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. …

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.