Once upon a time ago, we had no computers, no cell phones, no devices devices devices and we used to read and  sit around the table every night for dinner and dig up the dandelions in the front yard for twenty five cents an hour. And during those times, the elders would say, “I remember when I walked five miles to get to school, rain or shine! No one had a car! And if we wanted too read, we went to the library, because we didn’t own our books! And to take a train into the city was a BIG treat”.  Tucked into the folds of each sharing is the notion that ‘It was better then, our lives had soul.’

Oh pooh! Our lives had no more soul then than they do now! It is true that technologically we have a mega dose of highly distracting options, but our minds have always created their own distractions, forever and ever. It is up to each of us to develop an ongoing relationship with our minds, an awareness and respect that incorporates  ‘Shhhhhhhhhhhh, I love you, mind, but I’m busy being here right now, please be still …..thank you.’ into our daily lives.

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This is the same earth on which, and my body no different in its humanness than, the thousands of grieving, mis-placed, deeply wounded people of the Philippine Islands. I kept my eyes closed and thought of this and the words of St. Exupery ‘What I went through, no animal would go through’.

Our humanness….excruciating and wondrous.

May we all together, go into our hearts and send them up, out and over there. These people need our love and support.

Every morning for this entire holy season that is approaching, let’s do this!

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Being taken to one’s knees brings the conscious and subconscious together in ways that are otherwise  not possible. What is it about being in dyer distress that propels clarity? When illness, pain or loss land in one’s lap, ultimate truth blinks back.  

Whenever we see blurbs on tv immediately after a natural disaster, the common response to microphone in face is ‘We have each other’ or ‘The important thing is that my loved ones are safe’,  and then the surge of the masses come help.

The agonies and loss of those in need touch us with life in its purest form and we see, face to face, what is real and essential, and this is true of ourselves, as well.  Our yearnings, our courage, and our faith  rise to the surface and we are all one.  Everyone sees and feels and recognizes truth and spirit in these moments and it is here that we know what being human is all about…it is about reaching out and holding hands. It is about giving and receiving.

What if it is oneself that is in crisis? What then? The same and more so. Once one has walked these walks of fire, and embraced the lessons of patience and surrender while the pain is burning deeply, compassion is ignited in a new way. All that one sees is the plight of being human and the immediate recognition of others’ trials becomes the lens through which one filters everything. 

Extending one’s heart and sharing a moment of recognition is the most beautiful gift.

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That is the truth. Together, for ten years, we have ridden this horse. For almost five years we have been without a home, which is challenging to say the least, to creativity, focus, optimism and faith. To say this has been an incredible chapter is to say that when one sticks one’s hand in a flame ‘it hurts a little’…this chapter is beyond description and will take years to assimilate. I have been coaxed by friends to ‘let ‘er rip’ in the truth department…’share the agonies of despair and disappointment and struggle and the sorrow in the abandonment of friends,  PLEASE!’. I cannot. They are there, but for me, what is on top is gratitude, and so from this place I write.

For ten years, my husband and I were either conserving our pennies or had none and so for ten years we have not celebrated our anniversary, birthdays or Christmas. Yesterday with a swift swish swish swish of my light sabor, I commanded my husband to come with me to the rooftop lounge of the Erwin Hotel in Venice and observe our kingdom together, with marguerita and fizzy water in hand, and toast the next ten years, wherever they may lead us!

And we did. With joy and a hint of hilarity, as there is NO ONE who knows this kingdom as intimately as we….having walked and walked and slept and slogged, so many corners of Venice, Santa Monica, and greater LA!

To the next ten years! TO DREAMS!!!!!!!!! And knowing.

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It’s taken me awhile to be able to write about this. What is there to say? What part of the human heart doesn’t flood with tears and upset over this degree of selfish unconsciousness?

Several years ago, while still living in the blue house, I attended a personal growth program for two weeks, and one of the required exercises was to not eat for three days and then go out into the world (upscale Santa Monica in this case) weak and wearing sweat pants, tee shirt, no make-up, no wallet for a whole day.  The only words that you were allowed to speak to anyone were ‘I’m hungry’ or ‘Will you feed me?’ This was an incredible sobering experience. In one afternoon….one afternoon out of a lifetime of ‘other’ for most….we discovered the courage that it took to ask this question, the humility experienced to appear less than, the ego lessons around not being able to defend our apparent helplessness,  the kindness and willingness of strangers to help and the cellular realization and gift in knowing ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ with those in true need, and let us never turn a blind eye or deaf ear again.

Again, w

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When I began writing ‘Homeless Mountain’ last December, I was not in that place of anguish any more. I was, for the first time, seeing light in a very strange tunnel that had become my residence, because roofs were showing up more regularly and providing time out, solace, space to breathe and the ability to see and feel…

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As my parents were humanitarians, and forever passionately involved in world affairs, my memories, as a teen-ager in the 60’s were very centered on the woes of the planet.  I would often wake to the aroma of Thomas’ English Muffins toasting in the kitchen and the sound of the radio news as background to the clinking of knives and forks. I knew that I would find my dad sitting with his head held between his hands and my mom’s face screwed up with concern, and hushed tones while they listened with every fiber and emotion available. It created a space of  effortful breath.

The world has forever been in crisis somewhere, but along with this reality, we humans have the responsibility to life to drink in sweetness and allow the space for wonder and delight. We must. God created music and nature and friendship and laughter and children and animals and art and story-telling and dance and gladioli all to touch our souls with delight so that we could and can remember, every moment, while not turning away from our soul knowing of the agonies,  that joy is our home. Joy is where we all came from. Joy is our center.

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On Saturday, Luciana and I cruised up PCH, past surfers and sea gulls,  to Sunset Boulevard where we entered the gates of the Self Realization Gardens. We were officially on a swan quest, as, with great excitement,  we had been discussing The Ugly Duckling, and I wanted to show her, in person, the giant white ducks with long graceful necks. This was our mission, and, I thought, I can shower her sponging brain with a few more flower names…begonias and lobelia just for starters! Yes, Mom, I can’t help myself! You live on in so many ways!

