Ravens ride the thermals above the roadside winterkill waiting for eagles to finish their meal.  Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the Great Depression had a traumatic effect worldwide, spawning authoritarian regimes in several European countries and sowing seeds of conflict for the Second World War.  My mother warned me most men will discard you if you’re too loud, too chubby, too opinionated, too strong.  Sending messages of love encased in Coke bottles only for them to be washed up on Old Orchard Beach and collected by maintenance workers.  One summer night I watched the ripples in Brewer Fountain until they were nothing more than flickering shadows; I had nowhere to be and no one who expected me.  The revolving door of addictions that held my father captive his entire life, chains forged of habit, despair, and a yearning for escape that eventually got the best of him.  Run, white rabbit, run.

Storytellers—or trance–tellers as Estes calls them—“learn to undo certain psychic gates and ego apertures in order to let the voice speak, the voice that is older than the stones.”  Autumn in the White Mountains: crimson and gold leaves fluttering to the ground, Narragansett beer, the smell of wood smoke, and the sound of Canada geese heading south for the winter...like I should've.  Sex, drugs, and rock and roll—the thin line between recreational and hardcore, the misstep that lands you with cool chicks congregating in the parking lot or the trashy sluts beneath the bleachers.  Contemporary Amazons lose their breasts beneath the surgeon’s knife—thousands of amputations last year alone—scars gleaned from a battle so much more insidious than those fought by Penthesilea’s warrior women.  Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.  I dream of a time when women re–member the bonds of sisterhood and simply hold and support each other through life’s challenges, rather than spin gossip and report each other to the inquisitors to get rid of any competition.  Right place, wrong time…yet again.  Hence fame, but only if you retain your audience's interest.  Traversing a strange and barren landscape, the Moon tempts us to abandon our civil veneer and roam feral and unfettered off the path seeking unconventional wisdom; but beware the menu of illusions, hidden dangers, dark intentions.  

Along came a spider and sat down beside her and…why didn’t she smash the thing to smithereens with her shoe?  Don’t trust anyone over forty.  Why do they insist I choose between my womanhood and my writing, my art?  Well-behaved women are boring, but that doesn't mean they aren't game for disposal.  Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.  Much to my Sicilian grandmother’s relief, her father finally remarried the year she turned twenty, saving her from a despicable Saturday night duty she never told anyone about until years after he died.  Say that again and I’ll wash your mouth out with soap.  

You only have one chance to make a first impression.  Now show us that pretty smile!  White picket fences and flowering cherry trees were never my style, so despite the fact everyone who thought they knew me said I should stay in suburbia with him, I didn't.  Sun glistening off the snowfield, multi-colored glitter strewn across the meadow.  Walking away with nothing more than the clothes on my back and my son in my arms.  Hi, my name is J. and I’m a co-alcoholic.  Go on now, vent that craziness onto the page, canvas, dance floor, screen, because it's in those mad moments true brilliance is born.

Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Lunacy. Escape. Feral.  Brilliance.  Brilliant. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved June 12, 2025, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary