emotive Archives - From the Write Side

Mayhem

Ukraine means 'country.' Whatever happened to 'make love, not war'? Where do we go when madness rules the earth? And I think about the mothers... There comes a time in every woman's journey when she faces those two converging paths Frost wrote about...to be or not to be a mother. Instinct and societal norms provoke the desire. Individual goals and preferences incite the response. For me, the choice of family or career never arose, for I had selected a course that allowed for both. What [...]

By irvinjgdm|2022-06-22T23:41:23+00:00May 10th, 2022|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational|0 Comments

October Song

A sense of hunkering down settles over the house. Cool mornings cede passage to warm afternoons, the heat rising and falling like the tide. I feel the yawn of summer, the way the earth withdraws beneath the smokescreen wisps above the pond. On the horizon, a large brown heron throttles westward, determined to make land before the sunset drops its carmine and purple veils. The dark comes early, sometimes like a curtain at intermission, sometimes hidden behind clouds that glower sternly as they slip across [...]

By irvinjgdm|2021-09-30T16:22:58+00:00September 30th, 2021|contemplative, emotive, Essays|0 Comments

A World Turned Upside Down

Note: I drafted the following essay before our country erupted in chaos in protest of the police brutality and murder of George Floyd. I felt a need to add an uplifting look at the pandemic-infused world. Now, our nation is even more in need of healing. Next month, I may address this canker at the heart of our society, but for now, I offer you a breather in the midst of uncertainty. Thank you for being there...on the other side of my words. You are [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-05-31T17:01:37+00:00May 31st, 2020|contemplative, emotive, Essays|0 Comments

How To Survive and Thrive With Uncertainty

If there's one thing we all know, here in May of 2020, it is that the future is more uncertain than ever. A funny little virus with spikes on its belly has infected the world, overwhelmed our hospitals, and thumbed its nose at our efforts to send it away. Life as we know it has changed. We sequester in place, using time in untimely ways. The rush to sports practices and music lessons, to grocery stores and fast-food restaurants has boiled away. We stare from [...]

By irvinjgdm|2020-04-30T13:44:55+00:00April 30th, 2020|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, philosophical, Uncategorized|0 Comments

An Unsilent Knight

The first snowfall of the season settles over the ground in the late November twilight. I stand at the window, dancing with the snowflakes and thinking about my mother, all those years ago pregnant with me, her due date passing as she, too, gazed out the window, wondering where my father was, if he still lived. World War II had ended, but danger continued to stalk the globe. Around her family's store/home, winter promised to call, as it does today, and I, restless, waited until [...]

By irvinjgdm|2018-11-30T16:58:19+00:00November 30th, 2018|contemplative, emotive, inspirational, philosophical, seasonal|0 Comments

Swimming Upstream

This is the time of year for it...the time when salmon, who spend their early lives in rivers before heading out to sea, return to those same rivers to spawn. Fueled by their ocean feedings, they are fortified for the arduous journey back to their birthplace to begin the cycle all over again. Driven by instinct, clear on where they belong, the fish fight currents, leap obstacles, evade bear claws and anglers as they stretch toward the goal. The marathon touches anyone lucky enough to [...]

By irvinjgdm|2018-10-31T11:57:35+00:00October 31st, 2018|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, seasonal|0 Comments

Family Matters…

When we set off in early June on our Mediterranean adventure, I had plans to write about the sailing ship, the ports of call, the new experiences. But when we returned, I found myself once more embroiled in elder care issues. My mother, still the life of the party wherever she goes, has slipped deeper into the hallucinatory dementia that has made inroads in her always-fertile imagination. One day back from the trip, I got back on the road and made the drive to Pennsylvania [...]

By irvinjgdm|2018-06-30T19:23:44+00:00June 30th, 2018|emotive, Essays, philosophical|1 Comment

A Discourse On Loss

"No man is an island." John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions As 2017 closes out its run, I struggle through the immensity of unmooring that the year has brought. My bubble life of structure and belief in the common decency of man has suffered a knock-out punch. As a child of the sixties, I am no stranger to turmoil. However, the bouts of political insanity that rock the country strain my belief that goodness will triumph. A minority should never determine the course of the [...]

By irvinjgdm|2017-12-31T11:59:00+00:00December 31st, 2017|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, philosophical|0 Comments

A December Manifesto: 2017

One. I am only one, but I have a voice. As a human being, as a citizen, as a child of the Creator, I must use that voice to speak out for good. Evil cannot be ignored or excused. Not for political gain. Not for corporate greed. Not out of apathy. In this season of peace, when all religions share hope, I must nourish the flame of that hope. More alike than we are different, a cut bleeds red on all our skins. A light [...]

By irvinjgdm|2017-12-03T17:26:03+00:00December 3rd, 2017|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, motivational, philosophical, seasonal|0 Comments

October…a prose poem in three stanzas

If April is 'the cruelest month,' October is the most seductive. I am thrice bitten...by the whisper and crunch of fallen leaves, the distant call of migrating geese, the yawning fields and garden beds settling into slumber. October crooks a finger and I lean into the wind, eager to grow hobbit feet and slip off among the trees, to follow streams and trails, to sleuth the beauty hiding beyond the next turn. The seasonal sights of orange lanterns strung beneath black spiderwebs, the excited squeals [...]

By irvinjgdm|2017-09-30T12:11:24+00:00September 30th, 2017|contemplative, emotive, Essays, inspirational, motivational, nature, seasonal|0 Comments