Dear Big White House,

With your creepy hideouts and shadowed stairwells, I never thought I’d speak to you again. Your memory has been a silent echo, a place I locked away because the truth felt too dark to touch.

I always hated being the last one upstairs. Turning the light off at the bottom terrified me. A part of me felt constantly watched. I felt afraid while living there, especially at night. It sucked to be alone and afraid many nights, which is why I’ve always had trouble sleeping. I’m living proof I’ve never had a secure attachment. I learned to disassociate early. So many bad things happened, but that was just my normal. Disassociating allowed me to speak freely with the thoughts in my head, even in the craziest moments. It was a lifeline.

It was easy to fake a smile, pretending everything was okay, but I questioned it. I’d tell others what they wanted to hear to avoid the worst. Yet, it was never enough to keep me safe. I’ve felt on the run my entire life, not realizing I was running from myself. The past haunts me, but I don’t mind. Some things I shut away for a reason; things got pretty dark.

I’ve learned I can speak openly about anything. Yet some emotions I’ve not yet felt, and I struggle to cope. I’m still learning how to feel things authentically. There’s no right or wrong way to feel, so I go hard for my inner child. She was just a kid, carrying the brunt of so much hurt. This is me letting you know it’s okay for you to tell your story; I’ve got your back. Just use your words, and I’ll use my emotions to guide you through. I can’t go back, but I can show up and be a better example. I couldn’t protect you then, but no one could stop me now!

It’s okay to question your caregivers. It’s okay to use your voice and speak up. Even when scared, you can still be brave. Your story is yours. I’ve got your back, no matter what! I know how it feels to be alone, so we’ll get through this together.

So anyway, back to the story. People came over, and all the teens went upstairs. Teenagers can be very curious. The truth or dare game took a questionable turn. I wasn’t the oldest, but I was the most observant. It started with simple things like prank calls, texts, and crushes. Nothing was exactly happening, but I felt like I invited myself into something unexpected. How did we go from harmless fun to discarding clothes and asking obscene questions? I was curious, yet uncomfortable, specifically about how it would affect us mentally.

No one’s ever spoken about it again. Am I finally facing a core moment of my adolescence? No, I didn’t engage, but I was afraid of what would happen if I left. Other teens I cared about were in that room, so I stuck around despite my discomfort. Is it okay to experience uncomfortable moments with people, yet still feel oddly safe?

This memory has come and gone throughout the years, so I felt it was time to put my experience into words. Yes, I avoided harm; I felt I lost my right to choose. An apology or simple acknowledgment would have been enough, but everyone just went about their lives. I’m closer than ever with a few; others are always excited to see me. I’m not sure how to process that. It’s cool we’re older, but what does this ultimately mean?

You were a place of shadows, Big White House, a crucible of fear and uncomfortable truths. But you also taught me to be observant, to listen more than talk, and to reserve my energy. My voice, once silenced by your shadows, has broken down barriers. It’s more powerful than I ever thought, and I feel freer now.

My resilience stems from my determination to give my inner child everything she lacked, but love and kindness weren’t among them. She has the biggest heart and still loves unconditionally despite all the hurt. Spoken like a survivor who thrives no matter what comes my way. I can handle it; I am wired for this! Life can be confusing, but it’s up to you to keep pushing forward. No one else will do the work. You got this! My story is indeed mine to tell, and it’s a story of choosing bravery, speaking up, and never abandoning the child I once was. And for that, I thank you for the lessons you inadvertently taught me.

The Place of the Goddess

I entered the space of my heart with the Goddess
and wept.

“This place,” I said,
“has changed me more than anything else.”

“Yes,” She said,
“this is My place—the place of love. ”

The Goddess quietly stood next to me.
She held my hand
and showed me the Heart of the Universe.

Then She said . . .

“This is the only place any real change matters.
This is the only place real change occurs.
This is the only place that will repair the world.”

I asked Her: “Why does it feel so empty?”

“Because very few people truly seek
to let go of their fear of life,
and change into the love which created them.”

