Category: People are people

My philosophies of people and their people-ness.

I’ll always remember you 2014

Sparkler meaning of auld lang syne

My mother was not sentimental. She saw the world in a very pragmatic way. If you were not feeling happy, well… just cheer up. If you were feeling ill… well, wait awhile. Things were bound to change. The Meaning of Auld Lang Syne I wished I’d asked my mom more questions about her own level…

Into the Zone – #reverb14, Day 4

Creativity is Subtraction art by Austin Kleon on Brain Pickings by Maria Popova

We are all lightning rods, conduits for that which the Universe wants born into this world. What energies did you channel this year? — While day 2’s post I sang my song of multitudinous life, there’s a hidden secret to what drives my writing. When I am writing, I am “in the zone.” It is…

It’s Just the Weather – #reverb14, Day 3

Just the Weather

It’s all too easy to put off loving where we are until everything is perfect. What can you love about where you are now? Blergh. If I were a weather man, that’s how I would describe the weather today. Cold, damp, rainy, grey. It’s all about the view. I look out my window and what…

On My Mother’s Island

All of life is a thing marked and used.This is the island where my mother is still living. There is not a great deal of the “normal” here. We are just a bunch of hangers on. For those of us here, we are eating off the breadcrumb trail from whence we came. There is a lot…

After the End of the World

After the doctor broke the news to my mom and dad and me that mom would die soon, I held onto the 15 cent spiral notebook like it was a life raft. There isn’t enough time to ask and get answers to the really big questions in life before life says “I’m outta here.” It…

Alone is Where We Are

Randi Jane Davis Three Blind Men

The deluge came out in the general direction of Ridgefield artist Randi Jane Davis this past weekend at City-Wide Open Studios. Her painting (above), called “Three Blind Men” (in private collection) wasn’t the only wonderful piece of work I’d seen that day. But it was the one that reignited my feelings about aloneness. So Ms. Davis…

Love, and Putting Out

The one true fact of being a girl is whenever or however you enter the world and, despite your best efforts otherwise, you are thrust into a world where you are expected to “put out.” Not just in the defined way you can imagine. In every way. Whatever we believe about our first world culture and equality in…

Notes from Inside the Train

Pyramid Electric Windows along Amtrak NER train 141

In Philadelphia, the quiet car fills up completely– so completely that I can’t keep my screen hidden from my seat mate. I don’t know him, but I know enough that he was kind. He gave up his window seat to a couple so that they could sit together. From WAS to PHI, the quiet car…

On Year 44

What All Those Birthday Wishes Mean to MeAs I walked from home to the playground today to pick up the kids, it occurred to me that — perhaps — at some point in one’s life it is considered “untoward” to make such a fuss about one’s birthday. Of course, not that I’ve ever given a…

Addicted to Loathing – #reverb13 – Day 16

Rose encased in ice original photo by E. Howard

When that habit is feeling bad, it’s hard work to feel any differently.On my “bad days,” the one thing I hear over and over again from people who love me is: “You are too hard on yourself!” This bad habit of self-loathing has been my ever-lurking shadow. It goes hand-in-hand with the long walk I…

Being Out There Again – #reverb13 – Day 5

Standing at the Precipice by Charkrem on Flickr

The brutal impact of self-censorship Right now, you are experiencing with me my biggest risk of 2013. Back in 2009, after the kids came to live with us, the kids’ attorney advised me to consider cutting back on my online presence. I was shocked. I felt sick. It hadn’t occurred to me that the family…