The moment we set feet on the path that leads to the lake where the swans were supposed to be, we, together fell under the spell of quiet. Without being told, Luciana whispered, ‘A path. Luciana will find the Gruffalo’, and she headed off, practically on tiptoes. We passed by little sets of stairs that led to enclaves of benches occupied by people meditating and then we happened on three empty benches, on the shore of the lake, with fish and swan mosaics inlaid. Luciana was enchanted and studied each one, telling quiet stories, oblivious of me, of the fishes having meetings and the swans not having to be gray and fuzzy any more. And then  she looked up and way across the lake, spied two swans sitting in the grasses. I can only think, that had we been anywhere else, as a two year old, she would have jumped up and down or begged for bread crumbs or s-o-m-e-t-h-i-n-g. But the spell of divine stillness was everywhere, she walked to the edge of the lake, stood and watched. The swans lifted their heads, looked right at us, slipped into the water and swam towards us. Luciana said, under her breath, ‘They’re coming’. And they did.

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A few days ago I overheard a conversation in a Santa Monica coffee shop about a solar project in the desert that has required the re-location of thousands of desert tortoises, and their resulting demise. I had not known that tortoises are creatures of intense connection to routine and familiar surroundings. When these tortoises are re-located, their homing instinct fires up and they are driven to return home. They will wander endlessly, trying to circumvent barriers, exhausting and dehydrating themselves and in their determination be unaware of predators.  In addition to this, they have their own language and communicate through head bobbing. They recognize each other and exhibit clear signs of happiness.

I felt a wash of sorrow and joy and knowing and re-connection to Mo. Ahhhhhh. We had become each others’ home for real, he wasn’t just there for me. I knew it. I was laughed at, during my entire childhood, for sharing how we communicated though his nods and how he needed me.

And now my soul’s attention turns towards the thousands who are being uprooted and discarded in the name of progress. Be brave all of you! Find your loves and create new homes! The world is topsy turvy right now and we all need to stay focused on what is important! Stay alive! And Love!

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Margaret had been a potter, a triathlon athlete and the mother of two tiny boys when her first blasting head-ache struck on a family outing to see spring tulips in Washington state. She was 36. For the next two years I flew from Charleston to Seattle, leaving my own daughters with friends, for the two weeks out of every month that her chemo was tough or surgeries were scheduled.

Margaret, Margaret, my little sister, whose rage at being left in boarding school as a little girl resulted in a deeper connection and trust in animals than in humans.  Her passion for horses morphed into one for  whales, when she moved through her teens and twenties into her thirties.

Margaret and I had had a history of ships. When she was 5 and I was 7, we sailed across the ocean together, with our family to India. The beginning of a chapter that fed my soul while it represented pain for her. The one flower that grew from her feelings of parental abandonment was our relationship. I became Margaret’s mother protector in boarding school, as she was constantly getting sick and having to be in isolation in the infirmary. I was a master at sneaking in chocolates and getting her ‘freed’.

And now here we were, on the deck of a ship at dawn, Margaret snuggled in a blanket in her wheel chair, while I rolled her around and around, both of us peering out to the sea to spot a whale.

On August 10th, the ship docked. We sat on the floor together, waiting for her ride back to Seattle and my flight to Charleston. She was done. We held hands and she said to me “I can’t do this any more. I’m going to stop eating”. I said “I know”. She said “Good-bye”.  And I said “Good-bye”. And her husband appeared to drive her home.

Margaret went into hospice a few days later and passed on the 21st.

We never did see a whale, but every time I see one now, I can see her beautiful face and I know that she is bicycling up mountains and swimming and running and eating almond rocha and loving her boys, as the vibrant men that they are.  And on this August 6th, I know that every whale on the planet is diving and leaping for her.

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As a girl, when my family was not in India, we spent every summer enveloped in the beauty of northern Michigan dunes and woods, on the banks of magnificent, heavenly Lake Michigan.  There,  an assembly of families gathered together,  to concoct all kinds of activities to enhance the family experience outside of nature and hence, the yearly children’s operetta!

The summer that I was ten, the family had come back to the states for a few months and so, as I had been corralled into singing in the Sunday choir, I was asked to audition for the show. During the rehearsal period, my sweetest, cutest friend was a beautiful, wide-eyed, adorable spirit named Julia. Julia was to play Mistress Moon and I was to be Mother Nature. We each had a solo, she, in a dreamy moony costume, while I,  all in white, with Queen Ann’s Lace and other wild flowers crowning and draping me.

My solo told the story of a snowman and his relationship with the sun. It had many verses and was very very long.  As I stepped forward to sing, feeling confident and true to the story, one of the pansies in the chorus behind me bit another pansy and the background garden hoopla instantly became center stage. The audience roared with laughter, and I, feeling that the song really wasn’t very funny, but surrendering to their choice in humor, kept singing. When the curtain came down I received a standing ovation. 

It tickles me to see how historically this is my role! I stand and sing, committed to every word, while behind and all around me chaos reigns. I sing. I am committed. I love my song.

Julia lives in LA now, and because of Melanie we have found each other again. She and I have resumed our roles. She is  bright and adorable and a brilliant writer, and when I look into her eyes, time does not exist. Just now I received an email from her, as she and her family are in Michigan for the month. Every summer she goes and fills my mind’s eyes with visions of birch trees blowing in the wind and the waves washing up to reveal petoskey stones. Last night was ‘history night’ and photos from every operetta that ever was, were displayed, and she found us! She said that she had to use a magnifying glass to see the faces, but there we were!

Mistress Moon and Mother Nature meet for tea as often as possible and chatter about writing and our children and grand children with impish delight.

Every second is precious, isn’t it? Every whisper, every tale. 

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Several weeks ago,  one of my earth angel friends, offered me the use of her car for three months as she was going to be flying east on an adventure of her own. My heart and head almost exploded with relief and joy. This, joined by another, sister of my heart’s offer to live in her cottage, for the exact same three months, was a sign to me that my life was about to change. Every seed that I had been planting, watering, loving in the name of financial freedom and creative abundance was in actual earthly form being realized. Every day my energy danced and my brain made lists of all of those doors, put on hold, that required my physical freedom to open.

The day was to be today. And the day before yesterday, a miracle in my friend’s life popped forth, and she needed to cancel her travel plans and stay put.

Yin and yang, alpha and omega, in the beginning..and then the end, the cyclone of emotions, beginning with a searing pain for myself,  and joy for her,  through my tears and inability to swallow.

And so. After two days of re-grouping, as the cottage will not work without a car, I am still here! I do not hold by the ‘what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger’, I simply know that God has a plan, I have a plan, they, we, are the same, the timing is a challenge,  I am weary,  my knowing is forever and today is spectacularly beautiful.

And there are many baskets…there are many eggs….in life.

