Stain-glass Eyes

My Son, Holden Coping styles vary with each person.  As different as individual designs on butterfly wings. Trial and error coping at times.  Other times planned and plotted like a strategy in a chess game. I use to believe an ability to cope was a matter of luck.  I thought the more fortunate a person was, the better they were able to cope .  I don’t believe that any more.  It could be in the past I was hoping it was just luck.  Because coping isn’t easy.  I think I hung on to my belief in luck or providence otherwise I would have had to admit it was hard, hard work.  Believing it’s luck is an easy way out. Well, actually, it’s not an easy way out.  Not coping is one of the most painful routes I’ve ever taken.  It’s like a long, long stumble through a maze that dead ends and when you get to the dead end you realize you have to back-track all the way, to start a new direction. My son recently wrote a guest blog for T...

Cranes stretching over mountains of building materials, like praying mantises ready to eat.  People in their cars stretching their necks, (beyond what is normal) to find a parking space near Main Street.  Bumper to bumper traffic, due to city street closures and another downtown festival. Temperatures in the upper-eighties making sharing the humid air more difficult.  University of Michigan students moving back in for the new school year… — I left Ann Arbor. Even after I got out of Ann Arbor, I still had to go through traffic stops on 23 North.  60 MPH then 45 MPH then 70 MPH.  Back and forth until I set myself back in my seat and relaxed.  I started focusing more on the scenery than the time I was spending on the road.  Once I decided  to head for the “Thumb” area of Michigan, I figured being prepared was crucial.  I knew the towns were small, in-between each, large, span of farmland.   jugs of drinking water spray bot...

I don’t live in St. Ignace.  It’s my hometown.  But….it’s not my home.  I haven’t lived there since I graduated from high school, in 1975.  I’m more of a visitor.  St. Ignace-When There Was a Local Theater Many years of my adult life, I lived in Gaylord, Michigan.  But, I never felt I was “From” there.  I felt like it was where my children grew up.  It was their “Hometown”, not mine.   Sometimes I still consider myself a Yooper. (a person from the U.P.)  A term of almost mythical qualities.   I was raised in a small town in the Upper Peninsula, a subculture far, far from any sizeable city.  I identify with the colloquial language I learned to speak as a child.  My illusion of being a Yooper, explains a sample-piece of who I believe I am.  I really don’t need to reference being a Yooper for someone to understand who I am, do I?  What does it really say about me?  I’m much m...

I’ve just arrived. Pink, streaked with blood, I bellow at the top of my lungs.  My voice scares me.   Three nurses sweep me away like I’m the new catch of fish they just pulled up, in the net, from the side of their fishing boat. My shoulders are seemingly so broad one scapula broke during my exit from the hell-canal.  I can’t feel a thing from the break, I’m just famished.  But I DO feel the thing they just shoved up both my nostrils.  Man! That hurts!  And if they scrape the bottom of my feet another time I won’t be responsible for the level of scream I think I can produce. Dr. Koby-Olson (I guess she’s my doctor), puts an end to all the clamor, scoops me up and places me in my father’s arms, after explaining what took so long to get me to my parents.  The Apgar score was very low—my shoulder.  He feels strong, comfortable and sure of himself.  He’s nothing like all these rushing bodies hopping around in this birthi...