Eric Sander Kingston

I parked my SUV on the second floor, walked down the ramp, and crossed the busy road. I couldn’t take a chance with the street parking and the meters; I had some unpaid violations. The long walk always gave me an opportunity to gather my thoughts before I stumbled through the revolving doors to check in as a visitor. I wondered when that title would no longer apply. I’d been there at the hospital every day that week. The same hospital my daughter was born in. The same hospital where my late father waited in the delivery room, playing African drum rhythms on his cellular phone, and pacing the floor in anticipation of his new granddaughter. It was a unique atmosphere now, it transformed, it was currently my tabernacle of fear.
My mother was admitted weeks ago. This ongoing battle with Myeloma added an additional layer of hospital stays, blood transfusions, and checkups to what was once a normal routine. This time, there was no simple discharge. This time, we were using unfamiliar words like “discontinue”, “comfort,” and “hospice.”
So, every day, I faithfully frequented the chapel. The chapel was always dimly lit with hanging bulbs that looked like 9 illuminated tear drops encased in glass. There were swirls that resembled hills on the brown wallpaper. In this space of interfaith, there was Janamaz for Muslim Salah. There were rosaries, prayer request notebooks, New Testament Bibles and Mala beads. A little something for everyone. The space welcomed all spiritual influences. I often wondered how many people just take a chance and pray to all of them in desperation. How many of us are just folded over in faith and fear simultaneously in a place where they say the two cannot coexist? When the daily multivitamins, “apple a day”, standing in the sun for Vitamin D, 30 minutes of movement, 8 hours of sleep, and 8 glasses of water didn’t work or didn’t happen: what then? Who would come to the aid of the loved ones sending text messages, lighting candles, sprinkling holy water, and mounting cards with get well wishes at her bedside? What ambulance could teleport my anxiety out of this place where I was supposed to be summoning optimism? I crouched on my knees, my calves, ankles, and feet positioned to the left and right of my rear. I put my face between my knees, unconcerned about the carpet germs. Could this be a place of miracles? Could the sobs of the heavyset, middle-aged man next to me to be some ukuthwasa manifesting healing or signaling the Savior? Or would this just forever be the place that would covet a part of my heart and cremate it to an insoluble stench like the ashes of the cigarettes the “visitors” chain-smoked?

Dear School Street,

When I had to move from my first solo apartment just 9 months after moving in, I was frustrated. I just moved 1200 miles away from my family to start a new life on my own. I was settling into a new state, job, and chapter, just for it to be ripped out from under me unexpectedly.

Unbeknownst to me, you were about to change my life.

Shortly after moving in, I met this friendly, older gentleman who invited me into his home while I contemplated if he was secretly a murderer about to take me as his next victim. I trusted my gut when it led me to believe he was just an old-school, stand-up guy.

Luckily, my gut was right.

We’d grow close over the next few months. He’d meet my boyfriend, then steal him away for grocery store trips. We’d watch cross-country train videos on tv while he told me stories of his days on the road as a celebrity bus driver.

We became family in every sense of the word.

I’ll never forget the first time my neighbor needed me to take him to the hospital.

Unfortunately, that wouldn’t be the last time.

After over a year of multiple ER visits, my neighbor’s oldest daughter made the decision to move in and help take care of him. It was bittersweet being able to put a face to the woman I had spoken to on the phone so many times.

It only took a few months for us to grow as close as I did with her father. He’d always told us we were sisters, but now we embodied that relationship and then some.

We were one big happy family, the five of us. My neighbor, his daughter, her husband, myself, and my boyfriend turned fiancé. You’d never know we’d only met a few years ago. We spent so many days, holidays, celebrations, and life milestones together.

Then, a couple months before my fiancé and I were set to get married, things took a turn.

Watching TV in my bed one morning, I received a call from my neighbor’s daughter. I answered it cheerily only to find her distraught on the other end. All I heard was “I think my son might be dead”. I was out the door on my way.

Her son, days after his 35th birthday, called her that morning expressing his discomfort and struggle to breathe. While on that call, he would collapse and soon take his last breath.

I was the first to arrive at his apartment, where I found his mother outside breaking down, still unsure of what was going on. It’d be hours before we received confirmation that he was gone.

A week later, I awoke around 5am one morning to banging on my door. I opened it to find my neighbor’s daughter franticly telling me her father had collapsed. This wasn’t new in this home of ours, but when I crossed the threshold into his apartment, I felt in my heart this time was different.

I rounded the corner to her husband doing CPR on her dad. Once he saw me, he directed me to take over. Within minutes of opening my eyes, I found myself on the kitchen floor doing CPR as he lay there without a pulse. Paramedics arrived and brought him to the hospital with my fiancé and me behind them. When we arrived, they informed us he passed.

You have brought me so many memories, good and bad. Situations I never imagined I would find myself in. Events that will remain engrained in my heart forever.

You also gave me an entire family. A second father, another sister, aunts and cousins that I never would’ve had without you. We were able to make it through these tough times, because we were together.

YOU brought us together.

I will forever believe that all this happened for a reason. I was meant to move into your apartment so I could meet my neighbor, so we could become family, so I could later help his daughter through the losses of not only her oldest son but also her father. So that I could be her guardian angel here on earth.

Now that my husband and I have purchased our own home, we are leaving you behind. While I’m excited to see what the future holds for us, my heart breaks to see you go. To say goodbye. To accept that you will no longer be my home.

School Street Apartment – you have changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined. You’ve been here through it all. Held our sorrows, celebrated our joys, caressed our laughs, and embraced the highs and lows of life within your walls.

For that, I am eternally grateful.