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Several months ago, red robe was showing signs of dilapidation that weren’t in alignment with previous robes’ lives and so I sought to check in at the store where I bought it to see if this was normal.  An expedition to the store led me to another sigh of ‘Oh my, more changes since those years when I used to actually shop!’ as the store was gone and in its place was a baby and toddler version of the same company. As I left this wonderland of bedroom paraphernalia for children, I peripherally caught sight of a row of tiny fluffy robes, exactly like my own. I investigated. My heart leapt and laughed at the thought of Luciana and her very own robe! Soft blues and lavendars and pink! The price was too high. Ahhhh, okay. Way way out of sight for my life right now, but I would  wait and see and not forget.

A few weeks ago I had an appointment which landed me in the very same  garage that I had parked in on my robe mission.  I could not resist checking in on the robes, to see if they still existed.  There they were, on a half price sale and a pink one in Luciana’s size sitting right in front. I asked the sales woman to hold it for me, which she could only do for one day during the sale. I could  not afford this in any way, and even if I could, needed to be still with the notion.  I climbed the stairs of the garage, imagining Luciana, and then, there on the very top step, was a twenty dollar bill. Oh!  Thank you angels and thank you, God!

And so, for these weeks between the angel intervention and Luciana’s birthday, yesterday, Luciana and I have been discussing the fact that one day she might have her very own robe. One day when she’s a little bit bigger! Wonder and delight pass over her eyes at the mention and then yesterday, in a big box, yes!
I will never forget the moment that Luciana realized what this soft fluffy thing in the fancy box with the satin bow was. She stopped breathing, silently put it on over her dress and with feelings too overwhelming to socialize, she went to find her pile of books and made herself at home.

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I can see my home in my mind’s eye. I see the soft green rugs in the living room and. my moss green velvet love seat next to my elephant table next to the blue velvet chair next to the carved rosewood trunk next to my grandmother’s Venetian table. Golden light and soft winds ruffle the curtains, Leonard Cohen is playing and Luciana and Obie are rolling around on the floor. I’m getting ready to make brandy snaps and the syrups are bubbling. A few papers, that were sitting next to my computer blow off the table and Luciana jumps up  “Mahwah! Papers are blowing!” Obie watches her sleepily and then closes his eyes as she brings them to me.

What is going on in my brain? What is going on with my meetings this week? Suddenly, after nine years of trying to be seen and heard in LA, around my scripts, there is a shift. The dream that was the first link in the chain that led me to this journey of no home has been alive and well the whole time. There have been times when it had to be hushed because immediate survival needed to take precedence, but it always burned and danced inside of me, always.  The words of Joseph Campbell have rung and sung to me through-out:

“One thing that comes out of myths is that at the bottom of the abyss comes the voice of salvation. The black moment is the moment when the real message of transformation is going to home. At the darkest moment comes the light.” 

My stories come from my life, from my womb. I can only write what I have lived. I needed to live these years without home, because I was chosen to write about it. The time is coming for the next story to begin, as this one is completed. I will walk way from this chapter with phenomenally powerful vibrations.  Any experience where God gives one the opportunity to look oneself in the eye, stripped down, bare,  and then be required to stand there and live from there, is the most divine of all gifts.  I will exit this chapter with sacred respect, gratitude and love.

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Time. There really isn’t such a thing in my world, but what there is, is peace, surrender, gratitude, joy and love. Lifetimes ago, my first husband and I went on a vacation and were joined by several of his friends, midway.  I had tucked  Joyce Carol Oates’ book “Do With Me What You Will” into my bag to read, just in case the men got to cavorting and I wanted a time out.  I remember being buried in the intensity of this writing while the title brought jokes and whoopla to the group. I had been transported into a serious, complicated world and wanted to honor it, and felt irritated by the poking fun. My being participated so fully in the entire experience that here, decades later,  the phrase, ‘Do with me what you will’ frequently flits into mind with humor and head shaking. Little did I know it would become the first mantra of surrender on this journey. And now? Breathe and chill. Breathe and chill. Breathe and chill, but I love ‘Do with me what you will’ with arms open to the sky.

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Luciana will be two this month and Melanie is carrying her little brother or sister.

Circles, universe rhythms, LIFE. Is it not wondrous? Thank you little berry, I shall not pick you, I shall wait and let Luciana, Strawberry Princess, discover you!

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I have adored this period of  peace where ‘everything works easily’ with my body. And now, shoulders back and time to choreograph a new dance in handling a new set of variables, while being ever present with my soul needs.

Our bodies truly are temples for the soul, and though tending to them is an honor and a pleasure, should there be a need for a vast overhaul, it behooves one to remember that the soul’s life is still vibrantly its own and in tact.  Forever and ever amen!

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Every single time that I am asked or approached, an imp inside of me wants to say “Whoa…little do you know who it is you are asking for a hand-out from!”. And isn’t that the truth for all of us? Based on appearances, it’s easy to formulate assumptions.  Others seem to have at least some of what we think we’d like. Happiness, love, strength, rest, beauty, wealth, dream careers, travel…but inhabiting the shoes of the objectified person could very well flip one on one’s head. How one appears and what’s going on is most likely only in a hint of alignment. 

On the other side of things, several years ago, I attended a spiritual school where one of the exercises involved not eating for a day (or was it two?) and then, when feeling very weak and vulnerable and hungry, being asked to go out into the streets and the only thing that one could say was ‘I’m hungry will you feed me?’.  Not until this exercise did I grasp the full scope of the courage and difficulty, (this time not challenge, d-i-f-f-i-c-u-l-t-y) in walking up to strangers, in the community where one lives, and saying this. My dignity would not allow it for the first half of the day, even though I was faint and feeling sick. And then I did it, and I was met with the most incredible kindness. The ‘thing’ is that once someone said ‘Oh, what can I get for you?’ The only words that you could say over and over were ‘I’m hungry, will you feed me?’, which meant that on top of everything else, you appeared to be mentally/emotionally challenged. Humbling and heart expanding.

Besides the fact that on weekends my pennies do find their ways into others’ pockets, a smile, a kind word, a nod is also most appreciated. Softness softens, even if just for a minute, and the return is forever.

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Julius broke his leg as a puppy, and as Hurricane Hugo destroyed its recovery, at the age of eight months he had to have a hip replacement. Two years later he rode shotgun in a U-Haul truck as we moved from Charleston, South Carolina to New York City, and as my girls grew and left home, he and I became soul-mates, room-mates, companions and protectors. Who and what would we be without our beloved four-leggeds?

