Serendipity: TAKING A LEAP

2/29/12

TAKING A LEAP

THEME: TAKING A LEAP
All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without benefit of experience. ~ Henry Miller

She Could Have Had It All

Carolyn B Healy

I get temporarily popular every time a celebrity overdoses, suicides, or runs into some sort of ditch. Given my therapy background, people want to hear my attempt to explain such behavior. With Whitney Houston’s death, the question seems to be a three-parter: Why couldn’t she 1) kick that Bobby Brown aside, 2) get clean and sober and stay that way, and 3) get back to singing like she was supposed to?

There is an angry question lurking just below: How could she have a gift like that voice and squander it?

As I sit here I contend with dueling earworms. With Whitney singing, “I will always love you…” and Adele belting, “We could have had it all…” it’s hard to think. But I’ll take a crack at it. MORE . . .

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Echoes of Marian Hall (Part Two)

Ellie Searl

I arrived home at four. The twenty-eight mile drive from Marian Hall hadn’t erased my agitation. Katie hugged my knees; her world of joy reminded me of normal.

“So, how was it?” Ed asked. “Do you love it there?”

“Where to start,” I said. “Do we have any wine?”

After an hour of relating my day, Ed had it all figured out. “So these are troubled girls from dysfunctional homes who do something bad, go to court, get sent to live with other troubled girls from dysfunctional homes all in the same colorless, cinder blocked, stinky-bathroomed, linoleum-floored, musty-furnitured room of a dead-bolted apartment inside a locked institution surrounded by a chain link fence and watched over by a bunch of nuns who patrol the building clattering keys around their waists.” He took a chicken out of the fridge and rinsed it under the faucet. “Now that’s living.” He slapped the chicken onto the cutting board. “What, exactly, did you expect?” MORE . . .

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About Carolyn and Ellie

Carolyn B Healy is a therapist-turned-writer who has invested hundreds of hours listening to people as they rewrite their life stories. While her interests include serious things like grief, resilience and transformative change, her vantage point allows her to address them with insight and a certain dark humor. A lifelong Chicagoan, she grew up the only child of a single mom, which fueled her curiosity about how other people live, and strengthened her backbone. She has been a columnist for her local newspaper and is writing a book on finding the hidden gifts in grieving.

Ellie Searl writes of human nature - the ordinary and the eccentric - getting to the heart of life’s yearnings, idiosyncrasies, and ambiguities. The splendor of the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain seeped into her being, as did the rhythms of small-town life. Her slice-of-life storytelling draws inspiration from rich experiences with diverse cultures, quirky personalities, and unusual encounters while living, working, and raising a family in New York, Delaware, Vermont, Ontario, Quebec, Ohio, and Illinois. Ellie’s stories reflect her passion for justice, equality, and freedom of the spirit. She taught the art of writing to Chicagoland middle-schoolers, whose curiosity, energy, and enthusiasm for life gave her insight into the dreams of the sometimes disregarded. When not writing, Ellie designs and formats books. She also creates and manages websites and blogs.