PTSD in my 3 nonfiction books which I call my “Survival Series.”  Start with “Crossing the Chemo Room,” then go through “I Saw You in the Moon.”  Realize that I do not tell the whole truth until “Fire and Ice.”

May our 2018 be a year less affected by trauma.  Sadly, I cannot help but feel that everyone on Earth is in danger of PTSD the way things are headed.  Like my Selah fantasy character, may we overcome!

Beautiful Fool

I am a beautiful fool

eyes as aquamarine against faded gold

like the ring my daughter gave me

living in my own dream world

Galadriel of the forest

giving to Arwen

pink flowers in moonlight

standing, frail, against the doom of a sorcerer

waiting for a miracle

Jesus

**This is the poem my daughter Jessica wrote for me when she gave me this ring:

For My Mother

Whose Beauty Shall Forever Illuminate Through

–& Within–

My Heart

As Galadriel,

the Immortal Lighthouse

of All Forests.

My Courageous

Queen

Shall Eternally Protect

–& Reign o’er–

My Spritish Soul

with Grace Beyond

Earthly

Comprehension

(–Perhaps Sprouted from

the Aquamarine

Ring

this Elf

Once Gave Her!)

Please buy my books, just $2.99 each, so that my dreamlife may continue in practical, unpoetic, expensive California.  Thank you, this Day after Thanksgiving, Year of our Lord 2017.

Lonna Sells Her Books

Watch Lonna Lisa Williams sell her books in the California mountains, at Big Bear Lake’s Copper Q Cafe, 2 summers in a row (2014 and 2015).  She should be there again this August, so come meet her and get your signed copy!  In the meantime, please buy her Kindle eBooks for just $2.99.  You can download a free Kindle reader to any smartphone, tablet, or computer.  If you like traditional style, Lonna’s paperbacks are about $10.  Enjoy!

You can buy Lonna’s books here:  http://www.amazon.com/Lonna-Lisa-Williams/e/B006ZISIFU

Writing my Way Home for Christmas

Jessica as an angel and Jonathan as a gold-crowned king in a California play 2004 

Help me write my way home to see my children in California.  I haven’t seen Jessica (21) and Jonathan (18) in the 3 years I’ve been teaching English overseas.  After I got divorced from their father (who got everything, including them), I couldn’t find a teaching job in America, so I went to Russia in October, 2010.  After 6 frozen months, I flew to Turkey where I lived and taught for 2.5 years.   I met my Turkish husband there.  After nearly getting arrested for writing about the Turkish freedom protests and posting a photo, I went (with my Turkish husband) to teach English in China just 2 months ago.

In all these ups and downs, I’ve been able to support myself.  But I haven’t bought a much-needed new computer (my old Apple laptop is 9 years old and very slow).  I haven’t taken a real vacation.  And I haven’t been able to afford a trip back to Los Angeles to see my children.

From Sunday, November 3 to Sunday, November 10, all 5 of my books are only $.99 (less than a dollar) for Kindle format.  You can pick from my true cancer survival story, travel adventures, science fiction, and fantasy.  Or you could splurge and pay $9.99 for a paperback.  My books encourage people to survive anything, and they make great Christmas presents.  Light can shine in the darkest places.

Please buy one of my books for a friend, think of me, and share my story.

Thank you.  See my books here.

Jessica, me, and Jonathan in California in 2010 before I left to teach overseas

“I Saw You in the Moon,” my book

My true cancer survival story continues in “I Saw You in the Moon,” Book Two of my Survival Stories.

Summary:  After “Crossing the Chemo Room,” Lonna Lisa Williams’ cancer survival story continues in “I Saw You in the Moon,” book 2 of her “Survival Stories.”  Discover what happened to her original characters and meet new ones in Lonna’s further adventures.  See how her children grew while she homeschooled them and guided them through figure skating and overseas excursions.  Witness a California wildfire and a New Zealand glacier, battle with other cancer patients, overcome the sorrow of miscarriages, explore the enduring beauty of photographs and poetry, and experience the hope of Christ’s resurrection.

Chapter Six

“Alien”

Somewhere in the midst of all my post-cancer paranoia, I decided to turn around, face the monster, stop being a victim, and fight.  This happened in the year between miscarriages, when my mother-in-law died of lung cancer:

“The Alien”

One of my favorite films is a horror story.  It reminds me of my fight with cancer.  It’s called Alien.

The film starts with a grim, dark, metallic setting as the camera explores a seemingly lifeless spaceship which looks like an ugly, rectangular barge.  It drifts silently in space until a computer awakens its crewmembers from their frozen sleep–to answer a distress call from a nearby planet.  The crew, in a shuttle, leaves the barge and lands on the planet.  An exploration team puts on spacesuits and follows the distress beacon through a stormy desert and to a gigantic crashed alien vessel.

“Woman on a Cliff” (poem)

“Woman on a Cliff”

I am a woman standing on a cliff.

Wind rises from below,

from the dark and far crevasse.

Upon my face and hair it sings

blowing out my scarf like wings.

I cannot see the bottom of the cliff.

Rocks and slopes and trees

reach down in shades of gray and green.

And if they form a bridge

they stay unseen.

But I’m not frightened now

to stand here at this dizzy height.

I look up to the Summit where

the clouds half cover crystal peaks

and sunrise turns the snow to light.

I am a woman standing on a cliff.

At any time my feet could slip

and pull me fast

upon the razor tip.

But, oh, the view!

The view is worth the coldest risk.

***************************************

A poem I wrote after surviving non-hodgkins lymphoma, stage 4, when my son was just a baby.  He is now 17.

From “I Saw You in the Moon” (Survival Stories, Book 2):

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007UJ6EH2

,

Black Sea Waves

My university students and I saw the Black Sea waves a greenish color before the storm hit. The northern coast of Turkey is amazing. At Kandira, the Pink Rocks. I used this photo for the cover of my true cancer survival book, “I Saw You in the Moon.”

Get the book here:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B007UJ6EH2