Eighteen years ago, on a beautiful December  morning, Julius and I set out on our usual early morning walk around the Natural History Museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  A friend had given me a magnificent Nikon camera and I was excited at the notion of capturing my New York for posterity and fun. Julius and I fetched our morning bagel, (I ate the insides and he had the crust), then we trotted down the path to Central Park at 77th Street. There were brand new baby swans in the water with their mother and I wanted to get up close with my camera. I decided that I would escort Julius home and come back alone, as his scent might scare the goslings away. When I returned, I leaned out over the stone wall at the edge of the pond and that is the last thing that I remember.

I woke up in the hospital. The end of my attack had been witnessed by a couple strolling down from The Ramble. Apparently a group of young men had come up behind me,  smashed my head down on the wall and then kicked and kicked my mid section. It will always be a mystery as my camera was not even taken. The bottom line for this sharing, is that I was not allowed to be released from the hospital unless there was someone at home to take care of me. I filled out the paper work and was released to Julius Lora.

You came through for me so so many times and my joy-filled cells show me every day, how dear you are to me still, Julius. And we DID make it to a land of butterfly meadows and mountain grasses before you passed, just as I promised, where you dance in swirling winds forever.

Time does not exist in love. Thank you for loving me, darling creature!

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This morning I read a posting by a man who has recently been diagnosed with leukemia. My heart beat fast and I had to say to myself ‘Be still’ to absorb the exquisite expression of his words. His sharing was from a place of selflessness and intimacy. His appreciation for every being whose actions and energies now contributed to the supportive healing force in his present.  It was a testament to life, to consciousness and the beauty that is born from this.

And then, this evening, after a day of sunny light, cool winds, sharing, writing, and being,  I watched a lurching suv trying to fit into a parking space by the beach. A tiny elderly woman with a cane and crooked back, climbed out and settled on the beach wall. She sat and watched the ocean and the sky and then closed her eyes and looked as if she’d fallen asleep.

So many lives sharing this planet. So many joys and yearnings and stories of glorious life on earth. And now we all begin a new season, a new cycle together. Here we stand! All lined up holding hands! One, two three…Summer!

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I stood still, she whisked on by and I looked back at him. Our eyes met, I smiled, he smiled and we both nodded.

This reminds me of years ago, as a single mother in Charleston, South Carolina,  when I used to do therapeutic massage to make a living. I barely made ends meet but slid in under the finish line every month, never late, never one bill unpaid. More than half of my clients were affluent males. The men always chatted while I worked. They seemed to need an outlet for all of their unsaids. We women share more easily with each other than men do, and my massage seemed to allow them the luxury of sharing safely.  On many occasions they would say “I would give anything to switch places with you, you have no idea of the pressures that making lots of money creates. I have a boat, a mountain home, a beach house, my downtown lifestyle, my kids go to private school, and I never have time to enjoy any of it! I work all the time! I look at you and you’re so happy, it must be nice. It must be easy.”

We humans seem to love to imagine that living some other way would be easier than what is at the moment. Every single one of us on the planet, no matter how much money or not, no matter how divinely figured and beautiful or not, no matter how old or young, no matter how healthy or ailing, no matter how well our love relationships are working, we are all the same! 

Loving what is. Loving our lives. Loving that others cross our paths to say ‘hello’ and blessing them as they leave. And joy is born.

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We set sail, we crossed the Atlantic in a giant storm, we rented a Renault and handed the reins of our three weeks in England to Nanny, as this was her land, we waved good-bye to her when we crossed the channel into France, we got quarantined in France for a month as my sister got sick in the town of Honfleur, we drove to Switzerland and Dad yodeled from the top of the Yungfrau, we drove to Italy where the Colosseum was inhabited by wild kittens, and then we drove to Naples.

All of this took four months. Four months of the car over-heating and all of us laughing and eating yards of  french bread and pounds of cheese, four months of fields of poppies and dewy eyed cows, four months of  magnificent cathedrals and art galleries with Mom as the tour guide, four months of one brother sketching, one brother woo-ing beautiful girls, my sister and me running and playing with other children and making up stories of living in castles, four months of wonder and adventure. And then Naples.

We were going to sail on the SS Asia from Naples, through the Suez Canal and around to Bombay. On the night before we left, we were due to stay in a convent near the port. We drove into Naples in the late afternoon and in a flash, something happened that will stay with me viscerally, forever.

I saw poverty.

What was this? Who were these people? What had happened to them? Where were their clothes? How were they so dirty and thin? How could the babies be just crying and crying? Where were the kleenexes for the runny noses? And the sick looking eyes? What about the scared looking dogs? Why are the children all standing around with no parents? What was this?

The next morning when we boarded The Asia, my heart felt heavy. I was confused. A feeling of safety and lush comfort no longer existed. I watched the wake of the ship when we sailed away and wondered what India would be like.

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I have no answers. This chapter has been an incredible lesson in choosing to live in peace. If I choose to worry, there is a list ten million miles long of possibilities, but I do not choose this. We are pummeled by the media and each other to worry, to fear, to be upset. We live in a time of upheaval, but I wonder if every generation might not feel this way. After all, each of us comes into a world which is a certain way at the moment we enter and it changes during our lifetime. I wonder if each generation doesn’t feel that THIS generation is really really experiencing the world in crisis. I keep my eye and heart on the circles of energy that go beyond my physical being: family, friends, community,  country,  world,  universe and the place that I always arrive at is the place where I began. Myself. My inner garden. I must water it and sit with it and love it and keep it in order.  I am vulnerable to the intense vibrations that are throbbing all around  and  I protect myself with on-going meditative exercises all day, while being ever conscious of showing up to others.  And I’m happy. I’m at peace. And while I live in this I never let go of my dreams. Not ever.

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Sigh and yes indeed, it most certainly does.

Alright, but surely she has money, because how else does she manage?

She has exactly $22 right now and this is more than usual. She manages one day at a time, one moment at a time.  She (I) is doing her best to shift this, but the seemingly eternal puzzle is ‘How to move about and ‘do’, in order to create income, when one is without any in the first place?’  As this has been my life for  approximately 229 weeks, I have encountered many who have said, ‘But surely you can….’. Walking any walk reveals more about its truth than standing on the outside, watching.

So how does she live? How does she eat? How does she have roofs where cats are flying about and blossoms wave outside the window? How does she drive? How does she fly to New York? How does she do anything but rummage through garbage cans for food?

