I wish I knew. As a child I asked her to tell me her story. Sometimes she gave me bits and pieces, but she didn’t seem to think her story was very important. Especially if that meant talking about how she felt when she was growing up. Besides, there was always another baby in her arms needing attention. Read the rest of this entry »
I feel awkward making observations about being beaten. I don’t remember anyone talking with me about them, commiserating with me, comforting me or asking how I felt. After each beating I simply walked out of the room and right back into life. Read the rest of this entry »
I was groomed to be a victim. No one used those words, but that was the sad outcome of supposedly good intentions.
My father’s mission was to break my will. This wasn’t a secret. It was in keeping with biblical teaching as he understood it. One day he would answer to God about his efforts. I would have to answer for mine. Read the rest of this entry »
salty tide
laps against dock
marsh hen clacks
It’s nineteen-fifty-something Read the rest of this entry »
11 July 2012
man walking my way
across deserted playground
trees inhale . . . . . . . . hold breath
Is he safe? It’s 6:30am. What’s he doing here at this time of day? Looks like he’s been sleeping in the park. Rumpled work clothes—not very clean or stylish. He’s watching me. Thank goodness I’m wearing sunglasses. Read the rest of this entry »
This episode in my life was a smelly, rotting stench in me all the way through school, college and my first years of marriage. Even after I told my husband about it, I still smelled the old man regularly and without warning. It was a living, breathing, stinking rotten nightmare.
Despite this, I never wrote it down or reflected on what it reveals about me, much less about my relationship to my parents. I simply tried to put it away and let the past be the past. Done. Over. Finished. Time to move on. Read the rest of this entry »
Some things are just plain wrong. No grand theological framework, no appeal to the Bible, and no wisdom of the church or its elders can ever make them right. Read the rest of this entry »
Telling the Truth 