Beauty in the Return

Beauty in the Return

I was about to get into the rental return line after three glorious weeks in Southern California, when my Mom texted me with news of a friend’s passing. Our friend had been a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother.  She had been a hair stylist, waited tables...
The Prediction Problem

The Prediction Problem

What’s the harm in making pessimistic predictions?  I mean, after all, negative predictions are not reality.  They are just predictions.  So what could they possibly hurt?  They can even be kind of fun, like if you predict the football team that...
The Future Knocks

The Future Knocks

Two years after I was born, in 1977, the Commodore PET hit the market.  PET stood for Personal Electronic Transactor which must have been a fancy way of saying “personal computer” because that’s what it was, the first successfully marketed PC for home use. ...
Persistence in Seeking

Persistence in Seeking

When I quit playing the recorder after my 4th grade music class wrapped up, it was a super easy decision.  I had precisely zero interest in finding a solution to the challenge of learning to play the recorder well.  When I walked away from that instrument,...
Blaming My Disability

Blaming My Disability

What I’ve found as my life has gone on and I have grown is that I used to feel extremely limited, yes.  However, I no longer imagine this sense of limitation was caused by my disability, but rather by my habits and personal practices….or lack thereof.  ...
Suspenders of Certainty

Suspenders of Certainty

My Grandpa Francis Cloud Schellinger used to talk about people who wore a belt and suspenders at the same time.  He figured they did this to be double safe and insure their pants had absolutely no chance of falling down.  I think my grandpa found these...
Success In Your Own Eyes

Success In Your Own Eyes

What will make you a successful human being?  What will make you a successful human being in your own eyes, in your own heart, in your own mind?    Notice I said in your eyes, not in the eyes of other people, not in the eyes of your parents, not in...
Patience with Heartache

Patience with Heartache

If I’m calculating correctly, the spring of my 7th grade year was 1989.  That was the year I attempted to take my own life because I was utterly distraught about having a disability, my best friend and grandma having died a few years before, and the world news...
There’s No Going Back

There’s No Going Back

Have you ever had the notion that despite all your efforts, you always wind up back at square one? I know I do. But how would this be so? Let’s say you count from 1 to 99, as you say each number, they sound different, they look different and they even feel...
Choosing What to Play

Choosing What to Play

Let me start this by making a public apology…  To my fourth grade music teacher, classmates, my parents and anyone else whose ears had to suffer through my half-hearted attempts at playing the recorder, There’s no good reason you should have had to endure...