Debut Flash: 'Today’s Mindset Activity: Create Your Vision Board with Angie!' by Irene Ressa

“Manifest the positive,” Angie cheers, adjusting her New Beginnings name tag. She herds me towards the supplies.

I grab a glue stick, poster board, some magazines. There’s no scissors.

I join the least inhabited table. No scissors here, either. But Yasmine, a rehab repeater next to me who rarely speaks, knows to fold and lick where she’d rather cut. She pastes a carefully freed image of Cosmo’s “Sumptuous Summer Lips” to her board.

“Find your voice,” Angie chirps.

Two seats over, Tish, a fading blonde, savages a year old Glamour style guide. On the wall behind her is my former roommate’s artwork–a cacophony of butterflies, rainbows, and words like “power” and “hope.”  She was released last week, but left her vision behind.

“Just try.”

Fine. I tear out a page from Sunset detailing the tribulations of a foodie attempting “Caramel Pie with Rum Whipped Cream.”

It’s the same damn recipe I'd endeavored to make with my daughter last month. Like always, a dessert that is more for me than her. I’d over-sampled the rum, again, but neglected to turn off the burner under the caramel. Neither the condo nor my custodial rights were saved.

Inside, I am a churn of sirens and ambulances, a five-year-old’s tears, court orders. I envy the poster board before me: empty, blank, nothing.

“Find somewhere to start.”

I study the page and rip out one line: “For best results, first give your crust a blind bake.”

I fold, I bend, I lick, I pull apart the sentence.

I glue the first and fifth words together in the center of the board.

Not a vision, but a challenge.