I hit the ground running on so many different fronts lately that I found myself moving at psycho nano speed and wasn’t sure how to bring it all back down to earth again. The first problem, was my meditation – a ritual that I had performed daily – got interrupted by a puppy. Sorry, but Stella wakes me at 4am and 5am and then 6am and at first I was just staying up and staggering…
My mother used to say she never wanted to be a burden to her children, and yet the burden of her dying quasi young continues to weigh on me. She would have been 74 years old in 2009 had she made it to her birthday, but she died at the end of November instead of making it to December 28th. She was the oldest daughter to her mother – a woman and grandmother who I…
I’m helping a rally in Congo Square this Sunday for Mother’s Day for the Kidnapped Nigerian girls – I hope everyone comes out to show their support and solidarity with these mothers and daughters and Nigerian community.
The Tao te Ching – the way – the method – the path. Back in 2011, I sat on the stairs on the Andalusian coast of Spain and watched ants crawl up the wall and form a question mark. It was uncanny how the universe was painting my confusion for me to see it – detached and unexpectedly. Yesterday, at aikido class – did I mention I am taking aikido? – there was a framed…
When my friend adopted Stella’s brother, one of the puppies from the litter that looked a little like her, I told her she should call him Stanley. But her son had other ideas for his name and so HedgeHog won out. HedgeHog came over for a playdate along with Tin’s friend and I watched in utter amazement as the boys roughed and tumbled and the puppies mirrored them right underneath the trampoline. Snips and snails…
On May 2, 2014, I woke up and took Tin to school then I ran into a dear friend and went for coffee with her. Then I went over to my house and watered the plants and as I was about to walk back to the American Can where I’m staying for the week, a tall, dark, handsome man said to me, “Can I tell you how beautiful you are?” So I asked him for…
Driving down Bienville Street past St. Margaret’s Long-Term Care Facility – a frail and elderly woman in a plastic chair sat out front smoking a cigarette. #remindsmeofmom Driving down Galvez Street right at the gloaming and little kids out in the streets on bikes, jumping rope, playing ball and folks coming home from work. #backintheday Driving down Spain Street looking for St. Roch Community Church, I lower window and ask a guy on his porch,…
My mother told me about different age landmarks – 25 you think you know it all, 35 you realize you didn’t know anything and so you set your sights ahead, 40 your sexuality awakens and then you enter your 50s – young lady, she wrote me, this is when you become a woman. Damn, if my mother wasn’t the smartest woman in the world. What is different about the 50s than the other years –…
I told Tin that when he left for Croatia the first thing I would do is boo hoo and then I would sit and tap my fingers waiting for him to come home. No one tells you this about parenthood. They don’t prepare you anywhere for this love. The love that has you in life with someone who blames you for everything and shows you his absolute worst side whenever there is an opportunity and…