We’re ‘on the road again’ and it’s a VERY bumpy ride.

Boy, has this place changed, Toto! These days America seems as unfamiliar as Oz — and just as surreal. We’ve seen characters with no brain, heart or courage in abundance but enough about politics. We’ve certainly been in twisty, scary situations before. In fact, history is full of times the red, white and blue was as divided as the Hatfields and McCoys, complete with messy family food fights. This time, though, the food is too expensive to throw around and the mess has invaded almost every portion of society.

It’s been said the crazy that began with a gilded escalator didn’t divide America – it revealed it. Racism, greed and xenophobia are hardly new; they’ve just become more butt naked than we’ve ever seen them. And hate and resentment only grows larger. Did we think political paranoia left the building when Joe McCarthy did? Ha! We might have been a teeny bit convinced that we made big time improvements in womens’ rights and sexual choice tolerance, but apparently not enough. When the highest court in the land tote their own biases, political leanings and religious beliefs into their decision making, we can’t hold anything as permanent.

Now, ‘fear of the ‘other’ is stoked daily, as you wait. ICE has become the Gestapo of choice and ‘the masked man’ is hardly a hero Lone Ranger. Thugs, mercenaries, men with simmering grudges roam the streets whisking students, kids, mothers into unmarked vans, some never to be seen again. Though every culture has gone through their own purgatory of prejudice and alienation when they arrive on our shores, today that Lady in the Harbor, hides her face in shame.

Everything about America has been big – buildings, landscapes, cars, business – and dreams. To many now, their dreams are as elusive as that Yellow Brick Road. Few things in life are linear and history isn’t neat. Over the decades we’ve seen slavery, riots, scandals, assassinations, world wars and cold wars. We’ve struggled with healthcare, financial reform, racial strife, taxes and political mayhem. There’s little we haven’t seen. Yet, when elections were over, protests were heard, amendments enacted, we usually returned to business as usual. No matter how politics, cultural roots or societal platforms differed, we united as AMERICA, not a polarized land of misfit toys. We didn’t dread sitting with one another on Thanksgiving because the political divide was hotter than the turkey!

So, here we are, poised on the brink in an encore of dysfunction, retribution and chaos. We’ve already seen this movie and know what awaits at the end of this Yellow Brick Road. Farmers and consumers alike are already at the mercy of tariff wars, hoping to be bailed out again by the American taxpayer for greed their cattle and soybeans pay the price for. Automation and AI, not ‘the other’, changes the business landscape, yet mass deportations tosses out refugees who’ve done the harvest work, the building and gardening, jobs Americans pass by. Thomas Jefferson’s media, voice of the people, has become a hated target for speaking truth to power. Both entities and individuals have already been put on notice for their ‘fake news’ and been called ‘piggy’ and ‘nasty’ women. Though coal will never again be king, workers are ripe for black lung again as protections have been stripped away. So much of the country remains in their happy myths where climate is not rapidly changing our world as we know it. All the while, vile tweets have replaced fireside chats disguised as ‘TRUTH’.

Those who lived through September 11, our 21st century Pearl Harbor, remember how we walked as one through the aftermath. We gained strength from national pride and a flag that somehow survived the rubble. That flag has now been co-opted by those who claim to be the only ‘patriots’ while toting AR-15s to protect themselves against ‘the other’ half of America. A historical part of the White House itself, has been torn down to make way for a glitzy, Marie Antoinette ballroom funded by billionaire bros who’ve staked our government.

In the worst of times, swamp creatures proliferate. The Birther Movement and Tea Party, wrapped in red, white and blue, were a neat smokescreen for racism inflamed by the election of America’s first black president. How DARE we? That should have been a Paul Revere warning of unthinkable things to come. In bizarro Oz, there’s no middle ground. If we didn’t get it before, the pseudo orange Wizard laid it out nice and neat on his first Inauguration Day. In a soap opera speech called ‘American Carnage’, fiery rhetoric painted a picture of hellfire scented with the rotted smell of fear of the ‘other’. What’s followed since has been scarily reminiscent of a hellish pestilence that infected a country across the pond 50 years ago.

