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” »
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” »
My grandmother Brown was in her eighties when she moved from Baltimore to live with us. She had nowhere else to go. Neighbors helped my mother convert our garage into her bedroom, with a portable heater. My grandma shipped her stuff in moving crates to Tiburon, and somehow I was in charge of unboxing, deciding values of things I knew nothing about. Continue reading “roots of confusion” »
smoking weed started off as fun
Lindy was my best friend in junior high and I spent the night with her almost every weekend. Her room had double French doors with brass handles opening onto a tiny porch, enough for two sleeping bags. I memorized the sparkling Richardson Bay skyline looking out toward Sausalito streetlights. Standing like the Supremes, we practiced Stop In The Name Of Love, moving in unison like we were on stage, synchronizing arm movements, making stop, like Diana Ross. Continue reading “loose cannons” »
Lindy’s house was like a mansion
Lindy was my best friend from the day I met her in junior high school. I was the tallest kid in school, shy, and full-on puberty chunky. Lindy was short and stocky, and ran with popular kids from her elementary school. I copied her, and we hung out on weekends with her sisters and their friends, smokers and wine drinkers. Continue reading “Feeling like a poor relation” »
eucalyptus heaven
I felt at home in every inch of a twenty-foot eucalyptus bending over the gully bottom behind our house. Too high to jump, I hugged that tree like family, scooting along limbs, petrified of making one deadly mistake that might break my neck. I crawl-walked monkey style, maneuvering my arms and legs around the gnarled cross branch up to my safest nest, carrying my dolls in my teeth, like a wild orphan, looking down at my friend like a giant. Continue reading “comforting branches” »
adoring affection
My chihuahua looks at me with such much adoration that it makes me wonder what did I do to deserve such love. I’m not the greatest master, not bad, but not one who spends endless hours petting and hugging him. We sit on the couch at night, and he unblinkingly stares at me as if I determine when the sun sets and the moon rises. I am the center of his universe.
This little guy is my most loyal friend in the world. He waits and adores, how to respond? He’s thrilled when I deem him worthy of attention, and he smiles with joy. He’s a little cutie pie. Other dogs have loved me, and I love them, but Frosty/Cubby stands alone with his loving gazes. My husband and I have two names for him.
Frosty licks, though, and it’s a problem because I don’t like to be flick-licked. He can’t help it, even when I tell him “no.” He’s compulsive. He’s desperate for my approval, and wants all of my attention. He doesn’t seem embarrassed by his neediness. He doesn’t seem to care where it came from, either.
I’m compulsive too. I annoy my friends and family. I don’t lick like Frosty does, thank God, but I get on their nerves when I’m feeling needy. I don’t need to know why I feel needy, just recognize the feeling and not judge it when it arises.
I want to not be embarrassed. I want to try having some patience with neediness as part of my character.
I bet my Chihuahua doesn’t know how much he has taught me to better identify my feelings and not be ashamed.