Dead Childhood home,
As a child spending all those weekends with my grandmother in your living room, eating junk food, watching movies she rented from “Jamie’s” are some of my most cherished memories. You witnessed that woman spoil me rotten! Let’s not forget all the Christmas mornings that you witnessed my family have! The living room was your heart, looking back on it. As a child, I saw you as a kingdom, I saw you as a glorious mansion, you, childhood home, were my safe haven, and for as happy as I was, for some reason, I felt like you were happy, too. I used to think there was so much love in that house that eventually, you would explode.
You knew that wasn’t the case, was it? Because behind all the family get togethers, behind all the weekends I spent with my grandparents before and after my family moved in, behind all the holidays and Christmas mornings, there were closed doors. There were secrets. Weren’t there? You were always clean cut for the most part, from the outside looking in, everything, everyone, our family that lived within you, appeared normal. It was when no one was around that the evil you helped mask, showed itself. I did learn to love within your walls, but I also learned to hate within your walls, also. You were such a wonderful front.
You hid physical and mental abuse, alcoholism, drug addiction, affairs, and childhood trauma that still haunts me to this day. You were one of the masks. One of the biggest masks and you disguised the reality of the situation well, didn’t you? Do you remember when my uncle would go on dope binges? He wouldn’t sleep for six to ten days at a time. He would go into the attic late at night, thinking someone was up there. I would panic; my heart would start to beat so fast because I knew there was an entrance to the attic in the closet in our bedroom. I would put my earphones on and listen to Metallica until I passed out. I didn’t know if I would make it to see the next morning. I know it wasn’t your fault. I don’t hate you. I wanted to leave you on so many occasions but couldn’t because I was too young and didn’t know how to survive on my own.
I went from being a happy kid to a teenager that had to protect my family and myself from the same uncle before I even graduated from high school. You saw it. You could do nothing about it. Were you ever a happy home? You witnessed me growing up, you witnessed me leaving, though at the time, to be honest, I didn’t know that I wouldn’t see you again for years. In September of 2024, I came to visit you one last time. I figured it was time so say goodbye. Up until that point, it had been over a decade since I saw you. At one time, you were vibrant. When I returned, you were empty. Abandoned. All the life you had, physically and metaphorically, was gone, and you were alone and empty. You went from being my happy home, to my broken home, and finally, to just a husk. A building. As I stood inside of you for the final time, I was able to imagine happier times and like seeing a glimpse of a ghost or mirage, they all washed away, and you and I were there for the last time, together, alone. I said my peace and cried. Inside of you, love died, “if only walls could speak.”
I love and hate you,
Cody.

Dear Nashville,

I will never forget going to see you 3 times. I saw 4 rock concerts in your vicinity that I’ll always cherish. A cover band specializing in rock music performed at a honkytonk one night and blew my mind. For a long time, I tried to run away from rock and roll music. But thanks to you and that cover band, my love for it is stronger than ever. I also have more taste in country music than I ever did prior to visiting you. Thanks Nashville. I owe you a lot. See you this September for a 4th time.

Your friend

Michael Delianides

Dear Houston,
I never met you, just knew your name. But from the age of 17, I knew you were where my life would be forever changed. I was always looking for a place to call home. Although I had a family that showed me genuine care, St. Louis was never the place I was destined to be. I lived a life always searching, not feeling like I belonged.
When college approached, I thought about coming to meet you sooner. But I decided to go with what felt a little safer and took my educational adventures to Huntsville, AL. Good thing I’m not a girl who likes the traditional things in life. If I were, my journey to self would have ended there with getting caught up in the simplicities of life, getting married, building a family, the end. Although now, being single at 38, that doesn’t sound too bad.
I left Huntsville in 2009 but only returned to the cold arms of the Lou. Reality hit. The fantasy of graduating college and having the job of your dreams that aligns with your degree (the one you start paying for six months after graduation, every month until this day, with many forbearances and low-income repayment plans) began to fade. The dream of living in your destined city dims into buried hope for eight years.
Eight years of becoming a shell of myself. Living just to survive. Making only enough money to pay $398 in rent and a $202 car note, yet barely having enough money to enjoy life. Of course, you force yourself into a relationship because that’s what adults do, right? But what I found out is that I never grew up. I wasn’t an adult. Love was something I didn’t understand.
So, that relationship hurt. Not solely because of the other person but because I didn’t know who I was, what I deserved, how to love anyone, or how to receive it. Again, I was lost, thinking I would find myself in a person. And when that didn’t happen, I filled myself with food and toxic behaviors. Numbness soon followed, and though I longed so deeply to escape, the courage to leave and meet you slowly but surely dissipated altogether.
My desires were replaced with others’ desires. Can you believe I almost missed my opportunity to meet you? I nearly betrayed you and the deep heart nudging to be with you to live in LA. “I wouldn’t be alone,” was my reasoning. But thank God I got there and quickly learned I had no one at all. My heart would never be in that city.
I finally reached my breaking point in April 2017. There was nothing left to lose. So, I ran. No walking. No looking back. I ran to you. And Houston, you welcomed me with open arms. I finally felt free and knew I was where I was supposed to be.
Even though it wasn’t a true plan in place, you looked out for me. Your culture and diversity brought about a new experience I had never witnessed in my entire life of segregation (yes, it still exists). There was always something to do, somewhere to explore. I thank you for that. I never felt tired of the immense social activities. I had no time to be bored.
Houston, you were the best escape. The best city to live in for a girl like me. I looked for you my entire life, and I have found you.
For six and a half years, every week was filled with a party here, drinking there, and being engulfed in a sea of men. It was fun, exciting, intriguing. Then suddenly, there it was a slight tug on my heart. Could it be? The feelings I ran from for 36 years coming back to flood me?
So, I tried to turn my direction a little. But I couldn’t let go of what you gave me. I couldn’t betray the life I’d become accustomed to. I owed you. You got me out of the depths of emptiness and the boringness of life. Clearly, I just needed to explore you more to find the spark I once felt. But I battled.
Houston, you no longer felt like my warm, cozy home. You felt more and more like an isolated island.
Then, one doctor’s visit changed everything. Restrictions were given. All I had now was the purity of water, self-discipline, and thoughts I had run from for many, many days. I was lonely since my life could no longer be filled with the foods from restaurants I loved or the drinks that transported me to another world. Access had been denied.
What I found is that you couldn’t save me. Being here and indulging wasn’t going to save me from me.
But being with you, Houston has saved me. Had I never come to you, I would not have known true independence from my family. I wouldn’t have learned what it means to truly grow up. Not because of the increasing number every 365 days on a calendar but because of hard, tough experiences that shape you, change your perspective, and that you must face alone.
You gave me room to build confidence and be myself. There was no one way I needed to be. Meeting different people from all walks of life showed me that I didn’t need to fit in a box to be me, to be who I was created to be.
Most importantly, had it not been for you, Houston, my renewed, firm foundation would not have been set. Who knew that the random thought at 17, “I will live in Houston,” was a guide from the Lord? Because you are where I would truly meet Him.
The Lord knew you would be my place. The place He would show up and snatch me into His arms. I would turn from the ways of the dark principalities of this world. I would forgive myself for the self-harm caused during my escapism. He knew it would be you who would provide the space to walk in purpose, to recognize generational traumas and bondage, and to break them.
He used you to get to me, to show me my patterns, my habits, and my comfortability. He allowed me to live freely within you, learning your ways and accepting your openness. Ultimately, I found that going fully my way with you meant I was living in bondage and sin.
Houston, I thank you. Being here has granted me access to the freedom, love, and divine purpose I’ve searched for my entire life.
As we continue this journey, I know the Lord will be in the midst. And I will say that Houston has been and will continue to be the place of firsts: my first home, first puppy, first and only husband, first child, and the list goes on.
Houston, the love I have for you is deep. Thank you for holding space for me.

