As a child, many of us were taught to beware of strangers. We learned the mantra of “stranger danger” which meant that strangers represented a risk. But what if the stranger is actually a part of yourself? What if what you’re afraid of is a part of you that experienced something traumatic, something so difficult that you don’t wish to relive it so you treat it like stranger?

I’m actually having to dictate this post. This is because I am recovering from surgery on my right wrist, which happens to be my dominant hand and therefore I can only use one hand to type. Being limited in this way gives me plenty of time to think. And think I have, about so many things, and specifically how I ended up in the situation in the first place. To understand how I got here, I need to go back a few months.

Back in April of this year, I started dating someone new. I’ve been single for quite a while, by my own choice, so I wasn’t really looking to meet anyone. But life takes turns and there I was being approached by somebody that on the surface seemed like a perfect match. He presented himself as wanting the same things I did and ready to advance into a full relationship, too quickly I learned in retrospect, but at the time it seemed okay to me. The relationship started off well, he seemed to offer me so much and was willing to do anything I wanted just to please me. It was a hard sell and I realize now I was being groomed. It wasn’t long before it took a turn. The attention that first seem so positive, soon became suffocating, even creepy and uncomfortable. As the days passed, I became increasingly more and more uncomfortable about the relationship and didn’t know what to do. Inside a part of me was telling me, in fact screaming at me, to get out. The voice inside my head warned me that I was in a situation that was only going to get worse. My discomfort was a warning that I should not be in this relationship.

I tried to ignore the voice and instead set some boundaries, which were quickly crossed, suggested some changes, which were ignored, and struggled to deal with the situation. I continued to try to manage my emotions which were yelling at me to get out and just dealt with one day at a time. Then one night I fell.

At this point he was coming over every evening and I was cooking almost every night. Dinner was ready and I was just getting the last few things to bring out to the coffee table when I slipped I landed hard on the kitchen floor, twisting my knee, banging my ankle, and cutting my hand on a knife that was sticking up in the dishwasher. It was a stupid fall that landed me in the ER for stitches on my hand. My boyfriend was eager to play the rescuer and took me to the emergency room and doted on me for the rest of the evening. Luckily, I did not break any bones that fall and after a few stitches and some ice on my knee I was back to normal within a few days. I have spent my life with legs of different length and an ingrained fear of falling; I hadn’t fallen in over a year. I thought of a lot about why I felt that time. I concluded that my energy was off; I was scattered because I really didn’t want him here and I became distracted. Still, the voice inside me got louder, yet still I didn’t listen, at least not enough.

Once again I tried to make some changes. I wasn’t ready to call it quits even though every cell of my body wanted it to end. I think it’s due to some sort of twisted sense of duty and obligation that I have from growing up that keeps me loyal in bad situations. My brain was constantly churning trying to come up with a solution well knowing the inevitable had to be done, but I didn’t have the nerve to act on it.

About a week after I had fully recovered from the first fall, I fell again. I was walking out of my bedroom when I slipped and landed and what must have looked like a pratfall because I landed flat on my back. But, when I landed, I turned my arm up and hit the top part of my wrist which shot intense pain through my arm. Once again I had hurt myself, but I was prepared as always and just reached for a wrist brace that I had from when my daughter was into rollerblading. I put that on my wrist and continued with my evening. This injury took longer to heal, about 2 to 3 weeks of wearing the brace before my wrist felt strong again. Once again I chalked it up to my energy being scattered. But the voice inside kept telling me it was more than that, yet I still wasn’t totally listening. The situation continue to worsen and soon I could no longer ignore the screaming inside me. I finally took action to end the relationship.

The night that I ended the relationship, I went to sleep with a feeling of huge relief, I had done the right thing; I was free from of a bad situation. But the next morning when I woke up, my lower back had seized up; I was in so much pain that I could barely walk. I was surprised by the situation, especially since I had felt so good the night before. I had experienced this type of pain in my back before. The last time was when I was going to have breast cancer surgery and I had so much anxiety about going back into the hospital after so many years away from it. That situation was stressful, understandably so; it made sense that I would have this fear built up in my back which caused me paralyzing pain. But in the case of ending my relationship, I felt relief from leaving a bad situation. So why did I have this pain? The only thing I could conclude was that the pain was built up from all those emotions that I had pressed down, all that time of managing being around a person who was driving me completely crazy. That’s what I thought the pain must’ve been from. I was partially correct that it was about something I had been ignoring, but it wasn’t my emotions, it was my inner voice that had been warning me for so long that I was in the wrong situation.

A couple of months went by and everything was fine. I had released all the drama of the relationship and was back to being single and independent, working hard, getting strong, losing weight, and feeling great. Then, on the eve of Labor Day, I was getting up off the couch, put my right footinto a flip-flop. I turned to get the other flip-flop on my left foot when my right foot slid and I landed down in a weird position, banging both my ankle and wrist, and then slipped a little further and hit both again. It was late at night just before bed, the pain was incredible but I didn’t see any reason to go to the emergency room. It was a holiday weekend, and most likely I had just sprained them, a bad sprain, but what could they do for me at the ER? They could give me crutches, they could give me ice, but I had both already at home, so I just went to bed.

I chronicled some of this in my previous post so I won’t repeat but basically the long and short of it is that for two weeks I went about my life as normal, doing my best not to hurt my ankle or wrist more but otherwise living my life while dealing with intense pain throughout. Finally the pain wore me down, and I got x-rays which showed that had broken those bones, hence why the pain was so intense. I immediately went about trying to see a doctor. But between insurance, which took 5 days, and then hurricane Ian who decided to appear, I could not see a doctor for two more weeks. So now, more than a month since my fall, I go to see the doctors (of course they set separate appointments for each injury) and one told me that my wrist needs surgery. It was healing, but not in the correct alignment, which meant that I would have limited mobility in that joint. Since it was my dominant hand, I did not want to take any chance of reduced mobility. I agreed to the surgery which was supposed to happen the following week, but it took two more weeks to get scheduled. My ankle, luckily, was healing fine they said, wrapping my ankle up in bandages, and send me home in a bigger boot that I could walk on.

During those two weeks that I had to wait leading up to the surgery, I continued to ponder why the fall happened in the first place. What did it signify? What lesson did I need to learn? No answers came. I’m also in therapy and we have been talking a lot about setting boundaries, honoring myself, and paying attention to the warning signs of when my boundaries are crossed, specifically in my past relationship. I have been doing a lot of soul-searching and learning a lot about myself, yet no matter how much time I spent thinking, I still did not understand the lesson of the most recent fall. It wasn’t until after the surgery that I finally got the answer I had been seeking.

