: About Me

i hear that at two i never stopped the chatter. At almost 50 i think i just might finally have something to say.

Being a recovering social worker, an artist, having experience in teaching, in training, as a wife, a mother, a lover and friend, and having made it this far, i guess there are a few things i would like to share.

My visual art has always included words, an obvious fascination with even the alphabet. Then i find that those characters can be used all strung together, to express ideas, thoughts, to be loving, to be sarcastic, to hurt and to heal.

i can't be sure as to just what may happen on my keyboard in the near future, i only know i am driven to do it, to take the advice of friends, finally, and "write that one down". If i never make a dime, never sell anything, it will hardly matter. These things are bound to exit me in one way or another anyway, my experiences distilled down into what i hope has become wisdom of some kind.

i spent much time when i was younger (as we all did) trying to fit in, trying to be as much like those around me as i could manage. Having outgrown some of the need i had to conform, i write to distinguish myself, hoping that someone will relate to something i say. The biggest compliment i can think of is to hear the words "i wish i had said that".

i am interested in the power of words, how one may be good but another is perfect, how we express ourselves in so many ways, and how when words are all we have they can still move mountains, topple tall buildings and bring the strongest to their knees. But, having some "not fit for polite company", my opinions are rarely in step with current popular notion and i have likely sent up in flames more words than i have ever shared. i would like to change that now, and so here i am.

My passion is ...

... plural and includes such things as art and music, the voice of one most lovely man and honey by the spoonful. OH, oh... and being taken by the hand... yeah.

I know too much about ...

...how to stick two totally unrelated materials together. There is surely a market for that information SOMEWHERE...?

My parents always told me ...

...that love has little to do with the person being loved and everything to do with the one who is loving, that some people just don't know how. This was offered as comfort at 16 after my heart was broken and it is even more true in my life today as i try always to love easily and to love well, to love in a way that the object of my affection can feel it, so that it is never doubted, never in question.

My childhood ambition ...

...was (and remains) to stay a child. The Neverland Syndrome.

My favorite memory ...

... is for Z... and hasn't happened yet... The Lady in the Harbor

Why I write ...

...because i can't not... i know, bad even for a double negative, but the only way i know how to say it. i write because i don't know how not to. It's much like asking me why i breathe.

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

most recently read "Bird by Bird" by Ann Lamott and "Ironweed" by William Kennedy

My first job ...

...was scooping ice cream for Baskin Robbins

My best moment ...

How could anyone with a decently rich life pick ONE? i like to think it will appear tomorrow and then another the next day... all strung together, i hope to one day be the proud owner of an actual biography...

My inspiration ...

...continues to be those around me, those who hold me precious and who believe for me when i can't believe for myself. i am not so inspired or impressed by those who have much and who give much but far more by those who have very little but who have the generousity of spirit to give it all.

Relationships & Family > Break-Ups & Exes Ex-love: The haunting nature of past relationships

5 of 38

The story I am about to tell is not of love past, but of a love that never was. I am haunted by what I could not have and yet does exist, to this day, this very hour in fact, having just left him, a familiar and long comforting voice that has spoken to me for now 24 years, belonging to a man who watched me grow up, a man whose eyes haunt me, whose music sooths me and whose story I have told only in whispers. I gave birth in winter to a beautiful boy - golden hair and tiny, precious and mine. But I was young, my marriage to his father five months off and our future was one big question mark...

More..

• Helium Charter Member