Yours Truly,
LuLu

Hello there, place that changed me.
Except you are me, aren’t you?
You hold all my memories and experiences.
You comfort me and scare me.

Truly, I can’t be without you.
Thank you.

In 26 years, you’ve endured.
Still there.
Still here.
Don’t you see, yet?
You’re the place that changed me.

Change is weird, isn’t it?
Constant.
Loved.
Hated.

But change… change is good.
You changed me. You did.
Do you know how?

I could’ve been dead.
I’m not.
I could be behind.
I’m not.
I could be poor, but I’m rich with learning and love.
You, the place that changed me, I adore.
You’re silly, and crazy, and always constantly with me.
You’re wise, and funny, and a place that continues to change me.

You’ve been an enigma, sometimes foreign.
But you’re a place still changing me.
I’d like to think I know you,
and just maybe I do.

You began as a place on my bucket list, a destination I wasn’t sure I’d ever see.

Then work, a new job, carried me over the Atlantic to the place of my ancestors.

Dublin and its surrounding towns welcomed me with open arms, pints of Guinness, golf on a links course, and a night filled with live Irish music, eating shepherds pie, and dancing.

I discovered good people and that I could drive on the opposite side of the road. My American brain made the change after some tense rides on roads too narrow for two cars at once and roundabouts with too many lanes.

More visits followed, each one as good as the last.

Memories were made with my soon to be wife, my daughter turning drinking age, and my dear friend of many years.

We stilled our car on an Irish country road and witnessed for ourselves the legend of coasting backward up a hill, defying gravity.

We climbed from the base of a mountain, The Long Woman’s Grave, to the top and let the wind hold us up from falling forward.

Ireland, you are my home away from home.
Never change from loving American eighties and country music. Never change your menu. May your people never lose their good, Irish soul.

Save me a Guinness until next time we meet.

(ProWritingAid Style Score: 100%)

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene…
It was my first weekend in your world—my first taste of your beauty, your chaos, your magic. I was a junior in college, still tethered tightly to the familiar. I had never lived away from home, never navigated a new language, never taught in a classroom of my own. And then—there you were. An unexpected invitation, a semester on a U.S. Army base in Vicenza, and a ticket halfway across the world.
You were terrifying.
But you were everything.
You met me with cobblestone streets, ancient ruins, and pizza I learned to order with awkward hand gestures and a smile. You gave me gelato in the snow, Juliet’s balcony in Verona, Carnivale in Venice, and a Valentine’s Day in Rome that still feels like a dream. You gave me my first roommates, my first students, my first real taste of independence—and, somehow, you gave me my future husband too.
You changed me not with one grand moment, but with a thousand small ones: the kind that turn into memories, and then into identity. You taught me how to be brave. How to live in the unknown. How to find pieces of myself in foreign places and unfamiliar faces.
You were my beginning—of adulthood, of love, of courage.
And while I may have returned home fifteen years ago, you’ve never really let me go.
With love and a suitcase full of memories,
from the girl who said yes to you and everything the came after

The place that holds my story is not one most seek out.

