I look back on a spectacular California day in May 1993. Chris and I took a drive up to the San Gabriel Mountains. A moment in my life that I will never forget. You see, I didn’t travel much when…
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Reflections of My Heart: Presence Where I Stand
It was May 1984. I wrote this poem because once again, I was in a 10 year conflict in my life. It felt as though they were trying to suck me under. No matter what I did to smile or…
Reflections of My Heart: Precious Moments
One morning in April 1987, I awoke to a magnificent Southern California spring day. The weather was perfect—72 degrees—not too hot and not too cold, just sunny and glorious. Outside my window, laurel sumac leaves danced freely in a breeze,…
Reflections of My Heart: Poets Yet to Come
I wrote this poem on a beautiful spring day in 1984, just about a year before I graduated from Santa Monica Community College. It was a Saturday in the middle of May. My mentor Robert and I walked down to…
Reflections of My Heart: Playful Bird
I wrote this poem back in April 1984. My third year of college. On one of my walks with my mentor, Robert. Suddenly, out of the blue, a blackbird landed by our feet. Walking. Talking. Wobbling to and fro. Side…
Reflections of My Heart: Patchwork Quilt
I wrote this poem in June 1987, the summer before I met Chris, the man who would become my husband. At the time, I knew I would have to let go of a lot of old resentments and pain if…
Reflections of My Heart: Passionate Past
I wrote this poem back in 1981 after facing another incident of discrimination in my career as a fitness instructor. Though the episode itself was ugly, my attitude and beliefs turned it into an experience that opened a door of…
Reflections of My Heart: Paralyzed Little Girl
In 1981, after years of envisioning images and thinking deeply about myself, I wrote this poem. In my late twenties, I was coming of age as I recognized things about myself—about my disabilities—and about what my life would continue to…
Reflections of My Heart: Palette of Reds
In the spring of 1997, I went with my husband Chris to the Exposition Park Rose Garden, behind the Los Angels County Museum of Natural History, with a friend of ours. Silently, we stood, observing the rows of roses, inhaling…
Reflections of My Heart: Palate of Purity
It was now one year later, 1987. A Friday night in November. I had graduated college and accepted a freelance job teaching chair aerobics at the Beverly Hills YMCA. Yes, you might ask. How can a person with one arm…