We’ve divided into cultural camps; true patriots or ‘elites’, snowflakes or deplorables, racists or bleeding hearts. Yoo hoo – newsflash! No matter how anyone insists they are the ‘Real’ Americans, unless you or your ancestors were those dumped onto bleak reservations — you’re not. If the original native peoples erected a wall at Jamestown or Plymouth Rock to keep out pesky immigrants, there might not have been an America, folks! Then again, seeing how we dissed the people who took US in, maybe squatters rights work after all.

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Politics and other awkward stuff

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

January 4, 2025January 4, 2025 Copy Chick

Ah, mirrors. Can’t do with ‘em; can’t do without ‘em. Sometimes they’re pretty darn handy to take a close look at that bump on our chin, roots growing in or a tooth that’s been bugging you. But mirrors also show a little more than we’d like as well, since
since they don’t lie (unfortunately). We can’t say that for a lot of other things today, right?

Media is a little like a mirror, at least when it’s done right. Mirrors are designed to be true, not magic. Sometimes they show more than we want to see but, then it’s not a mirror’s job to blindly assure anyone they are “the fairest one of all”. A mirror’s job is to reflect what’s real, not a prettied up version. They reflect who we are, in all our human frailities.

I hardly love mirrors yet, my vanity (sounds cringe worthy) table sits in front of my bedroom window lest I get any ‘whoa, THAT’S a surprise’ when I leave the house. I guess I just like to know what I’m ‘facing’, no pun intended, which is pretty much the same reason I watch news, read blog posts or watch trusted news stations. Ya
just gotta know what’s going on.

We have to uphold a free press and freedom of speech because, in the end, lies and misinformation are no match for the truth. Barack Obama

Like a mirror, the news is only your enemy if what you see or hear isn’t true, not if it just isn’t what you want it to be. Even when they don’t agree with what we believe or want, facts aren’t any less true — unless they aren’t facts. My mother used to say, ‘the truth hurts’ and sometimes it does. I tell my peeps to always tell me the truth, even if I don’t
like it. I mean, who else will tell you if you have a poppy seed in my teeth or new ‘do’ does absolutely nothing for yo

Yes, the truth can hurt — but it can also heal. It can make us think, incite us to act, and at the very least, trip some changes in the way we view things. My husband began his professional life as a reporter and had a lifelong ‘thing’ about real news vs ‘news-ertainment’, something Fox mainlines in. Watching a nightly newscast, he’d riff constantly on the need for true reporting. He had great respect for newspapers,
especially all those with Pulitzer packed histories and for reporters who did due diligence and reported with integrity.

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Politics and other awkward stuff

A Woman’s Place is in the House . . . The Peoples House.

July 23, 2024October 20, 2024 Copy Chick

Forget rocking the cradle. It’s way beyond time that women rocked the system — and the Oval.

30406368 © Alex Grichenko | Dreamstime.com

Play like a girl. Can it be that we’re finally serious about putting a woman in the Oval? Two hundred twenty seven years since good ol’ George Washington was president, it’s seems only right that we finally seat a woman in Maison Blanc. We pride ourselves on being an enlightened country with an advanced culture, yet other mainstream countries have boasted women leaders for decades. Where have ours been?

Sure, after years of struggling, we finally have had women candidates, a woman Speaker of the House and women in SCOTUS, but the welcome mat has been askew. The ERA amendment, a critical step towards equality, still has not been ratified. Even when it finally is, will it erase the mindset of ingrained patriarchy? I doubt it. Decades of bias and attacks on gender have never been never felt by male counterparts who assumed leadership roles as their anointed right. Yet, however educated and supremely capable, women have never seemed to make it to the Resolute desk.

