Tag: addiction

Whirlpools and Windmills: I Choose the Present

Pam Ross Porcaro

I can be like a boat passing by and flowing onward or get mired in it trying to make it what it is not, and whirl around and around wandering in an endless thought process of, “If only.” I then get stuck on the rinse and repeat cycle, living reactively all the time, falling blindly into the holes of my history, until I give up altogether and get stuck on the riverbank of hopeless despair. OR, I can see. Recognize. Steer clear. Float over. Dance through. On, into the vast river of life. Mistaking the whirlpool for the river, I am doomed. And yet the only way out is to realize that the whirlpool and the river are made of the same substance, dancing. I am whole.

My Relapse

Richard DeFino

April 11th, 2014, Rochester NY: It was a little after two o’clock in the morning; I was driving my car as steady as I possibly could, going exactly 35 mph down Monroe Avenue. Between shifting gears in my bright yellow, cop magnet, five speed Chevy, I was taking baby sips Read more

My Non-Television Mother and Me: The Apology

Richard DeFino

Part 3 of a 3 part series. After interviewing my mother, reading through the archives of my memoirs, taking note of the dark memories that quietly play in the back of my mind like an old French noir film, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ve hit a plateau, with Read more

The Widow

Victoria Addesso

Every early morning she leashes her old dog, walks down to and through the forest to the lake. She looks younger than her fifty-six years, although she feels older, or rather, as if she has lived far too long already. Her dog, an Aussie boy, a handsome black tri-color, walks Read more

47 Trips Around the Sun

Julie Anderson

One of the signs of passing youth is the birth of a sense of fellowship with other human beings as we take our place among them. -Virginia Woolf On January 16th, I will be celebrating another trip around the sun. I never dreamed I would pass over onto the other Read more