Before I tell you the answer I learned, I need to explain the logistics of how this surgery, and these injuries, have affected me. The boot on my ankle limits my mobility, but at least I can walk which is a huge improvement to using crutches. In order to change my clothes I need to take the boot on and off so as to get my leg in and out of pants or underwear. I also need to take the boot off when I go to sleep or when I take a shower. The straps are very thick and strong Velcro; the grip is extreme. With my wrist being compromised on my right side, my dominant side, it has been challenging to remove the straps of the boot with my left hand. But, until I had the surgery on my wrist, I was still able to use my right hand a little bit so I hadn’t really experienced the full challenge yet. I knew, however, that once I had the surgery I would not be able to use my right arm at all for several weeks.

Yesterday I had the surgery, and when I awoke in the recovery room, I started to feel intense pain in my wrist. The pain was so strong that the doctor offered me a nerve block which is where they inject some type of numbing agent into the nerves. What it did was numb my right arm completely from shoulder to fingertips. Now this is when it gets interesting. I have never experienced numbing like this before. I have experienced all sorts of types of anesthesia and when I’ve had my teeth worked on I know what it’s like to have your mouth numb, but this was totally different. A whole appendage, my right arm, was completely numb. I knew something was attached to my shoulder, but beyond that I could feel nothing. Intellectually, of course, I knew that my physical arm was my same normal arm just numb, but when I touched it, it felt like a stranger’s arm. I can’t explain but that is how it felt. My real arm, as it seemed to me, made its appearance, but it was just a phantom, or spirit arm. This spirit arm, as it were, was how I imagined my arm to be in physical space, but it did not match where my arm actually was. When I would look at my arm I would not see the same location that I thought it should be, instead, my spirit arm was always separated 3 to 4 inches away from where my arm really was. This is why I felt that my physical arm was a stranger to me because it was like it was not following what matched in my head, like it had a mind of its own and not a part of my body anymore. This was the strangest feeling because sometimes I would bump into my arm and it would startle me because it was not in a place that I expected it to be.

I developed all sorts of emotions regarding this arm, the stranger one. On the one hand I knew consciously that it was a part of my body which was numbed because it needed to heal and would return to me as normal, I just needed to protect it. On the other hand, I grew to resent it in a certain way and I had moments of thinking of wishing it gone, chopping it off even because it felt so foreign, so alien. Thankfully, these feelings were fleeting, I have no desire to injure myself, but I don’t know how to express how strange it was to have part of me not responding to my wishes whether to move or be where I expected it to be. This got more intense when I went to bed. I could only sleep on my left side with my right arm propped on a pillow. With no strength in that arm, it was quite complicated to get into the right position. I would doze off and move my left hand eventually bumping into the right one which would startle me awake. It felt like I was sleeping I was sleeping next to a stranger. I even had moments of feeling like I was lying next to someone that was no longer alive; it was just so disconcerting I can’t explain it. That feeling of the spirit arm not matching with the stranger arm, of having two different arms in space, continued throughout the night.

At one point I started to feel angry because I couldn’t sleep. My arm was disturbing me so much. It was not acting in the way that I wanted to. No matter what position I got into, my right hand would always be in a place that I was not expecting and would startle me. It was then that I started to get angry and finally got the answers I had been seeking so many months before. This experience of being disconnected from a part of my body made me realize that the stranger arm actually represented the part of me that had gone through so much trauma, so many medical procedures, and had born the brunt of all the pain. That stranger was more than just an arm, it was that whole inner self that I had refused to listen to over and over. The only way that I was going to get past this repetition of injury was to embrace that part of myself.

I had made that inner voice a stranger to me because I never wanted to be that person again. After 27 or 28 surgeries in my lifetime, most of them before I turned 18, I felt that I had been through enough. I did not want to be the victim anymore; I did not want to be identified by my trauma. While that is a valid goal, I still needed to acknowledge all that I had gone through because it is a part of me. It’s a part that others see and if I acknowledge it, I can let them be a part of my healing as well. It requires me to recognize that I need help from time to time and by allowing people to do that, it also allows me to put myself first. I need to prioritize myself and not feel guilty about it, whether its getting out of a bad situation or just finding better shoes so I don’t slip on the floor.

As with everything in life, it is a process. I will try to allow more people in, to be more open about my experiences past and present, and to welcome the love that so many show for me. I will then share that love to the part of me that was a stranger for so long, allow us to merge and hopefully become whole.

Recently I have had a lot of reasons to think about pain. I chose the title of this post carefully. The word “through” is critical. It is not a journey ”of” pain, or a journey ”in” pain, but rather through it. There is an end, you will come out on the other side, eventually.

The pain that I have been thinking of is complex, layered. There is the emotional pain from past trauma, pain that is all that more poignant as I remember all these years later while writing my book. There is the physical pain from all the surgeries as well too but those memories are more fogged. Still, when I injure myself, the memories of all those childhood hospitalizations come flooding back.

It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.

― Chuck Palahniuk, Diary

Case in point, on the eve of Labor Day I slipped as I was getting of the couch. It had all the makings of a minor incident that became anything but minor. As I went to put on my flipflop, my right foot slid. Soon I was falling in slow motion. My right leg twisted and I hit my ankle, then my wrist… ouch. But then I slid even further and hit a second time. Ouch again.

The physical pain that waved through me was unreal. It felt like it was consuming me in a cloud of sensation. I iced, bandaged, and went to bed. I never went to the ER that night. It was a holiday weekend. I knew it would take forever. If it was a sprain, which I was certain it was, then all the ER would do is ice it and give me crutches. I already had crutches so what was the point I thought.

The next day I could not walk without support, and barely move with crutches. Injuring my wrist meant that I couldn’t grip the crutch with one hand. Moving was complicated. But, this was not my first fall, I knew the drill, and was convinced it was just a sprain. I used ice and elevation. I went into my pool for some aquatic therapy. For two weeks I carried on with life, very carefully, only thinking I just needed a little more rest.

Physical pain is the attention grabber, the one you pay attention to, but emotional pain can be the hardest to deal with. At the same time that I fell, a good friend of mine was dealing with unimaginable emotional pain. Her husband was dying of cancer. We worked together teaching fitness classes as well as being friends, so when I got injured in the fall, I didn’t tell her what happened. I had been covering classes for her so I didn’t want to add to her pressure. I figured I would just have to teach more from a chair until I healed. I taught classes nearly every day and rested/iced in between, but the pain did not subside.