We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly. Margaret Atwood

Helen of Troy. Indira Gandhi. Golda Meir. Margaret Thatcher. These iron maidens didn’t exactly epitomize warm and fuzzy. They brought their A-game, exactly what their countries needed in their time. They led their countries to war within a male hierarchy, conforming to values that allowed them to lead in the first place. Angela Merkel of Germany, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, Finland’s Sanna Marin and the European Union’s Christine Lagarde knew how it’s done because they, too, had to overcome gender bias. And, like Nancy Pelosi, even at 80, they had to outmen men – in heels.

I’d like our country to see for itself, in this critical moment in time, what we would look like with a woman in charge. Could this country possibly do worse than the previous Potus’ appalling tidal wave of incompetence? Yet, blatant, outrageous accusations are unleashed with abandon when a woman has the audacity to claim the same positions men have taken for granted through the centuries. Minutes after our first female VP was named, the Facebook and Twitter universe was on fire with vile gender and racial attacks. Now that the same woman has been handed the baton to actually run for President, I can’t imagine the vitriol that will erupt. Wait, yes I can.

More than 50 years ago, tiny Sri Lanka was the first to break the political gender barrier; India followed a few years later. The UN reported that, as of September 2022, 30 women were serving as Heads of State and/or Government in 29 countries. While those countries thrived under their leadership — none of them are in the Americas. The fact that we, as an educated superpower have still not achieved that designation, is in itself cause for collective head scratching!

In business, there are still many more leadership seats where glass ceilings are neatly intact. Apparently, the idea of women as true equals seems as surreal as aliens landing in NYC. While it’s true we are hardly the only place in the world where patriarchy rules, we should be committed to putting equality, in all dimensions, on the menu. Even in my own little world, I saw lines drawn within the advertising agency my husband and I jointly owned and partnered. I created and ran the business, was its creative director, social media and promotion maven; my husband was the PR counsel. Yet, I had to constantly remind clients, who insisted on talking to ‘the owner, the boss’, that I was that person, too. Even in small business, it seems hard for people to accept that the person in charge isn’t a ‘he’.

Some leaders are born women. Geraldine Ferraro

If women did man the Oval (no pun intended), perhaps infant and mother mortality wouldn’t number among the highest in the civilized world. Maybe we’d think twice about 1% of the population having wallets equaling the worth of 3.6 billion people. Women, who represent 80% of consumers, might better address sustainability, safe food technologies and affordable pharmaceuticals. A mom Potus might be more concerned about climate change that may very well end the world as we know it for our children. And women have a particular dislike of guns killing those kids in classrooms.

Every man on this planet was born of and nurtured by a woman. “Men can boast about occupying top slots in history’s long list of conquering ‘heroes’, bloodthirsty tyrants, and genocidal thugs.” said Steven Pinker of Harvard University. “Women have been and will be a pacifying force. Traditional war is a man’s game.” Amen.

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View from the Shoe

Turning The Page

July 17, 2024July 17, 2024 Copy Chick

It’s all in the narrative. Turning points are just parts of the story that lead you to the next chapter.

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We arrive in this world as cute little blank slates. We come with no instructions and no crystal ball to prophesy about our future selves. As wobbling, curious toddlers, we can’t predict if our home life or school years will inspire us to our full potential or leave us feeling less than. We have no way to foresee what our fates hold. Our cuddly, bawling, newborn selves certainly have no clue. It’s all luck of the draw.

Of course, that fact has never has stopped us from bumbling into life full throttle. We charge ahead until we reach a turning point, where street signs are often as useless as Google maps. I’m sure, like me, you’re often wondered who you would have been or how things might have been different if we had a plan and a map. But crossroads, like most things in life, are not always clear. So, we stumble ahead, armed with our instincts and whatever confidence, or lack of, we were given for the journey. We do the best we can and, while we don’t always navigate as well as we wish we could have, we often we get it more than right. Sometimes we even stick the landing. Yea, us.

