So Angry, I Cried Tears of Relief

August 10, 2021

I looked in Victoria’s Secret window and started to cry. Images of large stunning women that in my day would have been judged unacceptable and fat. That word, ‘fat,’ was a dreaded word that influenced and pre-programmed many perceptions about myself. I came from the world tainted by Twiggy, the 1960’s bone-thin fashion model who […]

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WHY IS IT SO HARD SOMETIMES TO ASK FOR HELP?

April 20, 2021

I couldn’t get up off the couch. Every bone, muscle, and cell in my skin burned, ached, and when I moved, it felt as if a hot poker was digging into my back left shoulder blade. I couldn’t take a breath deep enough to fill my lungs. With my husband out of town, I needed […]

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I NEED A RESURRECTION

December 30, 2020

Tomorrow I turn 67, and I have noticed an unsettling wafting its way into my aging age and now Covid filled days. It appears I’m disappearing. So what if I haven’t worked since March. So what if I’ve gained 8 pounds. So what if I’ve pulled a muscle that won’t unpull, and with the gyms […]

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I COULDN’T GET OUT OF THE WATER

August 15, 2019

During the summer, kids on our block carpooled to downtown Portland for swimming lessons in an old, moss encrusted, red brick building called the Neighborhood House. History shows it was one of the first establishments to offer Kindergarten to immigrant children. I know it had classrooms and offices, because I went once with Nancy and […]

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The Day Girls Were Allowed to Wear Pants to School

August 20, 2018

It was in the fall of 1969, we budding women shoved open the doors of Woodrow Wilson High School in Portland Oregon and strutted down the locker-lined, noisy halls with our heads held high, basking in a newly granted freedom. It was on this momentous day, at long last, women of every shape and size […]

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One Of Life’s Delighful Encounters

June 6, 2018

Got lost. Was late and getting dark. In and out looking for a camping spot in the middle of nowhere. Lost in Skull Valley. Silly us thinking we could just drop in and find a free camp site Memorial Day weekend. Then we met Harvey. He poked his head in our car window. Old, weather […]

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Sometimes I Miss Being ‘Mommy’

October 9, 2017

It’s the memory of those times of cuddling with my young girls while reading them Madeline or Harold and the Purple Crayon; recollections of shopping for new school supplies and picking out the perfect first-day-of-school outfit; seeing those perfect, innocent sleeping faces and waking up to their calls for ‘Mommy’; hurting when they were hurt […]

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I Groan, Roll My Eyes, Annoyed

August 31, 2016
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They get in our way Repeat themselves and ask us to repeat what we just told them Drive too slow Smell like rancid perfume and musty attics Their skin has stuff growing out of it and is hard to look at They can’t see well Talk to loud, talk too soft They endlessly try our […]

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My Mothers World. My Emancipation.

May 6, 2016
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My mother, wearing a white collared blue wasted dress with a soft petticoat, nylons and white pumps, waved me out the door to join the other neighbor kids walking to school. She had risen before the rest of the family, prepared a well balanced breakfast for us. Poached eggs in milk over buttered white toast, bacon, […]

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Make Failure Your Friend

July 31, 2015
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Why is it for many of us, no matter how many achievements and successes we enjoy in our lives, and in spite of all the praise and accolades received, we will sometimes pick up a banner marked with the words FAILURE, drape it across our chest and go about donning the sour smiles of lost […]

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