Sierra V. Fedorko

I’ve wondered– Can I write a boring novel? Just about life. Describe those ordinary moments that speak of the deepest blessings, the greatest stories?

Would people read it? The falling-in-love part was beautiful, but all the days to follow, all those dinners made, the discovery of being blessed though childless, those first two pink lines, the first postpartum days, the rush of spring after the weight of fog, the tiny hangers in the closet, the evening coffee, and quiet mornings on the porch weave and fray into a spell-binding story.

Curious how grand it is to live within an ordinary tale even if the world finds it too boring to read.

I think that’s a kind of magic.

The following poem was written during the tumultuous 2020 and inspired by my son.

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I stopped looking at the News for just a second and right then I saw you smile and so did I because there’s a lot of good that isn’t breaking. -S.V.F., L o o k U p

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Now, my son is four-years-old with a pirate’s life and there’s a whole ship sailing in our garden. There’s pine-cone treasure stored away and an acorn hoard in a red wagon. Maps can be marked with turkey feathers and adventures await right outside the front door.

The stories drip over the years, pretend to be ordinary things, but how else does a pirate ship end up in the garden if not for the extraordinary tales we gather just by living?

I probably will write a whole novel about ordinary life. There’s got to be a way to translate such magic and grand adventure on the page. I’m not giving up on the idea and I believe there’s hundreds of women waist-deep in their own ordinary lives and confident they are living the adventure of a lifetime.

I’d love to put words on the bookshelf to resonate with our reality.

Until then I’ll be baking birthday cakes and looking out the window to my son sailing on his ship and glancing into the living room with dish-soaked hands watching my girl dance to 90s worship music. If it never gets written at least we lived it, right? And isn’t it good!