Finally I decided I needed to do the sensible thing and get an x-ray. My way of dealing it wasn’t working clearly. So just over 2 weeks from the fall, I went to the ER for x-rays. Lo and behold, the doctor told me that I had broken both my ankle and my wrist when I fell. I guess I had more of a high pain tolerance than I had realized.

With this news, I could stay silent no longer and finally shared with my friend. Just telling her, caused another type of pain, the pain of empathy, knowing she now had more to handle.

This injury slowed me down considerably, probably in a necessary way, and about the only thing I’ve been able to do is writing. I’m typing now for this post but even that can hurt my wrist so mostly I dictate for my book. That has been an interesting experience because it has made things more visceral, more stream of consciousness as I recount verbally the painful memories of the past.

When it comes to pain, the one thing I know for certain is that it will pass. My bones will heal. My friend will first grieve and then heal as well. There will still be scars, whether visible or not, but the healing will still happen. What holds us back is fear. We don’t want to feel the pain so we avoid it, but the only way to get past it, is to go through it. I’m reminded of these scene from the pilot of the show Lost:

Life is always a struggle, sometimes more painful than pleasant, it’s true, but it is never static. Things change, get better or get worse, but they change. Nothing stays in one place.

So, whether you are like me and recovering from a physical injury, or you are like my friend who is in the middle of massive emotional pain, or maybe even somewhere in between, just know that it will pass, there are brighter days ahead. You will emerge from the tunnel, scarred but standing.

This photo was snapped on I-95 in Miami during rush hour. It is nothing new that big cities like Miami are clogged with tons of motors of different types clogging up the roadways. While I took this photo in Miami, I was on my way back from 4 days in Key West. I didn’t take photos of trsffic in the Keys because I wanted to capture the charm of the area, but if we, as a culture, want to see firsthand how toxic our love affair is with combustion, petroleum burning, motors are, just go to mile zero.

I visited Key West nearly 25 years before. Back then, it was a party town but in a beach bum kinda chill way peppered with some high energy gay fun. All in all it was a place where you could wave your rainbow flag free and enjoy a good mojito. Its remote location gave it exclusivity inits isolation. The people that came made a lot of effort to be there. The remoteness kept it a bit sleepy, less attractive to the average tourist. That has all changed. Key West is now a full time party town.

We rented an Airbnb near downtown. The listing mentioned that Key West is best experienced on a bike and since parking is all paid and quite expensive, we immediately found a public garage with a day rate and rented bikes. There are lots of bikers in Key West since there is literally so little parking, but the town is also a slave to the tourists. While it is super easy to bike around, most people are in love with their motors and unwilling to give them up. So, instead of a pedal bike you can rent an electric bike or stand up motorized scooter, if you need it even easier, you could get a moped or a golf cart. But in my opinion that is where it should stop. If I was mayor of Key West, I would ban all cars from the area except for commercial delivery and emergency vehicles, build a parking garage with a shuttle to downtown. I would consider a possible compromise off allowing just compact residential vehicles only.

But I’m not mayor, nor ever will be, so this is just ranting. But it is not as crazy or utopian as it might seem at first glance. In a small area like Key West where everything is within a couple of miles distance and the roads are flat, why is it necessary to drive a v8 truck or SUV? A series of tragedies are bound to happen or have happened. Biking and walking would have been so much more enjoyable if the only motors I had to worry about were from mopeds or golf carts. Plus it would reduce emissions, save wildlife, and more. It is so obvious that the combination of pedestrians, bicycles, mopeds, golf carts, cars, AND trucks, SUVs, etc… plus lots of imbibing 24/7, are a disaster waiting to happen. In the few days I spent, I had several close calls.

It is time to shift our priorities. We are going to lose all these lovely places if we put our love of motors over common sense. I have a friend up in the area where I live who is originally from France. Europe has embraced bicycles way more than Americans. He posts often of the danger of roads congested by cars and trucks which are shared by bicycles and pedestrians. He points out the unnecessary attachment that we have to these motors, especially big ones. These large vehicles, in a small area like Key West, would stretch over the lanes at times. Parking them was near impossible and would stop traffic. On a bike, having a truck behind you, itching to pass, was like having a tiger breathing down your neck, waiting to pounce.

But our love of motors, in beautiful, ecologically precious places like Key West, affect more than the potential for accidents on the road ways. There are tons of motor boats, jet skis and even an international airport in the area, all spewing toxic smoke and dripping toxins into the ocean which erode the coral reefs. We are in a a game of chicken with the environment down there. It is so obvious. The very natural beauty that brings people to visit, is being destroyed by the need to accommodate our toxic love of motorized transport.

On my trip we biked everywhere and also went kayaking, all eco-friendly activities. But on our last day we went snorkeling. While really fun, it was then that it really hit me how f*cked up it is that we are taking a motorized boat with a bunch a tourists, who once they start drinking (which is what pretty much everyone was doing) their empty plastic cups would fly into the ocean, only to be consumed by turtles who mistake them for jellyfish. Then we stopped near the reef where everyone jumps in to snorkel willy nilly, some diving down and messing with nature. The reef that we saw was pretty paltry and we learned that it had been damaged by the motor oil from boats. Yet here we were arriving in a motorized boat to view the natural beauty while also destroying it. I left with guilt.

I would like to see a future where we don’t just move away from petroleum to electric or fuel-celled vehicles but where we also question, and ideally regulate, where they can be. If big tractor trailers have restrictions as to where they can go, why not extend to trucks and in some places all motors? Lets have some motor free zones where people can walk or ride freely and nature can flourish with less of a toxic load to filter.

I’ve been rewatching Stranger Things with my daughter these past few weeks so I’ve learned a lot about dark energy. It’s really not anything too new a concept for me. I’ve watched plenty of other shows about similar parallel universe or upside down concepts. What was different this time, was that while I was watching the show, I was also struggling with some dark energy right in my own life.

A few days ago I dumped my boyfriend. I use those words specifically because it’s the first time I did something like that. Relationships have soured, fizzled out until there was nothing left or they have done the leaving. Never, have I ever, flat out left someone when it wasn’t clear cut, when it wasn’t 100% obvious. I used to say that was because I’m that loyal. Now I see that it was because I was afraid.

Dark Energy is a hypothetical form of energy that exerts a negative, repulsive pressure, behaving like the opposite of gravity.