I’m going to digress here. Seventeen years ago I was attacked in Central Park and I was beaten severely. As a result I had a series of surgeries and half of my colon removed. When I was in the hospital, I was told that I would need to have a colostomy, and would probably never be able to eat my food and have it travel the ‘normal’ path. I refused to give permission for this procedure and have figured out how and what to eat all of these years, breaking all of the ‘rules’, with some distress, but my body and I are in close communication and we are well.

Rummaging through others’ garbage and succumbing to the expected ‘next step’ is not in my internal vocabulary. When we were evicted from the blue house by the sea, we had been spiraling down the rabbit hole for awhile. Our film deals had not come through, and our income had dried up as Norman got arthritis and could not hold his carpentry tools and I was not licensed to counsel in California. We put every ounce of imagination and strength into keeping our boat afloat and plunged into debt in the process. By the time we were forced to walk away we were burned out and penniless. We (now divorced, but continuing to share this journey) still have moments where we feel at a loss. Deep despair at times. But I will say now, what I’ve said all along, someone had to walk this walk that would talk about it. And, my destiny is my stories. I have completed four feature  scripts and am working on three new ones. I have completed a tv series and am writing my second one. I have written a series of children’s books and am writing an adult one.  I cannot stop; these stories want and need to be told. I am beginning to  meet people who can take these to the next step; getting to this place, of by-passing the guard dogs, has been a journey in itself!  One day, we will meet the people who will recognize what we have and there will be  a pop through. I know this.

So. Norman rarely has a roof, as he is Obie’s (the golden retriever) official caretaker.  Therefore Norman and Obie live in the car…which is gone. We now rent a car weekly, cheaply, and earn the dollars to pay for this, as we do to eat and bake our cookies, by doing odd jobs. We often do not have the money that we need in a moment and borrow from friends, paying it back when the next job or cookie payment comes through.

I have roofs because I house and pet sit. The word has spread throughout the land,  that I take good care of four-legged beloveds and treasures in the home, and so I move from sit to sit, and often have access to a car….but at times there is a lag in between when I sleep on a friend’s couch, sometimes for months.

How did I fly to New York and run around so happily? My daughter’s frequent flyer miles…and the generosity of friends….to support me in what was believed to be a transition, which is now aborted. Moving to New York is on hold as the circumstances have changed on the other end for it to be affordable. I have been back in LA for one month now and though my disappointment was real, I have surrendered. Obie and I walk every evening down to the end of a boardwalk on the Santa Monica beach. We look out to sea together, we talk to God, we hear His whispers in the wind, and we hold the moment, loving it and each other. 

I live in faith and trust and knowing.

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Devotion was required to be at the center of every dance. We learned a sequence, which became our ritual, to thank the earth for letting us dance on her, before we began each lesson. This particular dance form is known for its grace and tenderness and statuesque poses, but the dancer’s essence must resemble a dancing flame, this is what we were taught. Our dance was to be a celebration of the universe through the celebration of the beauty of the body. But while all of this was going on, prayer, at the very center. Prayer and surrender.

Morning is a sacred time for me and this morning sadness, for no reason, simply sorrow, disconnect and fatigue. I spoke to God, but not earnestly. I bypassed my morning rituals and told myself ‘later’.

My entire morning was filled with thoughts of defeat and uselessness.

And then I turned to music. The music of the moment was meditative Indian music that I hadn’t visited in quite awhile, and out of me, from my supremely distant past and cellular memory, dance came. My bharata natyam streamed up, through and out of me as it never has before! Did my soul conjure this because it needed to be recognized? Or because it needed to be recharged and lit? Or because I needed a serious lesson in surrender?

Yes. All three.
I bow to my lesson and gratitude overwhelms me.

Posted on May 24, 2013 by marinalumiere 

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Decades later, four, to be exact, I pulled up my east coast stakes in pursuit of a heart driven dream, and moved to California. I arrived in early spring and every morning woke up in awe of the blue skies, ocean breezes and trees dripping with avocados and lemons. And then, in mid May, to my soul’s delight and surprise, the  long lost and almost forgotten, familiar purple blossoms burst into bloom and lined street after street…and I could hear my mother’s voice ‘Look! Look!’.

My mother had had a serious stroke five years before I left New York,  and her ability to articulate was compromised, however, every morning, I called her and we spoke for an hour. She would pick up the phone and in a garbled voice, say “Good morning, Francie! How are you today?” And joy on this morning, when I said ‘Mom! You won’t believe it! Jacarandas live in LA! They’re everywhere! They’re absolutely everywhere! Close your eyes and imagine and I shall send you some right now”.  And Mom answered, in perfect diction, ‘Oh my! Thank you, my darling, they just arrived, and they are as beautiful as ever!’

It’s Jacaranda time right now…magical and real. ’Mom! Look! Look! Can you see them from up there? I’ll send you some right now!’

I can feel her smile.

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As I held his hand, (remembering being twelve and walking, holding hands beside Kodai Lake and up through the jungly woods in South India, being grateful that the sacred bulls, whose patch of grass we were going through, would surely keep their distance as he was with me),   I thanked him for choosing me to be at his side for these last 105 days in ICU. He needed to create the breaking down of his physical body so that he could join his love and partner of sixty-seven years, who had been stroked mightily for the last time nine months earlier. He, a spunky, healthy 91-year-old,  had knelt by Mom’s bedside for their final farewell on this earth, and said “My darling Janie, I cannot live without you and I will be following you very soon”. His mission was set and he held true. Mom had always said that had he lived in the age of Camelot, he would surely have been a knight of the round table.

Together my parents cliff jumped for sixty-seven years! Dad was a lawyer and Mom a professor in Des Moines; then Dad was a minister and Mom was a writer in Chicago; then they became a humanitarian team in India and Sri Lanka, working with hospitals and universities and orphanages and famine and war; then they became film makers; then Dad became involved in local politics and Mom became an editor in suburbia New York; then they both became environmentalists in northern Michigan; then Dad created a retirement community and Mom designed the apartments; and then they left this planet and got to work in heaven. I have no doubt that I will have many tales to catch up on when I join them. The word is that they’re very busy.

Happy Birthday, Mom! Happy Mom’s Birthday, Dad!

I love you.
Beyond knowing.

