Letters to the Moon....

Journals (A Letter to the Moon) Hi there Luna, How are you? How are things? I was so surprised to see you a couple of weeks ago. You looked absolutely gorgeous! I stopped the moment I saw you-I smiled and said hello. It caught me off guard to see you, as the sun had not yet set. There you were in a bright blue sky, in all of your full phase glory! It was a sight to see. You were a sight to see. Things have been going well for me. I've not mentioned this, but I've begun a new writing project-journaling. I began about ten months ago, when I transitioned into the supervisor position at my job. I journal every weekend, writing about the week that has been. I write about things that happened, things I learned, and more. Now that I have been journaling for so many months, I have several notebooks full of my writing. I never planned to make it a project per se; I never planned to continue it for this amount of time. Now that I have written so much, I'm unsure of what to do with it...

I watch the news nightly, to find out what’s happening in the U.S. and around the world. I sit, completely riveted to the screen. I am aghast as my brain tries to process what I’m witnessing. I’m sure that many around the world are having the same out of body experience as they watch footage of current events in Ukraine. One of the images that resonated with me was of people taking cover and sheltering in place in subway stations underground. I had heard of this happening in World War II, people escaping to the subway tunnels when the air raid sirens sounded.  When I’ve seen this depicted in movies about the era, I always assumed that people would stay in the subway for a few of hours, and then return to their lives when it was safe to do so. I didn’t think about people living in subways for a week or more. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.  https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/world/europe/russia-ukraine-war-shelters.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&...

It’s now been two years since the epidemic of the Coronavirus reached the United States. Exhaustion is palpable; I can hear it in souls and hearts. I often hear people say, “It’s been three years now….”, in a defeated tone of voice.  In terms of the world, it is true. It has been three years since the start of the virus. But for the United States, it has only been two years. While making this distinction may be semantics, I feel it is an important point to make.  Time blends together in a pandemic. It’s hard to remember what happened when. I saw a joke on the internet recently about the year 2019 being four years ago. I had to stop and think about that one. I knew it couldn’t be right. Yet, it felt right to me. Thinking back to this time last year, the U.S. was in the early days of distributing vaccines for people at highest risk: those with compromised immune systems, and at 65 years of age or older. Vaccinations have drastically lowered the number of deaths and hospitalizati...

This is the time of year that I pause and take stock of the year that has been, everything I’ve lived through, the lessons I’ve learned. Here then are the lessons from 2021. Lessons from the Year 2021   -I was horrified by the Insurrection that happened at the U.S. Capitol. There is an inquiry in Congress into the events of that day. Countless individuals have been tried, found guilty, and have been imprisoned for taking part in that event. However, there are also several arrest warrants that have been written. As the anniversary loomed on the horizon, I was fearful of what could happen. God bless the Capitol Police that risked their lives to save others in the attack. God bless the officers who gave their lives that day. - One Year Later  the world was ready to be over the Coronavirus, and to get back to normal, if that even exists anymore. Now it's almost two years later. When I wrote that piece, we had just reached over 500,000 dead from Covid in the U.S. Now the U.S. had ...

I am the self-proclaimed Queen of Christmas. It is my favorite time of year, the time when I really shine. I love to decorate my living room for the holidays. My decorations don’t extend to other rooms, with the exception of battery operated candles that I put in my window. "Christmas Candle" by Esperanza Habla One of the things I love to do every holiday season is to put up my Christmas tree. I always put it up early every year, so I can enjoy it for a longer period of time. The lights on the tree create a special ambience in the dark autumn and winter nights. I always put up my tree in October, usually around Halloween, to sort of thumb my nose at the holiday. It allows me to skip Halloween altogether, and to celebrate the holidays as I want to. I then leave the tree up into the New Year, taking it down in late January or early February. Some years I’ve left the tree up until March. One year I didn’t take my tree down at all! * This year, I had the opportunity to put up m...