A hill of torture.
Where the depth of humanity’s cruelty burns,
Where shame and scorn seem to reign supreme.
Yet—
to the discerning eye,
there’s more here to be seen.

If you climb the hill to this
place of the skull—
Golgotha—
You will ache.

The despair of the condemned will weigh heavily on your heart.
The sight of weeping mothers will fill your eyes, their cries drowned out by the
jeering mob.
You will witness the immense effort it takes
to steal one labored breath.
You will watch as life slowly, savagely slips away
in an untidy and unending drip.

An innocent lamb, unblemished.
A suffering servant who sings of
forgiveness in his final breath.
This willing incarnation of love,
who leaves
no stone unturned,
no heart left to harden,
no moment unmet—
meets the worst of fates here.

Who in their right mind would willingly venture into this space?

Indeed, most of His friends dared not follow Him here.
Most scattered to the winds of fear.

To be honest, I’ve done the same.
Not just in fright—but also in disillusionment.
I turned my back, not due to a lack
Of love,
but because I had the story all wrong.

And my abandoning, my flight (which still happens) deepens the heartbreak here—
but also the capacity for hope.

For I’ve left but also returned.
I’ve stood here again and again,
drawn not by duty, but by the pain only this place can name.

But, standing is only the start.

You must also look with an unflinching gaze.
Observing at His feet—His mother, Mary,
and the other women strong enough to stay—you will feel their pain.

You will feel their power.

Watching the beloved apostle—one of the few who chose to anchor himself
at the feet of the One who called him to new life—
you will grasp that there is more to this place than death, harm, and despair.

You will see, if you too can stand there,
that the grounding and accompaniment on display
are the seeds of light in this den of destruction—
This house of torturous pain,
Nowhere for the faint or hard of heart.

For those seeds reveal that it’s also the home of hope.
The soil from which forgiveness, healing, and joy bloom.

I often stand at the foot of the cross,
watching as Jesus breathes his last.
As he forgives those who spat on him,
stealing His dignity and life.

I pray to have the strength to stand my ground in this place:
To remain rooted in love.
To keep vigil with Him, like the wondrous women whose strength I emulate.
To tenderly remove his wounded body from the cross,
and in laying him gently down,
To take oil and water and wash those wounds
with all the care and attention I have.
To tend to these wounds as my return
for the ways He has cared for mine.

This divine Physician asks for nothing—
and yet, I long to give in return.
In this place, I choose to honor his wholly holy hurts.
And while fear begs us to run like hell from a place like this,
I realize and remember that He is found here.

I see the secret that resides in each puncture:
The stone that blocks the tomb can be rolled away.

But, it is only in journeying to and through this place that
Such boulders can be moved.

Only when you weep and mourn at this Master’s feet
will you gain clarity to see what lies beyond.

Only when you tend to His glorious wounds
will you heal your own.

This place that holds my story
is one I thought I’d left for good.
I chalked it up to fabrication.
I saw the way people wielded this tale as a weapon,
damaging rather than healing.
So I left,
trampling pages underfoot,
letting silence replace my prayers.

When I finally came home,
When I at last heeded that unceasing call of love from above,
I was welcomed with the warmest embrace.
The fatted calf was slain,
a feast held for me.

I didn’t deserve this…

I couldn’t deserve this…

But…

Love doesn’t keep score
or worry about such petty concerns.
Love proclaims ownership, not possession.
It deals in deliverance, not debts.
It fills and does not falter.
Love surrounds, sustains, and never ceases.

Coming back to this place wasn’t a journey home
so much as learning to reopen my tight-shut eyes,
Which is, in truth, an unending process.

You see,
I’ve always been
right here
beneath this cross.
I just couldn’t always
sense
it.

This place where I meet Him
has always lived
within.

A cross carved not in wood,
but in me.

This place that holds my story—
Holds me too.

Dear Phillip Island,

It was in your ten thousand, eight hundred and eleven miles away from home that I learnt how to love for the first time. It took me three seas and an ocean to learn that it is worthwhile. I must have been lonely.

You were a small place – a few towns, fourteen thousand residents. There were likely more tourists than locals, most days. Those penguins you shelter on the Ouest side certainly did work their charm. It was not home, far from it; the roads were too straight, the flies too pesterous and the birds too adamant to be on the next roadkill headline; nonetheless, I built my little life. I had my routine and my favourite spots. I worked and tried to integrate with the locals; the later rather unsuccessfully. I was always a shy kid; I always kept my wall up, holding my acquaintances at just enough distance to avoid the pain of goodbye.

