October

OMG I finally have a new Apple MacAir and already my inferior computer skills have become so much easier. This includes being able to post photos on my Blog without Herculean effort. 

Here's home: where I'm nesting these days. It's a beautiful place to be inside and out. Our house isn't fancy but it's comfortable and welcoming. I spend a lot of time looking on this scene, from the couch, often writing. It's a big deal that I've added Microsoft Word to my laptop. It's been a foolish disadvantage I saddled myself with since every agent and publisher wants manuscripts and queries and everything in Word. So now I can stop worrying about how a document or file will look when I export it. Not to say that I know what I'm doing even on Word, but I'll learn. I'm motivated. 

The time of day and the tides here in Provincetown determine the light of scenes like these. I'm amazed every time. The third shot is just outside my front door. Sunset. 

In two weeks there will be mid-term elections in the United States. It's horrifying to think that people who lied and still lie about our Presidential election still have a following--and a violent following at that. It's a troubled time in the world. I don't know if I can even write about it. I keep thinking that too many people don't understand what it actually means if Democracy fails. 

This glittering scene is one block from our house. It's hard to feel anything but grateful when I pass by this. I'm an optimist. I hope reality doesn't force me to reconsider. Already I'm no longer a loyal fan of  the human race.

 And finally today, this little tree in the front porch is my reminder that the holidays will soon begin. I'm all over that! For some reason I'm far more creative during the Christmas season. I draw more; I search for interesting presents; JB and I bake and decorate our almost-famous sugar cookies. And we have little get-togethers and pot-lucks. This time of year, I do my best to offer some much needed cheer. 

Davoni

His name is changed but this is a true story. I was a psychotherapist some years back and I could tell you a hundred stories like this. 

The spacing didn't turn out correctly on this post but for some reason it's right as it is. 

 Davoni never answered. No matter what I asked him, he grinned and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he always 

said. This was his response when I asked him if he missed his mother, when I  asked him how he felt when his 

foster mother told him that she didn’t want him anymore, what he thought when the new foster family shaved his 

head and he had to he start a new school in a new home. I told Davoni that I would pay myself  a nickel every 

time he said “I don’t know.” and I’d soon be rich.  “Oh another nickel—that’s fifteen cents so far today!”  I joked

and and we laughed together, the way we sometime laughed for no reason when we walked to the little room 

holding hands and  tickling each other’s palms. He’s only six and he’s been in three foster homes so far. 

Davani only cried twice in front of me, once on the last day of kindergarten, when two of  his teachers kept showing him his special music award and told him how great he sang.. But later, in the school library room where we sometimes met, when I  asked him about the award and, he began  to cry and couldn’t stop. Finally he sobbed, “It should have been in spelling, not music. I didn’t try in music.” 

Last week he cried like that again, this time because he scratched another kid in his afterschool program and was suspended for five days. The teacher aide told me he cried so hard he couldn’t talk. She said he seemed like a good child, and smart; that she understands that he is in  a new school with new teachers and a new foster family, new faces, new  rooms, new rules. “But,” she said, he had to be punished. She also said he’s falling asleep in class.

“Do you sleep okay in your new room?” I asked him.

“I dunno,” he said.

            “Oh! Another nickel!” He laughed. We laughed. 

“Devoni,” I put my hands on his head and rubbed  his stub of hair. “About scratching that kid at afterschool, I can teach you how to use your words instead of your hands. I think that will help a lot, what do you think?” 

He looked up.“ I dunno.” He smiled and  paused. “Yes,” he said.