For my Door County LGBTQ+ writer’s group, Write On, the prompt this month was ‘Thank You.’ At first, it didn’t seem inspiring, until I realized that thank you and gratitude are cut from the same whole cloth. As a person in recovery from substances and behaviors that no longer serve me, gratitude is an acknowledgement of the commitment and work that was required of me, and a thank you for the support I received from others, including a belief in a power greater than myself. Continue reading
“Pick a subject you care so deeply about that you’d speak on a soapbox about it.” — Kurt Vonnegut
“I’m furious about the Women’s Liberationists. They keep getting up on soap-boxes and proclaiming that women are brighter than men. That’s true, though it should be kept very quiet or it ruins the whole racket.” — Anita Loos
A blog is many things, a public journal, a conversation with oneself, a showcase for writing and ideas, an exercise in vanity and a soapbox. Vonnegut’s quote speaks to me. I write about subjects I care deeply about, my relationship with myself, relationships with others, and my place in the larger community. I write from my lived experience, what I’ve learned from others, and what it means in the larger context of the world we live in.
During the past seven years since I’ve launched this blog, I’ve often stood up and shouted from my soapbox, sometimes simply to break the silence, to speak about the unspeakable, and acknowledge that we are only as sick as our secrets. I’ve often written that “The personal is political and the political is personal.” Continue reading
“What matters in life is not what happens to you but what you remember and how you remember it.” ― Gabriel García Márquez
“Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.” — Oscar Wilde
Today is the 4th of July, the Independence Day Holiday. Yesterday, I began reflecting on the meaning of the day, which celebrates the independence of a nation following a revolution and the freedom of its people from an oppressive government. Of dire concern — we are living through what may be judged as another oppressive government — our own — as our elected leaders dismantle democracy and favor the corporate aristocracy and dominant white culture. We are not truly free and independent until we are all free and equal under the law. Continue reading