When Tin was six years old, his school had a Poem in your Pocket day. I was two years into having lost my job, hair and then moved out of my dream house. So the poem I picked for Tin that day was Mother to Son by Langston Hughes. Well, son, I’ll tell you:Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.It’s had tacks in it,And splinters,And boards torn up,And places with no carpet on the…
A while ago I got embroiled in a situation with an ex that caused me to ask repeatedly, ad nauseam, beating a dead horse style, “Why Me?” It took many meditations, consultations, therapies, and a come to Jesus to get me to a place where I realized I was asking the wrong question (read: assholes happens). So instead of Why Me? I began asking how do I handle this situation? I learned through meditation, perambulation,…
From my mid twenties to thirties, I thought to myself, I’m not really going to be a writer until I have a child. Where this idea came from I have no idea, but I had asked my grandmother and my mother on separate occasions what had made them happy and they both told me it was their children. I was not surprised by my grandmother’s response, but my mother’s answer shocked me. I grew up…
Around Bay Saint Louis, there are signs everywhere of people and businesses returning to normal. I walked into Claiborne Hills yesterday and didn’t see anyone wearing a mask. As much as grocery shopping used to be meditative to me, I have only gone a handful of times in the past two months and each time was stressful. I’m on a Facebook thread of merchants here and over the past two weeks, each post about reopening…
For a few decades, I was convinced that my life was an interminable cliché. Any breakthrough, epiphany and light that went on would immediately be mirrored in a book, film, or someone else’s (read: more famous than me) reality. Then it seemed my life more closely resembled the myth of Sisyphus, condemned for eternity to roll a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down. Sisyphus was punished for self-aggrandizing, and I,…
A friend gave me a 5-year mom’s journal five years ago. I have kept up with it because you can only write a sentence or two a day. It’s a gem I will hold onto if only as a reminder that some things change, and some things do not. I took down the breakfast cup I bought in an antique store in San Francisco many moons ago. It’s precious and my fear that it will…
Step 1 – Don’t panic. Step 2 – Morning walks in nature. Step 3 – Meditate. Step 4 – Have a close cadre of friends at the other end of a text, call, email. Step 5 – Bike rides along the water with people you love at a distance. Step 6 – Enjoy the respite.
I try not to be a harsh critic of myself. I know too easily how it’s a slippery slope into outright condemnation. The voice that speaks to me when I look in the mirror is an awful judge. After I’ve crossed over into 60 last year, I’ve noticed every possible flaw my body holds – my once beautiful skin is now wrinkled, thin, marked. My once thick arms and thighs are dappled with curdled fat.…
Not your plans. This was told to me one time in a community meeting – Follow your spirit, not your plans. How many reinventions have I had? Joan Didion said, “I can’t remember half the people I used to be.” Reinvention is reinforcement against a world that is forever crumbling. Everyone is rushing back to their lives, I don’t want to go. I want less cars on the road, less scheduled time, less pollution, less…
Do you know someone who has had a challenging life? You think why her and not him? We are all born with amnesia but more than likely this person was standing in line when they gave out assignments and she raised her hand and said, “I want to be challenged!” Perhaps her previous life she was like a house cat, sitting around waiting for something to happen. But she decides to take on a bigger…