Stretching: It’s Good for the Soul

April 11, 2018.Reading time 4 minutes.

Illness is not solely suffering; it is also much like the Hangman of Tarot – a forced change of perspective. There is a certain smugness that accompanies health: an attitude, reckless really, that says “I’ve got it all together. Look at me.” Those of us, having fallen from health, recognize the fallacy. Life is uncertainty. […]

Criticism Be Gone!

July 12, 2017.Reading time less than 1 minute.

Originally posted on One Woman's Quest:
I was forty before I could finally ask my mother about her constant criticism of me growing up. We were alone together, in the car, driving out of town. I had her undivided attention. “Help me to understand, something,” I prefaced the conversation. “When I was young, you…

Inner Voice of Autism

November 23, 2016.Reading time 1 minute.

Just finished listening to “Carly’s Voice” by Arthur Fleischmann with his daughter, Carly. Carly, unlike her twin sister, did not develop normally, and after a barrage of tests and consultations was determined to be developmentally delayed and mentally challenged – autistic, non verbal. Having stumbled across ABA, Carly’s parents hired one-on-one therapists to work with […]

An Escape Plan

An incorrigible hagengages my loneliness –like an assassin sniffing outany scent of vulnerability I am lowering standardsthis history of imprisonmentenabling inappropriate openings I cry for new perspectiveponder after boundariesintending to defend Like an unwanted bullseyeI am pursued on repeatmalice considering mea problem to be solved Who is this old womanwhose thoughts are daggerswho calls upon […]

Making of a Woman

I know that abyss –swallowed up as I waspunch-drunk on darkness Bled as I emerged,each reach a scrape –there was release too Revived now, I honourthat passage, recognizethe making of a woman. (Making of a Woman first appeared here, December 2021. Image: self portrait in ink)