Happy 2023, everybody. I\’m a month (and some change) late writing those words, but keep reading. We moved cross-country last summer and as those who\’ve ever moved a household from one place to another can attest, is a beast. The moving company was a nightmare and we got here about three days before the 2022 summer Voodoonauts Fellowship was due to begin and a week or so before I had to be in-person on my university campus for fall residency. All that happened as I was trying to find my flow after several months of anxiety. As if that wasn\’t…
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Photo courtesy: Dr. Jamie Long I had no idea it had been this long since I\’d stopped by to leave a trail of words on this page. If you\’ve been on the journey with me, you\’ve likely seen the various deserts I\’ve come back from — writing deserts, that is, where nothing beyond the occasional academic piece were developed. This last desert has been one of a different kind — I have been writing, and more than academics. More on that one day, maybe. Well, here\’s a hint: Beyond all that, I also moved cross-country at the end of July.…
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I am aghast with gratefulness, truly I am. But … That\’s the danger, isn\’t it. Not being able to stay in a place of gratefulness because of all the other things going on. Today, for me, it\’s immense anxiety. There\’s a lot going on and I feel like I\’m standing on one foot, atop a rickety staircase built of rotting wood at the precipice of the tallest mountain peak in the world and I\’m juggling large, heavy chainsaws. Did I mention I get height-sick, have a bum knee right now, and can\’t juggle? The best thing, the greatest cure, is…
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Remove the beam from your own eye … Matthew 7:5 Oh, yes: the Creator of the Universe has a sense of humor. There is no need for sitcoms or daytime talk shows in the heavenly realms because, well … … we exist. We — humans, that is — spend an extraordinary amount of time, pointing fingers at what other people are doing and have the gall to tell them what is right and true for them. Really, now. I wasn\’t going to get into the choice conversation, but I read something yesterday about the experience of a woman who had…
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There are times when all we do is ask, all we do is fall to our knees and cry out for whatever it is that we (think we) want. But the world is bigger than that. The spirit is bigger. Some may find that idea a bit floogy, mushy, or otherwise nebulous, especially if they don\’t identify with a specific spiritual practice. Yet, we all have a \’thing\’, even if we don\’t call it spirituality or faith. If we are feeling like we are in need, there\’s somewhere that our mind reaches for (qualify \’somewhere\’ however you desire: mind as…
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I\’ve come to understand more and more that getting health care is not for the faint-hearted. Instead of the system getting better, it\’s become more complicated, scary, and less caring than ever. Remember the neighborhood or \’country doctor\’? If you\’re on the younger side, you might not have had the pleasure and pain of such a person, but for those of us a bit longer in the tooth, it was nothing to pick up the phone and call your family doctor (called that because they likely had been treating every ailment in the personage of every local relative for generations)…
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Jerry had been excited about traveling from the created moon out behind Titan, where his family had lived since his great-grandmother had been a baby. He’d never been away from there, not even outside the atmospheric dome to visit Titan or one of the floating cities high in Saturn’s atmosphere. To have been hired on at Europa Incorporated was a dream come true. Perry, the younger twin, didn’t work but spent his days carefully tending to their great-grandmother, since their parents, grandparents, and other family elders worked many hours to pay for their shared and tight quarters. Keep on eavesdroppin…
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So, Paramount+ has \’The Stand\’ series. No, this post isn\’t about the whole thing going on with Johnny Depp right now. It\’s about the character who was a writer. At one point, he and the female character he was really into talk about the time she told him to save his rejection letters. This is about rejection, about the emails (for those of us who make electric submissions) we\’ve gotten that start with something like \’While we appreciate your submission …\’ and end with something like \’We welcome you to submit in the future\’, with words that mean \’we will…
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I\’ve never understood some drugs, which I guess is a good thing. I never understood pills, especially since I like to read the labels of prescription medications. I\’m not taking some tablet with a lovely hue and smiley face, just because. Just sayin. I even struggle to take nasal spray when I have a cold, preferring to prepare a meal requiring a healthy dose of horseradish instead. I tried snorting a substance in elementary school. It was lemon Kool-Aid from the packet. There were plenty of television programs that promoted the allure of illicit substances, which for someone under the…
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He snorted with disgust as he wiped crumbs from his lower jaw. His robes fluttered and clung below what pushed forward like a middle-aged paunch. He looked into his own eyes, a reflection in the hallway mirror of one more house, one more appointment to take the hand of someone on their way to eternity. He used to admire that profile but instead of a hero, now all he saw was an old spirit, weary from so much death, growing fat and slow from too many snacks left to welcome him. It\’s amazing how a song can pull out visceral…