Writing Reality

  Reflecting back many times over 40 years ago today. Norman, my now deceased husband took me for a hike on a late Friday afternoon to propose. After about 1.5 miles up the mountain,  he'd picked a fallen tree and asked me to sit eye to eye with him. We were equals even in the proposal. Then he'd popped the question,  "Would you like to be my equal partner in marriage?" He'd asked. I was taken completely off guard. Yet I knew to say, "Yes." I'd paused for a second in disbelief. He went to ask a second time. Our words converged. My "Yes", won out. Soon, we were married. Oddly enough I'd sworn off marriage nearly all my life until Norman. Too, any intimacy with anyone. The thoughts of marriage and love ebbed and flowed tauntingly till that moment.  My parents had a horrible marriage. Women were mere possessions in my family. Many an ogre and some rapists ruled them. The rapist had a devout Catholic wife that had gone to the priests to cu...

  They’ll convince you that it’s about national security. As I’d been reading up on Richard M. Nixon in Nixonland by Rich Perlstein and other sources. Our country’s politics with controlling the masses to gain power and advance one’s riches—It was from Nixon’s Playbook like a recent myth, “They’re eating your cats and dogs…” The only people that would be eating your cats and dogs would be the members of the GOP, so greedy to do so. Why? Because they want you to be dismayed. They want to oppress you and manipulate your rights to make themselves rich. And currently, they’re having their way with you and your soul. No church, mosque, temple nor shul will save it. In the late 1940s into the 1950s, McCarthy had gone after Alger Hiss, a high-ranking state department official for espionage. Whitaker Chambers, a Russian spy of sorts handed the name Alger Hiss over to save himself. Chambers delivers Alger Hiss to be questioned in front of congress by McCarthy, then Nixon. [1] They were ...

I remember September 27th, 1985, I drove through it to work before it ramped up to a ridiculous nearly deadly event for me. Our boss never called us in time. The CEOs assistant secretary was given the job by our boss to call; however, it was our boss Sandy who was the one who was to make the call. She'd put it off on someone else. Sheer laziness on her part. Sandy only had 4-5 of us to call that morning.   After I'd entered the Cushman & Wakefield property accounting office , I was told to leave the building. Three of us had to get property values/accounting done. Kathy was in,Hathy came in after me. The building manager asked why we were there. The three of us never got the call. I had the furthest to drive back home. We finished the job for the firm in Manhattan by 8:30 that morning. I always came in early, especially if I knew it would or could be bad weather. No excuse not to show up. I had gone for a run in this crap too before work which was nothing compared to my ...

          The next evening it was then revealed to us at the dinner table by my dad about his relative, Aunt Grace who was a Christian Science Practitioner. Dad told stories of who’d been healed when she’d come over and prayed with and for them when dad was a child. One story went like so: My dad’s index finger was to be amputated the next day he was about age 10. Aunt Grace came over the night before and had the family of four at the time hold hands and pray with her together. The next morning the infection was gone, and the index finger was mostly healed.         The second story dad told that night was about his dad/Gramp. Apparently, Gramp suffered from outbreaks of boils. Gramp worked two and three jobs at time to provide for Nana and their children. Aunt Grace upon hearing her brother’s dilemma arrived at their house another night and said prayers with Gramp and the family. After that night, Gramp never had a boil on his bod...

Yeah. There are alot of white men in the United States of America; however, I'm now going to aim at their rule making, law-breaking, their bullying, along with their politicking to keep all the power over everyone else. As I continued my slow-read this morning of Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland", a book not quite 900 pages long. It addresses the media and the intertwining of primarily white men in politics over the last 100 years or there abouts.  I reflected back to how John Adams and Thomas Jefferson went at it in their usage of the media in newspaper form back in the 18th and going into the 19th centuries. Mind you, about the time of the 'birth' of our nation.  In the end, those two men suffered little compared to the masses and lived to become seemingly forever popular, even now.  As I'd slowly worked my way into the 20th century book reading this year, the pattern continues. White men manipulating who they'd desired to be beneath them. Spewing lies un...