Life is always at some turning point. Irwin Edman

As kids we’re pretty much at the mercy of our parents/caregivers and the home, school and financial situation we were plopped into. For the most part, we wind our way through the maze of adolescent and teen years without breaking too many things along the way. We do the best we can with the knowledge and capability we have as young people, which means we’re pretty cocky about knowing everything about nothing. Well played, kid.

We make plenty of mistakes and have plenty of excuses until one day, we cross over to the age of responsibility with no net beneath us. Congratulations. You’re reached your first big turning point. You’ll have plenty of missteps but you’re finally on your own and it feels pretty damn good – most of the time. However, as we find out soon enough, adulting isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be and the tightrope we walk is often unsteady.

Decisions are all on us now. Sometimes, we make pretty damn good ones; sometimes they’re more than questionable. If we’re lucky, we marry the love of our life or, at least they seem to be. We take first steps into careers we either love or tolerate. We inhabit our first home and learned to balance work and digital checkbooks. We become parents, ushering a brand new generation into the world. Endless schedules posted on refrigerators dictate our stressed and busy world. Yet, for the most part, we’re happily content within the bubble of our family dream — until another turning point sneaks around the corner.

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Politics and other awkward stuff

Make America . . .

July 9, 2024July 30, 2024 Copy Chick

“America is back”. The opening line of a commercial, I had to wonder, “Really? Where was it?”

As far as I can tell, America hasn’t taken a trip anywhere, though it has meandered a bit. These last years, the country’s been pulled in every direction. Like Gumby, it’s been stretched to its limits. With just months left before the elections, I wouldn’t blame the country if it tried to hide until the worst is over. But then, what is the worst? To be sure, we’ve certainly seen a whole lot of bad behavior but I suspect there’s a lot more backstage. If America was a kid, it would have been grounded for days. But when there are millions of them, who’ve been busy setting little fires everywhere, the only place to go – is the voting booth.

To anyone who thinks otherwise, America belongs to EVERYONE. Sorry to break it to all the self-anointed ‘true Americans’ but you are far from the only people with dibs on this land. The original inhabitants found out the hard way that even real authenticity couldn’t save them. When the new guys (English refugees otherwise known as Pilgrims) pulled up, those early indigenous people helped the newbies survive the first brutal seasons. What they got for their trouble was a tee shirt and a ticket to never neverlands of the new landlords’ choosing. Never say we don’t know how to make reservations!

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.

Mark Twain

For 248 years, America’s been stepping away, and coming back. We’ve been to war, to the moon and to the polls. We’ve raised the flag, our voices, our fists, and a plethora of guns. We’ve seen the best and worst of times. We fled a monarchy, started a republic and today, we’re doing a dangerous dance between them both. The resurgent rise in both populism and nationalism could easily pull the fire alarm. All I can hope is that we remember how that all worked across the pond out 50 years ago.
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View from the Shoe

Letting Go Sucks; Then Sets You Free.

June 17, 2024June 17, 2024 Copy Chick

Life is just a continual balance of letting go — and holding on.

Photo by Fuu J on Unsplash

How often do we have to DO this thing? All. The. Time. From the instant we open our newborn eyes, we begin the process of letting go. And it doesn’t get easier from there. Life is an endless parade of leaving what we know for the unknown.

We have to lose the training wheels to bike on our own. We leave our mothers at the door on our first day in school. Letting go is what we do. Remember when you discovered the jolly fat man in the overloaded sleigh didn’t travel the world by reindeer to drop gifts by the sackful down our chimneys? Letting go of that was harsh, right? Ditto the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy. No one wants to give up what makes our hearts happy.

“One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love or loss, change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go”.

