1. Your main trait: compassionate
2. The quality you like best in a man: accountability
3. The quality you like best in a woman: intuitiveness
4. Your main flaw:  procrastination
5. Last time you cried: two days ago
6. Ideal job: psychologist (what I already do! how lucky am I?)
7. Scent of a place: t… Read full post »

You used to think you had a choice
once, perhaps you did
Now, no longer is that available to you.

Now, as your eyes droop from sadness
and your heart sags with the weight of knowledge
You must stand up,
You must begin to sing.

Your voice will quiver
your unsteadiness will show
and peop/… Read full post »

Her smile is so bright it defies the definition of happiness.

Her little hands wave and clench only to wave again.

SANTA!   

Her perfect little mouth pushes out the exclamation as her eyes widen.

SANTA!  

She sits on his lap. She strokes his beard… Read full post »

I am frustrated.

Each time I hear of the 'heart-warming' story of Gabby Giffords, I want to scream. I am angry because her story is portrayed one-dimensionally as a story of hope and courage for survivors of Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). And I believe, that for the families of a person with… Read full post »

 My heart skips a beat to keep time with the deliberate pauses he adds between words. There is an edge to his voice that I find annoying yet compelling. The words, the pauses, the tone, these are all I have to hang on to at this moment. This white-coated… Read full post »

“Look in the mirror, lift your chest, find your ribs!”

Find my ribs? I haven’t seen my ribs since middle school. I am pretty sure I am dying. I am pretty sure I lost some common sense somewhere. Why? Because I am voluntarily in a room heated to/… Read full post »

The first cup of coffee in the morning:  

No matter how many cups I may have throughout the day, there is nothing like that first cup. The smell, the taste, the warmth spreading thru my body with the caffeine knocking on neural receptors...ahh.

Paper, cards, paper stores, new journal… Read full post »

I think a lot about how they break horses. How the point of breaking a horse is to reduce its spirit to an acceptable level. I think about how the process begins with fear and it reminds me of how some of my worst experiences started and ended… Read full post »

When I think of Moors, I think of Shakespeare's Othello. The handsome African prince kills his wife in a tale of jealousy and betrayal.

Looking up the path we were meant to climb I am not thinking of jealousy but rather of sloth. My own sloth as there… Read full post »

The packed sand barely makes a sound under my feet. There are rows and rows of masoleums, short squat cottages for the dead. The dead don’t take up much room, just a shelf. There are also statues, headstones, busts. Each piece is a variation of greyed marble.

It's much harder these days to storm a palace. No longer can one put on some chain mail, some evil pointy-toed metal boots, mount a steed and charge. There's no plotting about what to do about the moat, or how many arrows must be carried. Now, it's a train ride, a… Read full post »

I have jet lag. I look like hell. My feet ache from climbing stairs and stairs of cobble stones.

 I love it because all of these things are the result of traveling to Lisbon. Lisbon is known for its seven hills. We apparently stayed in the midst of these hills… Read full post »

Dear Kim,

 I'm late here tonight but know that your friends on OS have been sending you birthday wishes all day! 

You have the finest smile in Texas.

You have great wit, incredible humor, and the best snark of anyone here.

You've endured, you've survived, and… Read full post »

    I spent the first Thanksgiving without my kids under the covers. The divorce was new. my grief fresh. The thought of spending time with someone else’s family (and kids but not my kids) was too much for me to bear. So, I bought some of my favorite foods, got a… Read full post »

I am dozing in the bland, pretend recliner in BoyChild’s ICU room when J and my parents enter. They take their places around his bed, murmuring words of love and encouragement. BoyChild might appear rude in his lack of response but the tubes running in and out of him provide an… Read full post »

Joinin in  on Lezlie's Open Call:

1) Unsolocited advice. If I want your advice I will ask for it, thank you very much.

2) People who cannot go without looking at their cellphone every 5 minutes, who put it on the table when we are lunching, who stop conversation to… Read full post »

 It’s 1972. I live with my family on a military base. It’s Memorial Day weekend and the entire base is swathed in displays of patriotism. I walk into the Base Exchange behind my parents and immediately become engulfed in the crowd. Whereas, normally the entry area might have onl… Read full post »

His face is rough and speaks to long days unsheltered
against the elements.

I see the little boy he might have been,
sleeping with his hands pressed together as in prayer.

Hands under the side of his face to form a human pillow, 
a little softness in a world of hardness.… Read full post »

I sit here in shock and fury.

 I heard today about a former client, a gentle soul who worked to overcome the anxiety that crippled her daily activities and a depression that repeatedly sang to her a siren song of suicide's temptation.

Adopted as a child she never quite felt… Read full post »

There are times
that I wish you could see me
as I see me

And when those times occurred
you would squint
in recognition
in truth
and know

That what you see
is a person that is very much  me
and it seems a bit like you

You who are my dailiness
my breath

Then, together
we would break bread
sopping it in oil… Read full post »

Cranes preen on the four panel screen.  It is a Chinese ox blood screen.
The foundation of the screen is layered with the blood of oxen. The panels
are painted with the ox blood, covered with straw and then they rest. I do
not know what happened to the ox… Read full post »

#1  I didn’t know until I was 22 that pineapples grow on the ground. I thought they grew in trees.

#2 I once helped Dolly Parton buy panty hose in the Galleries Lafayette in Paris. She complimented me on my ability to speak English.

#3  My favorite comfort food is tapioca pudding… Read full post »