Just like in science fiction, dark energy can take on many forms. In my case, it was in the form of a man who seemed utterly devoted to me. At first it seemed wonderful. He wanted to do all sorts of things for me, take me out, take my family out, mow my lawn, fix things… devotion. He said he loved me within the first week and he said it multiple times a day. He asked my mother if he could call her “mom” and referred to my kids as his son and daughter.

Ok, I know what you are thinking… psycho right? Yes it is obvious now but it was confusing at the time. The way I justified it was that even though he was talking about love too soon, at least he was demonstrating in his actions to back it up. I felt like how could I reject such generosity.

Little by little things got less comfortable. I would catch him staring at me smiling, leering actually like a pervert. I told him it made me uncomfortable but he said he couldn’t stop because he loved looking at me so much.

He was always touching me, rubbing my legs or my arms, even when I was driving. He would randomly kiss me, without warning there would be this face coming at me. Sometimes I’d be in mid sentence or even eating when he would take a kiss. I considered this uncomfortable and told him so.

Whenever I would tell him how I felt he would adjust at first and I’d relax and then he would return to the original behavior. I started feeling off balance and strained to be around him. It was all I could do to tolerate his presence.

This imbalance led to two separate falls, both when he was hanging around me, about 10 days apart. Each fall was dramatic. One landed me in the emergency room. Something was wrong I could tell.

So that leads up to a few days ago where I decided I needed a night to myself. He had been coming over every single day and I needed a break. I said I was meeting a friend for dinner which he was convinced was a date. It was not. He showed up unannounced right before I was going out and then went home, got drunk, and started texting my daughter, yes my daughter, about whether I was on a date.

I didn’t need more reasons. I immediately broke up with him.

Now here is where it gets interesting. At first I feel free. That first night I slept great but when I woke up my back was tight and clenched. I have spent the last few days using ice, heat, yoga, and the pool to release the tension from my back. It’s going but it leaves in waves. The second day it felt like someone had used my sides as a punching bag. I felt a release by my tailbone, corresponding to my root chakra, and today my sacrum feels bruised.

What does all this mean? Well I tend to hold stress in my body and when I feel safe, I release it. In that relationship, I clearly had experienced far more stress than I had realized, so much stress that I had to lock it away in my root chakra (which is the chakra that deals with core safety) and now that I am safe and free, my body is releasing it. There’s a lot to release.

What I had experienced was the dark energy of emotional manipulation, being dazzled by love and generosity in order to trap you, lock you in. Now that I am free, I’m paying close attention to other people’s energy, not just their words or actions, from now on.

I come from a family of artists. Both parents are painters. I did my first painting at 2 years old which my father framed. I have been creating since I can remember and creativity for me is as necessary as breathing. So, why have I never considered myself an artist? More importantly, why have I even resisted being an artist? It’s because for me, art is a dirty word.

Let me explain. While creative expression has been a part of my life since the beginning, my parents, who were always making art, were/are problematic people. My father was abusive in a range of ways. A major part of his negativity was always around being an artist. This translated into him always being broke, which for me as a child meant second hand clothes, no money for bare necessities at times, a landlord constantly threatening eviction which was scary in the middle of NYC, and certainly no extras, ever. Emotionally being an artist (I perceived in my father) meant being under appreciated, not recognized, not successful and resentful of others who did succeed.

The truth is that being an artist did not cause these things for my father. He did. Creating art came easily to him but that was not where his heart lay. He wanted to be a jazz musician instead but his family forbid him because his father, my grandfather, who was a jazz musician for the Bix Beiderbecke band, had committed suicide two days after my father was born. Jazz didn’t kill him of course, it was the stock market crash of 1929. My father was born in February 1930 and his father, Nelson Young, did not feel up to the task of caring for an infant and took the cowardly way out. This then associated being a musician with suicidal tendencies. With a career in music denied to him, my father pursued his next dream of being an animator for Walt Disney, but his multiple applications were rejected. So, with his first two dreams inaccessible to him, he resigned himself to his third option of being an artist.

Then at 21 my father had great success and was given a one man show in NYC. But when you pursue a career that is not your passion, nothing is good enough. So it was. My father continued to produce art, quite prolifically, but he resented it and he expected everyone else to praise him continually. Therefore, he didn’t cultivate the relationships that could have furthered his success. He never had a one man show again. He passed away in 2001 and only a few know his work.

My mother is a very different artist than my father was and did not carry the same resentment, but at the same time, she also never had the same drive. For her, art is always something she longs to do but rarely makes a priority. She has also always been financially challenged and, as a result, depended on her children to support her, even when she was young enough that she could totally provide for herself.

So between the two experiences, being an artist was associated with struggle, unhappiness, lack of money, and resentment. I didn’t want to have any part of that. But that is not the only reason that for me, art has been a dirty word.

Recently I had two situations where I was donating my time and the people that I donated to did not appreciate what I was offering and ended up abruptly switching to someone else for the services I had been offering. One situation involved family so it was particularly challenging. Another involved a group that I had come to consider as family. In both cases, I knew I had something to offer and all I wanted in return was to feel appreciated for that. But when these situations did an about face, I was forced to withdraw. It brought up a lot of emotions, specifically around my self worth.

When things happen in my life, I can get wounded just like anyone else, but after I lick my wounds, I try to look at meaning, lessons, or patterns in what has happened. Why is it happening and what do I need to learn from this? In this case, I realized that I have a pattern of filling up my time for others because I want approval and validation from them. But why? I know who I am, I know my skills and capabilities. Why do I keep giving my time away for free? I think it is because I don’t fully believe in myself.

Many people have considered some of the things that I make as art but I have always discounted it. As a descriptor, creative I can accept, but artistic sticks in my throat. Why is that? In these two experiences that recently happened, I realized that the real reason that I fill up my time is so that I have less time to create for myself. If I really dedicated myself to making art, something that my heart longs to do, then perhaps I would have to come to terms with my legacy and challenge the beliefs that I have had around what being an artist really means.

So it is time for me to release myself from the restrictions I have placed upon myself. It is time for me to embrace art and let the rest go. I am not my parents. I have provided for my family. I do not have resentments that I bring to the table. I am ready to allow my artistic expression to emerge and honor it as such. I am an artist. There, I said it and as such, I leave you with some of the art I have created. Believe it or not, I had to resist putting the word art in quotes. It’s a process of acceptance. I’ll get there.

day 88

at times i am the pile of leaves
easily scattered with the lightest breeze,
but mostly i’m the lighthouse
weathering the roughest storms,
steady in gale force winds

yet, sometimes, i long to topple,
for the bricks to crumble,
and move fluidly like the snake
or soar above like the hawk

3.29.17

In 2017, I challenged myself to write a poem a day. This poem above was one of them. I’m not sharing it because it represents the best poem that I have written, but rather that this metaphor is one that I’ve just recently begun to understand.

