My greatest fear as my mother’s daughter was not that I would die, but rather that I would live.
It takes strength to live, courage to wake up each day and face someone that you are so unsure of.
You do not know whether they love you, and yet they say they do.
This is the ambiguity that leads to the
Of Ambivalence, Loss, and What Seemed Retribution … Read More »
My mother was a stickler for rules. They seemed to give her a sense of safety.
I cannot say that I hate rules. I certainly do not like the way those in power misuse and bend them to punish those over whom they seek to maintain control.
I do not know that my mother misused rules. This is a comforting revelation. She was fair.
She did what she said and promised, even if the consequences she warned of involved excessive force or could be considered abusive.
I am not trying to protect my mother from the part of me that she hurt, the aspects
Of Rules, Quilts, A Coat of Many Colors, and Knowing … Read More »
When I think back on my late teens and early twenties–I met my now husband when I was seventeen years old–I am amazed that I married, that he wanted me and that we have remained together for thirty-two years.vWe’ve known each other thirty-six.
I tried committing suicide, my second attempt, three months after meeting my husband, then boyfriend. We met in August of 1978, my first week as a college freshman. He was a junior, practically 4.0 student, majoring in Chemistry and with aspirations
Of The Good Daughter, Marriage and A Different Path … Read More »
Assisting our eight grader with her American History lessons has called me to revisit the United States’ Declaration of the Independence, of which the second paragraph states, “ … We hold these truths self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. …”
However well-meaning these men were in seeking freedom and independence from Great Britain, Parliament and King George III, their clarity and self-reflection on the truth of their words leaves much confusion in light of our nation’s history.
Besides being totally opposed to freedom for women and peoples of color, never mind the Native Americans from whom they usurped the land we now call the United States of America, these men, our founding fathers crafted this document, the basis for our government with a certain
Of History Lessons, The Pursuit of Happiness and Choice … Read More »
Like the teacher in my psychology program who said that the hardest thing about parenting was the time required, I find that I never have enough.
Mothering three daughters, seeing to my husband, or rather attending our marriage, along with my work as a psychotherapist, and writing novels proves daunting.
I count minutes in much the same way that I count calories.
Frustration continually arises as I reprimand myself for lack of efficiency.
“I’m working as hard as I can,” I say to myself.
But am I working smarter?
I do not know.
Personal experience has
Of Riding Ellipticals, Counting Minutes, and The Challenge of Parenting … Read More »
A fruit of both the body and the soul, the spirit and heart, the pomegranate casts a net long and wide, deep and with breadth stretching into those areas of life perceived not with the eyes but with inner knowing that comes with age and experience.
The relationship between mothers and daughters is as old as humankind and time.
What could Persephone have been thinking when
Of Mothers, Daughters and Cracking Open the Pomegranate… Read More »
The Greek myth of Persephone centers on the relationship between Persephone and her mother, Demeter.
Demeter loved her daughter, Persephone very much. The story goes that the Greek God, Apollo, fathered Persephone by Demeter, Apollo’s sister.
When Persephone goes missing Demeter, quite distraught, searches every hill and valley to find her daughter and only child.
One can only imagine the multitude of emotions that flowed through Demeter.
The goddess of harvest and motherhood, marriage and the crone stage of female wisdom that comes with aging, Demeter led a life of holding her own amid her brothers Apollo (Zeus), Poseidon (Neptune), and Hades (Pluto).
Both Demeter and her daughter, Persephone, stand at the center of the Eleusinian Mysteries.
Initiation into the cult of Demeter and Persephone was said to prepare the participant to receive goodness and bounty in the afterlife that followed death.
Other beliefs held that those who underwent initiation would
Of Mothers, Daughters and Pomegranate Seeds… Read More »