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This film was the nectar that drew butterflies and bees and humming and buzzing that was an energetic peek at what life on this planet could and should be about, creating.. The ‘build it and they will come’ was soul reassuringly beautiful in that the crowd that attended was a meadow full of color, texture, size, shape, heart, voice, laughter, camaraderie, intention and enthusiasm. Enthusiasm…the word comes from Latin meaning possession by a god. And there it was. In Beverly Hills. A throbbing community of people gathered from wildly different paths to be present and support an innate knowing,  simply stated by the grounding force and creator, Tess Cacciatore,  of the sponsoring organization, GWEN (Global Women’s Empowerment Network), “cooperation rather than competition”. This side step from our ego driven mainstream is all that it takes to  lift, shift, heal and open the portals to ways of uniting and growing that the planet is sobbing for.  We need to go back to the ways of indigenous cultures, where the man with the biggest pile is no longer the winner, but thought to be insane, and move forward in a new way to a world where the knee-jerk impulse to every insult, injustice and imbalance is how can I help?

What a beautiful mantra!
How can I help?

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Oh Mom! Mom! Mom! Three years ago today was your last full day on this our earth!  You told me that when your father knew that his time was coming  he had said to you “Oh Jane, I don’t want to leave this beautiful world”. You inherited his passion for life here, for beauty, for nature, for literature, for humanity and for humor.  You embodied this at the heart and soul of our family.

As a tiny seed I was brilliant to choose you as my mother. You were a giant force, hard-headed and demanding and not easy to be at peace with. Your frustrations as a huge-brained woman in the time in history that you were born, were mighty and until you were stroked and lost access to your phenomenal vocabulary and right side control, you did not slow down. Then you did. Amongst tears and angst,  and you and I embarked on our eight year chapter of beginning and ending every day with an hour long phone conversation. How can one ever doubt God’s wisdom? Our wisdom? You and I grew into best friends. Transparency, truth, intimacy and we healed all misconceptions and opened to pure love. I love you beyond time and space and earth and now. I miss your voice and laughter and your cool hands and your intense concerns and your girlie expressions and  the voids where I can hear you think and silently react. I feel you with me, especially when I blade by the sea and look up and out at the sunset and though I feel you I miss you. I wonder when we shall see each other again and I ask you now, please give me a sign that it is you, when I greet my grandchildren of the future, or babies born to friends. I love you , Mom, with my whole might!

And now, here, one of your favorites:

in Just-
spring     when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman

whistles       far       and wee

and eddieandbill come
running from marbles and
piracies and it’s
spring

when the world is puddle-wonderful 

the queer
old balloonman whistles
far       and       wee

and bettyandisbel come dancing

from hop-scotch and jump-rope and
it’s
spring

and
     the

             goat-footed

balloonMan       whistles

far

and

wee.

And so you begin your 4th year up and around wherever you are.

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On one of these outings, a client of mine spied me, flagged me down and said ‘Hey! You’re really  fast! The qualifying race for the nationals is in a month right here in Charleston, you could win! You’d be competing against eighteen-year-olds so I’ll help you get your cardiovascular up if you’re interested!”. I said ‘thank you’, skated away and thought “Never! This is part of my spiritual ritual and not something that I want to even consider!”

I slept on it even though supposedly there was nothing to think about.

By the next afternoon I was driving  to a gym to begin my training.

The 10K race was held at The Citadel and there were masses of participants. The heats were chaotic, men and women together, lining up, taking off, winners of each heat being held for further rounds.  I took my place on the starting line and the young man next to me, hyperventilating to pump himself up,  swinging his arms and drawing lots of attention, shouted out “Everyone over thirty might as well just drop out right now!” An impish me leaned over and whispered in his ear, ‘I’m old enough to be your mama and I’m going to wax your apple!”
He looked at me with a smirk.

And so yes, The race was intense. I don’t know if I’ve ever pushed myself so hard and so effortlessly at the same time, but I used every bit of might I could muster to just keep up with the herd, as this young man had inspired me, and then I hit a groove, and flew. I crossed the finish line first.  I threw up and by the end of the day I was pronounced the fastest woman in South Carolina, a rather fun title to wear.  I won Ninja Turtle gear for myself and my girls, and I was invited to the nationals in Dallas. I didn’t go. I had totally stepped outside of my image of myself and had committed full force to this event and I found out that I could be mighty if I wanted to be.
This was good to know.

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What a strange dark scenario for a new life to be ushered in by.

Once upon a time ago, my dad’s humanitarian work in India, included educating the poor to recognize scam artists and swindlers. When one is  poor, one is  vulnerable, and dangling  pots of gold in front of one’s nose is a powerful seduction.. I understand this cellularly now,  immediate survival eradicates grounded long term knowing.  This is the personal challenge and the responsibility of society.

Twenty years ago, my parents and I returned to India, as well into his 80’s, my father’s work continued. We drove out into the countryside and were greeted with smiling faces and dripping tender coconuts, just as the sun was setting. The entire village, including water buffaloes meandering in from the fields, draped around each other and sat in a circle around a fire. Then a group of college students ran into the center with hoopla and high energy bantering. They were acting out skits, demonstrating the woes and resulting demise of falling for pots of gold being offered for land, thus taking away all hopes of future livelihood.

The preying of the rich on the poor. 

The next time you see a poor person, try putting your hands together and say ‘Namaste’. This means ‘the divine in me, greets the divine in you’. And if you’re not comfortable with this, do it in your mind.

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I redeemed my first session during my first week and felt as if I’d been drugged with spring nectar, and I redeemed my second session the day before I left the city to return home.

My quest, in flying off to New York had been to achieve clarity about what to do next. I have been frozen with not knowing for so long. The lack of choice when one has no money and no base from which to operate is stifling.  This is the catch twenty-two, in order to make the moves that one needs to make, in order to shift the existential reality, one needs the very thing that one is seeking, finances. For the first time, a choice has appeared, and with it the agony of moving away from the three loves of my present world: my grand daughter, my golden retriever and my almost ex-husband.

And so when I stood up from my session and asked if there was anything that I needed to know. The answer: “Yes, you were totally clear except for some chards surrounding and coming out of your heart.”

Ah. I feel them.  I need to bring Luciana’s laughter, Obie’s softness, and Norman’s support into my heart and carry them as I step off into the unknown to guide us back into the land of home dwellers.

I wonder if this is how Frodo Baggins felt.

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I will fly back to Santa Monica next week.  I have no idea what lies ahead but I will return with filled wells. Love lives in my heart and even if I return to New York to manifest what I need to, Santa Monica feels like home to me and one day I will live by the ocean in my own little place with those that I love, furry and otherwise, all around me.

