...and a few pictures of people included in the story...........

Carol and Dad

Mary Jane, loves to laugh!

Mike, in a pensive moment....

The four sistuhs...Trudi, myself, Frannie, Mary Jane

My cousins Max and Vince Sternjacob, on my mother's side - stopped in ABQ on their way through!

Betty and her daughter

So.....I'm still not exactly sure how to post pictures and captions in an organized fashion.  Baby steps.....:)    Here are pictures from our trip to Alamogordo.

White Sands at sunset

The boarding house where dad first lived, about 1949

Our old skating rink.....still there!

While I was in Albuquerque, there was a snow on February 1 that resulted in a day of solid white serenity and stillness like I hadn't experienced before!  My sister, brother-in-law and nephew were visiting that week (Mary Jane, Skip, and Mike).


Skip, Mary Jane, Mike and Dad

Hannah, Skip, Lena, Mary Jane

Mike and Frannie

Waltzing with His Walker is now a published book (available on Amazon.com)!,  with some pictures included, but not all that I'd love to share with readers.  Here, then, is where I am adding those.  I hope these add some depth and understanding to the book.  Thank you for reading! 


My dad, the railroad enthusiast and volunteer with Friends of the Cumbres and Toltec

Poetry vs. prose....

January 20 or so, 2011

I’ve come to find myself
roaming and accessing
what’s most needed in the moment.

If all the winter weather were warmer,
we wouldn’t want it,
would we?

Most of our ideas are conceived in sleep-
Dreams install them in our wishes’ basement.

I’m crying now, yet again -
and sensing I’m the last to know why.
Showers, book reports, notes on a crime.
What savory bits are tugging
at my tear ducts?
Hapless, hopeless, hurting and hostile -
I’m going to go a different direction.

Home again, I’m lost.
Leaving here once more, I tend toward
being found.

June 5, 2016

My Hero

At any age, the subject of "My Hero" brought about an anxious feeling in me, as I really had no hero.  I knew of no one that met the high standards that "Hero" conjured up in my mind.  Many kids in my classes referred to their mother or father, Abe Lincoln or other president, or celebrity or superstar as their hero.   My dad was a good guy, a great guy, even, most presidents that I knew of were decent men and good leaders, and there have been celebrities that have inspired me, certainly, but Hero?  They all had a long way to go to meet that mark. 

    I've always wondered what it was like to 'have a hero.'  I even tried to have one!  Mother Theresa was a saint, so surely she was of hero quality; Jimmy Carter grew up poor on a peanut farm and became an international figure of peace and goodness, so he must be someone that I could consider a hero.  The list goes on and on. At some point, I just surrendered, realized that there are and have been numerous men and women, even children and animals, who have awed and inspired me, but I was to go through life without a hero, and that was okay.

    And then this morning in a visit with my 96-year-old friend, Ivan, he happened to mention, as a part of his day yesterday, that "the TV was steady talking about a man who was a famous boxer who just died.  It went on all day, until about 8:00 last night."  I felt a surge of sadness swell up in my heart and in my throat.

    "Do you know the boxer's name?  Was it Muhammed Ali?" 

    "Yes.  That was him.  The boxer that won some championships and retired when he was 39."

    Instantly, tears welled up in my eyes, my heart cracked, and I was overcome with sadness as though I had just heard about the death of one of my dearest friends.  Many of the things that I knew of Ali came to mind:  his original name, Cassius Clay, and his decision to change it to honor his leader and his faith; his physical strength, agility, and beauty; his wit and ability to fire off rhymes about his opponents and upcoming fights; and in later years, his new notoriety as a spokesperson for, and victim of, Parkinson's Disease.  I loved a commercial that he and Michael J. Fox did together - a serious subject brought to light and softened with humor by two unlikely pals. 

    For several years, I have loved, collected, and shared quotes ~ some humorous, others meaningful and thought-provoking.  One such quote was from Muhammed Ali - "Don't count the days.  Make the days count."  After reading an article about Ali a number of years ago, I decided to write him a note and let him know that he had been an inspiration to me over the years, and I shared with him that I used his quote as part of my daily "Thought for the Day" messages on my answering machine.  I don't remember how I found out where to mail the card, but it was an accurate address, because a week or two later, I got a card from him!!  It was a humble and humorous note, acknowledging and appreciating my use of his words, and encouraging me to continue to do what I love and to live my dreams.  Needless to say, I was touched.

    I was touched then by his words, his effort, and his sincerity, and I am touched now by how deeply I feel his passing.  I now understand my nephew's grief when George Harrison died, and my friend's great sense of loss recently when Prince died.  What I didn't get at the time, how they could mourn the loss of a total stranger, I get now.  They had lost someone that they felt a connection with, someone that not only inspired them but moved them to action, and someone that was, in their mind and in their heart, a Hero. 

    How odd that it has taken his death to bring me to the realization that I have had a hero all along.

    "Live every day as if it were your last, because someday, you're going to be right."

 

Stunning solstice shots!

April 5, 2016

An entry from my memoir, "Waltzing with His Walker" is below, written in December 2010, accompanied by photos of that astounding and magnificent morning.  Blessings!

Solstice Revisited  

January 14, 2011

Have you noticed that the days are a little longer and that the sun is going down a bit later each day? It feels good to know that we are on the other side of the shortest day of the year, and that warmer days and more light are on the way. The solstice was a really special time this year as a full moon, a total lunar eclipse, and the winter solstice all took place within one day.

I managed to get up early on Tuesday, Solstice morning, and decided to go for a walk just as it was beginning to get light outside. As the sky was a lovely pink and showed promise of a sweet sunrise, I ran back inside and got my camera. GOOD call!  From the minute I got back outside, I took pictures all the way along my walk. It was so beautiful! Every part of the sky was colored, from purples and pinks to gold and tangerine, in all directions and in all shades imaginable. I couldn't believe how much everything kept changing, and every second seemed more beautiful than the one before. During the following week, the sunrise came up in conversation a lot. A number of people had seen it and were just as awed by it as I was. I asked my neighbor, who is a very early riser, if a lot of mornings were like that, and if I've been missing them all Fall. "Nope. That was a really special one. They don't get much better than that!"

It was good news to hear, mostly because it let me see that once again I was in the right place at the right time. That of all the mornings I chose to go out early, I was out for a huge visual gift. I got to feel that--for all the ways I think that I'm floating around in life with no vision or focus, drifting with no definition or design--I might actually be in the absolute right and perfect place at the right time. I've started to relax a little, surrender a little more to being where I am, like it or not. I trust that not only will everything turn out okay, but that it's okay now; even better than okay!  Amen.