Well, my Dad and Mom BOTH have dementia.

Yesterday, Dad  tried to call his brother, Kelly Fitzpatrick, and instead called me, his daughter. Named after my Dad's brother, I am also named Kelly FItzpatrick. When Dad realized his mistake, he talked with me for almost a half an hour anyway. Dad told me he had had a very bad fall on his last walk, the day before yesterday. He said he ripped his trousers and had skinned his knee almost bad enough for stitches. He proudly told me he had cleaned it himself before he turned himself in to the nurses' station. He said he was annoyed that the nurses cleaned it again and measured the wound so they could watch it heal over time. He also proudly told me Mom now actually gets out of bed sometimes.

The caregivers at the facility have had constant problems convincing my Dad to stop…

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We learned how to live.  Though we did go through more hard times, it was not enough to merely survive after the escape. Many new beginnings followed the times of darkness. Years of joy followed the times of despair. Love overcame the fear.

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My children and I built a new life.

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 One day, we were all free, and 

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......... xxx  ....xxx ....

1

Exhausted to the point of death, I lie in the deep sway of a musty green canvas army cot in my living room, alone.  My boombox radio sits on the corner of the beat-up old dark mahogany bookshelf, timidly playing subdued instrumental music. Curled in a tight fetal position, I wear my old greying sweats, swaddled in a scratchy wool blanket pulled over my head. My knees are tucked under my chin.

Afraid to wear my long hair down to my…

BZZZZZZZCLUNKCKLUNK. I pull the heavy steel chain link gate open with both hands and walk into a sky- covered cage of steel fencing. 

 BAMMM. The gate slams shut behind me, locked. The cage is about 4 paces long and 4 paces wide and I cannot go in or out unless either the gate behind me or the gate in front of me gate is unlocked for me.

I look up past the huge rolls of razor wire topping the cage and watch the clear blue sky as I silently wait.   I am already sweaty since it is almost 90 degrees this morning.  I wear a black t-shirt and tan cropped pants. I also  wear my black leather medicine bag and my intricate silver Celtic cross around my neck, each on a pull-away cord or chain. Peeking out of my black sneakers are peacock- blue half-socks, which might…

 When Evil walks the earth

 in a time of horrifying stillness,

no one is safe

off the narrow spiritual path.

I had left my big dog, Isis, at home, had had only two beers the whole night long, and, at 2 am,  I walk out of the neighborhood bar and feel dejected and rejected. The guy I liked hadn’t noticed I had no ride home and left without me. I walk over the railroad tracks overpass and on for a few more blocks.  As I turn the corner onto 12th Street, time stops completely. I walk smack into soft wall of evil and can walk no further.

I don't know how else to describe it. It is an invisible wall, a black pillow of terrifying, paralyzing evil,…

           The air that I cannot feel, feels warm. I grin wildly like a fool in my sleep.  I awake as my heart cracks wide open with love. I awake from a spirit world I do not want to return from. There, I had seen lives woven together in ways unknown, ordinary lives breaking out of extraordinary prisons. And each of us had owned the same ring, one after another, and each of us is now free.

          Jim made the ring in prison, Stan overdosed and died wearing the ring, and I wear the ring now. 

           I sit up in my big bed under my multicolored African canopy, push my long, wild red Medusa hair off my face, and decide I am not in a hurry to get out of bed and go to work. I sit very still and look at the heavy ring I wear on my right index finger.

            The solid silver ring has two angel figures carved in the thick, thick sides. Their faces are Native and their wings, back to back, hold up a silver box, a miniature…

I open up my mailbox, the one in front of my new home I have lived in for almost two years. This is the home I will never have to move from. I share the 30 year mortgage with something called The Land Trust, which helps people like me who never thought they could ever own their own home. I still half-expect a bossy landlord to show up someday to tell me I need to move out or pay more money or not have animals or not dance in my living room or not whatever, but that’s never going to happen now.

I love to go straight home from work as soon as possible, excited and…

Maybe I am crazy. But I used to be crazy in love.           

The first time I saw Him, the only man I was ever to marry, I was in my copper ’67 Mustang as it crept up the hill of Quincy Street in North East D.C. 

It was a muggy hot Washington day and both of my car windows were rolled down. I was wearing  a halter-top and my favorite cut-offs. My long red hair was pulled back off my damp face and i had stuck a bluejay feather I had found into one of the thin braids mixed in my hair. I had thrown off my flipflops so I could work the clutch pedal, the…

  (print (c) Adrian Larvie)

Before my soul shifted, before I learned how to grow up and relax into who I was becoming, I forced change on the world around me. I wanted relief from my floating anger and pain that was willing to land anywhere. So I decided to go to South Dakota.

Instead of a suitcase like other travelers at Washington National Airport, I have a soft old green backpack with a straw African fan tied to one shoulder strap. My straw hat with the foot wide brim, the one I bought a lifetime ago at the beach in Naples Italy, hangs off the other strap. My sleeping bag is rolled up and tied underneath my pack. My hair is already in practical braids and covered…