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” »
it was more about the weed than friendship
A bunch of girls crawled into the bushes at somebody’s sleepover when I was in junior high school and smoked homegrown marijuana, sitting cross legged in a circle, passing around pungent hand-rolled cigarettes. Listening to paper crackle, I inhaled without coughing, because I’d been smoking cigarettes since I was nine years old. Continue reading “my first toke” »
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” »
Los Angeles is beautiful
My mother was a snob about Marin County, and didn’t like Los Angeles, because of population, traffic congestion and the heat. We had the Bay, which made our lifestyle better, more naturally beautiful than the Los Angeles desert. I was brainwashed to believe that my Southern California relatives didn’t live in as good a place as we did. Continue reading “changing a value” »
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” »
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?” »