As we leave childhood behind, as training wheels become motorized in our first car, and teen-postered bedrooms becomes college dorms, we release more of the familiar. We get married, have children and one day, we let them go, too. As we learn more of the world, as hurts begin to form scar tissue, our naivete and innocence is left behind. Our hearts get nicked and dented and, the more we open them, the more we risk. Yet, we do it anyway.

The first time we feel the heavy impact of grown up ‘letting go’ is when a person we love walks away. They say sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, but the learning thing can kneecap you almost as much as the person who made the exit. From our first crush, a dating split or divorce, it ain’t ever easy. Breaking the same heart that loves someone so deeply sadly is the price of admission in life.

“Getting over painful experiences is like crossing monkey bars. You have to let go at some point in order to move forward.” C.S.Lewis

Then someone you love dies, and their leaving wasn’t because their love stopped but because their heart did. That’s when the loss of letting go is multiplied endlessly. Whether you lose a parent, sibling, spouse or the very worst – a child, this letting go takes a mega chunk out of everything that makes you tick. And it takes quite a while to get your balance back, your trust in life and to repair your fractured heart.

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Copy that.

wordless wednesdays

June 5, 2024June 5, 2024 Copy Chick

. . . because inspiration doesn’t always require words.

In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love. In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile. In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm. In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy for it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back. Albert Camus

Chick stuff

Heartbroken — Or Just Hungry?

May 19, 2024June 10, 2024 Copy Chick

Breakups don’t have to leave you broken.

Life is messy. No matter how neatly we think plan it, reality can barge in and wreck the place. My happily ever after was decimated nearly nine years ago when my husband died suddenly. His traumatic exit kneecapped me, so, yes, life is indeed messy and unpredictable. In the aftermath first few years, I just tried to find my way back to normalcy, whatever that is. I leaned on friends — and then on written words. My blog ‘Write Brain Widow’ became my therapy. Though I had a good game face, it was clear I still had miles of widows’ weeds to slog through without losing my mind or sense of humor. What began as self-help, became my voice as well.

Four years later, I realized I still had a heck of a lot to say — but needed a wider berth to say it in. While we never forget grief or those who installed it, at some point we need to graduate and spread our wings again. Reinvention never gets easier. To help download the 2.0 version of myself, I started “The Other Shoe’ blog. The name seemed a good metaphor for my life.

As words poured out again on the digital page, I was in the middle of an internal maze with no real idea of the end game or exit. I realized I still missed my matching puzzle piece. Ying to my Yang, my spouse/business partner could kick me out of creative slumps — or annoy me until I did. Who knew, that with always something to say in an insistently crazier world, I’d actually be at a loss for words!

But, I was. Profoundly.

Hiding in my own space while changing in so many ways, feelings and issues felt too private to share publicly. Barely growing into them myself, I was deactivating in another area of Oz. Only now have I realized it was time to put my goggles on, take a deep breath and jump back into the pool. I don’t know yet if I’m just treading water – or actually making headway toward the deep end, but I’m trusting you’ll tell me.

Two years ago, I’d finally arrived in a pretty good place. Not quite the proverbial Taj Mahal, but decent enough to settle back into my semi-confident, usually optimistic self. I was actually minding my own damn business when the universe decided to bring someone I once cared for very much back into my life. Decades earlier, divorced boy met divorced girl, fell in love, and broke up. In the ensuing years, one of us lived very happily alone; the other very happily married. Believing we were handed a miraculous second chance, we feel headfirst in love again.

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View from the Shoe

A New Year? Bring it on.

January 16, 2023January 16, 2023 Copy Chick

Spoiler alert. You can stop writing 2022 on your checks now.

If all the retail shelves stuffed with Valentine hearts and candy are any indication, New Year’s confetti is in the rear view mirror. We’ve said ‘Bye Felicia’ to the old and and opened the door to another 365 of mess and magic. We get another shot at being our best selves and we can’t afford to walk without intention – but, in spite of ourselves, we will.