As I watched the sunrise this morning just after five; then again I took a peak at the same view from our front door 90 minutes after house chores. I wondered, who witnesses what I do? Who sees this view as I have and do currently? What will become of this instance? I've asked those questions to myself for most of my life. Those mental camera shots. Who else has that same exact view as if we had a camera together, right at that moment? I take pictures in my mind everyday. Sometimes I take them on my phone, which appear more permanent. Yet, is what I'm witnessing exactly the same for anyone else? My thoughts on this are perhaps each moment is private. Not one person will witness or feel this very picture in its moment. That is regardless of how well I aim my phone's camera. Even with the best lense, not one other person in the world will be with me on this journey. And this is how infinitesimal and private our journeys are. I could compare these experiences to a converse ...

As I watched PBS' Big Cat series, survival runs through my mind. The lions, leopards and cheetahs all have to defend their territories. They need to eat. So, those that are carnivorous have to murder other species to get food to survive. I ask myself, if that is the same for us humans, here now. I'm not convinced it is.  So, then why are we going for more? More of things we will not be here to partake in. A person can have and enjoy just so much fun before it impinges on the rest of society. Yet we think that's okay, because its always been done. Not in my miniscule world it hasn't.  We could get down and dirty even on my ability to eat, to care, to move about in a variety of ways; however, what I've witnessed in throughout my life, are the people who having the most: The most in people loving them. The most compliments. The most friends.The ability to gain the most out of their education and also to advance in the educational realms.They put pavement over other peo...

I t was the end of the bus rides, as the day had been long. Fifteen hours of bus rides after graduating in my Alphas earlier that day. Then Fifteen hours on buses to get to my first assigned base. Too, I'd been careful not to soil any pressed and shined part of me. So, to be sat, I'd refrained from food and beverage for nearly a day.  It was my last bus ride. As I'd sat alone with the bus driver in the dark bus for a while. A nice black man was the bus driver. He'd made conversation at the right time for me. As he'd read me well.  "So, I'm just gonna' let you know. They'll be these Marines I'm picking up from Court Street, ma'am. They'll be a little drunk. It'll be okay." Not knowing exactly what he'd inferred. "Okay. Thank you, Sir." I'd not been asleep coming on 24 hours. Yet I was well-aware and wide awake. A feeling of the unknown I'd had, as those Marines in civilian attire loaded up from Court Stre...

It s funny how we deem what is safe, secure, doable. I knew by age eight that I had no saving grace. My parents were merely human. My dad was not going to rescue me under most circumstances. Would he try? I wanted to think so. Yet back then, understanding how fallible we were as human beings; I accepted the fact that when push came to shove, the truth was I was alone even then in this world. I had to become my own saving grace. My own hero. And if I could be there for someone else, then I would. Many decades later in 2008, as I'd attempted to race at the U.S. National 24-Hour Championships in Texas, this while still bleeding out just a few days after a burst ovarian cyst put me onto our toilet back and forth with dry heaves included. Then put me onto a floor sideways. That was only after I'd gotten our children's lunches made and packed. Cooked and served them breakfast bent in half. Telling them, "Mom just doesn't feel too good. Its okay." I'd paused. ...

After reading Tom Ridge's book, "The Test of Our Times", as I've read about historical events and such regularly. Now for the part of awareness and accepting certain feelings as 'just is'. Because you're just you. I'll bring us to what I was reminded of this morning upon reflection of a recent conversation.  Decades ago in the Marines, I took a course that was not required at the time by Marines. You took it to gain rank. Then eventually about a year later they threw it to our unit for an afternoon, for a general brief lesson. It was, how to wear a suit to be protected from things like nerve agents, going into areas after Chemical, Biological and Nuclear warfare agents have occurred. The course I took was way more than a day of studies. From my notes I have it was over the course of months.  It was broken down into sections under each area of warfare. Like Chemical agents of nerve, blood, choking, blistering and so forth. It would be hitting different ...

Just so you know, unlike what our youngest daughter thinks; I'm not paranoid. I'm aware. As a of matter of fact, I've kept myself aware most of my life over 90% of the time. Being aware, is not about fear. Awareness, is a preparation. Preparation for the things I know people will do, whether they should or they shouldn't. Its like a vibe.  You know we all have that ability. Yet most of us live such unclean, unclear lives we lose the tapping into the congruent vibe that is gifted to each of us, each individually.  Instead, we dive into paranoia. Then we feel anxious, too privately foolish. Or we're made to feel such. I'm not here to make you feel anxious nor foolish. I'm here to point out your ability to be aware. To clean up your act. Stop your OTC drug use, that you take without question or physician’s prescription. Limit your over all or any alcohol usage for a year or ever. Reduce your over indulgence in foods you know like sugar to name one, caffeine, an...