From therapy to becoming a writer — I told my wife to make my obituary short and sweet. A haiku would suffice: A crow of mischief Born out of brotherly love Retires to the sea No one knows me completely, not even my mother, rest her soul. I’m too cryptic for words. The best I can do…

A story of torturous eating — ~Trigger warning for those with eating issues. A ball of flames surrounded the emotion. It hovered over me and said, “Your problems are too overwhelming to handle, Sarah. We have to do something drastic.” I looked at the feeling cautiously, not wanting to go near or agitate it. It had…

More than a booby prize — It wasn’t the game or the hotdogs, I was cheering for, or a season of grand expectations— it was a free bobblehead doll I came to see, that inanimate object whose head bounced on a spring. It was a comical nodder, a whacky wobbler, a silly Buddha in a baseball uniform, a…

Downtown Philly’s diversity in photos — Here is a collection of pictures from my last visit to Philadelphia. I had lived there for fifty-eight years but returned as a visitor in 2016 and snapped these pictures like I was looking at the city for the first time. It’s the city where I was born and the…

Where I drifted and almost disappeared — My life was a piece of driftwood, curled and gnarly, drifting around Philadelphia, where Washington crossed the Delaware. Philadelphia was a scrapbook of my childhood memories in a plastic binder of loose and torn pages with its pictures falling out. It’s where Ben Franklin was buried, Betsy Ross sewed the flag, a…

A morning epiphany — One morning, I woke up and realized struggling to be a great writer is useless. Of course, I denied it, but then I thought — Should I believe this epiphany and not even try? And would it be best if I resigned myself to swim in the sea of mediocrity? …

It is the fountain of healing — “Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.” — Carl Jung When I was a kid, I thought it was awful to be…

Humility, hope, and inner peace — I understood at a very early age that, in nature, I felt everything I should feel in church but never did. Walking in the woods, I felt in touch with the universe and the spirit of the universe. Alice Walker If I stay humble, keep my ego in check, not puff out…

Cute and suspicious — Sometimes I like a window with the sun, other times the shade. It all depends on what interests me, who’s out there, and the noises I hear. Right now, a bird is fluttering in the tree that I’d like to sink my teeth into.