Introduction

Hi, there. Thanks for visiting. I'm starting this blog as an advocate for mental and physical health. I'm a freelance writer and also own a home based medical transcription business. I was diagnosed in 1978 with paranoid schizophrenia and started to become acutely ill three years prior to that, unmedicated, frightened, confused, and in trouble with the law. I graduated from university with distinction the year I became ill. I've never regretted learning how to think at university. I struggled with my illness for 35 years and have reached the top of the mountain now, I think, or the other side, where the grass is greener and the path easier. There's hope for all of us, the whole human race, and never think there isn't hope or joy no matter your circumstances. I'd love to hear your thoughts and experiences with mental illness in all its forms: depression, brain injury, autism, schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety disorders, etc. and your positive experiences as well as those lies and half truths society and even therapists would have us believe about ourselves.

We are different folks, and we are beautiful. The whole human race is beautiful. Let's celebrate life.

Friday, August 19, 2011

The Old Hippies

My Old Volkswagen Bus

We painted our Winnebago orange and put decals on the side
It wasn't the same though as the two of us in 1972
Crammed in a Westfalia van with bicycles on top
 and babies in the back, ketchup on the rug
It wasn't the same at all when we camped beneath cold stars
in a 2010 motor home from California though we
painted it orange and put flowers on the side.
Our RV with "countless creature comforts" and a "smooth ride"
seemed to our paunchy and arthritic bodies less a joy
Than our old Volkswagen bus when we were youths.
But was it the old bus or was it that our joints were supple then
And we were happy two of us with the babies in the back
Before our paunchy and arthritic bodies slowed the pleasure
of a home in Riverbend and cash to buy
a new RV so we might see our children
in California or perhaps the West Coast
It's not the same
My arthritic knees can't bike no more
The neighbors stare at our old van
in the back yard with flowers growing from the windows.
It's pretty and I'm getting old but still the new RV
Like my brain remembers Mama Cass and flowers
And is happy, shiny, new like my husband and I were
In 1972. Perhaps our children and their children will remember
The Winnebago orange and
decals on the side this century not last
Like we were to our parents then,
A symbol.




1 comment:

  1. This poem really speaks to me, Kenna. Maybe we'll never recapture the 60s' and 70s' expansive, free spirited youth -- but we can be kind of a hippies at heart still. It's a good way to embarrass the younger generation!

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