A Soft Beginning

It wasn’t a dream or an ambition, it was survival.
After my father passed away, quite literally before my eyes, writing became the place where I could feel without interruption. A quiet refuge where my thoughts and emotions could exist without being judged, corrected, or explained.

For a long time, writing was my escape.

As the years passed, life grew louder. Responsibilities multiplied. I wrote less and less, but the love never left. Poetry stayed with me. Books stayed with me. The ritual of reading became sacred: the smell of the pages, the rainbow of highlighted lines, the folded corners marking where I would return when I was ready to continue.

Then I became a mother.

And in learning how to navigate the unfamiliar world through my children’s eyes, I began holding my own words closer to my chest. There was so much to feel, but little space to release it. Writing didn’t disappear…it waited.

Nearly thirty years after that young girl retreated inward, something unexpected happened. Through my work in photography — in witnessing, observing and honoring women’s stories, my love for writing reawakened.

This time, not as an escape.
But as an offering.

She Speaks in Bloom is a space for reflection, prose, poetry, and quiet truths. A place where words are allowed to unfold naturally. Without urgency, without performance. Some pieces will arrive fully formed. Others will be fragments, notes, or thoughts in motion.

All of them are honest.

If you’re here, thank you for listening.
If you see yourself in these words, you’re welcome to stay.

This is a soft beginning…
and I’m letting it bloom.

XO,
Alonda