Isn’t That What Friends Are For?

Dave Pasquel

Decades ago, when I was in elementary school, I did have a few genuine friends. However, the so-called cool kids swiftly kicked us to the bottom of the totem pole and successfully labeled us as faggots to the entire school. When I moved to Florida in 1979, my world did improve. However, because of my grade-school trauma, it wasn’t easy to make real friends. In High School, I was acquainted with dozens of kids from every social group, but I didn’t have the phone number of one friend to rely upon if my car broke down.

Whirlpools and Windmills: I Choose the Present

Pam Ross Porcaro

I can be like a boat passing by and flowing onward or get mired in it trying to make it what it is not, and whirl around and around wandering in an endless thought process of, “If only.” I then get stuck on the rinse and repeat cycle, living reactively all the time, falling blindly into the holes of my history, until I give up altogether and get stuck on the riverbank of hopeless despair. OR, I can see. Recognize. Steer clear. Float over. Dance through. On, into the vast river of life. Mistaking the whirlpool for the river, I am doomed. And yet the only way out is to realize that the whirlpool and the river are made of the same substance, dancing. I am whole.