If you have finished reading “My Father’s House” and didn’t hate it, would you be willing to give me some feedback? Or even post it on amazon.com? I’d love to know what you think. Thanks, Mona
HAVE YOUR FINISHED READING “MY FATHER’S HOUSE? 2 comments
GRATITUDE 10 comments
This morning I woke up in the same bed I’ve enjoyed for many years, under covers of just the right weight and temperature. I expect to return to the same comfortable bed tonight. I did the lying down exercises I had been taught back in 2015 after my accident — physical therapy lessons, like all other treatments after the crash, covered by insurance. I lolled in bed for a while playing some games on my cell phone and checking emails, knowing I didn’t have to worry about the battery running low, because I’d be plugging it in as soon as I rolled out of bed, into an outlet that I was sure would provide the juice to recharge.
Once I was up I did more of my exercises accompanied by the local TV station emanating from an old but perfectly fine set nestled in my bedroom cabinet where other shelves and drawers house my supply of clothes from which I would chose todays outfit. (comfortable but not fancy – still pretty much confined to my sunny senior apartment, protected not only from the weather, but – more important – from the virus.)
Eventually I turned on my shower, confident that nice warm water would emerge from the shower head, allowing me to enjoy soap that I have in sufficient supply, aided by a washcloth and later a drying towel which I can keep clean in the washing machine in the laundry room.
And then breakfast, an adequate supply of nuts and fruit and eggs kept fresh in the refrigerator next to the stove on which I was confident I could cook my egg because the burners would turn on as soon as I dialed the appropriate knob.
Finally to my computer which usually responds to my command, like the other appliances that have enjoyed the adequate supply of electrical power.
Pretty standard stuff, unless you do – as I do every morning – think of the people who don’t have these things. No guaranteed source of power, maybe because no guaranteed place to sleep and eat, or maybe because where they live power is sporadic. Maybe no assured fresh food or warm water – even clean, pure cold water – ready on call. No insurance available to keep healthy teeth and bodies. So many people who don’t have these things I take for granted every day. Yes, I am filled with gratitude – and also pain for all those who suffer.
The other side of gratitude is awareness. Without both, life would be pretty empty, I think.
Just my ruminations on living another normal day – normal for us fortunate ones.
A BETTER PHOTO OF THE TURSAS CHURCH 3 comments
I wish this photo had been available to me when I inserted the Torsas church into my book.
Thanks to James Carros, a Bristol, Connecticut person whose family, like mine, hails from Torsas. It’s a much better photo of the church than the one I found for
e.”
BEAUTIFUL FRIEND Leave a comment
Do I have beautiful friends, or what? Amy Huie-Li let me know she bought “My Father’s House.”
LAW AND ORDER? Leave a comment
Fear, ranting, anger, shooting, and false promises won’t do it. Facts are facts. Maybe those things feel good to some folks, but if it’s order you’re after, try something that will work. Respect, creative and encouraging education, equality of opportunity, removal of unjustly restrictive laws and regulations will produce the results you’re after.
“MY FATHER’S HOUSE’ IS ANXIOUS TO GREET YOU 3 comments
After all the lead-up and outtakes and delays, it is finally here. Please take a look at it and sample the copy of
.
PROOF COPY OF “MY FATHER’S HOUSE.” 9 comments
I’ve been at it since well before 2015, with the help of some of you. And now the proof is here. In fact, I just finished reading it one last time (I hope) for corrections to be made before it goes to print. Just for evidence, here are a couple of photos of receiving it during the pandemic, and a quick cheat of a photo. without the mask.
HOW BEAUTIFUL IT WOULD HAVE BEEN 2 comments
How beautiful it would have been to see our nation draw together with courage, cooperation, and compassion to defeat this coronavirus enemy. How proud we could have been to make our contribution to life-saving world leadership.
With sadness and regret I awake too early in the morning to mourn our missed opportunity.
MY WHITE MA DEGREE — 1952 8 comments
I received my MA in Psychology in 1952. It was an especially large class – 45 as I remember it – because the GI bill had made it possible for veterans to go on to advanced education. This, of course, was a clear opportunity to proceed to professional, better paying, positions.
Including me there were 45 white students. I don’t remember even noticing the pale color of the class. I know now that blacks (Negroes at that time) were in many ways excluded from the benefits other veterans received. I don’t feel guilty for not being aware. Guilt is not a productive emotion. I do, though, feel impelled to support anything that can be done in the present to bring to awareness that injustice still affecting blacks today. What a majorly unfair way to prevent them from building wealth for themselves and their family’s future!
Add to that red-lining and all the other methods used to prevent blacks from financial success — even destroying successful communities — and all I can say is, I’d be pretty darn pissed, and that’s putting it mildly, if that were part of my famiy’s history. And I should feel guilty if I don’t now learn all I can and advocate however I can for correction, reparations, and restitution.
TWO A.M. – PTSD 6 comments
Sometimes when I wake up during the night I go right back to sleep. More often, though, thoughts catch me and I can’t let go of the pain of compassion. (Feeling with.) It’s in the DNA. You’ll see when you read My Father’s House.
The other night I couldn’t help imagining being a man living free in my homeland – just living my life. And then being chased down and captured, bound, and delivered as cargo to a slave ship. There being shackled head to toe to make maximum space for a profitable cargo. Left to lie in my own and others bodily excretions, becoming thereby filthy black cargo. Living with my own pain and the moans of my fellow “cargo.”
I imagined being brought ashore in the states and hosed down for presentation to those who would buy me as a piece of cargo. Being totally re-defined by others willing to torture me into accepting my new less-than-human status. Struggling with the agony of losing the life I had and who I was. How could PTSD not become a part of my DNA to be transmitted to my offspring?
How could I not respond with fear, rage, running, resistance, fighting back? Is it at all surprising that George Floyd pleaded for understanding of his claustrophobia? that Treyvon Martin fought back when he was being followed? That Rayshard Brooks grabbed a weapon when he was about to be constrained?
But what do I know? I’m just an aged white lady imagining things in the middle of the night.
monagustafsonaffinito 