How it Started…How it’s Going

Moving 3,000 miles East to West was quite an undertaking which took months to prep for and carry out, but our first visitor made the whole ordeal make sense. Jackie D, just passing the threshold of two is filled with excitement for adventure, and we consider ourselves beyond blessed to witness his discoveries. Within the shortest amount of time, he granted us new monikers, Amma and Nai Nai, and with ease delighted us with his chuckles and quirks. Being two, he is also on the ready to tell us what he doesn’t want too and that is fine with us because we are here to learn all he wants to become.

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the aging face

If you are cognizant of even a sliver of the media spinning-wheel directing our attention and you are female, you are probably fixated on aging, especially the visible changes on your face. Sadly, this attitude can happen even if you are only a teen, but most definitely can define how you value your worth once you reach an ‘advanced age’. This is not a male issue as evident along the packed shelves in every drugstore and grocery store or at the core of the countless ads directed at women, to conceal, enhance, even to defy how you actually look. Women are being forced to relinquish control of their autonomy thanks to a stacked repressive Supreme Court and equally hoodwinked into believing that while men grow more distinguished with age, women just get old. Our society tells us that men are not able to control themselves if an attractive woman in her twenties wears a pencil skirt but by fifty women should be quietly buttoning up all desires and most definitely putting on a new face.

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I Wish I Could Talk to Dead People

Yes, it is true. There are too many people who I really could still use in my life. Their years of experience would certainly come in handy, (never mind their love). Personally, I want to ask them for guidance as I navigate the new terrain I find myself walking on. Not that I listened too much while my elders were alive, but their pearls found their way into my major decisions and guided me when my direction was clouded. Beyond my own need for their shepherding, I often pause when I hear something outlandish and wonder what my grandfather would say about the destruction of the Republican party, and their tearing down long-held principles. I know how sick my mother would be over the continued lies bantered about immigrants. My father, an esteemed surgeon, would be appalled by those who turned down a vaccine and instead believed the misinformation spread like a careless wildfire. Daily I wish my elders still sat around our dinner tables so that we could debate and analyze facts derived from reality instead of the lies that now filter our social media feeds and bias our conversations. I do wish I could talk to dead people because I could use lucidity instead of the smoke and mirrors offered.

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