This month I embarked on a solo trip for fun to Los Angeles and Palm Springs. I have done this once before. In 2019, before I started my Ph.D. program I went to Puerto Rico by myself. It was freeing and exciting, but there were lonely parts and times when I wished I had someone […]
Blog
On the Road
I had intended to publish last Thursday, as usual, but then experienced technical issues. Such are the vagaries of being off on the road. As you can see, I’m back online today and anxious to make up for lost time. *** After a wonderful extended visit with Robyn, we went our separate ways before dawn […]
Inspiration from
The Widow Clicquot Who was 4 and a half feet tall with light colored hair and grey eyes and stormed the champagne industry during the French Revolution? That’s right! Barbe-Nicole: The Lady Herself Barbe-Nicole was widowed in 1805, at the age of 23. Women of that time were not allowed to run a business, but […]
Violent Dreams to Usher In the Year of the Rabbit
Image by Gary Bendig on Unsplash I have woken late this morning – almost 9 am – very late for me. But I have been drifting in and out of sleep for the past few hours – since before 6 am. I no longer remember what dream woke me before 6, but it was a […]
Greek Tragedy
Losing Tony hasn’t really made me question who I am as a person, but it has made me question how I should spend my time. As a couple, we each participated in activities that the other person wouldn’t sign up for alone. I’ve been to NASCAR races, BBQ contests, and attempted to fish. None of […]
“Second Chapter” and other Widowed Vocabulary
So, much like other groups of people who are sharing a similar life experience, the widowed community at times has a language of its own when talking with each other. Some of this vocabulary has developed naturally over time and then spread through the community, and some of it was created or started by someone […]
Powering Through
In the spring of 2014, I was diagnosed with a thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis. My doctor proclaimed it was the worst case he’d ever seen and classified my case as Myxedema, another term for severely advanced hypothyroidism, a condition that occurs when your body doesn’t produce enough thyroid hormone. As January is Thyroid Awareness […]
Mapping Grief:
A Man Called Otto. We first meet Otto six months after his wife’s death. With no apparent family, and having cut ties with those he was once close with, a grief-stricken Otto is isolated and in constant pain. He rages like a wounded bull as he goes about his daily life in the tiny neighborhood […]
In Praise of Love and Mountains
Photo and Art by Véronique Balcerzak After Mike died, I made an effort, particularly at Christmastime, to ensure there was a gift from him, not only for each of the kids, but also for myself. The first year, it was soft toy teddys made from his t-shirts. I remember that we needed some kind of […]
Word of the Year
In my very first post here I said I’ve never been a New Year resolution kind of gal. I still maintain that I am not. For me, the resolutions are too specific and confined that make me feel destined to fail. As a lifelong perfectionist failure is way outside my comfort zone. Over the last […]
The Death of Lisa Marie
This week, the world got the news about the sudden death of Lisa Marie Presley; the only child of the legendary Elvis Presley. So now her mom Priscilla is living on earth without her only child, just as Lisa Marie was living here on earth without her son Ben, who died by suicide in 2020. […]
Taking the Longview
It is pretty special to be able to post on the occasion of my birthday. I note that today, Saturday January 14, is also Organize Your Home Day, an Awareness Observances that encourages us to declutter our homes, lives and ultimately our minds. Last year, on this very day, my family house in Hackensack, New […]