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Victoria MacDonald

Author on Reedsy Prompts since Mar, 2021

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18 Stories

233 karma pts

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Parenting Perils

Weekly Contest #369

Parenting Perils At the age of seventy-six, I look back at parenting as the most challenging endeavor of my life. When my only child, Russell, graduated from Kindergarten Montessori School, the staff praised his above-average verbal skills and keen insight. I took full credit, an illusion of control which worked against me whenever my boy struggled. By the age of three, he wasn’t yet toilet- trained. “He should be out of diapers by now,” declared my sister-in-law. “You need to be firm and spank him if necessary.” She never had her own childr...

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Wedding Woes

Weekly Contest #367

Wedding Woes Peter was the love of my life, from the time we started dating in our late teens, back in 1969, to the time he passed from cancer in 2012. Still is. We travelled a rocky road, struggling upward on a mountainside, with an ever-present danger of toppling off the edge.            Both raised in alcoholic homes, we repeated the pattern, acting out our intense need of and deep fear of intimacy. After hearing our family of origin stories, a therapist once smiled and said, “It’s no...

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Woodstock - Summer of '69

Weekly Contest #361

Woodstock – Summer of ‘69 It was the summer of ’69. I wore beads and bellbottoms, oozed love and peace with a Cheshire-cat smile, and chanted, “Far out…Groovy” at every opportunity. My boyfriend George was “jazzed” about an “outta sight” concert called The Woodstock Festival. “Let’s split this scene and go! It’ll be unreal! We can’t miss it!” I hid my anxiety about leaving the comforts of home. “Far out,” I agreed. So George persuaded his buddy, Ray to be our driver. We packed camping gear, canned food, and, most important, our stockpile of...

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Finding a Way

Weekly Contest #350

Finding A Way In 1990, after taking a leave of absence to spend time with my son, I returned to full-time teaching in a small, self-contained, Junior Learning Disabilities classroom. My new group of ten students required intensive direction. I was blessed with an excellent, full-time Educational Assistant. Bev’s deep voice and gruff demeanor barely concealed her soft-hearted love and compassion for the kids. She’d worked at the school for years and knew many of the children since their kindergarten days. I appreciated her hard work. Togethe...

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Wedding Woes

Weekly Contest #342

Wedding Woes Peter was the love of my life, from the time we started dating in our late teens, to the time he passed from cancer in 2012. Still is. We travelled a rocky road, struggling upward on a mountainside, with an ever-present danger of toppling off the edge. Both raised in alcoholic homes, we repeated the pattern, acting out our intense need of and deep fear of intimacy. After hearing our family of origin stories, a therapist once smiled and said, “It’s no accident you two got together!” We didn’t ti...

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Sweet Deal

Sweet Deal“Auntie Victoria, I want you to come to Cuba with me and my mom and dad. You can room with the baby and me.” “Thank you, sweetie, but I really can’t afford a trip right now.” “Make it your Christmas and birthday gift combined. Otherwise, the price of the flight ticket and a double room is wasted. I’d love the company,” says Jessie. I know that Jessie’s planned travel companion cancelled at the last minute. Foolish to turn down such an offer, right? “Why not?” I respond. The destination wedding trip resort has been selected by the p...

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Maybe I Should Keep the Mothballs

Shortlisted for Contest #299 ⭐️

In my twenties, when I left the nest to rent a tiny flat, my mother, always practical, gave me a box of mothballs.“Keep them in your drawer to fend off moths. You don’t want holes in your garments.”Two years later, I moved to a larger apartment. The mothballs came with me, just in case. They remained buried and forgotten at the back of a drawer for over four decades.Life guarantees challenges. Over the years, stuff accumulated. When basement storage space ran out and overstuffed closets turned into avalanches, I resorted to using my balcony ...

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Coincidence?

