just because I want it to be true doesn’t mean it is
M.Scott Peck was a Quaker who became a psychiatrist, and wrote a bestselling book, The Road Less Traveled. Peck’s career was devoted to understanding human nature, and he also worked in prisons, which formed the basis of another book called People of the Lie. Continue reading “little, big, white, black” »
Come on People now…
My grandfather was a 9th generation American, and was in his eighties when he wrote a letter to the 11th generation, welcoming us to the family. Continue reading “Love Anniversary” »
Come on People, Love one another right now
It’s the fiftieth anniversary of San Francisco’s Summer of Love. My friend and I were there, wore our beads and long hair, before starting freshman year of high school. We smoked marijuana and played on Golden Gate Park’s kiddy merry-go-round while rock and roll music played on the greens, and positive energy flowed like a river. Continue reading “Summer of Love” »
hello, goodbye, to feel or no
Time runs its course, decades come and go, and sometimes we lurch forward into profound realization. Continue reading “love and lose or lose without love” »
confusing choices open and close doors
If my father lived, he would be ninety-seven years old at the end of April. I can’t imagine him as an old man, because he was forty-eight when he killed himself. In my opinion, alcohol played an enormous role in why he chose suicide, caught in a twofold trap of craving and obsession, wanting to stop, unable to live without it. Continue reading “the story of April” »
climbing a tall tree is the greatest and scariest of all
Every inch of the twenty-foot eucalyptus bending over the gully bottom was familiar. Too high to jump, I hugged that tree like it was family, scooting along limbs, petrified of making one deadly mistake that might break my neck. Continue reading “craving” »
alcoholism passes on
When I was twelve, my father slipped on the deck at Strawberry’s recreation pool during a black out and split his elbow open, blood everywhere. I don’t know how he made it home. Continue reading “go away, shame” »
these lines started everything
“These are your private journals, and you can write anything you want.” My sixth grade teacher gave us little booklets with fat blue lines. Writing was a relief. Continue reading “writing the truth” »
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” »
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” »