Must we be paired up? To place oneself in the comfort of another’s loving embrace sounds enticing. Is it possible? After trying for the last 40 years to forge a lasting relationship with the men whom I’ve loved, I can only wonder. Maybe my lot is to be an independent woman who loves many men. And yet, my true inclination is to pour myself into a swirling, loving cascade of affection for just one man. Obviously, that hasn’t worked. Okay, my dear, happily-coupled friends, how have you made it work for so many decades? Introduce me to a good man – about 65 years old, intelligent, optimistic, healthy, successful, curious, and ready to take on a woman who is also complete. Do you feel like a matchmaker? I’m available. Give me a call. 

~ c

From my writers' workshop with Albert Flynn DeSilver:

Breathe in. Breathe out. I can hear it, feel it. The air around me is thick with awareness. My scalp tingles. Breathe in. And I am there again. Muscle memory sweeps me back 55 years. I am here in my friend Eileen’s basement with her sisters, Maureen and Kathleen. They are a closed sister-circle, but because my name sounds like theirs, I am allowed to hover nearby on some lesser rung of heaven. Breathe out. The basement is dark, almost dusky, in the heat of a summer afternoon. The three sisters are playing house, and I am given the role of dog or baby, I don’t remember which, but the role is the same. I am to lie motionless and silent on a musty, moss green army cot. Breathe in. And so I do, listening, eyes closed, as the girls scrape chairs away from a half-size table. A bumping and clatter of tiny porcelain teacups pulls at my attention. Breathe out. I know what they’re doing. Cookies are cracked into small bits that will fit on miniature plates. The cups, like thimbles, are filled to over-brimming with sweetened, condensed milk. Breathe in. I am not part of this feast. The sisters bicker and giggle about the goings-on of their make believe family. Breathe out. I am forgotten, curled into an unthinking nautilus, taking in the sounds and letting them go. Breathe in. I smell the dank basement; feel the stiff, still cot and the warm elemental knowingness of being alive. Like a snapshot, I know I will look back on this moment and remember it always. Breathe out. I hover, detached, loving these three sisters, aware that I am separate and alive. But, as it turns out, I don’t remember the day, and that haunting feeling fades, pooled with so many others until just now.  Breathe in. The gong sounds and reverberates in concentric circles. I am back in this sunny, open room, surrounded by adults. One is talking. I look around. Many are smiling. I am here and now. Breathe out.

 

"I love the feeling of a song before you know what it means. Once you do, who cares?" Nick Cave


I think I'm done reawakening, done healing, done attempting to merge with the greater good, and I'm ready to just be. The heck with enlightenment. How about living honestly and with as much love as I can muster? The depths of some quandaries need not be fathomed. I don't need to know how deep love or pain or understanding may lie. I need to exist here, dancing on the surface of things with people like me who have returned from their travels to the Underworld with strange and wonderful stories. Plumbing regions of dank underworld secrets does me no good. I crave the sun on my face.


~ c

WHY I WANT HILARY AND WHY I’M VOTING FOR BERNIE

In my heart of hearts, I want Hilary to run for president unopposed. I want her to win. I want Hilary to be president for all the obvious reasons, as an example to young women that they can do and be anything, as a symbol of our struggle for equality being worth the effort, and as proof of American women having "made it." The truth is, we haven't made it. Women continue to struggle with financial burdens that have become institutionalized by workplace traditions.

The assumption upon which most businesses function is that a worker is a person who never gets pregnant and never has the obligation of caring for young, sick, or elderly family members. Essentially, workers are seen as men who have a wife at home to take care of these family issues. Reality sucks, doesn't it? Women work. Get used to it.

Women are often “asked to stay home” if they are pregnant, whether or not they can work. Loopholes are found in the laws and their jobs are often gone when they return. Of course, someone must birth those babies, and provide health care, childcare, and elder care for their loved ones. And, let's face it, most caregivers are women. An undue financial burden has been placed on women precisely because they are caregivers.  And then we blame their "time off" for wage inequality. Using prior pay as a baseline for current salaries guarantees lower pay for women because of the unpaid time missed for being pregnant, raising children, and caring for elderly parents. Using caregivers (women’s) paychecks to subsidize these services guarantees they will always lag behind the non-caregivers' salaries. Women will never be able to provide as well as we would like to for our children, and we will be forced to work into our dotage because we cannot afford to retire.

Yes, my heart cries out for a woman in the White House, and Hilary Clinton could do it. Hilary is a banner, a headline declaring: All Men and Women are Equal! Of course, Hilary would need to constantly fight to establish herself as a strong world leader. She would need to prove daily that she is the “man” for the job. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, would fight quietly to change the system. He would fight to secure the rights of all working women and men. Bernie Sanders has a history of fighting for laws that would ensure all women be known and treated as equal to men. He supports laws prosecuting violence against women. He has fought to eliminate circumstances leading to the wage inequality and discriminatory employment policies women face in the workplace. Pay scales and work policies don't need to be fixed. They need to be eliminated. Bernie supports free education and free, accessible, quality care for children, the sick, and the dying.

Employment policies:  The system is sick. Why is health care attached to work? Losing a job also means losing one's health insurance. Yet, pregnant women often lose their jobs through company loopholes, which means they lose their health insurance. That's a double whammy! We need a national family policy that provides for a healthy pregnancy, childbirth, and bonding.  We need real wage equality and workplace “level playing field” laws that take into consideration the biological differences between men and women, folding in gender differences as natural and expected. Pregnancy is expected. A woman should not lose her job because she is pregnant, gives birth, and needs the time to bond with her baby. 

Wage Inequality:  Much of the wage inequality in the United States is the result of wages based on prior pay. Women who have been absent from work for any amount of time will return to the job market with lower prior pay than men who did not leave to take on child birth, childcare or elder care. It is mainly women who are penalized by absences from the workplace for taking on the role of free family caregiver. We need a salary system that is not based on prior pay, so those people (mainly women) who do choose to stay home and raise children, or take care of family members who are sick, or who become pregnant or sick themselves, are not penalized for their "time off."  For those people who choose to return to work, child care and elder care must be free, so the workers can keep the salaries they have earned, and save for their retirement.

​Domestic Violence:  We need consistent enforcement and legal execution of laws written to protect victims of domestic violence. We need the ERA to ensure these laws have a constitutional basis. Without a constitutional amendment, local, state, and even federal laws can be overturned or simply ignored by the local law enforcement. 

So, as much as I want a woman in the White House, Bernie Sanders is the person who is promoting the policies that would help all American women, not just the chosen few. I am proud of Hilary Clinton’s accomplishments. She has worked with the political machine for a long time to make women visible and viable. And for a long time, I have felt the time was right for a woman to become a world leader and show us how universal peace and prosperity can be achieved through wisdom. Then Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister, Phyllis Schlafley and other women fought against the ERA, and Republican goofballs came on the American political scene. I have changed my mind. We need a PERSON of peace and wisdom in the office of president. Gender doesn’t matter.