the happy spaceman
My dad brought home a record player with one speaker designed like a plastic jukebox and looked like a fabulous little space man. When I plugged it in next to the couch, its silver plastic chrome lit up bright red. Continue reading “the coolest” »
Coastal Miwoks were here first
Nobody taught us about indigenous people in our region of California. Before third grade and the ‘Marin County Unit” we studied that year, kids in my neighborhood made up what we thought the Coastal Miwok tribes did, collecting acorns, what they ate, how they fished, and made shell jewelry. Continue reading “legacy” »
Tiburon’s trestle
Hobos sat on railroad flat cars and waved as we stood on the picnic table in our backyard and waved back. Trains rolled through both tunnels, two miles south to Tiburon. Tiburon Boulevard’s forty-foot trestle was close to the south tunnel, and parents had forbidden us to to cross it. Continue reading “thinking about the old days” »
children’s songs are prayers
My enthusiastic nature has caused me problems. Students often called me the TV Romper Room ‘Miss Nancy,’ because they didn’t like the way I expressed energy and drive. Family members order me to ‘relax’ because they tell me I’m high strung. Enthusiasm and being high strung are not the same. Continue reading “in the edges” »
pursuit of happiness takes work
Pursuit of happiness is my American right. Thomas Jefferson wrote it into our Constitution, along with Life, and Liberty. ‘Unalienable rights” given by our Creator to be protected by our government. For decades I thought I just had to want it, and happiness would magically appear without strings. I didn’t have to work for it. Continue reading “what is pursuit of happiness?” »
prayers for us all
fitting new faith on top of my old Continue reading “trust” »
it’s about respect
I’ve been looking at the red book for Adult Children of Alcoholics. It’s a handbook put together by young adults who grew up with similar home situations as mine. Continue reading “respect for change” »
learning not to cause the fights isn’t easy
“You can’t keep pain in your body,” my friend observed about me, after I described my part in a family drama a few years ago. I didn’t understand at the time, but now I see a real need for changing my behavior. Continue reading “not disintegrating” »
we are the same
For ten years, Lindy has resided in her current longterm care facility without receiving a card or a visitor. It took a few hours to drive up from the Bay Area, enough time to remember our girlhood friendship and consider she’s been locked up forty-nine years. I came up with nothing new. Continue reading “it is what it is” »
I wrote my first manuscript for Lindy, my best friend from junior high school. Lindy was placed in a mental institution in 1968, and still lives in one. California made her a ward of the state, and she moves wherever the state wants her, not always notifying family. Authorities considered her release to some type of halfway house fifteen years ago, but it didn’t happen. Continue reading “my old friend” »