After years of healing, why does the body remember a painful day before the mind catches up?
Tag Archive: Wendy
Your Personal Message
If I had an audience of 1 million, this is what I would say. Day 10 of the Emerson “Self-Reliance” project.
The Story That Needs To Be Written
With only fifteen minutes to live, this is the story that I had to tell. Day 1 of the #Trust30 Ralph Waldo Emerson “Self-Reliance” Project.
The Culture of Violence
“I hold Sarah Palin responsible for all the deaths that took place in Tucson.” A new hybrid/AMBASSADORS blogring on the recent shootings in Tucson, Arizona.
A Love Letter To Grief
Approaching the ten-year memorial of my dear friend Wendy’s murder and I am struggling, still, to process the event and all the time that has passed.
Zuzu Irwin Dreams With Jellyfish
The first installment in a new Zuzu’s Petal series, Zuzu Irwin’s Global Safari, that explores an amazing encounter at the Long Beach Aquarium in 2001 and its reverberations to today.
Remnants
The looming memorial of the September 11, 2001 tragedy has me thinking about things left behind.
A Love Letter To Beloved Dead
My friend Catherine’s amazing expat+HAREM post “Death at a distance”, one of the most powerful essays I have ever read, has left me processing a great deal of unresolved grief.
On Angels, Demons and Living Paradoxically
My friend Vesper’s amazing blog post inspires me to consider my thoughts on good, evil and other things in between.
Why?
An explosive encounter with a racist Czech granny prompts me to once again consider why it is I continue to live in Prague.
Miep, Myself and Wendy
My reflections on Miep Gies’ death as well as Wendy Soltero’s would-be 32st birthday.
In the “Nought”ies I:
Many of the things that I did in the Naughts Decade. I probably left out a bunch, but anyway.
The Bane of Forgiveness
Here in Europe we have this amazing cream called Bepanthen that is phenomenal for healing wounds without any resulting scarring. Doesn’t matter how you got the wound, scrape, burn, but if you use Bepanthen on it you absolutely will not scar. I got to thinking that maybe forgiveness is like that cream. If you don’t…
In Memoriam
Eight years ago two planes flew into New York’s World Trade Centers killing thousands. I remember my then-boyfriend waking me up to tell me what had happened. It was 8am in California and so I laughed at the news, thinking that someone had pulled a Fight Club and destroyed two empty buildings. When he reminded…
Food of The Gods: The Ethiopan Experience
My introduction to Ethiopia and its cuisine was in a Rastafarianism, Reggae, and the African Diaspora course I took in university. What struck me the most was learning that Ethiopia had never been colonized, and is one of the few African nations never to have been. Not for lack of trying, mind you. The Italians…
The Trauma Fairy
I am pretty sure I’ve discovered a new fairy who has been in my life for some time now. I’m calling her The Trauma Fairy, and my belief is she goes into our minds while we sleep and erases things that are just too awful to remember. One of the more dramatic times she visited…
The Body (Buffy Season 5, Episode 16; Feb 27, 2001)
This was the episode that inspired this blog, and is easily one of the saddest 45 minutes, like, ever. After Wendy’s murder on October 28, 2000, I started to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer religiously. I knew if Wendy were alive she’d still be having weekly Buffy parties at her house and I wanted to…
Your reactions to Heath Ledger’s death
I always felt a strange and strong connection with Heath Ledger. It became even stranger and stronger when I found out that he has almost exactly the same birthday as me. Same day, month, year and almost the same time even. I felt it was some sort of sign. When I found out about five…
Death Of A Young Man
I always felt a strange and strong connection with Heath Ledger. It became even stranger and stronger when I found out that he has almost exactly the same birthday as me. Same day, month, year and almost the same time even. I felt it was some sort of sign. When I found out about five…
To Be Or Not To Be A Vampire
Prague is a demanding city. It gives so much, but it also takes a lot. Energy, life, money. These things exist in abundance here, but they also flow away so quickly. Prague is a vampire’s city. Shrouded in gray for more than three-quarters of the year, it is the perfect place for those who really…
Signs And Wondering
Since Wendy passed away, I have lived my life following signs from the Spirits. Especially during my time at the UN and in Spain it seemed as if every decision I made, the course of each of my days was defined by signs. Signs were everywhere. It got to the point that even people who…
