I spent this last Father’s Day in silent, burning rage at my dad, and it’s taken me three months to sort it out enough to write.
This is my personal blog, which is focused on creating peace. Come on in and kick off your shoes! I appreciate feedback and would love your thoughts and comments.
Mental Health vs Terrorism
Today is the final day of Mental Health Awareness Month, and I have a lot on my mind. I had already written a blog about mental illness, which I wasn’t able to post because of a technical issue; the following day, 19 children and their teachers were murdered and several others wounded. Suddenly everyone was blaming “mental illness” and I knew there was more to say.
Thank You Teachers!
It’s Spring Break, a chance for students and teachers to regroup. Nobody deserves a break more than our teachers.
Tillamook School District board
It’s hard to find anything that everyone can agree on these days, but I think we can all agree that we love our kids and want them to be safe in school and get a good education. I’m certain that our newly elected Tillamook School District Board members care about their kids as well, but they are making some deeply concerning decisions that every taxpayer and parent should be aware of.
To Your Health
My Facebook feed is full of grief right now. Grief is permeating the very air right now. Many people I know are dealing with severe illness and/or death of a loved one due to COVID.
Happiness
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” Abraham Lincoln
I was a big fan of biographies as a kid, and I liked this Abe Lincoln quote. I used it to motivate myself to take charge of my situation. But what happens when it no longer works?
One Hundred Thousand
This morning my blog, Peace Out Loud, reached 100,000 views.
Since my first post about Veteran’s Day on November 10, 2012, I’ve written 56 posts about many things. There’s a poem or two and a letter to the President of the United States. Some blogs were about global issues, some about national issues, some were about my own little hometown, and some were deeply personal about my family. Well, they’ve all been deeply personal to me, as I only write about things I care deeply about.
My theme is peace, as I believe in creating peace within and spreading it beyond ourselves to the world around us.
I never dreamed that my blog would be reaching this landmark, or that my posts would be read all over the world, but somehow this happened! My posts have been read by people in Israel, Hong Kong, Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia, Germany, France, China, Sweden, Bulgaria, Brazil, Turkey, India, Canada, Poland, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and of course my own home, the United States, as well as a few other places. I am humbled that I’ve somehow connected with people I will never know, from around the globe, by the simple act of writing from the heart.
I’ve been working on some personal lessons lately, around asking for help and being willing to receive it. I have spent my life trying not to be vulnerable; now I’m trying to change that. I want to connect with others from a place of honesty and vulnerability, but at times I haven’t been honest with myself about how much I’ve needed others. My blog has been a place where I’ve opened that door a tiny crack.
I was talking with a friend today who said something important. She said that as much as our society values individuality, we will struggle as long as we don’t realize that we are part of a larger collective, the human collective, and the collective of life on this planet. People often fail to see the larger impact of their decisions on others, and sometimes don’t care. We are doomed until we realize that we belong to each other. This logic can apply to COVID precautions, climate change, stopping racial and other injustices, ending hunger, poverty, abuse, or any other suffering.
We are all affected by these things, and many of us know it. Things are shifting.
I feel that writing is how I fit into that collective, and how I can live my best, most meaningful life. Writing helps me to peel back the layers, but more importantly, I feel much more connected to others. I plan to write more, and I hope to be an ambassador for kindness and justice. That’s my tiny role. What’s yours?
I want to thank everyone who’s taken the time to read my ramblings. Maybe you’ve related on some level. Hopefully you’ve felt a little less alone, a little more understood, and cared about. I’m sure you’ll find things you disagree with, and that’s great too. We don’t all have to be in lockstep philosophically or politically to acknowledge and celebrate our humanness or to have compassion and empathy for one another.
I am just very grateful to celebrate this milestone in my life, and to share it with you.
But for the Grace of God
The first time my mom attempted suicide, I was eight years old and my dad was at work. My older brother and sister and I were home with her, when she announced that she had just taken “a whole bunch of pills.” I remember the ambulance being called and my teenage brother getting her to drink mustard water to try to get her to vomit. She was driven away in an ambulance to have her stomach pumped. I've written about my mom before in a prior post a few years back, but something happened recently that has her fresh on my mind.
Honoring Jaime
Today is my birthday. It’s supposed to be “my day,” but I’d like to share it with someone special.
I recently learned that I had a birthday twin. Her name was Jaime Guttenberg. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she was in the news a few years ago.
Juneteenth
On Thursday, June 17, 2021, President Biden signed legislation which was overwhelmingly passed by the House and Senate, making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery by marking the day that enslaved people in Texas learned that they were free. This was on June 19, 1865, two and a half years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation took effect. For obvious reasons, word was slow to spread to people who were enslaved. Texas was the last state in which the state government was still permitting slavery, in resistance to the federal law. Juneteenth has been celebrated since 1866, and is also known as Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day,and Black Independence Day.
Cemetery Clean Up
The Bay City Oddfellows Cemetery is a very special place to me. As a kid, when things got rocky at home, I’d walk to the cemetery to sort my thoughts. I spent hours there alone. To some people this might seem odd, but for me it was a great thinking place. One day some grazing deer were just a few feet from me and I sat quietly as we watched each other.
Time for a Choice
Thank You
On Monday, September 8, the coastal weather was hot, dry, and windy. We're accustomed to cold, wet, and windy, so this storm was a little different. As I stood on the front steps enjoying the powerful gusts, I had no idea how different it was about to be. I could hear the crackling of trees snapping not far away. We lost power and started our usual drill of lighting candles and lamps.
Whittling Souls
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| A work in progress, just like me. |
When we want someone to hear something really important, we ask for silence. It’s the time to look away from the phone, shut off the TV, remove the headphones, stop talking, and LISTEN. It’s time to focus. I feel very strongly that 2020 is calling upon each of us to do that right now.
To my conservative friends
I want to put out an appeal to my friends who are conservative. I know there are some among you who have felt worried about the state of things, who have heard conflicting things about Trump and don't know what to believe.
Close the Camps
A couple of days ago I packed up my sister and my kiddos and attended a rally in support of closing the camps on the southern border of the United States. In recent weeks, several reports have come out describing the horrific conditions under which immigrants are living (and dying) and each report seems worse than the last. Like many people, I have been left with a sense of helplessness and sickened with horror.
Christ, the Refugee
So here we are at Easter. My mind is stuck on a conversation I had yesterday with a friend who is undocumented. Tears spilled down her cheeks as she talked about losing everyone to come here with her husband and children. Obviously someone doesn't do that unless the situation is dire. Now her husband's father is on his death bed in Mexico, and they can't do what most of us take for granted: go home and say goodbye.
#MeToo
In the fifth grade, when I was ten, I was bullied by a boy
in my class who told me about how he and a group of boys had pinned a girl to a
haystack with pitchforks and raped her.
He said he wanted to do that to me.
I was scared but trying not to believe him in the hopes he
would go away. I never told anyone.
Five Years
February 15, 2018. Five years. FIVE YEARS. It’s been five years today since the first arrest and I gained two small children.
I was by no means prepared mentally, emotionally, or physically. I was anemic and sick, and devastated by the nightmare we were facing as a family. I was terrified by the possibilities, and five years later, I still am.
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