Writing Reality

I had this discussion about food and exercise and addiction and environmental upbringing with an old superior in the Marines last night. She'd been through all ways to stop her overeating... two failed gastric bypasses, aside from all sorts of diets.   Finally, she went to the VA and they resolved her diet issue (she lost over 80 pounds in ten months). But to keep the weight off, the VA realized she needed to look at her ancestoral habits.  We shared our flaws that we never knew of each other. And I'd never shared with anyone ever. I traded potentially bad habits for somethings that were innocuous, and I am blessed with being able to have redirected myself when overeating. I figured out why we did these things. She was busy being a caregiver. I was that way most of my childhood and a large part of my adulthood along with being fantastic worriers. I told her things I do when I worry. I used to not be able to find the tools to satiate my automatic worrying.  I was a workaholic,

Survival: Lesson #1 It's about Good versus Evil. Or so it seems. It's actually about choices. Like selective hearing and so forth.  We can pull from whatever floats in our atmosphere, our environment. Or we can just breathe, not take the choices in that second, minute, hour, day that enter into our realm.  We can build a wall, a bomb shelter, wrap ourselves in barbed wire, or huddle in a cave. Metaphorically, I've done all four of them. Just like selectively, there are times everyone declares they're an empath. News for you, you're not. Most likely not. Yes, you 'got' feelings. But you're supposed to have them. And some, we have selectively groomed them in or out of our persona for our own convenience.  I call it the "Chicken Little Response". Your sky may seem like it's falling, but not every time. The clouds may hover for you. So you think and then bingo! Just like that, they pass. The news outlets we could blame for doing that to us. Ho

  ...A Little Something about "Old People". Or people who seem elderly... Last night Biden was sharp. When I was first married near 40 years ago, my husband's elders,  one being 92 was arthritic.  However,  everyone sat circled around him and asked his advice on money and real estate.  Wise he was. I've had clients who were driving and living on their own, being activists in their city and so forth and taking care of disabled children into their 90s. My grandmother who was born poor from gypsies,  no shoes till about age 7. Worked as a cashier into her mid eighties, too became a minister in her sixties. Taught herself Spanish when a future relatives family spoke only Spanish. She walked or took the bus to nursing homes and helped elder residents have some type of mass, and they received communion from her. I took a retired 94 yr old Detective I've known for over 30 years out to eat. Basically,  after a three course dinner with her, four hours later of heavy discus

I truly do not know where to begin. I'm not condescending. I'm barely sarcastic, if at all. My mother, a quite ill woman taught me two things. As ill as she was, I listened to her along with others. I took the best advice I felt was necessary.  I took the best and left the rest. Her two pieces of advice I held onto dearly were: "Don't pick up a baby when you're angry." "Don't ever be sarcastic to a child." I've held both those suggestions close to my soul and still to heart. And I've extended them towards adults. As only few have realized was, I am literal and not sarcastic even to adults. My fear is of being unkind, even to those we feel don't deserve our kindness. And I remove myself from a person's personal space when I feel an onset of anger or I stay the anger, temporarily changing my essence to a more appropriate time alone to deal with it.  Anger is tough on the blood vessels. Rage is different. It's separate and ca

  As we were raising our daughters unwittingly yet willingly, we raised them teaching them diversity. My husband told me to never call him a liberal. So, instead I said, “You were a feminist before I was.” He didn’t seem to mind that. You see the word liberal to my husband who was born in 1956 meant someone who was not dedicated to democracy. Kind of like when my dad would call someone a ‘pinko-liberal-commy’. I didn’t buy into that. And today my husband would be considered a liberal, but its not a bad thing. And as luck would have it, this former US Marine, their mother—one of our daughters recently called me, a “Femi-Nazi”. I would have laughed if I didn’t think she was so serious and needed some corralling on her accusation. I gently caressed her verbiage that day. It’s not that her mother mostly considered ‘The Bad Cop’ of her two parents had gone soft. Its that now I had to play the roll of her deceased father and being mom too. So, our daughters now get a two-fer in one paren

As the snow fell, sadness of a snowless winter dissipated. A snowless winter for some creates loneliness. Aloneness carved inside-out. There is quiet and sometimes peace along with that. The snow falling is the light through the dark. It lays beyond our dreams. Its imaginary blessings some relate to childhood. The blessings most adults appeared to have gone unnoticed. You see snow, loses its dreaminess after a certain age with some. Metaphorically, snow is seen to many as losing traction. Literally, the beauty of snow’s slickness slows everything down. It makes us step back, reckoning the things we cannot control. Ungrateful adults view snowfall as a dilemma. The unloved, reasoning their unloved-ness view it as a blessing. Everything pauses, that’s the blessing. The earth appears untouched in many places. If only for a few hours.   Then noises begin to creep back into the fray of life. The ungrateful become a bit grateful. And the unloved breath in their acknowledgment that not a