Good Omens, Bad Omens
The year 2008, and so far six months living in Prague. Today is the first day the Sun has broken through the cloud cover and pierced the shield of this vampire city. I haven’t written for ages, and I think it was because my last blog incarnation of The TripWire went stale and my ideas…
Seven Years Of Pain
Last weekend, Steve and I went to see the new Jodie Foster film The Brave One. I’ve been feeling so strangely about my life, Wendy’s death, dealing with violence, that I had mixed feelings about a movie where a woman’s response to trauma is to pick up a gun and begin killing baddies. The mixed…
That Time Of The Year
Seven years ago on October 28 in Hollywood my dear friend Wendy was murdered and died in my arms. She was killed by a 19-year-old gang member who, after my testimony, is serving a life sentence in prison. I can feel it in my spirit and my bones that The Day is approaching, albeit seven…
Adaptation
They say that adaptation is one of nature’s most painful of processes, and for the seasoned traveller, it is no different. After having not only travelled, but lived in many different places, one begins to realise that it is impossible to be the same person everywhere. Behaviours that are acceptable in America are not acceptable…
Pink, “I’m Not Dead!” 2006
I bought this album on the 6-year “anniversary” of Wendy Soltero’s death because, well, sometimes you just need something fun and light to mark a somber occasion. It was the first CD that I had bought in more than a year and in being fun and light, it was money incredibly well spent. Music is…
Familiars
They say that the things we have lost will never be returned to us, but I’m not sure if that’s entirely true. Yes, what is gone cannot itself return but I think aspects of what we have lost come back in many familiar forms. Take my Spirit Guide, Cubby, the wolf-dog who was my companion…
Flashback
After trauma, it is amazing how so many years later what could be considered a really small thing brings back the entire experience. I was just watching the next to last episode of Six Feet Under’s fourth season and David has just been called to go into the police station to identify the man that…
Six Feet Under, an HBO production, 2001-2005
When this show first came out I was in the beginning of dealing with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) after the death of my good friend and during that time I could not even hear death related words without falling into PTSD panic attacks and flashbacks to Wendy’s murder. The commercials for this show totally freaked…
Capote, a film by Bennett Miller, 2005
Granted, I haven’t actually read In Cold Blood or Breakfast at Tiffany’s yet, but for some reason I always imagined Truman Capote as a sort of gangster-esque character. A real burly manly man in a trench coat and spats. Imagine my surprise to discover that he was gay! A New Yorker who had to be…
In Cold Blood
Before Wendy died, I was against capital punishment for all the open minded liberal wooo rah whatever theories I can’t even remember now, but most importantly because life is sacred and an eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. After Wendy’s death, I was filled with such inconsummate rage that I felt…
a love letter to Gwendolyn Wendy-Bird
written on the back of one of the odes you wrote to me in what was blank spaces i painted in pink and green and red a bunch of swirls and palm trees and you flying with your wild curly hair and i write: six years later and the wishing you were here is wishing…
early morning missings
i had a nightmare a couple hours ago and couldn’t get back to sleep. it’s 630AM and still dark outside. they just called the prayers a little while ago. steve is snoring away. what is it about browsing through myspace that can be so comforting? looking at friends pages and their friend’s pages, finding people…
every thorn has its rose
technology has hindered me from posting and maybe it was for the best. september to november are rough times for me, every year since wendy died and i have been feeling a pervasive sadness coupled with the night terrors that come with recurrences of post-traumatic stress disorder. i cannot beleive that it will be 6…
food poisoning, circumcision parties and wentworth miller
though not exactly in that order and not exactly related. that wentworth miller is so HOT right now. wowza. i just went through me first food poisoning in turkey, big step for one new to a country. steve is experiencing his first cold. but it is almost worth it for the amazing food we had…
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