September knew how to walk. In fact, she’d become quite adept at that sort of thing for the better part of her 16 years. It was only until she passed Billy Walsh in the hallways of Summerville High that her legs were as stable as two spindly, licorice sticks that had been left out on the streets of her native New Orleans during Mardi Gras.
They were a hopeless jumble of nerves that seemed to short circuit whenever the tall, handsome …

Read on »

Photo credit cuny.edu
Here are five poems that I’ve loved for years because each has taught me lessons that I needed to learn during a particular time of crisis or happiness in my life……
1. Nikki Giovanni’s “I wrote a good Omelet”
I wrote a good omelet…and ate a hot poem…
after loving you
Buttoned my car…and drove my coat home…in the
rain…
after loving you
I goed on red…and stopped on green….floating
somewhere in between…
being here and being there…
after loving you
I rolled my bed…turned down my hair…slightly
confused …

Read on »

One day,  I’d like to make enough money on my travel website so that I can quit my current job,  sell my house and travel the world without looking back.   I tend to feel this way when I think about the years that I’ve wasted when I did what I thought others expected of me rather than following my own heart and ambitions.
I believe that I became less like the person I was meant …

Read on »

Reading an account of a friend’s life struggles served to be a very powerful and personal reminder that we are in large part responsible for our own successes, failures, near-misses, joys and sometimes sadness. At the same time I believe in the existence of things that are beyond our control like fate, divine intervention and sheer bad luck. Nevertheless, I believe that we determine the where and the how we eventually end up in this life.
Strangely enough, I …

Read on »

I’ve made a pretty life changing decision. In all honesty, I’ve made such declarations before. However, this time it feels different. My life has become unmanageable in a lot of ways. I’m having surgery in a week for a meniscus tear in my knee, I have high blood pressure and who knows what unseen medical issues that may be brewing into an explosive and traumatic event in the future?
I still feel hopeful about life …

Read on »