Father’s Day is Sunday and I’ve been reflecting on my family history and the role of the men in my life. I hail from a matriarchal background, from both my paternal and maternal lineages. The families were headed by women, by default due to death and abandonment on my father’s side, and because of death on my mother’s. The women, my great grandmothers and grandmothers were loyal, hardworking and committed to their namesakes and either outlived or outlasted their male counterparts. Today, my mother carries on the tradition and is the head of my immediate family, she is the glue that holds us together and usually has the last word. Continue reading
Mixed Metaphors
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! – A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.
Author Archives: Linda Lenzke
A Moving Story III
Home Again
Home again; another journey ends. I’m home again and grateful. Yesterday, when I woke up in my new home after making coffee, followed by making my bed (old habits are hard to break), I sat at my desk, looked out my window on the world — or at least my neighborhood — and journaled. I immediately felt comforted by a familiar ritual as I reflected on the days that led to my arrival here. Continue reading
A Moving Story II
Everything is Up in the Air
It’s been two weeks since I’ve posted on my blog. It’s making me anxious, one more ticking clock, the others I’m unable to locate since my home is in chaos as I prepare for my move next weekend. My life is like the children’s game, or more precisely the prank, 52 Card Pickup. Everything is up in the air, in disarray, including the organization of my mind, a virtual house of cards, as I teeter on the brink of collapsing emotionally and physically. I’m reminded how much I depend upon my daily compulsive behaviors to keep me anchored and how they prevent me from metaphorically floating or wandering away. Continue reading
A Grateful Daughter
Every year when Mother’s Day approaches, I think about all the things I want to tell my mother, all the many ways I’m grateful to be her daughter. Most years I find one or two things to share with her, as I sit with her and hold her hand, I share a story about what it means to me to be her daughter. Continue reading
First Friend
Today is my sister Roz’s birthday. Every year, when we’d talk on the phone or see each other on her birthday, I’d comment that we could always count on a beautiful day. As I write, the grey clouds are receding, revealing blue sky and the promise of a pleasant spring day. Continue reading
My Butch Girlfriends
First, one of my ex-girlfriends is visiting Madison in a couple of weeks and we’re going to get together for dinner. We haven’t seen each other for probably over twenty years. I’m looking forward to her visit for a number of reasons, including seeing how time has changed us and how we might remain the same. My recent post, The Ties that Bind explored who in our lives help make up a family, and how friendships bind us together and to our personal history. Continue reading
The Ties That Bind
“As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those that would tear us apart, all will be well.”
Today’s post is part film review, memoir and musing about the ties that bind us and explores the question of who makes up a family and how a family is made, nurtured, and maintained. Continue reading
Mad Meme II
As I wrote in my previous post, I love movies. Friends are always surprised that on a beautiful, sunny, spring or summer weekend I will spend a couple of hours in the middle of the afternoon watching a matinee in a darkened theater. For me that’s where the magic happens. Last night, as I was waiting in line to see a film, one of my fellow film-goers commented about our weather this week, “At least the weather is lousy, it’s perfect film festival weather.” Continue reading
Mad Meme
Today’s post is full of mixed metaphors and mad memes about life, death, a love letter to the movies, a sad farewell to one of its most passionate critics, and a hello and cheers to the New Year’s celebration happening on the Season 6 premiere of “Mad Men” tomorrow night. Continue reading
Poop Eggs & Lamb Cakes
Like most holidays I celebrated as a child, Easter was a hybrid of religious traditions, the social culture from the generation in which I grew up, and our own ethnic and family rituals, which we repeated in some familiar fashion every year. Continue reading