Yet, it was on your white sandy beaches that I fell into his eyes, on your barren cliffs that I craved for his love and on your clear sky mornings and rainy afternoons that I yearned for his touch. It was like the movies say, perhaps it is worth indulging in the pleasures of the heart without fearing the pain that may follow. You might have caught glimpses of us chasing those fleeting moments of warmth. Was I crazy to let in a stranger, on a strange Island, knowing full well my departure date was set? Soon enough there I was again, travelling halfway around the world, but in the opposite direction.

Although I am now left with fragments of a memory, you have taught me the value of opening my heart. It was confusing, it was painful and most of all, it was beautiful.

With all my love,

Rhea.

Dear Little Missouri State Park,

Every year that I see you, somehow feels like it has only been a few days and a lifetime all at once. My most formative moments have taken place up and down your switchback trails and between your narrow ledges. As I have adapted through adolescence, college, marriage and now parenthood. You too have been forced to adapt to droughts, floods, tornados, oil drilling and the steady erosion of time. You change your paths to keep up with the changes, but your integrity and character has thankfully suffered little for it. You are still the place that I look forward to every year. Your lush green plateaus juxtaposed against the striped dusty layers of the badlands. The winding trails that go deep into the forested valleys that offer cool shade on a rough horseback ride, but still terrify me because I am one bad step away from a broken bone. A person can watch the people ahead of them appear as though they are dropping off the face of the planet. Nothing gets my heart to race faster. And yet, nothing can calm down faster than watching a sunset over your hills and make me feel at complete peace.

I’ve tried, but I can’t think of only one story that defines you to me. There’s the time I almost got bit by a rattler. It was coiled just a few inches behind my left foot in the tall grass. I told myself I wasn’t going to move, but then I decided to sprint up a hill to get away. But that story is such a small part of my time there it barely warrants an honorable mention. I can recall several nights of staying up way past park curfew to do stargazing or laugh and tell stories around the campfires, much to the chagrin of the park rangers but that just makes me sound irresponsible or disrespectful and I have the utmost respect for the camp and those who take care of it. There’s the time I went on a trail ride when I was seven and I got split up from my brother who was supposed to be responsible for me. The group split up into two and my horse went one direction and my brother went the other. It was a bigger deal for my parents who were pretty concerned since it was my first solo ride, but truth be told, the horse I was riding should’ve been named “Ol’ Reliable”. I was in good hands(or rather, hooves) that day. Between several galloping adventures and witnessing daredevil stunts, and a handful of close calls with spooked horses or horses dropping dead of heart attacks on the trails, there’s enough reason to have a healthy respect for what can happen out there in the badlands of North Dakota. But none of those reasons prevent me from going or wanting to go back year after year.

Your lack of cell service and wi-fi forces me to take in all of the sights, sounds and smells whether I want to or not. And I am ultimately better for it, even if your vault toilets make me want to puke sometimes. I have faced my greatest fears while being your captive audience, but I have also laughed the hardest I ever have in my life, and I have come away with the greatest stories of love and redemption this side of heaven. My family who gathers there every July are a love letter to me from God, and the savagely beautiful badlands are the envelope that letter is carried in. Delivered at times through sweat and tears yet received with gratitude all the same. I wouldn’t change any of it, yet you have definitely changed me, and I thank you for it.

Sincerely,
Amy Holmquist

p.s- except the rattlesnakes, I would change those, I hate snakes.

New York,

When I look at you from the window seat of a plane, it’s hard to grasp your vastness. A sprawl of buildings, apartments, skyscrapers, overpasses, tunnels, and parks—each one a marker in the countless lives you’ve shaped. Yet in the sea of everything, there’s one life, in one wretchedly outdated building, that has brought my heart a world of grief. Not because of anything he’s done, but because of how completely the everything that is you swallowed him up and made him lonely.

In another world, you would’ve built my dad up to be the classic rags-to-riches story. From “Do or Die Bed-Stuy” to the top of the food chain—from fixing the neighborhood block boy’s cars to owning his own repair shop. You were the land of promise, the American Dream. For a moment, naiveté blinded me to thinking it was within our reach.

How will I ever be able to forgive you for the story you authored? The one where my dad didn’t make it big. Where you ended his chance at a better life. There is no picking yourself up by the bootstraps when your new normal is an achingly repetitive day on loop at the nursing home, his new home.

If you press your ear to the walls of the Truss Hotel, I can guarantee the sound of my heart breaking still reverberates within the foundation from when I first got the call about what happened. There’s a car on the Q train that still gets a little too humid after all the tears my sister and I cried after our first visit to the nursing home. I don’t think the counter boy at Joe’s will forget how puffy my eyes were as my voice shook asking for a slice as I came to terms with our new normal.

I used to long for you, New York. You were where it all started. Where my ancestors laid roots at the prospect of a new life. Where my dad used to sneak me lemon cookies on the train and publicly dance at a whim to keep a smile on my face. Yet with each visit, my heart toward you hardened. The happiest memories of my hometown are now overshadowed by a nightmare that was actualized.

When I look at you from the window seat of a plane as I leave JFK once again, I breathe a sigh of relief. I still love you, but I can’t let you swallow me, too.

