Streetlight Days
In 2019 I returned to my old neighborhood in Fullerton to celebrate my mom’s 95th birthday. The celebration was held at the Los Lomas Verdes Swim Club I often frequented while growing up all those years at 900 North Mountain View Place. After the party, I walked home, taking the same route home I had taken so many times when I was young. I passed my friend Matha’s house and passed the streetlight we often sat under on so many summer nights just talking and dreaming about the future. I reflected on all those times of childhood innocence before we became adults. This moment was the inspiration for “Streetlight Days”.
Behind her Chapel Veil
I grew up a Catholic girl who went to Catholic schools and received her sacraments. However, very early on I started questioning the institution where I worshiped and witnessed hypocrisy all around me. I watched parishioners who prayed on Sunday, but then behaved antithetical to Christ the rest of the week. As I grew older, I learned about priests who abused children and how the church covered up these crimes. The Catholic Church was and remains an institution full of lies and secrets. I will always embrace the spirit and lessons of Jesus Christ in a secular sense, but I know in my heart the corruption of the Church is not what a loving God could ever have intended.
Too Late to Bring him Home
I spent several years as a high school English teacher teaching The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, a Vietnam veteran. I often began that unit by sharing my own stories of the veterans in my own life: my father, my brother and my son-in-law. I wrote this song to express the cost of war and how the invisible wounds of war remain long after war ends. Those who serve can never fully return home as the people they were before-a piece of them will always remain in lands far away where they have faced war’s horror.
The New Nowhere Man
Everytime I drive to visit my daughter, Jamie, I get off at the Harrison off ramp in Oakland where there is an ever growing encampment of homeless people living in makeshift tents under the freeway overpass. This scene is repeated over and over again in the Bay Area, so sadly, I, like others, have become used to seeing these people as part of the urban scenery. But, on one day when the light turned green and I turned left, I made eye contact with one man in particular who was emerging from his tent. His image haunted me, and I began to wonder about who he was before he became yet another homeless person living on the streets and trying to survive.
Innocent Boy
I sat in my living room one day looking at a photograph of my oldest grandson, Nate, who was about to turn ten. He was in Okinawa where his dad was deployed as a Marine. I was missing him and feeling sad about the 6,000 miles between us. I reflected on the times I spent with Nate when he lived in Southern California -I have so many memories of him as a little boy. As much as I would like to keep Nate little forever, I know I have to let him grow. I know love means letting go of my innocent boy.
Young Again
Why is there so much joy in being a grandparent? I think it is because grandchildren allow us to relive our childhoods over again. When we have a chance to experience the world through their innocent eyes, we get to see it anew. Even though we cannot return to our childhoods, we can, in, a sense, be young again in the magical moments we share with our grandchildren.