What is a lighthouse actually? The literal meaning is:

But how does this meaning apply to me? What exactly am I trying to communicate? While a lighthouse can represent different things like providing guidance, a light in the darkness, and a form of rescue, what it represents for me personally is what I like to call “the challenge of being strong.”

A lighthouse is built to weather the roughest of storms without breaking apart, without losing its light. In many ways, as a strong person who has faced much adversity of life, I can relate to this definition. But the “challenge” part is that others only see me this way, they don’t see the tender side.

Everything in life has multiple perspectives, but as a culture we are more comfortable seeing things, people in particular, in two dimensions versus the whole. Comedians like Robin Williams, for example, were seen as funny, happy people because they brought us joy. But as Williams’ unfortunate suicide demonstrated, the other side of funny is deep sadness. He was most certainly that as well.

We don’t want to see the other sides of people because that forces us to acknowledge the other sides of ourselves that we don’t like, are afraid of being seen — sides that don’t fit with the narrative we tell ourselves about who we are. If Robin Williams can suffer from depression, but the world simply saw him as an hilarious performer, what are we hiding?

To come back to myself, I have learned from an early age that I am the only one I can count on to take care of me. I grew up without the proper protection and nurturing. I spent most of my childhood in the hospital or being volleyed between two antagonistic parents. That was all I knew so I adapted to survive and as I survived, I grew stronger and stronger.

Now, when people hear even part of my story they react with amazement that I got through it. They shake their heads in disbelief and gaze at me like I have a superpower. I do not. I can’t explain how I got through what I did but I did. As stories go, mine is quite remarkable, hence why I am writing a book, but there will always be more traumatic stories to be told.

So it’s not about who went through the worst, by any means, it’s about the perception of who you are as a result. Just like comedians are not always happy, in fact most suffer from deep depression, those that portray strength can also be weak, make mistakes, and suffer from self doubt or low self-esteem. We are not two dimensional.

Recently I experienced a heavy emotional storm battering at my foundations. I felt low and weak and unsure how to go on. But I did go on, I pulled myself out of the muck I had sunk into, I walked forward.

I am grateful to be able to do this, I appreciate my strength, I really do, but it occurred to me that the person that created that storm knew that too. They knew they could rock my foundations and I’d still stand strong. That realization left me with the only option to move on, move away from that person. Just because I can ride out a storm, doesn’t mean it leaves me unharmed, it doesn’t mean that I can continue to function under that duress.

So I leave you with this, always remember there are many dimensions to a person whether it be a friend or a popular figure. Understand that you do not know the myriad of things that person might be dealing with. Treat people with compassion and give them space to breathe. Maybe then they will show you their hidden sides sometime.

Image credit

We are in the midst of a global crisis, one which it has never faced in modern times. Not on this scale anyways. Yes, I’m referring to the coronavirus pandemic.

Personally I’m not worried about my health or those dear to me but I also don’t want to affect anyone else by my lack of concern so I’m staying home, washing hands and… distancing.

There are those who say it is no big deal and we are all overreacting but facts say otherwise. There are those who are panicking but panic is just making things worse; we all need basic supplies after all. But it is the economic impact that I think is the most to worry about. People have and will lose jobs, business will close, entire markets will dry up. It will be intense to say the least.

So what does one do when faced with such intense change on this scale? Be the water…

Let me explain. Think of the change as a rushing stream carrying everything with it at a rapid pace. If you focus on fear you become the rocks that are stuck in the mud. The water rushes over them and they sink deeper and deeper. The change, ie., the water in this metaphor, is going to happen whether you are afraid or not. Those that are locking themselves in their homes with hands raw from washing and their blood pressure rising with each news update, are sinking into their fears, immobilized just like the rocks stuck in the river bed.

But this change, this crisis, is not selective so the people who are downplaying this change and fearlessly rushing to take advantage of cheap flights or ignoring the recommendations and are gathering together, will also be affected.They are, in my metaphor, the flotsam that is swept along by the river of change. The word flotsam has two meanings “the wreckage of a ship or its cargo found floating on or washed up by the sea” or “people or things that have been rejected and are regarded as worthless”. Those that ignore the crisis and the impending change that it demands, may flow free for a while, laughing at what they see as overreaction by everyone else, but eventually the change will divert them unexpectedly until they crash into the rocks of fear.

The only thing we know for certain is change is coming. One way or another, everyone’s lives are going to be different after this crisis. Therefore, the best way to survive this change, in my opinion, is to embrace it. Be the change, be the water. Step outside of the situation, of how it affects you personally and immediately, let go of what you can’t control, prepare where you can, and most importantly, see how you can adapt, adjust your life and expectations so you are more aligned with the change instead of resisting it. Allow the change to lead you in new directions.

Of course there is tremendous stress with this change, no doubt about it, and I don’t mean to minimize how intense that will be for many, including myself, as we protect our health and may be forced to seek new forms of income. But by accepting that the change will happen, you can have more control on how you experience that change and where it leads you.

Here’s an example. Back in 2017, I decided I wanted to become a yoga instructor so I signed up to start training in the fall. Just before Thanksgiving, I noticed a lump in my breast that turned out to be cancerous. My life was turned upside down. Two more lumps were discovered and 4 days after I graduated as a yoga instructor, I had a bilateral mastectomy with reconstruction, an 8 hour surgery.

Cancer was not welcome, this pandemic is not welcome either. While having cancer completely sucked, now it is 3 years later and my life has evolved where I teach yoga to people with injuries and other health issues. My personal health issues has allow me to heal others. The river of change led me to a positive result but I had to wind around many rocks to get here.

So my advice is, see the positive where you can while we ride this out. Enjoy the time at home by reading the books you never have time for, spring clean the house, dive into a craft project, cook the meals you have been too busy to make, and cherish the family you get to spend more time with. Seize the opportunity of this current isolation to become more self-reflective. Reexamine your goals. Maybe it’s time to look at a new career path, different area to live, or finally start that book. You now have time to consider everything while we let this all play out.

That’s how I’m approaching it anyway, I’m immersing myself in this river of change and seeing where I float to…

Originally written March 2020 but still applicable today.

