The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 The Trouble with Plastic Buckets

 

My bucket list keeps changing shape, which is rude, honestly.

One day, it’s a pilgrimage to the Panama Canal, provided the sky can act right—no hurricanes, no tornadoes, no weather auditioning for a lead role.

Another day, it’s next season’s theater tickets, because hope, apparently, comes with assigned seating and a service fee.

It’s my health, and the creaking parliament of my joints.

It’s losing ten pounds, though vanity and gravity remain in active negotiations, and eating less with all the glamour of a hostage situation.

It’s drinking less, though certain evenings still make an excellent closing argument, hiking more, putting one stubborn foot in front of the other, and learning that solitude can be both a map and a compass—plus cheaper than therapy.

It’s planning future travel because waiting around is rarely an itinerary, and keeping old friends close, tending the small bright fires that still know my name.

I spend less, though I still browse as if hope were on sale. I clean out the closet, since only half of what I own still fits, and the other half is apparently waiting for my comeback tour.

I take a writing class for inspiration, just in case the muse needs a syllabus and a firm deadline. I read poems aloud in public, lending my voice to the room before doubt can grab the mic. I send my writing out like small paper boats into larger waters, then make new lists as if stationery alone can save me.

I listen to other voices rattle the furniture in my head. I read more books in this new YA fantasy phase of mine, because dragons, frankly, have better boundaries than most people.

I spend extravagant amounts of time with family, the truest luxury I know. I get a new bucket because even metaphors need better hardware, then carry forward what still holds water and quietly retire what leaks.

And then there are the things no checkmark can settle: being kind to myself, speaking up more, drawing the map of my boundaries in bolder ink, naming my priorities before the noise names them for me.

And always: hug Mom—because some things are not a goal, they are the whole point.

 

 

 

A Luxury Amenity

 A Luxury Amenity

 

At Radio City, Bryant Park, and Greeley Square,
these humming thrones await the public there.
A civic gift in plastic, bright and grand,
for anyone in sudden, urgent demand.

First comes the hand before the scanner’s eye,
the red light wakes as if to verify.
Then clears its throat with bureaucratic zeal,
and starts the brisk official toilet reel.

The glossy film advances, trim and quick;
a hidden blade makes one efficient snip.
The used layer vanishes without a fuss,
as though embarrassment rode a public bus.

A fresh sleeve settles on the porcelain throne,
with all the grace of something, state‑issued, blown.
It clings the way an office rumor clings—
transparent, tense, and full of private things.

Then down you sit, convinced the coast is clear,
and find a warmth distinctly not your dear.
Not filth, not doom, not anything unsound—
just someone else, still faintly hanging round.

 

Beautiful Blessings

 

Between the worry and the care,
beautiful blessings gather—
a multitude of angels,
hovering, watching, signaling,
whispering through the quiet.

They are my own personal army,
and for their presence
I am deeply thankful.

The world feels frightening now.
There is so much unrest,
so much darkness moving among us.
I worry for the children—
the innocent, the untried—
and wonder where they will find shelter
when we are gone,
when the shadows seek to settle forever.

Yet still they stand guard,
holding back the curtain of doom,
keeping watch at the edge of night,
where tears appear in the ether
and shadows search for passage.

The portals of time are closing,
sealing away old horrors,
the echoes of war,
the storms of hatred,
the tempests that trouble the earth.

Dear Lord,

Grant us one more night,
one more day to mend what is broken,
to straighten what has gone crooked,
to hold fast to the truth,
and welcome goodness through the door.

For the day is long,
our hearts grow weary,
and we need rest.

Amen.

Betrayal

 Betrayal

Betrayal by a mate is wound enough,

but betrayal by elected leaders is another wound entirely.

We place in their hands the keys to atomic annihilation,

and still they turn against us.

Once trust is broken, the ground falls out.

Let them trumpet, bellow, and groan—

there is nowhere left for them to hide.

Silence does not mend it.

The realization strikes the survival instinct like a warning light in a long, dark tunnel.

It asks for adjustment, for healing, for rebirth into a new world.

The question is simple: can you?

Can we grow stronger, restore self-care, set firm boundaries, and learn to trust again?

 

Yes—

but healing keeps its own time.

The Long Way Home

 The Long Way Home

Gina ran away one fall
On nothing but a dare,
The promised warmth of southern skies
Was waiting somewhere there.

They said that summer lingered on
Where ocean breezes roamed,
While winter gathered in the north
Around the streets of home.

"Bring swimsuits," somebody laughed,
"Bring sandals for the shore."
But Gina owned no clothes like that
A city girl to the core.

She was New York through and through,
Just sixteen, wild and bright,
And when she crossed a crowded room
She seemed to gather light.

Four girls cut class and hit the road
Instead of school that day,
Chasing freedom down the coast
And throwing rules away.

They thumbed their rides through Newark first,
Then farther south they went,
Living on the kindness found
Wherever fate had sent.

