Under the Sea

January 13, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

The other afternoon I went to my granddaughter’s first grade singing concert named “Under the Sea.” In this world of madness, chaos and indifference, I still have faith in our future.

To watch the joy and concentration on the faces of 30 six- and seven-year-olds while they make swimming arm gestures and sing songs like “Baby Shark” and “Yellow Submarine,” I truly believe there is hope for mankind in general and friends and family in particular.

All colors, all sizes, all levels of interest, these kids represented the best in all of us. I could see future singers, actresses, doctors, and engineers in the sing songy off-key voices.

I have to laugh, because the other day I was watching The Story Channel and they were talking about ancient Egyptians preparing for the after life. They had ideas and hieroglyphics and even directions on how to move into an eternal world of warmth and peace and love.

They believed in tomorrow — a tomorrow that didn’t include depression, apathy, and CPAP machines.

So did the children singing in front of me.

I enjoyed the fact that, for practical purposes, those kids and I had a lot in common. We still have much to learn, we have faith in others, and we believe all will turn out well in the end. We all do our best to ignore the brutes and big mouths and troublemakers and make it a point to enjoy life.

And, like the Egyptians, we both believe in tomorrow.

Maybe one of those glow-in-the-dark fish or starfish in today’s picture is me. Glowing in the dark, behind held firmly by the next generation.

There’s a lot of fish and starfish glowing in the picture — maybe you’re one too.

The Power of Love

June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 11 Comments

Let’s be brief.

The world out there is messed up. Mass shootings at grade schools, graduation parties, and outside of bars. The horror of death is everywhere.

It seems like the world has gone mad. It certainly has tinted our view of the future.

Yet….

I went to one of my youngest son’s bestie’s wedding Saturday. It was a lovely affair.

You know that my son was killed in February by a mad gunman. Sitting in the church before the wedding, I kept thinking that the bride and groom should have been my son and lady.

But I digress.

Before, during, and after the celebration I was surrounded by the love and support of his friends and friends’ wives and parents and friends of friends. It was phenomenal.

I tried to keep the emotions in check — after all, this was a friend’s wedding, not a memorial. My husband and I were honored to be invited. I mean, we’re parents of someone else’s kid.

The point of this blog is that the world is not going to hell. Individuals may be, but not the world as a whole.

There are wonderful people all around you. People who love openly, who fear death and love life just like us. And they are there for you and me.

A wedding cannot bring back what has happened, but it can bring together people who love and remember. There is no better support group. I will always love these guys.

Give the world another chance.

Faerie Paths — Whirling

March 27, 2021March 27, 2021 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

New thoughts and hopes were whirling through my mind, and all the colours of my life were changing.

~ Charles Dickens

Faerie Paths — Hope

March 9, 2021March 9, 2021 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 2 Comments

At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backwards by fear and division.

~ Jesse Jackson

But for the Grace of God (Go I)

August 31, 2017 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 13 Comments

This has been an emotionally charged and confusing time in my life, triggering memories of other past situations that I can do little about.

The trigger this past week has been Hurricane Harvey and the devastation it wreaked upon an unsuspecting public. Deaths, destruction, desolation. Every day it’s another heartbreaking story.

But like so many others, I am settled safely in the Midwest, far from the water and the grief. And that makes me feel like a slacker. I have sent money to help the victims, but I am employed full-time and have family and financial responsibilities, so I can’t go and help those in need. And even if I did go down to Houston, I am in no shape physically to help out.

This feeling of helplessness is the same feeling I got when Katrina hit. Or the Twin Towers. Massive devastation thousands of miles away from me. It’s almost surrealistic, because in all cases I have not known one person who was affected by these tragedies. I feel like I’m a cheater — reading the stories of the victims and the survivors, then turning around and making a grilled cheese sandwich like it’s nothing special. It is a shameful feeling.

Do you ever feel like you’re reading a fiction novel instead of really grasping the truth?

Yet around me are situations that can (and have) taken turns for the worse. Not only my cancer (which has not returned, thank goodness), but cancer in friends, triple bypass surgery, arthritis throughout one’s body, mothers and fathers and wives and husbands passing away, ill health and bankruptcy and all kinds of situations that hurt the heart as well as the body. Are these any more important than what is going on in Houston?

Are we any less of a feeling, emoting human being if we keep on working on our side of the window?

On the other end of the scale is the decadence of the wealthy. A world I cannot even imagine. Beyonce once spent $100,000 on a Balanciaga bra and leggings and $4 million for a Bugatti Veyron Grand Sports Car. The Beckams spent $240,000 on a nursery for their son, while Elton John bought the apartment next door for $2 million so his son could have a place to play in.