Major Depressive Disorder, alongside PTSD
A lifetime constant
The deterioration of one’s previous self
The giddy children once playing
Now the sorrowful adults
Held back by the mind, unable to heal
Getting drained by the leeches

The hospital had changed me
The person I was for eighteen years,
Eventually, and slowly, faded away

The emotions of dullness and nothingness,
A constant reminder at the despairing life I lived
The deafening waves cast a shadow upon me
The waves hoard the feelings that disable me
Incapable of betterment until the leeches were pulled off
Pulled off by the nurses, medication, and group sessions

The month long stench of bed-rotting,
Gets washed away by the non-hangable shower head
Using soap that dried out, yet exfoliated my skin
The oils and color washing out of my hair and onto the shower pan
Changing into a new set of paper thin clothes
I didn’t feel refreshed or clean – just exhausted
Yet, this was the first time I felt somewhat at peace in over a year

The wires of my brain got violently rearranged
Replaced and sparked in me
Latching onto what was left from before
I begin to see the seraphs reaching upon me
Lifting me up to the light they casted upon my shadows

The shadows I did not create,
But brought upon me as a child
Once my solace for myself,
Yet truly a prison that I had built

The seraphs began to change who I was,
Acting out the wishes of the holy
The seraphs are nothing, and yet everything,
They lifted me up at my lowest yet never existed to begin with
Never believing in Christ,
I witness the judgement casted down upon me as a child
And the forgiveness as an adult

I believe there are gods, but they don’t affect our lives
However, an act caused me to get sent to the doctor’s office,
To get sent to the emergency room,
To the Purple Zone,
To the Behavioral Health Unit.

This changed who I am today but not who I was
I, the broken porcelain, became a work of kintsugi
My life became a piece displaying wabi-sabi
The art of changing something broken into beauty
The art of imperfections
The beauty of the scars left on me, highlighted in gold

The once prepredicted obituary now voided,
Lost in the abyss of our pasts
Now become the celebrations of future life
New joys
New love
New passions
A new chance at life

First, life and death lays in childbearing, some hard choices must be decided. Secondly, I thought about how disappointed I had been all through this pregnancy had even contemplating ending the pregnancy. Now, right now his life or my life stands in the ballot. It was at this time I thought I should have been grateful. I knew this marriage was coming to an end and I didn’t want to bring another child into the mix. I guess I felt like I was between a rock and hard place. It was the spring of 1991 around 7:00 am and I woke up to discomfort. I told my then husband I don’t feel right, let’s go to the hospital.
Once there, of course, vitals are checked, then told I was in labor, however, I had not dilated enough. Mrs. Lane you need to start walking around in the hallway (I thank God I was not sent home). As I begin to walk pain I mean excruciating pain, pain that I didn’t experience with my other two children. My ex then told the nurse. I was hooked on a monitor for a while then I was told to walk again in the hallway. I tried to do what I was asked but again intense pain engulfed me. This time I cried no; no, it hurts so bad. Again, he went to the nurses’ station this time his tone was not as nice “something is wrong with her” immediately a monitor was placed over my stomach; blood pressure machine wrapped around my arm. As I lay in bed, I was closelyevaluated. One nurse left and when she returned, she was accompanied by a doctor. The doctor examined me and looked closely at the readings then told me and my ex what was going to happen. The baby is in distress and the heartbeat continues to decline as you walk, we will have to deliver by cesarean. No, I protested but due to the nature of my condition this was the only way. My ex was called outside of the room and given some papers to sign. The papers consist of content detailing if the surgery would go array. He came back into the room with a stare of fright in his eyes and told me what was proposed then asked what I should do. He was told that they would save the baby at all costs. I said so to hell with me just sign the documents. The preparation was done and at 11:45 am he was cut out of me; 7 lbs. and 15 ounces. This curly head handsome little boy. Looking at him and knowing that he was healthy I could’ve prayed for anything more what I dealt with early on in the pregnancy didn’t compare to my emotions at the time when I first saw.

Dear Chancellor & Leslie –
The southernmost cornerstone
Of the best place in the world.
When I was a girl,
You were the center of my universe.
But my how time has made
My Olympus to fall.
A corner once gilded with love
Had all the paint chipped away
Revealing your abundant faults.
A changing of keys and of deeds,
And even a sad fire burning,
You’re smaller than I remember,
But everyday I ride past
And look to you still.
To the home borne of troubled souls
Hoping you still had him
Nestled in your bosom.
Knowing he’d be safer with you
Than braving the world alone.

To my happy place,

You never fail to soothe me. Even when my inner world feels like it’s falling apart, simply being in your presence gives me the space to piece myself back together.

Though I’ve visited you countless times and in every season, I still find myself at a loss for words, completely enamored by your effortless beauty. The green grass, bouncing hills, and bountiful trees every which way. The wind swirling and dancing with the leaves, birds chirping and twirling in harmony, and the joyful sound of children laughing, playing, and skipping across the meadow. The sunset paints the sky with purples, pinks, and citrusy oranges, softly mirrored in the vast, shimmering water.

