Nov 13
Abuse, Domestic Violence, Politics Comments Off on On Elections
The unfolding electoral events are personal to me, a microcosm of my life.
They are personal because I am a survivor of domestic violence and I am still dealing with my own ‘Donald Trump.’ Donald may be loud and brash and my ex cold and calculating, but underneath that plated gold veneer they are the both the same.
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Mar 12
Children, Education Comments Off on On Thirty Three Miles
Each time I walk through the doors of my daughter’s public high school, my heart pulls me back through the years to the days when I was young. I think about the school I went to, thirty-three miles from this very building, so very close and yet so very very far, thirty-three miles and a million years away.
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Jan 22
Abuse, Home Comments Off on On Home Sweet Home
The rooms never really felt like mine. They were full of furniture bought because normal people started their normal lives with a dining room set, a bedroom set, a dinette set, a living room set, and a breakfront heavy with silver gifts that shouted. Bookcases full of holy books, for holy people, living holy lives.
Of course I knew that before I changed anything, it was best to ask Sister or Mother. I knew that that I had always hung the pictures in the wrong places, for the wrong reasons, on the wrong walls, that I had always shown them to the wrong people.
I knew that I didn’t know how to decorate, pick paint or arrange flowers, and that I couldn’t do the laundry without leaving stains on the clothes. I knew that I always set the table with the wrong fork on the wrong side, that I couldn’t be trusted to put the rug straight and even, that I never remembered to dust the tops of the bookcases.
Of course I knew all this, I’m not stupid, you know.
Oct 15
Children, Religion, Suicide Comments Off on An Open Letter To Deb Tambor, A Mother Who Could Not Live Without Her Children
Dear Deb,
We never met and I never knew you, but on the day that you left us, my heart bled.
I know what it feels like, to live in the darkness of daylight, to feel the swirling masses of people passing like ships in the night.
I know what it sounds like, to scream in the wind and only hear echoes, tears met with the mocking sounds of laughter.
I know what means to be done with today, to not want tomorrow, because tomorrow is but another today.
Oct 13
Children, Religion Comments Off on On Orphans
I often wonder about those children, the orphaned ones who lost a parent in the World Wars of Religion.
I cannot believe that they are happy, that they rejoice in their forced salvation, because how can happiness exist in a heart cruelly twisted between love and faith?
I imagine what it must feel like to be told that your mother or father is a traitorous heretic, that the one who gave you life is doomed to rot in the fiery pits of hell.
I often wonder about those children, and as I think about endless days of pain and shameful months of silence, of years full of self-hatred, my own heart twists and I cry.