The Start Of It All

Welcome. If you have found your way here maybe you are a little lost. If so that means you are also a seeker. Someone searching for something, for more. More depth, more meaning. Maybe a sense of belonging. Maybe you feel so disconnected from yourself that you wonder sometimes if you have lost your soul. Maybe you want someone to tell you it's going to be okay. That you aren't broken. That you can find your way through the giant mess your family or job or country or world has created for you. Maybe you suspect you have some part of that which means you also might have a part in finding your way out.

First things first though because I think you deserve, if you are going to read what I write, to know who I am. And if nothing else happens here, I do give you my word that I will do my best to be honest about it. I won't use Ai or platitudes and there may be spelling errors and other mistakes because I have ADD and often post without checking my work. There will definitely be swearing.

I'm no guru. I'm not even a role model. I'm a 51 year old therapist, wife, mother of two very different kids and yes, I'll dare to say it, writer. How do I know I'm a writer? Because I write. Mostly I write poetry and I'll include some of that here but I also write slightly less ambient and definitely more accessible pieces about life and people and my personal search to make it all make sense or, and I'm beginning to believe more realistically, how to accept that it doesn't.

There may also be run on sentences.

Another thing to get out of the way is that despite the fact that I greatly prefer the company of queers and radicals I am a white, cis, hetero woman with privilege. Not a ton because I am a counselor after all. My parents, before retiring, were teachers and counselors and writers and social activists themselves and I think we all know that doesn't tend to result in financial abundance. My husband however has a job job. The kind that makes decent money and has insurance and that kind of shit. So I have a little more freedom to do a little less grinding. Nonetheless the question must be asked; "does the world really need to hear another white woman's thoughts?" Maybe not. But as a counselor I have had the honor of hearing thousands of stories over the past 20 years and through my clients I have learned some things. Some things that are important. Some things that when strung together may offer ideas about what it means to be a person here at this place and this time. And why despite the fact that joy and beauty and love in a world filled with so much fear, hate, oppression, greed and violence can seem out of reach or even irresponsible to want, are still achievable and very much worth fighting for.

Maybe in my stories you'll see some of your own. Maybe you won't. But either way, I hope you take the time to find your voice, to own your life, and to save, find or rediscover your soul.