Writing in silence, The commotion in my mind Shouts out loud and clear.*** I wrote the haiku a few days ago, when I was bursting with ideas.  However, today I feel stumped.  Why is it hard to come up with a topic for my writing?  I have a lifetime of experience!  I should be able to plunge … Continue reading Another Haiku →

I used to be a phony optimist, pretending that things were always delightful and going well, despite my terrible inner turmoil.  You see, I have bipolar disorder, also known as manic-depression.  For most of my life, I did not know that I had a mental illness, and instead, I thought that everyone had these extreme, … Continue reading How I Became an Optimist →

“I should never be able to fulfill what is, I understand, the first duty of a lecturer-to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece forever".”  ― Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own *** I have always liked the … Continue reading Reflections on the SOL Writing Challenge →

When I was young, I thought that I was destined be a social activist.   I believed that in order to be a worthwhile person, I needed to influence the masses and make a sweeping change.  It wasn’t that I had a feeling of grandeur; rather I was feeling beaten down by life, and I felt … Continue reading Small Things with Great Love →

Last July, after I had been mowing the lawn for half an hour or so, I noticed a twig sticking out of a grate in the side of the tractor's hood, so I went to pull it out.  Upon closer inspection, I realized that it was not a twig, but a tail.  A tail!  Yikes! … Continue reading Mouse Tale →

Watching the First Moon Walk When the astronauts landed on the moon for the first time, my parents woke me up, so that I could watch the event on our black-and-white TV.  They wanted my siblings and me to witness the historic moment. Sitting on the floor in my pajamas, nestled against my parents with … Continue reading Historic Moments in a Child’s Eyes →

The final year that my children believed in leprechauns, my son make an elaborate trap to catch one.  He created it out of a cardboard box, in the style of Rube Goldberg, where there was a chain reaction of events.  In the final step, a raised door (drawbridge-style) would fall and lock, thereby trapping the … Continue reading The Leprechaun Trap →