Weekly Contest #271

Coincidence?Shattered after the sudden death of my thirty-nine-year-old son, I wandered through a murky fog, occasionally stumbling head on into abrupt kick-to-the-gut grief attacks, yanking me out of anesthesia. Each time the tidal wave struck, I was tossed, depleted and exhausted, onto a lonely and barren beach. After fourteen months, I decided to hook up with a well renowned psychic. My kitchen lights had been flickering, and I wanted to believe that my boy was trying to communicate. “It’s just a faulty bulb,” argued a friend. “Chang...

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Intergenerational

Weekly Contest #252

In 1974, I am in my twenties, and in denial of the fact that I am in the early stages of alcohol addiction. To my way of thinking, there is nothing better than a few pre-party drinks to calm the nerves before setting off for a gathering of people you haven’t seen since your boyfriend broke up with you. Especially if you are hoping the ex will be there, realize he has missed you, and beg for another chance.           I knock back a one-liter bottle of vino before taking to the road for th...

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Near Death Experience

Weekly Contest #240

Near Death Experience           On January 26, 1978, I set off for work as a Grade three teacher in the east end of Toronto. Waiting for the bus to the subway, I hopped back and forth as the frigid wind and swirling flakes took bites out of exposed flesh.            My partner, Peter was sleeping. He worked a night shift and I seldom saw him. He had a day off, and I hoped he would choose to spend the evening with me, since it was his...

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Ode to Arlene

Weekly Contest #202

I met Arlene in 1963 on the first day of school. She was in my ninth-grade class. At first, I hated her. On the third day of the first week, we were herded into the dressing room adjacent to the pool and told to change into our bathing suits. As I undressed, I struggled to conceal my flat chest with a towel. Unlike the other girls, I didn’t wear a bra. Arlene snickered at my contortions. At home, my older brother loved taunting me in front of his friends. “Flat as a board and never been nailed!”  A bossy school nurse ordered us to li...

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The Red Button

The Red Button “Don’t jump in puddles. You’ll get your Sunday dress dirty.” “Don’t run down the stairs in stocking feet. You’ll fall.” “Don’t dawdle. You’ll be late for school.” “Don’t gulp your milk. You’ll lose your appetite.” “Don’t suck your finger. You’ll make your teeth crooked.” Now, at the age of seventy-two, I still hear those long-ago parental warnings and ponder over my stubborn resistance whenever I was told NOT to do something. Rarely an openly defiant child, my disobedience was furtive. I recall the day I came home ...

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Boundaries

Back in 1967, at the age of seventeen, I knew everything. I defiantly quit high school, left home, and shared an apartment with two roommates. Manuela was a party girl, loud, exuberant, fiery and fun. Roger was a flamboyant gay guy from Trinidad who had a flair for dancing and drew enthusiastic audiences at our downtown hangout, the Blue Note, where we grooved to Motown and Soul music.  The Blue Note closed down, leaving us bereft without our weekend social outlet. To fill the void, Roger invited some of the patrons over to our place t...

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The Tumultuous Teens

At the age of seventy-one, I vividly recall one particular outfit that was part of my meager wardrobe at the age of fifteen.Arlene, my best friend, had a closet full of store-bought garments showing the latest trends. Lucky for her, her mother worked at Eaton’s. They went on sprees and Arlene got to choose whatever she wanted.I burned with resentment, hiding my jealousy in dark shadows of shame. Mom didn’t tolerate discontent of any kind which, when occasionally expressed, was dismissed as “nonsense."My no-nonsense mother was a psychiatrist ...

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Menagerie

“You wanna do something fun?” asked my roommate, Roger. A tall and wiry man from Trinidad, he grinned at Manuela and me and placed a tiny blue pill on each of our outstretched palms. “It’ll blow your minds!” he twittered in falsetto. Roger was flamboyantly gay, and liked to wear false eyelashes, which he batted provocatively as if daring us. It was 1967.  I was seventeen, and had left home to rent a one-bedroom apartment with my two fellow clubbers. I’d met them at a groovy spot on Yonge Street called the Blue Note. The tablet ...

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