Gina prayed that Lucy would
Be home when trouble came,
For someone had to know the truth

Behind each borrowed name.

The stories spun to hide their tracks,
The lies they thought would last,
Could never stay ahead for long—
The truth rode hard and fast.

And where was Katya on that road?
Perhaps she wandered still,
Not running from the dark so much
As learning how to will

Her way through it.

Three days passed.
Baltimore at last.
A holding room.
A waiting gloom.

Detention walls and anxious hours,

Four runaways shut in,
Till someone called and someone came
To gather them again.

Lucy did what Lucy could,
Steady, wise, and kind.
She gave the look grown women give
When worry fills the mind.

And had it ended otherwise,
Had fate not stepped in then,
Gina never would have met
The man she'd meet again.

But that comes later.

Back then they rode
Like concert kids at play,
Certain they could leave the world
And simply drift away.

As though four girls could disappear
For just a weekend's roam,
Then call for help when funds ran low
And find an easy home.

As though a parent, scout leader,
Or some patient soul could come,
To claim them from the road they chose
And drive them northward home.

Back through miles of autumn rain,
Past every mile they'd flown,

To face the thing all runaways
Must someday learn and own:

No matter how far south you go,
No matter where you roam,
The longest road a runaway walks
It's the long way home.

A Kindness from a Stranger

 A Kindness from a Stranger

 

You never really know who will show up in an ordinary moment and keep your day from going completely off the rails.

It may be the customer at Aldi’s who frees a shopping cart from its quarter-based prison,

the driver at an intersection who waves you through as they have briefly been appointed traffic angel,

or the stranger at the beach who saves your umbrella from becoming the fastest thing on the shoreline.

Most of the time, you do not even know their names.

They are like tiny guest stars in the sitcom of your life, appearing just long enough to save the scene and then disappearing before the credits.

Without them, the world would feel a little harsher and far less merciful.

I felt that kindness myself the other day at the end of a hike, when a faint headache started tapping at my temples like a landlord asking where the rent was. A man I had just met offered me an unopened bottle of water from his pack, and in that moment, he seemed less like a fellow hiker and more like a desert mirage with good planning skills. I have not hiked like that in two years, but you can be sure I will carry extra water next time, because apparently, I enjoy learning important lessons the hard way.

Another time, I was carrying my beach umbrella over one shoulder and my bag on the other, feeling strong and wonderfully free of pain for the first time in years. Hip surgery was behind me, and all I had to do was walk in a straight line like an adult, which, in hindsight, may have been asking a lot.

It would have been simple if I had remembered that my eyes and my feet are supposed to be on the same team. Instead, I turned to look behind me and went down so fast it felt as if the earth had been waiting all morning for its chance. One moment I was upright and victorious; the next I was introducing myself to the pavement. Thankfully, instinct arrived before panic, and I managed to protect my new hip, which at that point felt like the most expensive member of the family.

I scraped my elbow and twisted my foot, but escaped with no serious injury, which felt like a very generous final score. The strangers near the outdoor shower kept moving. Still, my sister and brother-in-law, coming up behind me, lifted me and took the weight I had been carrying, proving that family will absolutely help you, especially when you have already provided the day’s entertainment.

Family, after all, can be its own kind of rescue, steady as a railing and only slightly more likely to laugh once they know you are fine.

Lucian

Lucian

was a gentle ghost

who sometimes forgot

that he had died. He wandered Central Park,

that green heart of Manhattan.

A few could feel him there—the painters, the dreamers—

though they could never quite answer back,

and so his loneliness learned to listen for light.

Lucian carried armfuls of stories,

for he had been writing a children’s tale when he left the world.

So he hurried after one child, then another,

offering adventures like bright kites, and for a little while they laughed with him.

Now and then, a day opened like a window, and he made a friend.

Adults could not hear him, and often led their children away, but wonder, once awakened, was not so easily sent home.

 

Louis was another such boy,

lost in a car accident,

who woke believing

he had only risen out of a hard dream until memory returned

with morning’s light, and yet each dawn grew a little kinder.

When Lucian found Louis, they ran through Central Park as if the wind had claimed them for its own.

The squirrels stared as though the world had briefly sung out of tune,

then blamed it on the breeze—for even doubters sometimes bow to mystery.

 

There were others, too.

Many drifted through Grand Central Station,

lonely souls still hoping for a conversation,

but most people could neither see nor hear them.

Strangers passed through them

as if they were made only of weather,

sometimes a hundred times in a single hour.

Even so, memory did not only wound them; it kept their names alight.

The sensitive ones still felt them—the poet mid-line, the actor in a pause, the artist turning toward a shimmer they could not explain.

 

They were rare, but not so rare that hope forgot them.

And when the skies darkened,

the ghosts would gather close in the tunnels,

not only from fear, but to keep one another warm,

wondering whether the hand above them

might still be on its way,

to lead them toward whatever meadow waits beyond,

whatever bright country that may be.

And if they were meant to linger here a little longer,

they would learn, together, how even this in-between world can hold a little dawn.