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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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.

5739071 © Andreykom | Dreamstime.com

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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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

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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Chick stuff

Common Scents

September 13, 2022September 13, 2022 Copy Chick

“Scent is our most potent form of time travel.” Victoria Erickson

Isn’t weird how life events are so often indexed by smell? Our noses program us to remember the most offbeat memories by scent. Baby powder transports is back in time to squishy babies, fresh from the bath, deliciously cuddly and dusted with the stuff. The aroma of freshly baked cookies opens a door to just about any time milk and a tasty little ‘somethin-somethin’ made our day.

Of course, we can’t take all the credit for logging a brainful of aroma information. Like most complex things the human body flawlessly executes, your olfactory senses neatly link smells to situations. Often that process produces a conditioned response, like how just a whiff of a vaguely familiar odor of the dentist office makes us want to walk the other way. Researchers claim that whatever smells a mother favors, while the baby is in utero, infants prefer as they grow. That actually makes perfect sense, considering how I love the smell of garlic and lilac (not in that order). That’s the beauty of the ‘emotional brain’.

“Scent is the strongest tie to memory.” Maggie Stiefvaver

Scientists call the way we link scent to experience, an associated learning mechanism, which just means our emotions and sense of smell are hardwired to our brain. Our perceptions of odors not only create an emotional, conditioned response to them, but can even influence how we think and act. That makes perfect sense when you think of places like healthcare facilities, where the fragrance of lavender is used to calm and relax, while often masking other less appealing odors! So often I remember a scent even more than the actual event – or maybe that’s just a side effect of aging!

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Grief is Grief

Camelot . . . Or Something Like It.

March 23, 2022March 23, 2022 Copy Chick

I’m a 60’s kid. I admit to bell-bottoms, Beatles and banana bikes. But the psychedelic flavor of those colorful days also brought the iconic musical Camelot, a romantic tale of knights and maidens, later co-opted by a couple in the White House named Kennedy. Once upon a time, I found my own version of Camelot, or at least as close as I would ever get to it since our story began in the middle. And though we lived the time-honored vows of ‘sickness and health’ in technicolor, I never factored in that happily ever after wasn’t in the cards.

Then again, Camelot isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

In fact, both in fiction and application to life, the tale was very different than Lerner and Lowe’s magical creation. While, like the mythological King Arthur, beginnings of almost everything are built on the best hopes and ideals, there always seems to be an unseen Merlin, whose machinations run opposite to our best hopes.

“What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.” Helen Keller

My Camelot came complete with a room full of tiny medieval toy knights, that often threatened to overrun the place. My husband’s affinity for the little suckers necessitated his building carefully crafted castles, drawbridges and moats as strongholds against miniature armies of weapon-wielding knights. Unfortunately, even alligator filled moats are no match for cancer but knowing my funny husband, he would have had a comeback for that.

“Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, live with a car battery.” Erma Bombeck.

People say a knight in shining armor are often those who never had their mettle tested. I met a few of them; I even dated them. You know, those dudes whose shiny metal suits were actually tin foil. That’s why I almost missed the knight whose armor had as many dings and dents as his car bumper. He was the real deal who fought his share of dragons, especially the most fearsome of all. I witnessed that man’s spirit, self-confidence, courage and self-esteem tried beyond toleration yet, each time, he got back on that horse (actually a green Nissan) to battle another day. Yet, even those who earn their knighthoods, through years of epic battling the two-headed beast, can still be defeated.

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Copy that.

Yes, Kids . . . Your Helicopter’s Here.

February 2, 2022February 2, 2022 Copy Chick

Was I a helicopter mom when my kids were baby humans? Hmmmm. Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! Looking back, there were a few times I just might have qualified. There were the times I urged my pre-teen daughter to let me know she arrived safely at her friend’s house – who lived at the end of our street! Then, there was the cringe worthy moment I ran into the local bank my high school senior daughter worked, begging them to let me take her home before the beginning snow storm took hold. Not one of my finer moments. On the other hand, I never did my kids’ homework or school projects FOR them, so there’s that. Still, doesn’t everyone have a crazy button just waiting to be pushed?

Okay, maybe not.

I’m pleased to say, now that grandchildren are the focus (victims) of my worry, I’ve let up on the controls. Usually. That is except for the times I whisper my over the top concerns about them maybe needing a warmer jacket to which their moms, with practiced eye-rolls, calmly reply “they’re fine, Mom.” Groan.

Being overprotective and over-controlling, while hardly an optimum parenting style, is also not a new idea. A term first used in Dr. Haim Ginott’s 1969 book, “Parents and Teenagers”, helicopter parenting is still alive though maybe not ‘well.’ They’ve just gone 2.0, being dubbed tiger or ‘lawnmower’ parents, mowing down any obstacles in their kids’ way, damn the cost. Some parents, intent on getting their children into the most prestigious nursery schools, begin their helicoptering when the babes are still in the bassinet. There are parents that, out of necessity, like special needs or allergies, have to be more singularly focused on their children. Yet many, even overwhelmed with work, a big household or economic constraints, treat their children more balanced and sanely while conversely, other parents absent themselves completely.

“A lot of parents will do anything for their children except let them be themselves.” Banksy

I’m not proud today of having been a mommy hovercraft. I could blame a lot on my own strict, controlling, appearance-focused parents but that’s just passing the buck. I could say I was the ultimate worry wart but at least I showed unconditional love, something that was elusive to me. I could even wonder if so much of my inordinate worry was based on fear, often unreasonable, that they would be injured or ill, shadowed from the loss of my young brother.

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