Do Grandchildren Prolong Life?

A recent Facebook post suggested that babysitting contributes to prolonged life for grandparents.  Given how exhausted I am after spending time with my granddaughters, I find that hard to believe, and yet… there is an undeniable glow that lingers for days every time I am exposed to those precious little souls. “You spend all of […]

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Blessing Of Interracial Union

“What’s her name?” “I can’t tell you.” “What?  Why not?  Do I know her?” “No, Mom.  If I tell you her name, you’ll ask too many questions that I’m not ready to answer yet.” “Oh.” “A son is sweetness and strength and mystery;” Call it Mother’s intuition, but I could tell there was someone special […]

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Creative Process

Originally posted on One Woman's Quest:
Routine, I find, is both a comfort and a discomfort.  Stripped of all routine when I first became ill, I floundered about looking for some order to the resulting chaos.  I longed for a routine, like a navigational device, to help me define exactly where I was in…

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Glue: A Dream Perspective

(Sometimes, the best way to approach dream interpretation is to retell the dream from a different character’s perspective.  What follows is just that.  The ‘she’ referred to is the ego self.  To gain further insight, I also wrote a poem, simply titled “Glue”.) How can I justify this current state of malaise, given the opulence […]

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ME/CFS and To-do Lists

To-do list: write publish a blog post shower and dress strip the bed and remake vacuum and dust bedroom put away groceries from yesterday prep veggies for cooking make vegetable curry make red lentil kale soup make spicy tomato chick pea soup put away clothes from laundry Reality: slept late wrote and published blog post […]

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Distraught? Pause

Yesterday, I was ready to give up – on everything.  I was convinced that my husband’s distraction meant he didn’t love me and that our marriage was coming to an end.  I  panicked to think that we are planning to leave home and I will be cut off from family.  I convinced myself that I […]

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Codependency: The Role Of A Father

    FREE FROM CODEPENDENCY As I work longer with clients, it is clear that the parenting style that they were subjected to as a child is extremely important in determining how they see the world. This conditioning is often taken into adulthood and causes dysfunction in relationships and in life generally. This includes anyone who feels […]

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A Nightmare in Prose

Inspiration for my writing often comes from the Dreamtime.  I play with the words, find new meaning and typically create poetry, although some dreams offer up the basis for short stories. A recent nightmare is not cooperating with any attempts to break it down, and so I’ve decided to rewrite it in both prose (offered […]

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Illness is Loss: Encouragement Needed

Frankenstein legs, I call them, these long, slender appendages once a treasured asset, now stiff and unpredictable. Hunchbacked is my stance thanks to weakened back muscles. Cruella de Vil has nothing on me, my formerly auburn waves salt and pepper with a shock of white at the front. And when I speak there is hesitation […]

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Needs and Relationship

Needs, it seems, are an important ingredient in any healthy relationship.  I’ve been listening to Esther Perel’s podcast:  Where Should We Begin? and in almost every couple’s counselling session she records, needs come up. “I’ve never been any good at identifying my needs,” I tell my therapist in a recent session.  “In fact, from an […]

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