My time with you is my therapy. Nature grounds me, heals me and reminds me of who I am. There’s something so special about having a happy place you can return to whenever you need, and with you, I’ve created some of my most cherished memories. I’ve found my favorite spot at the top of the hill, beneath a big, majestic tree where sunlight peeks through and brightens up my day. Here, I sit and have a picnic, journal, play my ukulele, and follow whatever my heart desires.

I also meditate with you, visualizing roots growing and expanding from the soles of my feet down into the earth’s core. Sometimes, they intertwine with the roots of nearby trees, deepening the sense of connection and groundedness. I then imagine all my heaviness melting away into the soil, where all darkness is transmuted into light. I invite in and fully embrace the light that endlessly flows through nature, a light full of magical, abundant, and loving energy. I feel its presence envelop me, comforting and soothing every part of me. You have created this space where my mood can shift from stress and sadness to gratitude, love, and peace.

I love walking through your paths, reflecting on the deeper meaning of life. Your presence invites me to step away from the constant hustle and bustle of this stressful world. Every flower is a quiet reminder that there’s no need to rush in order to bloom. The stillness of the water radiates tranquility and ease, a natural remedy for my overwhelmed mind. I love that you help me slow down, be present, and admire the little things within all the beauty that surrounds me. I’ve experienced healing, clarity, and a gentle flow of creative breakthroughs in your presence. With you, I feel like I’m a part of something greater, as if the universe is walking hand in hand with me, gently supporting and encouraging me.

Thank you, my local park, for being my happy place, always and forever.

Dearest BF, There Was Purple in the Room

I awoke in a room smelling of baby powder, antiseptic cleaner and urine. My body hurt all over.

People in white lab coats, some in blue and others in polka dotted scrubs, filled the room. Something large was attached to the side of my throat, other plastic tubes went down my nose entering different parts of my body internally and a large plastic thing was in my mouth and shoved down my throat, gagging me. It was a nightmare come true.

I tried to cry out, reached up to jerk the obnoxious things off of me; then I heard a stern command of,
“Put her out!”

Several days later, I’ve now been told, I woke again. This time, the gag inducing intubation tube had been removed, but the rest of the paraphernalia was still solidly attached to my body. My hands were lightly fastened to the bed rails with some sort of bright, colorful cloths. I remember thinking, why it was that someone tried to make such an obscene item, pretty.

A nurse came in and asked me what I remembered. I answered in a voice hoarse and damaged, that I remembered greeting my best friend at my front door, she had driven from out of state to stay with me. We had talked about my upcoming spinal surgery scheduled for the next day, and then we went to our respective bedrooms to sleep. That was it.

I was told I had taken a bad turn after the surgery, and stopped breathing. I had been intubated over a week and extubated three times before I could breath on my own. I had been in the hospital over two weeks now. This also happened at the peak of the COVID pandemic, which meant no visitors, period. Not my children, grandson, my neighbors or my best friend, who had gone home over a week ago back to her own family. I fell into a stupor. I did not want to talk to these people I did not know, I shut down.

For days I did not speak to anyone, they even brought a psychiatrist in. He diagnosed me with PTSD, prescribed meds and left. I hated this very cold, completely white room without curtains on a window that faced a stark, windowless building. There was no color, nothing green and not even a picture on the wall.

My only comfort was my Native American Spirit Box, for me, a religious symbol of my Animistic Spirituality. At one point, the staff tried to take it away from me, while I was still unable to walk, for safety reasons, they said.

An angel in purple appeared in the doorway, her face livid red and her voice clear. A tiny woman, swathed in a purple dress, wrapped in a vivaciously colored purple scarf and wearing the most beautiful purple crystal necklace I had ever seen, walked in. She wore a mantle of power, dwarfing every one else in attendance. They parted, allowing her near my bed. Her dark eyes flashed at all of them as she ordered them to leave the room. They complained, but complied.

She knew! She understood how sacred was my Box. Lifting my blankets, she tucked it in beside me, leaned over and told me she’d take care of the problem, and she did! My purple savior had worked on several Indian Reservations over her long medical career, and she recognized the depth of my faith and my need to keep my Box near.

Over the next few weeks, she coached and cajoled me on how to get better in order to get the tubes removed from my nose and the massive intravenous structure sewed onto my neck, out too. Eat, drink, rest, move around and smile. It was not easy, but with her encouragement, I eventually escaped from most of the intrusive medical instruments of torture.

Soon her time allotted to me, came to an end. How thrilled I was, when I received a call from her the next morning and we spoke like old friends. This continued every morning for the next two weeks. Finally, I was discharged, but had to go to a rehabilitation facility. I could not yet, take care of myself. My lovely, purple angel handled all of the arrangements and when it was time for my final discharge from that facility; my purple angel and her husband picked me up, carried me to their home and cared for me for weeks.

Though I hated that hospital room, and still do, I have to give it thanks for delivering my purple angel to me. Without her, I know in my heart I would have perished. My purple saving angel is now my very best friend, thank you cold, white hospital room!