Poetry . Self-Esteem
Ode to the Horse
On September 6, 2015 by Speranza
Most of the news at the moment is, I will venture to say, more disturbing that it has been in a long, long time. No, it’s not because of the internet making us all more aware than we were in years previous – it actually IS worse and it’s full-on terrible. I’m almost afraid to keep up – something I don’t even have to worry about actually since The General and his new Mac maintain an informal news-anchor presence at the kitchen table, constantly updating with bulletins from around the world, a trait which I am not used to but have grown to appreciate; however, I still have to walk that fine line between being a responsible adult who knows what’s happening and tries to do The Right Thing and reconciling that with the thin-skinned, highly strung artist-type who lies in bed at 3 am trying to untangle the finer points of European foreign policy after weeping openly at all those abused animal videos I should never have clicked on, hours before.
But I digress.
Being A Girl . Cooking
MadMen Allusions No Illusions
On June 1, 2015 by Speranza
No one has captured an era more effectively, more poignantly and frankly, more truthfully than the creators of ‘MadMen.’
I won’t make this into a thesis paper – even though I am tempted and could go on and on with psychological examples – but the way that children were treated back in that time slot especially resonated with me.
Consider the following conversation circa 1965 between myself and my perfectly lovely mother.
ME: “When Daddy leaves the car running, I get really scared. I know you can’t drive and I worry that the car will drive away on its own. What would happen?”
MUM: (Lighting a cigarette and snapping open the newspaper) “Don’t talk daft. Now, are you peeling the carrots?”
You will notice the distinct absence of any heartfelt “When you say, I feel …” conversations, no one-on-one explanations and certainly no therapists were consulted.
And you know what? All I wanted was a practical answer like, “Hell, we’d pull the car key out” or how about “I know where the hand brake is!” I continued to fret for YEARS about this and have since relegated it to simple childhood anxiety although truly, I was just trying to find out if ANYONE would know what to do.
It’s not that unreasonable!