The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

 My husband told me a long time ago that my story is my pearl and not everyone deserves them. My son told me that it is time, Ma, to write that story. I've been contemplating my life, maybe it is the brush with a recent health situation of getting older and creaking knees, that has me thinking about the non-renewable resource of time. "I have more years behind me than in front of me, " was something my late father said to me when I was flew back home to visit him when I was in my thirties and filled with hope and possibility. "Nah, Dad, you will be around for a while." Little did I know that he was battling as blood cancer that hadn't been diagnosed until a few months later that would take his life six months after that. Daddy wrote and all that he wrote is lost to the moves and hands of those who cared more about themselves than his legacy. His brilliance whispered away with his last breath. Perhaps it is the Twilight Zone of Covid that has me exploring the...

 There is a crippling fear that has gripped the heart and soul of people. Covid 19 is still raging, many are dying in hospitals because they listened to folks who populated myths of what was in the vaccine, glorified snake oil salesmen while they and their families were not only vaccinated, but receiving monoclonal antibodies when some of them got Covid in the early days. The jobs report came out and again, this fear of not enough is pervading the land, mostly written about with the top 1% of the 1% in mind, afraid of their stock market returns, but not afraid enough to listen to the cries of the workers kept in the endless wheel of capitalism. The stage hands walked off the jobs. Restaurant workers said $2.13 per hour plus tips that may not come was not enough. Cereal factory workers stopped. So many stopped. Stopped being afraid. Took back pieces of their own power. I woke up thinking about that on this October 11th day that is Indigenous Peoples' Day. A day when the mail is not ...

I was watching a re-run of Grey's Anatomy yesterday afternoon, in that lull of my day from when I had already written what I wanted to write and when it was time to pick up my daughter. "Meredith" was having a heated discussion with "Derick" about his impending opportunity with the NIH that would cause them to move from Seattle to Washington. D.C. I was a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity for him and would cause a severe pause in her career. He told her she could just be a surgeon at the Georgetown Hospital. She was in the middle of cutting edge research at Grey-Sloan Memorial. They had small children and well, she had envisioned her life there in Seattle. She mentioned the "trailing spouse syndrome" and that if she left and went to D.C., that she would always be in his shadow and would never get her career chance. She also commented that he had already had his heightened moments, that he didn't need another win, but she needed her shot.  ...

There is sometimes an immobilizing grip that fear can have on a soul, rendering it near impossible to move past it.  It is powerful, even the treat of harm can cause the heart to start beating so much that it can feel like someone is simultaneously squeezing that muscle beyond endurance. Fight or flight feels very real - if one can only move. Will my family eat? Will I eat? Will I be whole again? That is the threat that a lot of those who felt their position of power was so great they could operate, rule, through intimidation and coercion, thinking that their name was so transcending that they were beyond reproach. And for a while it can seem just like that. There are debris of human possibilities left in the road after encountering them, shattered hopes and dreams, even questions of their worth. Left to pick up the pieces of what they thought they would be able to do and envisioned that only met the reality of ego and dominance. So they walked away. First one, and it was brushed o...

 Life is a journey. It really is. Moment by moment, encounter by encounter, experience by experience, for all the days we have on this earth, we are on a journey.  And we are not on it alone. We are connected to people, always. It is the nature of being in a community, even if we are an introverted writer who observes society, engages deeply with it, and has lived a life of serving others. We are not alone. The thing about it is also that we sometimes feel alone. In our thoughts, in our images of ourselves, in our check list, in our aspirations, there are moments when we must all stand by ourselves. Alone. And be ok with that. My oldest son is one of my inspirations. He is a very talented renaissance guy - a writer, rapper/spoken word artist, illustrator, and sneaker artist, restorer, and investor. I never understood all the ways he managed throughout his adult life to let his entrepreneurial spirit flourish, but I have always supported him. He once told me that he had to beli...

 I wake up every day in pain. Every.single.day. It is like my constant companion, with me, reminding me through the night of their existence, challenging my middle-aged-body to respond. For years. In my twenties, as a full-of-promise college student working a full-time job, going to college full-time, driving a car a bought in an apartment that I worked hard for, I was giving my college boyfriend a ride home from work. We were side swiped. He walked out ok, I was injured and hospitalized. Pain does not always break. Nothing was broken over thirty-six years ago, but something was deeply damaged in my body. My nerves that resulted in the ability to walk to be an exercise in excruciating pain. I made it past, though, persevered, for that was something embedded in me from generations. I went from walking on crutches to being able to walk and return to my life, even joining the little sister organization of my now sorority, stepping, dancing, and living my young life. Until it resurface...

 I woke up early this morning feeling the enormity of everything that is today. Twenty years. Just this past Sunday, I was celebrating the birthdays of my "twins." One turned thirty-three and on his birthday, received the first little sister after a house of boys. She turned twenty. On that Tuesday morning, sitting in my suburban Kansas City master suite, finally relishing in a shower without her crying, Katie Couric was starting the morning banter of then 7 o'clock central time news. My husband came in from his run and was in the shower, baby girl was now in my arms, she was not a week old yet.  When it happened. Breaking news. Katie Couric report and shifting to whatever footage was coming from what is now called Ground Zero. What was happening? A plane crash? In a building? An accident?  They were scrambling to figure it out.  My husband was showering for his professorship, the older boys were getting ready for school, it was up-to-that-point a normal morning. I h...