Five years ago when my relationship of 15 years ended, and we first discussed our separation plans, I couldn’t imagine in those initial few moments how I would ever be able to tackle the job of finding a new place to live, pack up many years worth of accumulated material goods, and land on my feet again, physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually. Continue reading
Mixed Metaphors
Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! – A place where words, this writer, and readers play together.
Color Bind
This post is in response to a writing prompt from the LGBTQ Narratives Activist-Writers group. The prompt: When did we first become aware of our own race?
Some background: My story takes place in 1955 in Racine, an industrial community in Southeastern Wisconsin. Continue reading
The Day I Saw Jesus
First, I must confess that I’m a lapsed Catholic, or more precisely, a recovering Catholic. The recent selection of the new Pope, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, has stirred up memories of childhood and my first conscious religious experience and hallucination. Continue reading
Fall Forward, Spring Back
Now before you read any further, don’t turn your clocks back an hour. Yes, this is in fact the first day of Daylight Savings Time (DST) and last night, before you went to bed, you were supposed to turn your clocks ahead one hour, in exchange for an hour of sunlight at the cost of an hour’s worth of sleep. Continue reading
The Seven Words
This past week I read a poem at an open mic during a live remote radio broadcast. Before the show, the guest interviewees, musicians and writers gathered for a briefing to learn our place in the line-up, provide the emcees with our introduction, and receive a pink Post-It note. The pink slip contained seven words deemed indecent or obscene by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Words we were asked to not say out loud on the show. I was curious, were these in fact the same seven words that helped launch George Carlin’s career to national prominence after he first uttered them in 1972 in his monologue, “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” Continue reading
Protect and Serve
The following essay was written to commemorate International Women’s Day on March 8 and to shine a light on the issue of violence towards women.
On the Street Where I Lived
Humboldt Park was only one block from my house growing up in Racine, Wisconsin. I was born in 1950 and my family moved to the southwest side neighborhood when I was six. The houses were starter homes and the six square blocks south of the park were plotted on a grid and each of the homes were sited identically, small Cape Cod homes with minor embellishments of color, shutters, some with dormers on the second story, and others a living room bay window. There was some comfort and equality in the sameness of my neighborhood. Continue reading
A Pocketful of Gumballs
Growing up in the 1950s, I was a member of the first wave of baby boomers, an elementary school child whose young family moved to the suburbs and learned to thrive in the emerging cold-war culture. My parents purchased their first home in a new Federal Housing Authority neighborhood of starter homes for returning veterans and their young families. I was the eldest child, six-years-old in 1956 in Racine, Wisconsin, the Belle City, home of Case tractors and Johnson Wax. Continue reading