Sidetracked Charley

I think I have always lived my life as a sprint. I grew up fully believing I was going to die at 23. Who knew where I got that. Then I belonged to the generation who was not suppose to trust anyone over thirty. I was diagnosed with a chronic disease with a limited life expectancy in my thirties. And just when I was told I seemed to have defeated it relatives were dying off. Sixty-seven seems to be end of days for the older generation of my family. The ski accident with its closed brain trauma centered my life around today. Life is short. Live it to the max. Do not wait for retirement. Art is great because there are constant new beginnings and endings to your work. And when paintings take too long there is photography. Even my real world job was in industrial construction which has a beginning, middle, and end. So I admit to diving into this resistance battle to save the republic in short terms. I committed to the first 100 days and it has only been 30 plus. And he is not gone. ...

National Day of Resistance on the day before the Trump Inaugural. And the 21st is the Women's March on DC and about 300 other sites around the world. Imagine that.  And yet divisions run so deep even in the midst of what appears to be a united front against the Republican agenda and the illegitimate president elect.  Now suddenly we have to show our bonafides to those who have been on the battle lines longer. Johnny and Joan come lately's are being called Lexus Liberals by some. Let me make a couple things clear: 1) I don't own a Lexus. A 1989 GMC 4 x 4 occupies my driveway, 2) I have fought for one cause or the other since I was in college and demonstrated for the Free Speech movement and after that the Civil rights and ERA and end the war in Vietnam and end the draft, 3)Equal rights for women is my heart cause but I have also researched and written about water issues and the stripping our schools of the arts. And in the midst of all that I have fought a brain i...

I had no sooner finished the previous blog when I found myself asking who was I just the day before. Or the minute before I read the article which made such a difference in how I saw my future. The glib answer is, "The same me." But I know that isn't so. If it was then the article would not have had such an impact. I knew we were facing dark days. I knew it was very important to resist the direction this clown and his party were taking our country. I knew I had zero in common with any of them. But I also knew I had friends who I cut off because after the election they became someone I did not recognize. It was as if the election of Donald Trump had given them permission to use his words and his mocking tone, and his rude and crude behavior. It was almost as if pussy grabbing was contagious or at least I was afraid it was contagious. Yesterday, I was totally fine with the loss of those few friends almost as if I believed it was a temporary quarantine. I would c...

Sunset in Black Lake I read an article this morning written by Sarah Kendzior for a Dutch publication and posted by my Canadian friend. We're Heading into dark Times as chilling. She called on readers to write down who we are, what we have experienced, and what we had endured before illegitimate president D. Trump takes office because an authoritarian state can change who we are. I have decided to accept my assignment. This is just day one. I like who I am. I am a photographer and I see it as a calling. I am ready to record the beauty and awe others are too busy to notice. I have always been a recorder. When we traveled in my childhood I kept the records of miles and cities we passed through; took pictures with my little Brownie camera, drew sketches in a sequence of notebooks. We traveled. My relatives did not. They were the solid mid-westerners in Kansas City, Missouri. We were the nomads who settled on New Mexico. My Aunt Louise didn't even believe New Mexico was pa...

Denial, a refrigerator magnet I own, states is a Goddess-given survival tool. And women have used that survival tool for centuries. It isn't easy to stay in denial about the verbal and physical abuse women have put up with to keep the peace or keep their jobs or stay in a relationship. But there is a cost to keeping the peace. It steals our confidence and our freedom and our aliveness. We stay married to avoid being single or we find living single works best because the men we pick are wrong. We learn to pal up with other women to do things men get to do alone like long walks in the woods.  Some of us quit our jobs we sacrificed so much to get and keep.  I could not live with the compromise of keeping my mouth shut to keep my job. Mother said I was stubborn and had not learned the lesson of keeping silent. I would be happier, she maintained, if I was not so prideful and intelligent. I even toyed with becoming a nun. My aunt told me I could become a boy if I could kiss ...