I have been writing my autobiography in one form or another since I was only twelve. I used to have a blog and this post has been migrated from it. I originally posted this in 2014 on my previous blog but I am currently working on the chapter about Haiti and this post was one of the first time writing about my experiences there… 

My father was an artist, as as such, felt that his sheer talent should merit him benefits. He took his art very seriously so he was not afraid of hard work as it related to his craft, but the idea of working a “straight” job was beneath him. Instead he would pick up projects here and there, using his most marketable skills in film making such as a cameraman, an editor, and even a sound man for short films or documentaries. Once in a while he would sell a painting but more often he just talked his way into opportunity or benefits and they rarely turned out as he expected.

I am fairly certain that the memory I am writing about in this post comes from my first trip to Haiti in 1976.

Having grown up in the Northeastern United States: New York and New England with its bluish-gray light, I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the Caribbean sun when I stepped off the plane with my father in the small airport in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Tennessee Williams describes the light perfectly in this scene from his play Suddenly, Last Summer:

It was all white outside. White hot, a blazing white hot, hot blazing white… It looked as if — as if a huge white bone had caught on fire in the sky and blazed so bright it was white and turned the sky and everything under the sky white with it!…The band of naked children pursued us up the steep white street in the sun that was like a great white bone of a giant beast that had caught on fire in the sky!”

— Tennessee Williams, Suddenly, Last Summer

This quote expresses beautifully the intensity of the light and also the need, the pursuit of the people. The “band of naked children” were not at the airport but they were near us as soon as we went to our guesthouse. Everywhere we went we were pursued but, unlike Sebastian in Williams’ play, this pursuit meant us no harm. The intensity, however, was there as the perpetual group of children followed, stared, smiled, jeered, laughed, chattered and touched us, seeming to want to consume us. When one child got outside of his permitted range, he or she would drop back and return home but more children were always joining. Our followers were like an organism which constantly recycled itself with fresh blood. We were never alone.

When we went to Haiti we settled in. Even our first visit of 6 weeks was long enough to make this foreign place a home for a while. Our routine was to get a late breakfast at the guesthouse (which was really a gentrified bordello), hang out by the pool where I would dive for pennies and my father would mooch on the girls or talk up the other guests to see if he could get something out of them. Then, after lunch, my father would paint on the roof, cocktail in hand, until sundown. At night he would often go out, leaving me with one of the girls who would babysit me until a customer came. Once in a while I went with him to the nightclubs and bars he would frequent.

My father considered himself somewhat of a celebrity in Haiti because he had been traveling there so long. In 1955 he was the only white person in the “Carnaval” and was protected by several tonton macoutes armed with machine guns.

Truth be told, my father’s history, experience and knowledge of Haiti was quite impressive, perfect for convincing the innocent tourist that their visit to Haiti would be so much more memorable if my father took them on a private excursion. Thus was my father’s angle, not without merit, and he tried it on all the tourists he could.
Most of the tourist were French Canadians who were there for the rum and the girls. They could care less about seeing the “real” Haiti so my father’s pitch had no sway. But the black Americans who often came to Haiti to connect with their African heritage, well, they were easy fodder. One such gentleman, whose name is long gone from my memory bank if I ever even knew it, signed up for a trip into the interior, guided by my father.
What I remember most about him was his size, his sheer girth as compared to the tiny compact car he rented to travel in. I was 9 at the time, and quite tiny myself, so you can imagine how small the car must have been.
As the financier of the trip, the gentlemen insisted on driving the car himself, which, upon entering, sank several inches lower from the weight. My father took the front passenger seat and I squeezed into the back. I don’t remember much about the trip except that it was supposed to be a day trip but somewhere along the way we must have taken a wrong turn. Once we got off the main road, which was at the start of the trip, all the roads were dirt. That year it had been very dry so everything was dust. So it easy to understand how we could have turned on what appeared to be a road and found out too late that it was really a dried out riverbed. Dusk was rapidly approaching when we realized we were most absolutely lost.

The sun hid from view and suddenly, because it did feel sudden, the sky burst into red and orange like a dying flame and then, just a quickly we were thrust into utter darkness with no candle, no flicker, no distant lamplight…nothing to comfort us. Like a guillotine — swift and painless — night was upon us and there we were, in the pitch black, lost in the jungle, for that is were we were for all intensive purposes — far from a town or any type of civilization, far from any sort of power grid, surrounded by lush greenery growing out of dry dirt.

Black as a color of paint is the combination of all colors, it is an amalgamation of everything that came before it, but black as a color of light is nothingness, it is the absence of light — it is a void. That is what I felt then, the void, the absence, and the terror that comes with it.

The night came right after we realized we were hopelessly off course but before we could correct our journey. So once the darkness came, it made the possibility of finding our way home that night that much less likely. As we drove along the dried out riverbed the way was filled with holes and bumps, not unexpected in a riverbed but quite unwelcome on a road. The car was low to the ground and with our weight it sank even lower. Soon we heard the scrapes of rock against the metal bottom of the car as we tried to find our way. We had to lighten our load. The logical choice would have been for the trip “sponsor” to remove himself from the vehicle, being that he was the far heaviest passenger. But, because he had, in fact, sponsored the trip, he did not feel he should have to leave the vehicle, regardless of logic, so my father and I stepped out of the car, into the darkness, and began to walk with only the headlights to guide us. Still, the car scraped the river bottom and the car inched forward, scrape after scrape, until finally our sponsor realized the inevitable, that he needed to leave the car as well.

Night in the jungle has an intensity of blackness that is in direct contrast with the white intensity of the daytime sun. For those of us who are used to electric lights, we don’t realize the full power of the night until we are away from all light.

So finally the car would go no more, the riverbed was too bumpy, and we had no way of knowing how to get to a real road now that it was dark. Now ee were all out of the car in the hope that we hadn’t damaged the car to the point that it couldn’t take us home in the the morning. But what do we do until then I remember thinking, in the total darkness. We were standing outside on the dry riverbed with the car now turned off and we felt so alone, I felt so alone. It was then we realized that we were not alone at all.

In the bushes we saw rows of eyes, just the whites of the eyes as the faces were all covered in darkness. I do not know how long they had been standing there. We never heard them approach.