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I found a seat, alone, by a window and as I watched the land of my post India childhood, spring to life around me, with woods and grass and flowering trees and tulips, and a bright spring sky, my feelings carried me into memories where voices and images of people from years past became real and present and then! Whooosh! We pulled up into a station whose sign said ‘Metuchen’.

I gasped. And wanted to jump off the train and run as fast as I could to 36 Highland Avenue to find my family! My father’s family. My Grandpa and Grandma and the gardens and the swings and shelling peas and rose trellises and rhubarb and the dark wood banister and white lace curtains and bowl of licorice and the smell of Grandpa’s pipe and laughter and linen table cloths and a roast in the oven and new organza dresses and sneaking into the pantry and reading in the sun room and more laughter and my sister and and and and and…

My Grandpa had built this house, once upon a time, when he was vice president of Exxon. He had begun working for Standard Oil of New Jersey, Esso, when he was twelve, as  janitor, and by being fair and smart, had worked his way up to head of exports. He and my Scottish grandmother had nine children in this house, and then he was forcibly retired for not being willing to sell oil to Germany before World War 2. He devoted the remainder of his life to his family and his gardens and cooking and laughing.

My heritage and its gifts flashed before my eyes in that one brief shining moment in Metuchen, and the bliss and gratitude that it re-ignited is shining in my heart.

Thank you Grandpa and Grandma.

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Life’s human treasures.
The heart sings.
God is everywhere.

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On the corner of Lexington and 91st, in the midst of a torrential downpour, I had been standing with my green banana leaf umbrella, in a huge brown faux fur coat and my golden retriever, Julius, waiting to cross the street, as car after car splashed puddles all over me. An artist friend of mine had been sitting in the coffee shop on the corner, watching me, and unbeknownst to me, taking photos.

I was presented later with a small portrait of the event, and later, this portrait became his inspiration to use me again as a model in a painting that was an advertisement that was posted on all of the buses in New York. I could stand on any corner and watch myself fly by and say out loud ‘There I go!’ to which most New Yorkers simply thought I was another poor soul who had lost her marbles in this great city.

All of this from one memory, from one decision to take a walk! Our lives, our minds are such incredible treasure chests.

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Yesterday amidst the joggle, a young man called ‘Attention everyone!’ and though most passengers were already engaged in conversation or in their own heads, he softened his voice and said “I don’t have any talents that are marketable here, I wish I did, though I’m not sure that I’d have the nerve that all of the other guys have to sing in your faces even if I did, and I don’t have a dramatic long sad story. I simply don’t have any money. I’m trying to get a job and I’m trying to figure everything out, but in the meantime I need help. If you can help me, I’d appreciate it.”

I was moved by the honesty and courage that this little speech took. And though he went out with only one contribution to his hat, I have a feeling that he will figure things out.

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Five years later and randomly here and there, we still greet each other with this, now laughingly.

The darkness that once felt like gloom has become something else. It has become our living space, it has lost its soul stopping power, it has become our teacher.

Last week, on a walk up into the Los Angeles hills, in a moment of thrashing discomfort with ‘unknowingness’ a voice in my head said these words again. Our human walk asks for miracles, instant pop throughs into a new place of relief and new direction. Our spiritual walk recognizes that there is a choice in every second, with every breath, to experience either darkness or light. One can be in what our brains recognize as darkness, whether it is physical pain, or financial scarcity, or lost love, or plummeting career, or separation from loved ones, or crushed dreams, and on and on and choose to turn on the light. This light switch muscle, love and acceptance infused, which at first feels laborious and confusing, with practice becomes a way of being.  Darkness is looked at and honored and moved through. And so the darkest hour and dawn are fused, inside and out.

And now we breathe deeply, regularly.

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New York City.

There’s an electrifying energy that hits one between the eyes when one arrives. My challenge on this visit is to be quiet in this vibration. The temptation to thrust a hoard of ‘musts and shoulds’ onto my chaos is real.  DO SOMETHING, come up with a plan, manifest a miracle, anything at all, to pop this bubble of without homeness, please!

But my soul whispers ‘shhhhhhhhh’. And I’m listening, because in silence, answers beyond human brain knowing appear. Real answers.

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No! That fresh sparkle won’t last long out there. Someone needs to help him!

We each have our journeys. our stories, our raison d’etre. It is not the business of one of us to interfere with another’s and thus change their personal history.

However….and.

 Once upon a time in  Charleston, Peter Pan visited the stage of the Dockstreet Theater. Tinker Bell’s voice and language, in this  production, was channeled through me! Every night, as the twinkling light on stage, that was Tinker Bell, flickered while she flitted and flopped,  dying, the entire theater full of children and adults, rose to their feet clapping to bring her back to life because they believed in magic.

And so, as we speak, I hear clapping! 

Surely fairy dust is on its way to lift and protect this beautiful young man.

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Last week our suburu heaved its last sigh and needed to be towed away forever. Shock, plummeting dismay, tears, a level of hopelessness previously not experienced hit all three of us (yes, even Obie was upended)  in the solar plexis. We could not breathe.

And then we did. And we are. We have had one week of putting our minds and hearts to work at problem solving this conundrum, and though we have not come up with a solution as of this moment, hope is alive and well, breath is steady and strong, the sense of a shift is in the air, and Obie seems to be going with the flow.

Yes! March is coming in like a lion! And we are growling with appreciation for the opportunity to still be here.

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Earth is the dirt under my feet. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, it has been here forever and will be here forever, we become it, how can one walk on dirt, with consciousness and experience anything but humility?

And then there’s the other earth, the big one. And in this world of rising awareness around the God self and personal empowerment, from mystics to the masses, the ‘I am God and I can manifest anything’, where is there room for the meek and why would  anyone choose this path?

I do not know the why, but if one does nothing but listen and watch, what happens next has to do with the answer.

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Whilst peddling my cookies on the streets of Santa Monica, over a year ago,  I met and made friends with many of the small shop owners. My timing of carrying magical powers in my cookies, blended perfectly with their diminishing clientele as the economy plummeted. Yes, even in fancy upscale Santa Monica! Shop, after shop having to hover on the brink of collapse and then closing up after years of posh patronage. I symbolized a strange sort of positive light for each of them, as here I was, living their absolute worst nightmare, and smiling my way through it carrying a basket of magic cookies. The anticipation of our fears, in my humble experience, is usually far worse that the actual day by day living them. Over and over the question “How do you do it? How? How? How?”

