Writing Reality

Disrespect for human life. It's not the subject I'm picking at, that is the political one.  It's deeper.  It's not of a religious conscience. It crosses all boundaries of race, religion, color, creed, genders, well you get the gig here. It is of a truth. A truth everyone says they want. I'm seeing it and have seen it as it's quite converse than what comes from you. Out of your mouths. Your actions. What does rain have to do with it? It's philosophical.  Follow me if you wish. And when you do, if you have any conscience you will,  even just a little bit find fault with your thoughts of past and/or present. Yet I'm hoping, I affect your future thoughts and actions. Because by writing this I know I can. How do I know this? My mother told me when I started writing now over fifty years ago. I used to hide my writing. Because I knew it, before she told me so when I was age eight. Oh yes, I did listen to my mother. And I didn't talk back, at all. I walked

  About eight years ago I sat in one of my physician’s treatment rooms. Her and I would have these talks,  even though we both were busy. But that’s what happens in most doctor’s treatment rooms I enter. There’s usually a philosophical overtone when I walk into their treatment room. Usually, it’s me to them. And it’s starts with a query from me. Like an innocent child would ask. However, it’s usually an ethical or scientific question that is gnawing at me for years.   And then it grows into a question to someone I respect. Someone that will give me an unbiased, straight up, and unadulterated answer. Responses have been from a gasp, to a drop of a folder, nearly always a pause. Yes, I really hit the mark with ‘Winner’ queries. And then an honest answer from them. And ergo the discussion time. I’ll apologize now for holding up the other patients behind me, who just want to get in and out. Most are afraid to be so honest with their physicians. It’s like it’s a waste of time to them. To

  The view as I traverse the sidewalks, paths, roadways I see most people appearing sublimely oblivious.  How? Most appear to disassociate from their present moments. It is seen with or without headsets.  With or without chatter on phones.  With or without chatter on hand held devices,  and so forth. Yes, those of you covering your ears and minds in the open air. Some have not ever ventured outside to walk or run daily or at all, till a pandemic took away your escape of over-socializing away. Needing external entertainment. The need to be with groups, clicks  and so forth to feel. To feel something.  That something that is within us. That which is meant to feel deeply alone, to understand oneself.  To understand one's self existence.  We have denied it, until we were recently forced. And when we were forced,  we appeared walking like drunk sailors wandering the decks of our roadways like ships being pushed in a storm.  But you see we created this uneasiness. The uneasiness we

  It came in late July 2008, I began to realize I had a near seventeen year depression. It started as if my soul knew the future arriving the next month in the summer of 1991. And years of my life would be embroiled in a wicked hell bound torture fest, that I wouldn't recognize. What kept me from realizing this for seventeen years was, in my being extremely busy.  I had built a successful business.  I married Mr. Right. We adopted two children as infants and were now a happy family of four. I was able to work at my healing through running distances. We lived in suburbia, surrounded by trees, fresh air. A somewhat secure, safe location. The house we saved for and bought after 14 years of marriage was manageable. We had so much more than I could have ever imagined. Especially,  considering where I came from. I smiled a ton most the time, according to reliable sources. Coupled with a wicked sense of humor and great self-deprecation.  Realizing all this, I knew what had brought me low,

There are many experiences that parents can have in common.  Well, that is if. A big 'if', if your child doesn't go to a trade school, doesn't go into the military, doesn't decide to do either, nor college, yet works full time. Everyone has a different journey.  It is perhaps all upto each individual. And each individual's situation. My experience as a child is by far a dichotomy to that of my husband's,  and now our oldest child. As a parent, there has been no one who I know personally, who will exact my experience with moving their child into a college dorm as a freshman. I hear dramatic scenes, told by parents or their children on how their experiences were. In having been moved or moving their child into college dorm rooms. It appears that others seem that they are less pragmatic and more emotional in their experiences in being the mother in these circumstances. So that is from a mother's point of view. So I've heard. Today, my old UltraRunnin

  To this day I still look over my shoulder. There's a few reasons for that.  The first one goes back to middle school.  Mr. Tannenbaum's homeroom. Well, that's all it took to make me afraid of being taunted or assaulted from behind. Many of you reading this,  have no clue of the impact of trauma. Stop! This is not about sympathy. You see, it's where you were before that trauma. The trauma that was the 300th trauma or that about, from kid's doing and teachers witnessing, and not stopping what those kids did to you on school grounds. I'll give you an example or two.  It goes back to before this 'gum in hair' incident in between homeroom and class changing occurred.  Which was the trauma after the lunch homeroom break trauma occurred where someone slipped what supposedly was in essence fake drugs into my pencil case. That I had opened in front of Mr. Tannenbaum, his assistant, and the kids in my front row seating.  That was just three minutes prior to t