There was a row of bushes along the riverbed and there were at least 20 people, mostly kids, all standing there, perfectly silent, watching us. Night comes so quickly there that it is easy to get confused about the time. It felt like it was deep in the night but it was really just after sunset, about 8 p.m. so everyone was still up. When they realized we had seen them it broke the spell and several of them began to laugh and smile. Then I could see white teeth along with white eyes. Floating faces in the darkness.

With the laughter the fear faded. We realized that the kids were more scared of us which is why they stared silently. Their black faces melted into the dark but they meant us no harm. Soon the adults came up to talk to us in rapid Creole which my father only understood a little bit. It was established that neither party was intending harm to the other and that, yes, we were quite lost and there was no solution until dark. They offered us food and the adults some clairin.

I must have fallen asleep because I don’t remember more until the morning when we headed out. Walking behind, our heavy host drove the car down the riverbed, avoiding the rocks that could be avoided. Finally we found an entrance to a road and headed home in the early light.

This was my first adventure I remember from Haiti.

*Photo by David X Young

when a poem beckons
i feel its rumble
like a far distant train
reminding me
of its arrival

i cannot invoke
without its blessing
as inspiration
is a fickle mistress
which loves to tease
then flee

so i wait
as the words collide
like atoms seeking
to form molecules
unbeknownst to me
until they form
a feeling that
must be written down

12.25.21

As the new year of 2022 approaches, I do what many do at this time, this milestone, which is to think back on the year past and set my intentions for the coming year. 2021 marked a return to writing for me after a long absence. The year approaching will mark my third year writing my book, but I took almost a year off during the pandemic. While most would think that a pandemic, where you are forced to stay inside, would be the perfect time to write, but for me it was the opposite. This was not because of stress. Of course the pandemic was a stressful time. So much was unknown and the news kept revising, getting more terrifying. But no, that was not the reason. I don’t consider myself a fearful person and honestly, when my time comes, I will accept it. The reason I couldn’t write was because I had a calling that moved me to action. I realized in March 2020 that I had the materials and the means to make face masks at a time when they were critically needed. So I did. I dropped everything and turned one room in my house into a sewing factory. I donated about 150 masks locally, organized a group of over 100 sewers to make masks and gowns for the community. The demand was so high that I also started selling masks, while still donating some too, and the money I made from the masks carried me through the pandemic economically, at a time when my other sources of income had ceased.

Once I heard the calling, it was like I connected to a stream of good fortune and in the spring of 2021, I received a settlement from the Victims Compensation Fund as a result of being present for 9/11 and then getting breast cancer nearly 20 years later (all healthy now). I had been working on the application for VCF for nearly 2 years and had no expectation as to when it would be decided so the settlement was a pleasant surprise to say the least. Then I set to work to find a house to buy, a long time goal of mine. At first it was very disappointing. I live on a small, beautiful island off the coast of Florida, right near the Georgia border. I wanted to stay on the island, but property prices were high. The settlement was enough for a sizable downpayment but not an outright purchase. No bank would lend me money because I’m self employed with low income. I was in a catch-22. At first I was so frustrated and disappointed, thinking that I couldn’t, after all, get a home where I wanted. I wasn’t concerned about anything fancy, I just wanted a home that was big enough for me and my children and ideally, had room for a pool.

After feeling sorry for myself for a bit, I released my frustration and embraced gratitude, trying to fully appreciate how lucky I was to have any money for a house. That’s when the idea of looking for alternative financing occurred to me and during that search is when I met the woman I purchased my house from. She was a friend of a friend, used to work in banking, and had been purchasing homes throughout her life as insurance for her retirement. She was willing to finance a home for me, but not only that, she had a property that she hadn’t put on the market yet that I might be interested in. I immediately went to look at it. It was a 3 bedroom home, on the island, with a big yard and a POOL. I wanted it and she felt like the house was meant to be mine. Now, here I am. I moved in during August of 2020 and the home has proven to be part of the stream of good fortune. Every big expense has been offset by unexpected opportunities.

The house is wonderful, and I feel blessed, but it was so much to deal with at first. By then the masks were not in high demand anymore so I turned my energy into the move. The house had been built in 1990 and needed a lot of updating. But more than that, it had been rented out for 10 years and vacant for 3. There was a lot to fix and replace. On top of that, I had “minor” surgery in September, to help me walk better, but it turned out to not be so minor after all. I had a boot on my right leg for about 6 weeks when I was given the impression it would only be a week. Also, after the surgery, they wrapped the ace bandage on my foot way too tight. I didn’t realize that, I just started experiencing immense pain which didn’t let me sleep except for 10-15 minutes at a time. I called the doctor about it 4 times and I was just told to ice it, no one suggested that it might be the bandage. By the time they removed my bandage, 2 weeks after surgery, my foot had turned purple and was mostly numb. It took months to return to full feeling.

Then, I was supposed to get physical therapy after the boot was removed, but due to insurance and lost referrals, it took 7 months to actually start getting the therapy. Meanwhile, I was walking way worse than before I had the surgery and the pain was stronger. If I had known the true recovery of the surgery, I would not have had it the month after I moved into my house. It was utterly exhausting. So that brings me to this time last year. Christmas was much smaller. The house was the big present. I was happy but overwhelmed.

Slowly I started to feel better and move more. During 2021 I finally was ready to return to my book. I am now about 75% done. I have written the hardest chapters. I’m now at the part where my life begins to have a glimpse of some freedom and autonomy. It’s a less draining place to write from. 2021 also marked a shift in direction for me as I explored more pure creativity. My home has space for a small studio where I store all my arts and craft materials. It is my happy place.

So what do I want for the coming year? I want to finish my book, at least to the point of pure editing. I want to reach a place of pause with my home. I did a lot this year and it has taken much time and money. I want to enjoy it next year — entertain, laugh, dance in the moonlight. I want to come to a greater acceptance of my creativity and artistic expression. I want to make the art that I’ve never allowed myself the time. It’s my form of self care.

Those are my intentions. Do you have yours?

i bleed the words
that scar the page
with the pressure
of my pen
wounds the speak
when words refuse
to be heard
aloud.
they are marks
of love and
more often pain
which spill in ink
like the fresh gush
of a small cut
too minor for concern
yet still flowing
like a slender rivulet
of emotion.

12.26.21

Today marks the 20th anniversary of 9/11. I was there, just over a mile away on the corner of Canal and Church Street. I saw the whole drama unfold. Every year I share this poem I wrote which I’ve pasted at the end of this post. Normally I just share the poem but this year, since I’ve been writing so much, I thought I’d share a little more.