People are starving. People are dying. People’s homes have been washed away. Their children will have nightmares the rest of their lives. Yet there is a section of society that can buy a teacup sized Pomeranian for $10,000 (Paris Hilton) or a $250,000 bottle of champagne (JayZ) or a $2 million dollar bath tub (Mike Tyson).

What is wrong with the world?

I know I know — kings and queens and popes and oil monguls have been spending buko bucks for centuries while the poor ate potatoes and worse. There has never been a balance in the world’s economy. It’s just the nature of human beings.

I don’t know why I feel like I’m ignoring the woes of the world.

We are all caught in the middle, lost somewhere between tragedy and comedy. The only thing we can do is acknowledge where we are, what we have done, and be prepared to handle the best of times and the worst of times.

Sunday Morning Art Gallery Blog — The Aftermath of 9/11 in Art

September 11, 2016September 11, 2025 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 8 Comments

To send light into the darkness of men’s hearts — such is the duty of the artist.

~ Robert Schumann

Lady Liberty Memorial, 9/11 Memorial Museum

9-11-memorial-freehold-nj-nick-zelinsky — 9/11 Memorial, Freehold, NJ

brooklyn — Brooklyn Wall of Rememberance

hero-image-pentagon-memorial-photo-credit-mike-myers — Pentagon Memorial, Washington D.C.

Remembering Our Heroes, United Airlines Flight 175 Memorial Quilt. Collection, 9/11 Memorial Museum

tumbling-woman-eric-fischl — Tumbling Woman, Eric Fischl

fdny_quilt — Fire Department New York Memorial Quilt

lower-school-art-students-of-porter-gaud-schoolsc — Lower School Art Students of Porter Gaud School, South Carolina

flight-crew-memorial — Flight Crew Memorial, Grapevine, Texas

911-dust-to-dnamikey-flowers-kevinclarke — Dust to DNA, Bianca Nazzaruolo

Trying to Remember the Color of the Sky on That September Morning, Spencer Finch, 9/11 Memorial Museum

to-lift-a-nation-ground-zero — To Lift A Nation, Ground Zero, Stan Watts

teardrop-memorialbayonne-nj — Teardrop Memorial, Bayonne, NJ, Zurab Tsereteli

The National Tribute Quilt, 9/11 Memorial Museum

9/11 Memorial Museum, New York, Snøhetta and Davis Brody Bond

Moments of Reflection

July 9, 2016July 10, 2016 ~ humoringthegoddess ~ 4 Comments

There’s a lot going on these days…a lot of bad things, sad things. So many of my fellow bloggers have covered this topic much better than I could. I am sad, because as of late I’ve seen the American flag flown at half mast more than at full. What does this say about the state of the country? Of the neighborhood?

I’d like to share two different blogs sharing the same world. Two different styles, one same idea.

If you get a chance follow the links and take a look at the world in two different ways. After all…it’s all the same in the end.

First is by my friend David Kanigan.

Running. With Blood.

………My Goal: Exceed the 5.38 mile distance in March or run to the Sunrise, whichever comes first.

It’s like riding a bike. You don’t forget how to run. Right. A nerve in the upper left shoulder blade pinches. And this slides down to the lower right back achieving beautiful pain symmetry. Sedentary Suit on the move. Jesus.

Both groins groan. The pads of the feet cry No! with each footfall. I’m breathing heavy, and this is downhill 0.2 miles in. Jesus Saves.

Running in twilight. Red shoes. Red shorts. Red Shirt. Blood Man. Heart over-pumping, lungs heaving but at least I’m lookin’ fine.

1 mile mark.

Cemetery.

Then, Darien City Police Station.

Baton Rouge. I’m on my back. The bone of his knee is crushing my rib cage. His pistol is in my face. I need air. I can’t breathe…

1.5 mile mark.

Church.

Charleston. My eyes pan across the wafer thin page of the Bible – I’m lip synching the reading of the prayer. I hear gunfire. In a split second, the full weight of the explosion lands, shrapnel shreds my chest. Astonished, I fall forward in the pew looking up at Jesus on the cross……

And then another from my friend Austin Hodgens.

Peace and Love, My Fellow Earthlings

My Fellow Earthlings,

I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the state of our planet, and remind you of one simple thing…

No matter where you’re from, the color of your skin, your religious beliefs, your sexual orientation, your political affiliation, or your financial situation, you will always be an Earthling.

I’ve never understood why we don’t think of ourselves as such. After all, calling this planet home is the one thing that unites us.

My name is Austin, and I’m an Earthling.

Try it. Listen to how it rolls off your tongue……