Minutes count down each New Year’s Eve and days tick swiftly from the calendar until another year ends, like Ground hog day, since the world began. And, it will rinse repeat each year, long after we are gone. Years go on. Life goes on. And time teaches us how to live with the worst, as we try to make each day the best. Married, widowed, single, black, white, sick, well, gay, straight, time marches on for everyone. All we can do is hang on for the ride, as we do the best we can, alone — and together.

As the new calendar yawns empty before us, do we regard it with hope, or dread; wonder or resignation? None of us have a clue what we will be looking back on this time next year. But with any luck, whatever life throws our way, we’ll have the chops to deal with it, better and stronger.

“What the new year brings to you depends a great deal on what you bring to it.” Vern McClellan

We can help squeeze the best out of this new calendar. Going forward, we can bring awareness, increased sensitivity, understanding and, if we’ve been paying attention, some timely fire in our bellies to stand up for what’s right. On our watch, virulent rhetoric has been seemingly accepted, greed has proliferated, politics teeter on dangerous historical territories, dividing us all in the process. What if our nation stands up with courage, and unity? What if we thought more about all the peoples across the globe who are terrorized and killed daily in their own lands? What if next year we could say we helped those, even in our own neighborhoods, with food insecurity who can’t make ends meet? What if we took better care of the disabled, and the disenfranchised?

In pretty much any departed year, we’ve seen babies born — and loved ones die. We’ve experienced all the jubilant, terrible, happy, tragic things a year can and does bring. We’ve lived through corruption, secrecy and political insanity that’s divided a country and spins on its crazy track. We’ve lost and won jobs, had reunions and estrangements. A pandemic terrorized and took precious lives, as our morale goes up and down like a roller coaster.

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Politics and other awkward stuff

When A Shining City — Goes Dark.

September 22, 2022 Copy Chick

America seems to have lost its way. At the very least, it forgot its way to the fuse box. Once a beacon for democracy, the last years of batshit crazy political insanity has cause a giant power outage. Suddenly, keeping the lights on in that iconic city on the hill is in serious question.

The last years have dimmed a lot of America’s radiance. Do we shine in our ability to keep our people safe? Nope. In healthcare, we place 170^th in infant mortality, spend twice than most developed nations in medical care yet have fewer doctors and fewer hospital beds per capita. We place 125^th among nations in literacy, and have the 81^st highest murder rate, including the most guns anywhere! We’re number one in debt, in GNP, defense spending, and the economy — but only if you count the illustrious 1%.

“In my mind, it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.” Ronald Reagan’s vision of America.

Maybe we were once less than shiny but at least we were uber idealistic. We loved the IDEA that we were better than we are, special, entitled. President Reagan stated that ‘the Shining City Upon a Hill’ was a utopia, divinely bestowed by God on the worthy. The term has been used by presidents and politicians ever since to illustrate their vision of America. We’ve been led to believe that we are on a special mission from God to spread democracy throughout the world, which might be a good plan – if we could practice and hold on to it ourselves.

Though Ronald Reagan didn’t invent the lofty phrase, he did make good use of it. The poetic vision of a radiant city actually originated in a 17^th century Puritan sermon by early Boston governor, John Winthrop. His concept was not to taunt Europe with America’s greatness’ but as a na-na-na-nana refute to Catholics about Protestantism. Who knew? To them, it was less a place than an idea regarding Christianity, which morphed through the decades into ethnic exclusion, enslavement and social superiority.

“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people will be upon us.” John Winthrop, Governor of Boston

Protectors of early democracy were also complicit their carelessness of it. Early settlers were no strangers to slavery, religious intolerance or their own conspiracies. (Do the Salem Witch Trials ring a bell?) Even as we told ourselves we believed the best in each other, we decimated the original American peoples, elbowing them to the side as we made this place our own. And of course we needed help building it, so we shipped in cargos of humans from another continent, excusing our travesty through generations as right and just. Many still do.

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