Years ago, as I worked on an elderly client in my office.  She stated, "You always think so deeply."  I replied, "It just happens. " She asked. "Isn't it tiring?" I remarked, "I never really thought about it that way." Of late, I've come to terms rehashing the essence in which we live. It seems as though, I alone am connected.  Connected where? I can answer this, 'not where most of us are' I feel more present than I witness in others in society. The presence that I haven't witnessed, is one I feel and acknowledge. No one appears in my realm.  I witness some in too much anger,  having too much greed, entitlement to the degree they will skirt the lines and even step over into a criminal context. Looking nearly compliant as they do so. As a matter of fact, I've been a witness to this practically all my life. This brings me to a feeling of not belonging.  Or as I have decided. I am part of something that has its own dest

  No, I truly don't. The line is from a Leonard Cohen song. He sings the line, "I buy what I am sold..." I can say I'm the anomaly that does not buy it, when a high percentage will. Yet, I keep my mouth shut. I wait. I watch. I listen. I have surmised no one wants my opinion for good use. They may want it, to use it for destructive purposes. I do not know which subject to pick, because they are all controversial to me. Our youngest the other day commented, "Mom, you are unrelatable to anyone" I agreed with her. You have to make your own road map. If you don't, you will not make your own path to safety, to learning, to caring, to helping. As well as being peaceful at some point and time each day of your life. Bewilderment is good. People who allow themselves to be bewildered and not easily swayed are probably, willingly good trouble-shooters. I'll give you, the reader an example: Over the last decade or so, with the internet becoming more, an

  "I can get punched, kicked, elbowed in the head, face, legs, encounter fractures in my arms. Have my ears burning with inflammation, jaw dislocated, and keep fighting. I can have surgery with no anesthetics. But I care about others and my environment too much. So much, it's painful." I said to a friend.  Years ago, I'd heard one of the guys in the fight gym say, "She's tougher than a two-dollar steak". It was after him witnessing my trainer gain angles over and over again on me, to kick and punch my legs, my body, my arms and my head, as I attempted a takedown. Whenever I got the takedown, I'd end up in his guard. Then he would begin his heel kicking to my legs and butt. I would fight till he'd say, "Now what do you see?" He’d wait, as I could barely move from the twenty-five minutes to sometimes nearly an hour of that type of sparring with no bell rung at set rounds.  Yet I’d find a choke hold, he'd opened up on himself for me to

Recently, most of us have heard of the developments in Afghanistan. Our departure from a near twenty year war.  I explained to our sixteen year old, heading into her junior year of high school, the reason for the U.S. trained Afghan Army's seemingly failure to 'hold'... well any line of protection. Yes, failure or so one would think. Instead I told her, "It wasn't a failure. My take is that it was the will of men in a culture who do NOT want women to become anymore than what they already were, and less than that."  Indeed, that is what I told her. I continued, "And we have the same people, the same men here who are white who share the same ideology as the Taliban.  The difference is, here the men who think this way may know they have something to lose. They are not those like in the Middle East who only know constant conflict and feel they have nothing to lose." If you have nothing to lose, then you're more willing to think about death as if

  Tonight as I watched the Chaplain at Dover speak about the services he performed for deceased military personnel.  I realized that what he'd experienced of having words come through him. He surmised,  "The words are not my own.That's what happens sometimes. It just arrives without any preparation."  As I listened to his sincerity during a low key interview. I realized that has occurred to me as well. In many instances. Yet, I remember being called upon, last minute to perform a small speech as part of a child's eulogy.  As nervous as I was. I was out of my culture.  Out of my religion. And twenty-five years ago, out of my league, when it came to speaking at such a serious event.  The way it came about, was when I entered  a Pentecostal Church. It was in a city near where I'd been helping care for Pediatric AIDS outpatients. As I entered, immediately the paternal grandmother's sister recognized me.  Although she'd never met me before.  Well, my white

  Last night during our torrential and tumultuous storm here in New Jersey. I heard the rain increase suddenly, seemingly tenfold in between eight and eleven. There were odd knocks and crashes heard just outside my front door. I kept peering out to see if there was damage. I saw nothing. I went downstairs to the basement, and everything was fine. No water was prevalent. It was peaceful in the basement.   My oldest was fast asleep by ten or earlier and my youngest was chatting with a friend on her phone. I watched the rest of a foreign web series. Our bunnies weren’t in distress. They usually sound a thumping alarm, if they think something is awry. Our little guinea pig was calm too.   This morning, I awoke later than I expected. For I knew it was the last night before the night before school restarted for my youngest. And days before my oldest was to set out onward on a new adventure beginning as a freshman in college. Neither had work early this morning, I knew I didn’t have