I have no answer for this. How does one breathe? How does one survive the loss of one’s dearest love? How does one deal with cancer or surgery or or or or? I have no answers. We humans are quite amazing in the ‘tangled webs we weave’ in our little brains, and even more amazing in our will to survive and thrive and be well.  One foot moves and then the other, forward. I read once that the word ‘desire’ comes from the Latin ‘of the father’. This knowing runs through me constantly. Whether we want to know it or not, there is a spirit that dwells in these bodies of ours, that is very much ‘of the Father’ and we cannot help ourselves from going forward.

Mother, may I take one giant step? No, you may not. You may take one baby step, And then you may take one more.

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It just so happened that on Sunday afternoon, during the Super Bowl, a sunny warm day, an open gate,  and the smell of chicken wings wafting on the breeze, together beckoned our golden retriever to take a stroll. We didn’t realize that he was gone until four hours later, as we believed the gate was secure. He got lost and we tumbled into a new level of fear and heart-ache while we scrambled and tore up the town, trying to find him. We did, and now the lessons are being digested.

In my darkest dismay of Obie’s wandering, I cried to God and my angels and asked them please please do not take anything else away! Please. And in that moment, I met that knowing that we all carry:

Nothing, nothing at all, ever ever ever belongs to us, except love. Things and loved ones come and go, but the love in our hearts is there forever. Gratitude for whatever it is that is the object of one’s love is the lesson, and the willingness to let it go if it must. Attachment is not love.

And my heart swells with joy that Obie still has some time with us here on this earthwalk!

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Love.

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Usually.

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The bottom line is, thank God for McDonalds. McDonalds is known among the gypsy population, as the one place where one can use facilities, customer or not, any hour of the day.  For those that slip in to french bathe or shave at 3:00am, there is an unspoken courtesy to the next in line. If one is sick? The front of the line and as often as you need. Lately McDonalds has been teaming with bathroom patrons from midnight to dawn.

Yes, in Santa Monica.

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One winter, years ago, sitting at the breakfast table in our cozy cottage on Cape Cod, my first husband read the morning paper and there was mention of someone ‘dying of exposure’. He made light of it in wonder…what must that be like? How AWFUL! Can you IMAGINE? In this country? And off we went to take photos of a bright morning on the beach.

Yes. I can imagine.

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Even the sun appears to be living in the moment. And why not? Is not every single energetic be-ing one with the Divine? And so any and every one of us is allowed and capable of manifesting, in a flash, on a whim, a passion, dream or vision. Our human tendency to carry the crown of  ‘be small and follow the rules that are set by others’ until we fling that crown into the wind and lift the veil of ‘I’m not sure’ to YES! YES! YES!

It is spring, every day, if we so choose.

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With every bump that has presented itself on this road, there have been a bevy of gifts to follow. The greatest of these is my ever increasing soul knowing that the only absolute  guarantee for happiness lies in giving. We are each born with God-given gifts. Our job is to discover what these are and to use them. I know what mine are and my greatest desire now is to sort out the particulars of this earth walk so that my safety and survival are not my driving themes, but that touching others through stories and showing up, are. I want to work with children again! I want to work with homeless teenagers! I want my screenplays to be made into beautiful, inspiring movies! And of course I want to sit quietly in a beautiful little nest that is mine, light candles every morning and look out at the sky every evening, with joy in my heart, knowing that we are all in this world together. Truly together.

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This is a new breed of homeless. People are losing their homes and pretending that they aren’t. And no wonder, as a foggy glaze slips down over the eyes and energy of those that we tell with a “What did you do wrong?  I don’t want to catch it,  and please don’t ask anything of me”  as plain as day.

Divorce fall-out often includes a total make-over on friendships. Shared friends slide one way or the other, but ultimately often disappear altogether. The scaling down of lifestyle, a common consequence,  lowers the ceiling on social activities and again, a gradual shift off into finding those that are equals.

The community among the outed homeless is strong. In fact, without the distractions that more moneyed people delight in, the connecting quality is much more prevalent here. Also, as survival is more immediate, communities form for protection. The un-outed are isolated.  This is the clan that my husband and I fall into. They are neither here nor there with ‘who’ they are. The fact of having no income or cushion,  creates a separation from the old lifestyle, but the denial and unwillingness to be open prevents relationships with like-situation people. This added to the chaos and distress of the breaking down of the old life causes incredible depression and precarious coping skills. How to put one foot in front of the other when you have no money, no home, no health insurance, no job?

I have no idea how anyone does this without a spiritual life. Faith and hope and vision must be fed to stay alive.

The post The New Homeless appeared first on Francie's Channeled Chimes.

The feeling of isolation and hopelessness.

How can any of we humans, ever turn a blind eye or deaf ear, to someone on the street in need? Every single person has a story that brought him there, and every single one needs the blessing and boost that a kind word or supportive gesture brings.

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This a personal question that we humans all encounter when our backs are to the wall in one form or another. 

Something that I have read about and experienced, is a sucking vacuum quality to materialism that takes one away from one’s inner world. This is not an advocation of floating on lilypads and om-ing all day, but rather a rally to raise consciousness around the energy of consuming and where it takes one. 

Watching and being amongst the post Christmas sale seeking crowds on the Santa Monica promenade, one can feel the magnet and addictive power of the shopping escape. It is also an escape from quiet and seeing and hearing. 

I stood at a crosswalk, waiting for a light to change and on the other side of the street there was a cluster of homeless people asking for help. One boisterous woman, big smile, and cup in hand, was singing ‘Eeny meeny miny moe, help me help me, row row row!’ I watched for five minutes and not one person, on the run, stopped. Then someone came out from a book store, reading. He looked up when he heard her singing, smiled, spoke to her and gave her and each of her friends a coin.

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I was directed to a free clinic and so I went. I stated the nature of my emergency, but because I do not look ‘homeless’, I was suspect…I guess. I was asked to wait, sit, and fill out paper work.  I turned it in. My post office box address was unacceptable. I needed a street address.  I explained my situation and was asked to wait. My emergency could wait. I waited and waited. I was asked to bring in my tax records. I explained that I had none, as I hadn’t earned an income in the last year. Please wait. I waited and waited. Two and a half hours later I was told that I could not be helped.

I had ‘under the table’ surgery the next day, after hours, performed in a doctor’s office by a doctor who cannot be named.

My miracle, but excuse me? America?

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When you see a homeless woman, any homeless woman, do you see her? Do you look at her face? Her eyes? Her posture? Her cleanliness? Her burden? Her vulnerability?

Her vulnerability.

Thank you for looking next time.

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