The Piano

There are many good memories from my childhood. Among them is the memory of my grandmother. Here is a piece about her...

Running my fingers across the keys of the old upright in our entry way, I produced an out of tune rendition of "Bells Are Ringing"; the only Beethoven in my paled repertoire. It is the only song I know besides a two handed Chopsticks. I stare at the chipped and yellowed ivories, longing for my fingers to produce a flowing sonata. If only I had inherited her talent. I would be able to bring her piano back to life the way it used to fill the room with a beautiful mixture of single notes and chords.

My grandmother was a large boned and buxom woman of German descent, one of a pair of twins raised on an Iowa farm with a strict and conservative Methodist upbringing. She came out to California on a train, met a man, married at a late age, and bore my mother who was to be her only child...read more

Healing Through Therapy

My nightmares as a child were nothing compared to my reality. Every day of my life I walked through the landscape of a dark and dreadful dream. But the monster that lurked behind my doors and around corners was made of flesh and blood and not merely temporary and dissipating works of my imagination. When the dawn would come and I opened my eyes to greet the light, those monsters did not disappear. They took up residence in the shadows of my home. They took on the form of a man, my own father, who was supposed to snatch those same terrifying dreams away and replace them with love and reassurance.

Reality became my worst nightmare, stuck in the middle of it, unable to run. My heart would pound, my veins surged with adrenaline urging me to flee the terror, but my body would remain frozen in time. I could not move, I could not speak, I could not scream. I was physically chained to his unrelenting brutality...read more