Yesterday, I traveled a hundred miles to visit with my sisters in my hometown. It’s always good to reconnect with family. When we get together time feels irrelevant. It’s just me and my sisters being who we’ve always been. Alone, I often feel burdened by the struggles that life brings me but when we are […]
I’ve always struggled with my weight. I’ve tried all sorts of diets. I’ve joined exercise classes, wasted money on gym memberships and equipment and finally given up. Then at the beginning of the year I used a word generator to select a word to think about/meditate upon for an entire year. The word that was […]
The topic of my last twelve-step meeting was ‘Higher Power.’ Our chairperson began with a reading on the topic and then asked each of us to either read another reading on the subject or to share our experience about the god of our understanding. One fellow began to tell us that he didn’t have a […]
I know that a hot flash is coming as soon as my heartbeat picks up it’s pace. I try to out-run it by quickly rolling up my sleeves. I look for any object that can be turned into a fan. Then, I try to slow my breathing down. I hate hot flashes. I often wonder […]
Last week at a meeting, a woman came in and asked if we’d seen the rainbow on our way in. “Yes, I did.” I said. “It was so beautiful that all I could do was sigh.” She said. “But, I think that God is only a sigh away.” She continued. “I’ve got to write […]
Killing mosquitos reminds me of my program of recovery. You see mosquitos are pests. They carry disease and make me itch. It seems that it would be a good thing to kill them. But, then we started to notice that when we spray to kill these pests, we are also taking out large […]
I used to facilitate an expressive writing class at our county jail. One of our fun activities involved using something called a story starter. A story starter is a way to give the writer a place to begin. I would give each young lady a slip of paper with a sentence written on it and […]
Last year, I completed a manuscript that I’d been working on for a very long time. There was some initial interest, but it ended with a ‘no, thank you’. So, I did what all respectable southern women do…I took to my bed. I’m not sure if you know what that means and perhaps it […]
The first time that I saw Janie, she sat as far into the corner as she could. She was pleasant and silent. If asked a question, she was able to respond in three words or less. It was impressive. I was facilitating an expressive/creative writing class at the county jail. It was the smallest class […]