Trauma and Neglect

The blog includes articles I have written over the last few years, as well as a weekly post where I share what’s on my mind, even if it’s an undeveloped idea that popped up when I was stirring a vat of cheese!

Sing Me Back Home: Coda, Frequency, Harmony

In the final year or so of my dad’s long life, he did not know who I was anymore. That is not so uncommon, but it was a good thing I had

What’s Attachment Got to Do With It? Abandonment, Energy, Resilience

On the 24th of April, we lost another queen. Admittedly where I was amazed and perhaps baffled by the dramatic display of emotion and attention following the death of the British monarch

Learning From Experience Re-Experiencing, George Floyd, Breath

As we all know far too well, trauma activation is redundant, miserable, and exhausting. I avoid the word “triggering,” because it summons the imagery of gun violence, (although activations certainly can feel

Dilemma Finds Solution A Song, The Quandary, A Team

In my morning workout, I was swept out of my usual reverie by a vocal. Most of the time my Pandora musical feed keeps me happy and in rhythm with instrumental music.

Mushroom Soup: Loss, Harry, Gratitude

Way back in the middle 1970s, I cooked in a restaurant. I was a pretty good cook, having had the dubious distinction of being the only one who could be in the

Failure or Success? A Perfect Melt, Transformation, Kayaking in Kona

May is American Cheese Month. No, I don’t mean American Cheese (Kraft Singlets, that hideous impostor masquerading as or feigning to be cheese.) Granted, those singlets were the” perfect melt,” producing an

War Trauma Revisited: Loneliness, Eating War, Whispering

The Vietnam War was the big bang that hurled us into awareness of trauma and sparked the birth of what was to become the field of traumatic stress studies. I say both

Joy: Neighbors, Regulation, Intergenerational Transmission

After some crazy (for us) storms and the roughest winter drought-parched California has seen in a while, spring seems to be arriving. Sun! It is a source of great joy and energy

Rock and Roll: Freedom Fighters, Window Shopping, A Cradle

When I was young and deeply involved in Latin American anti-imperialist political work, the freedom fighters who organized and fought clandestinely against authoritarian dictatorships were called La Resistencia, the resistance. They boldly

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