Writing Reality

  As I thumb through the thoughts of my life, I come to an intersection quite often. The intersection, depending on the mood is, who am I?   It’s always a sense of wonderment.   My husband at times used to call me Job.   Yes, in reference to the Job from the Old Testament Bible. One day years ago, I turned to my husband and replied, “No Honey. I think I’m Jonah, although I do feel as if I were Job at times.” So, this morning after prepping our oldest daughter’s morning barley grass drink, then mine, as our youngest maneuvered around me in the kitchen, grabbing a quick beverage in between classes… I asked a question for a second time. Yet to our youngest, not our oldest this time, “The fox in our back yard is not going to hurt the little dogs next door. Is it? Your sister said ‘No’ a minute ago. What do you think?”   She replied, “Well it is a fox. Could be a problem.” Then she parted back to class. My mind wandered and thought about a dream I had the night before. It was about a co

  "Be here now..." He'd say... I heard that thirty years ago... from a body worker some called "The Voodoo Man". He fixed the unfixable,  that is if you were willing to 'pain-through-it'. I was. Extraordinarily so. How? Why? Birth-defects, Childhood experiences, Life's Observations... perhaps Faith. If you were me, you knew time was and is always running out.  And I mean that figuratively and literally. I know I have been and am on borrowed time. As few may realize. In the reality of being 'Here Now', nearly fifteen years later my UltraRunning coach would say, "We face our demons... that's who we fight when we run." Between the few years he lived closer to me he'd had me run up to twenty-five miles in sand in the pine barrens of South Jersey on our thirty-five to fifty mile weekly long runs together. That line was pinned into the same consciousness of my mind as 'Be Here Now'. Two different people allowing me t

  "If you are waiting for your last years to be pleasant.  Why aren't you living them now?" I asked outloud, rhetorically to an elder person twenty or more years ahead of me. Dying is not usually, completely pleasant... Neither is living. There are quite few exceptions to both those statements.  If there are, you are either a liar, a con-artist,  or naive... I will take it that 93 percent of you reading this are naive... Why? It is that is the gestimation of the population in America that doesn't think they are actually going to die. I don't believe in 'bucket-lists'.  That's garbage.  I do things for one reason... it is they move my soul.  And when my soul calls me, I respond... Even if it scares me. You see, I'm not afraid of dying as much as I'm afraid of not answering to my soul. Because when you answer to your soul, then you're living in your purpose. When you deny the call, you are reckoning with a form of being ungrateful. And th

Recently, I called up a friend, who I hadn't  seen since early 2003. He and I think a lot alike.  Aside from Holidays and the like... it us also when I have a serious  deep life question about myself... Well, I check  in with him.  I have to say, I trust practically no one with certain types of questions. Why? I want an outside, unadulterated answer, even if it's brutal. Because from him there is no emotional  attachment, it's just what I want ... sheer honesty.  He now has lived many states south of me for over seventeen years.  He has guessed things about my thoughts, that no one else could construe.  Not even my now deceased husband  of over 36 years. Norm however, sort of knew when I needed to call this friend south of us. So the recent phone call was about decisions I had made in becoming married, having/raising children, and what I gave up to live the life I never could have imagined. I asked him, "Did I do the right thing for society? Instead of serving  after t

  As Anerica licks its wounds... 4,100 dead... from a virus he said would soon disappear... 4,100 dead... So much for respect of the people who spent time away from their families savings lives... Yesterday... 4,100 dead... from a virus that was a hoax So much for respect of the people who went for higher education spending much of their family's and their own money interested in saving your life and mine. 4,100 dead... he lied the virus hasn't left... Those dedicated to medicine while losing their lives...Even saving the ones who rape our democracy.  4,100 dead... he lied in wait, hoping less could vote... The privileged ones who've raped our Capital yesterday... 4,100 dead... I knew it was bad, very bad he relented in secrecy... Saving the Ones who allowed the raping of our democracy... 4 100 dead... stop the counting he said... And the Ones who allowed the raping, because they could. 4,100 dead... they're nice people... he hinted because they're wh

  After waking up the kids for school, I gave attention to our two bunnies who wanted me to pet them.  Then I went back upstairs to listen and pray before stretching and completely rising for the day. As I lay there in bed, praying, then listening... hearing a trumpet in the background... voices of a teacher... I glanced for a near moment to the empty space beside me. I ask myself internally if I currently feel a suffering of any kind.  The answer is, 'No. I don't'. Some people may think I do. Yet, the clear, honest answer is emphatically, 'No'.  I began to realize this morning when I suffered last. It seemed last night. It was a spiritual yearning to be back in the ring or the cage,  fighting. I thought internally then, 'I'm just so pained in not being in the Grind.' However, this morning I had a different view, unlike fighting and being in the Grind of it. I reckoned with the suffering I'd watched of what appeared other's suffering. As th

  Wood... Winds Calling Last night one of my husband’s past teacher friends called. He was checking up on our now family of three, not including our bunnies and our piggy. As the conversation was winding down, I piped up, “I have a really cool story to tell you.” He replied, “Yeah?” I responded, “Yes, I have to tell you this. I’ll make it short, ‘cause it’s getting late.” I began, “So about March 2020, like about ten months ago. This woman, who I’m writing a memoir for, sends me an old clarinet. She tells me it was her Dad’s.   He was a musician.   But you see, no one else in the family was. And no one was interested in this old clarinet. So, she found out my youngest daughter played the trumpet, the mellophone, the keyboard, the guitar, and recently began playing a ukulele that my husband bought her a bit over a year ago now. So, I’m basically writing her memoir, and not asking her for any funds. I’m just enthused to write her memoir, because she is a fascinating person, that I th

                                                                                                                                          I Write the Songs…       A story I’ve told some. To this day it is story that I am fascinated by.    There are those times in your life when you feel you have nothing to offer to life. You wonder, ‘ where’s your talent? ’ I do that a lot.    I know I can work anywhere. I can last with my mental drive and endurance.    That I know.    But I know that is not a talent.      Yet, I know somewhere in my essence I must have a little piece of talent in the arts.    No, not the martial arts.    The music, painting, drawing, and writing type arts, I’m talking about. Our youngest daughter has it. However, she’s adopted. My brother had it. My sister has it.    Her kids have it. You know where it comes from? I think I do. I’ll tell you a story and let you figure it out.      One day in early 1975, my Dad came home with this big blue case, with brass buckles encl

  There are things in life you truly never want to have to tell your children, but must.  And there things in life most will NOT ever have to explain to their children. In turn, many will NOT be compelled to discuss nor bring up certain traumatic events/subjects with any real depth or knowledge to another human being.  Years ago my worry was, 'How do I explain certain things in my family's past that are tragic, without traumatizing my children?' Its a great question. There is a time and a place for everything.  You just have to wait for it, and bank on your soulful intuition. Today, realizing my one daughter is now eighteen. I arrived at a sobering thought. A reminder of sorts. Something I knew about way before I was age eleven. Yet, as I explained it, I told her I was blessed. That was my explanation of how I avoided a tragedy, that many other children in the past in my family were unable to avoid.  As well, intuitively I was a protector of sorts. As busy as I'