The Unclad Soul

Parenting is one of the fantastic experiences of life. Of course, it comes with some of the most exasperating experiences as well. Jerry Seinfeld has said, “Having a two-year-old is like owning a blender you don’t have the top for.” So true. Not everyone can be a parent, and some people simply choose not to have children. I have friends like that and they are perfectly wonderful people and have fulfilling lives. Most of them do have pets, though! I always wanted children. Maybe it had something to do with how I was loved as a child. I’m not sure. But thankfully, I have two beautiful sons, both grown now with their own families. I adore all of them—my sons, their wives, and their children. They also have pets, too, which I also love. I suppose like many people, when my wife and I divorced, our home was deeply disrupted. My divorce affected my career, my friends, but worst of all, it caused a lot of sorrow and confusion for my sons. My oldest was 15. My youngest 13. Crit...

I am fascinated with TV series that deal with the seedier side of life. I loved The Sopranos. And Peaky Blinders. Also, Boardwalk Empire, Gypsy, House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, and Nurse Jackie. These shows and others like them portray people caught in their human frailties. They are deeply flawed people, wounded, sometimes by their own poor choices in life and sometimes by people who betrayed or used or mistreated them in some profoundly cruel way. I am currently making my way through Showtime’s series, “Ray Donovan.” Soon to begin its 6 th season, the series centers around the Donovan family, a father and three sons mired in old hurts, deception, corruption, and crime. Ray (Liev Schreiber) is the middle son, a “fixer” for L.A.’s elite crowd of Hollywood stars, producers, financiers, and old money people who inevitably cross the line into affairs gone wrong, crooked payoffs, illegal deals, and so forth. Mickey Donovan (Jon Voight) is the father, an old-schoo...

Ingrid, who will be 15 next month (unbelievably), is at dance camp this week. This one is two hours away in a university setting. This is her first time to be away by herself from her family and from me. We went shopping the other day for some outfits for her. Each day of camp has a theme and the girls were encouraged to wear things that fit with those themes as they work on their routines. So she picked out some things. Ingrid rarely likes what I like for her. Maybe it’s a girl thing, or just being a teen. I’d pull something off the rack and say, “What about this, sweetie?” She’d hold it up in front of her and say, “I’m not feeling it.” And hand it back to me. That happens a lot, actually. But, I don’t mind. She has good taste and besides, I love her independence, the fact that she knows what she likes and it doesn’t have to be what I like. She found things that fit her feelings, that express who she is, things that out in the middle of the dance workouts, will feel g...

“Unfortunately, as a society, we do not teach our children that they need to   tend carefully the garden of their minds . Without structure, censorship, or discipline, our thoughts run rampant on automatic. Because we have not learned how to more carefully manage what goes on inside our brains, we remain vulnerable to not only what other people think about us, but also to advertising and/or political manipulation.”   ―  Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor,  Neuroscientist/Author  

"You try as a parent. You love beyond reason. You fight beyond endurance. You hope beyond despair. You never think, until the very last moment, that it still might not be enough." ~ Lisa Gardner, Novelist

In her book, The Road of Lost Innocence , Somaly Mam writes, “I strongly believe that love is the answer and that it can mend even the deepest unseen wounds. Love can heal, love can console, love can strengthen, and yes, love can make change.”  It is a wonder that she would know this. She was carried off as a young girl into sexual slavery. She was sold to and by various men. She finally ended up in a Cambodian brothel. Enduring years of abuse and torment she finally escaped. A Frenchman took her to France where she was introduced to a world of luxury. But she could not enjoy it. She was haunted by so many abused children in her country. She eventually returned to Cambodia to begin rescuing young girls caught in the giant and horrific sex industry there. In time, she established three shelters in Cambodia and later started programs in Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos where teams of medics, educators, investigators and outreach workers now assist girls in need. With the help and sup...

Guest Post By Heather Von St. James Courageous mother, wife, writer and cancer survivor My First Year of Motherhood and My Battle with Mesothelioma My first year of motherhood was an amazing prospect.  My friends and family reminded me that it would take a village to raise my child, but I had no idea just how true this was.  Neither did I realize just how important my village would become.   I gave birth to Lily on August 4, 2005.  The emergency C-section was the only complication of the entire pregnancy, but holding my daughter was worth it.  My own village quickly surrounded me, and things were wonderful.  I expected that my recovery from the C-section would be a little challenging, but when I returned to work two months later, I was still very fatigued.  I was also breathless and this really disturbed me.   I made an appointment with my doctor.  After a battery of tests, he found the problem.  A diagnosis of malignant pleu...

Every morning when I leave my apartment complex I have to cross into a busy flow of four lanes of traffic to go pick up my little princess Ingrid and take her to school. Some mornings it is a daunting task crossing the incoming traffic and getting over to the other side going the opposite direction where I need to be. Most Dallas drivers are completely insane behind the wheel and morning rush hour only intensifies their frenzied irrational behavior. My particular morning start often feels like a scene out of Mad Max where Mel Gibson is being furiously chased by absolute maniacs. To get it right without missing cars by inches and elevating my blood pressure into near unconsciousness it requires two things: timing and courage. I have to make sure there is plenty of space on both sides to safely move out into an open lane. That’s the timing part. The courage comes in getting the right feeling, seeing a clear way, and then moving the heck out into the quickly closing window of opp...

“To be in your children's memories tomorrow, You have to be in their lives today.” ~ Barbara Johnson, Writer/Literary Critic/Professor