An Invincible Summer - A Woman's Journey

There are days when my lack of education laughs at me. It pokes and needles.  It loves to put forward ideas that are foreign and large, and then says, “Nope, not you. Too much for you.”  Or it presents to me a speaker, whose ideas are so compelling, but whose rich and luscious mastery of the English language is such, that I sit with almost a sense of vertigo, certainly a feeling of not being included, with it almost at the tips of my fingers but not quite. Elusive. There is an club that I long to be a part of. There are no directions, no handbook, no assembly possible.  Then I wonder, is this what poetry is meant to do? Put one ill at ease? Am I suppose to be comfortable with the feeling of being uncomfortable? Is that the lesson I missed when I did not finish, or even start, AP English? Once in awhile I am gifted an understanding of something so beautiful. Perhaps a poem by Mary Oliver, who is a little more accessible to the swirling matter that is my brain. But in the n...

I received an email from a friend. She’s a good friend who is wonderfully warm and well educated, an author, a counselor, a survivor and so much more. I read the email. It was beautifully written to me and 3 other women who have become a group of mutual love and adoration. We are in our 3rd year of studying and recovering. We are 3 years into sharing our lives, struggles and victories.  As I read it, all my writing, ranging anywhere from pathetic to well expressed, paled in comparison and I wondered why I ever thought I could, in these minuscule ways, write at all. I saw what a fabulous education and deep introspection afforded her. I felt shame. Then, I took a full, intentional, generous breath, held it there for a few seconds and let loose. When I did, I let loose of the shame and the unworthiness. The sentence structure that may be questionable, the vocabulary that is limited, the tenses that flip and flop, the over and under use of commas that frustrate the hell out of me. All ...

I have 5 siblings. Of the 5, we all dabbled in the pursuit of higher education at differing levels. None of the dabbling was serious. One of my sisters, at the age of 45, went back and got her RN after decades of working as a LVN. Aside from that, we all went into the workplace and, equipped with an excellent work ethic, each made our way, working up the proverbial ladder. Ensconced solidly in the middle-class, we, for the most part, rose above our "prescribed at birth" stations. We dun good. When I realized that my kids would be able to attend university it was a dream come true-FOR ME. Born from a sense of feeling less than, I deeply regretted not going to college, believing, somehow, that would fix the problem within. When I did send the first three off to school, deep inside I wondered if they would be able to come home. Would they still relate to this family of blue collars? Would they still have respect for me and what I have to offer the world? I feel comfortable in th...

I had coffee with a new friend. It was interesting and enjoyable. My friend, Louise, has had a fascinating and difficult life. She is the daughter of a narcissist who still, at 92, bullies her and everyone else around her. If anyone has ever encountered a true narcissist, you know how difficult they are. Everything is someone else's fault, shaming those around them, little empathy for anyone but themselves, and a great need to be admired. We talked of Louise's education, with two advanced degrees in Mythological Studies and Depth Psychology, and her work as a college professor. I found she is trilingual. I realized this and reacted with the proper amount of admiration. She looked at me and shrugged, reminding me that it is very common in Europe for a person to be tri or quadrilingual. It occurred to me that our American education system fails us by not looking more outward. The Boy Scout reminded me that most middle schools offer foreign languages. That is my experienc...