Tag Archives: childhood
My mom died on January 27, 2020. Grief is a strange experience. Grief is also NOT linear. Even though she has been gone for three years, there are still memories of her that appear at random times, popping to the top of my consciousness like errant butterflies flitting across a garden full of flowers waving in the breeze. That’s her in the picture—the brunette nestled next to her dad. She was the elder of two “oops babies” that arrived when…..
What kind of cook are you? The “measure-y, by the book” sort or the stir, sniff and sample sort? For what it’s worth, I think that not only does each approach have merit, but there are certain times when it pays to err on the side of the extreme of either. When I was a little girl, I used to perch on a stool in my grandma’s kitchen and watch as she cooked dinner for us. My knees drawn up…..
The picture is of me and my younger brother at Thanksgiving in the early 1970s. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, we moved in with my grandmother after my mom and dad divorced. I had 24 cousins on my mom’s side, and so our Irish Catholic family usually had about 40 people gathered on the major holidays (our year revolved around the pivot points of Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas). We had an Adult Table, populated by my aunts, uncles,…..
[ALT TEXT: Did you know: The first poor grade I ever received was from Mrs. Ring in the fourth grade. It was for my penmanship, which she deemed, “borderline illegible.” I vowed to improve my technique. A lesson I took away from that experience is that even the best message is useless unless it can be effectively communicated]. I lived in Iowa when Barack Obama was running for president (both terms). As someone with over three decades of media experience,…..
“How much longer will you go on letting your energy sleep? How much longer are you going to stay oblivious of the immensity of yourself?” — Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh The significance of this quote and its meaning really hit me between the eyes when I first read it. There are a couple of societal programming factors that contribute to my specific reaction: First of all, I was raised to feel as if “tooting my own horn” was boastful. Delivering results,…..
I am one of the few people who actually reads the dictionary for fun. To celebrate National Dictionary Day, I am sharing with you a childhood memory. Pictured above is the dictionary my grandmother gave me for my eleventh birthday. I’ve made reference in other posts that as a result of spending a lot of time in hospitals as a child, I learned how to read by age three. My grandmother was a driving force behind that. She and I…..
When you factor in all of the social expectations of motherhood, types of motherhood, women who have lost children due to miscarriage or other reasons, and those women who do not wish to have children (and who are sometimes made to feel “less than” for that choice), Mother’s Day can represent an emotional series of land mines. In one of the first pictures taken of me at the hospital, you can see my mother: a 22-year-old woman, peering into a…..
Periodically on this blog, I’ll share a journaling prompt designed to help you dig through the mental matter bouncing around your head. Not all of these exercises may seem applicable, but chances are good they will. I’ll repeat the following introduction before each exercise, because there may be people joining the process at different points of the process. INTRO: Journaling is a way to engage the subconscious mind and to allow your inner wisdom to float to the surface of your…..
Today’s post is a bit political. For me, Memorial Day has always been about honoring the dead. From my childhood, I’ve always associated this day with peonies, paper poppies, trips to cemeteries and patriotism. My childhood was right out of Mayberry, RFD. We had one stoplight in town (which was only turned on when school was either beginning or ending for the day). Especially in summer, my brothers and I roamed the town like feral cats with our friends. We…..
Once upon a time, there lived a little girl named Molly who dwelt in the land of Scarcity and Impatience. Although she lived in a safe and snug brick home, surrounded by tall, leafy trees and had a magical grandmother who was able to produce meals from a seemingly empty refrigerator, Molly was afraid that she would never have enough. She also was compelled to control things, believing that not only did that give her power over outcomes, but that…..