I was in NYC because my father had passed away a few months before. As his only child I had a lot to deal with his estate. It was a mess. I lingered in NYC to deal with the estate but also because I had missed New York, missed the energy of the city. I had avoided the city for years because my relationship with my father was so complicated. Being in the same city, even one as large as NYC was too much for me. Now he was gone and I couldn’t decide what I wanted.

The morning of September 11, 2001 I awoke to see the smoke pouring out of one tower. At first I thought it was a prank but soon realized it was real. Naturally I just thought it was an accident. I called my mother in Florida. It hadn’t hit the news yet. While on the phone with her, I saw the second plane hit. Then I knew it was intentional.

In retrospect, my decisions after this were not the wisest but thankfully I’m still here to share them. I got off the phone with my mother, went downstairs and around the corner to the drug store and bought a disposable camera. Then I went back up into the building and took pictures. I do remember thinking that the smart choice would have been to leave the area immediately. But despite how estranged my relationship with my father was, he had taught me the importance of documenting events and this was one hell of an event.

I stayed in the loft while both towers fell. I saw the plumes of smoke and then people running up the street towards my building. Many covered in ash.

I communicated with my brother who lived uptown. We managed to meet on Broadway. I walked north and after he caught a cab partway, he walked south. I’m still amazed we found each other.

After 9/11 my decision was clear. I didn’t want to stay in NY but it took months to pack up the loft and exit the city.

In 2017 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My doctors were mystified by how the cancer behaved because I had three separate tumors yet the cancer had not reached my lymph nodes. What that means in non medical terms is that cancer developed independently in three different places. That is very unusual. So the doctors did lots of genetic tests but all came back negative.

Having cancer was intense for obvious reasons but for me specifically, it put me back into the medical system, one that I had avoided for so long. After spending my childhood in the hospital, I didn’t want to have anything to do with doctors if I could help it. I experienced tremendous PTSD from being back in the medical system and as a result I decided to file for disability.

I have been disabled my whole life but never sought disability. I preferred to prove I could do things on my own. But the cancer was the tipping point. So, I started my disability application. I was advised to include anything of importance. I mentioned to the advisor that I was present for 9/11 and was told to definitely include that.

I had been registered with the World Trade Center Health Registry for years. Every year they would send me a survey asking me how I felt about things. Did I have nightmares or anything like that. To be honest I did not. I had experienced so many traumatic events that 9/11 was just the most global but not the most personally traumatic for me. Still, I would fill out the surveys and send them back.

I figured I had the WTC Health Registry paperwork somewhere but it was easier to just Google it which is what I did. The first link to pop up was for a lawyer site. I clicked on it. A big question asked “Were you in the exposure zone?” which I already knew I was. Then I scrolled down. The site stated “68 Cancers have been linked to 9/11” and I was intrigued. I scrolled down more to see the list of cancers. Breast Cancer was #4. Then it hit me. That’s why my cancer was so weird because I got it from my exposure on that day.

I called the lawyers and explained everything. They told me that my story of how my cancer behaved was very common in these cases. Now I had confirmation.

The real PTSD then came when I connected the dots. I had cancer because of 9/11 and the reason I was in NYC was because of my father, the same man that I had a traumatic relationship with. It was like a row of dominos that collapsed all at once.

Now I’m in the process of writing a book about my life. The book begins with that fateful day. Here is the poem I wrote about that day 20 years ago.

september eleven

rousing to a sonic boom
i confuse it with the daily rumble
of the traffic on canal
emerging from the holland tunnel

myself, wrapped in bedcovers warm
rolled, regarding window view
twin towers in their testament
of global commerce gone askew

8:45, eyes still blurred
drugged down from dark and dreamful sleep
could not process what i saw
a burning gash five miles deep

i measured it with my mind
mangled steel and depth of flame
smoke blackening bluish sky
the plane had hit with deadly aim

steadily, it conquered me
that my eyes were seeing true
before i could digest it in
came the crash, plane number two

witnessing, i saw the scene
plane flew in, direct impact
bedroom window was the frame
drama of destructive act

all alone i had no choice
terror tried to possess
so i shoved it deep inside
found a mask for my distress

i felt the tension lodge in me
grappling with what to do
bore down upon my shoulders
bruising in the black and blue

the towers were my nightlight
companion to my daily rest
an anchor to the city
a constant in my lonely quest

death summoned me to this place
my father died, left the task
to comprehend a lifetime
and free the demons of the past

now, death comes for many more
their screams too far away to hear
but close enough to breathe the ash
like baby powder in the air

soon came one, then the other
each tower shook and shivered
concrete compressing all inside
panic spread, a flooding river

stunned by the unfolding
crisis that was far too near
some distance from the trauma
i needed to get out of here

my brother calls in tearful voice
end to end we were not close
we made a plan to connect
i’d walk north, he’d walk south

up broadway i trod along
my legs already aching
uncertain of what transpired
and what i’d undertaken

i passed impromptu gatherings
standing by a radio
eager for some scrap of news
full of fear, the unknown

some were wearing gas masks
fleeing from the concrete crush
proof of their survival
bandages and fine white dust

fearing i could not progress
but barely walked far at all
i pause to restore my strength
then i hear my brother’s call

united now we had the will
to make it through this dreadful day
even though we were unclear
of how we’d travel all the way

six mile trek remained ahead
city now could not assist
public transport all shut down
only choice was to persist

we walked the sum of forty blocks
police had speakers blaring
“it is not safe, please go north”
some listened, some uncaring

yellow-orange caught my eye
the glow of flames ascending
panic gripped but fear was false
just sausage cooking unattended

feeling foolish i turned away
yet still there was the tension
phantom perils taunted me
a global apprehension

i saw it in their faces
and felt it in the dusty air
new yorkers had been broken
yet, were not beyond repair

when we finally took a rest
we stopped to call our mother
to let her know we were safe
and we’d found each other

“ask upon your guardian
angels” she told each of us
they will guide you safely home
know in them, place your trust

out of options to explore.
decided to give luck a try
hitch a ride to home uptown
right away someone came by

we thanked our angels deeply
praised the mom we found so wise
because just like she told us
ask, solutions will arise

delivered near my brother’s
home a few blocks away
soon we were sheltered safe
finally could release the day

inside, t.v. insisted
to replay the cradle fall
drilling in the danger
of a time beyond recall

i’ve never felt fear before
breathe moist upon my neck
paralyze me with the world
not know what to expect

i’m grateful that i still exist
i mourn for those who perished
i’ll testify each day i live
is one i’ll always cherish