"New Voyages"

 

David Chapman--artist

         I never want to spend my life fretting over the words never said, or the acts never completed. The changes in our lives during this last year bring home to me the importance of giving our best to those we love. Sometimes, I get so caught up in the minutiae of a situation that I bog everyone else down. “The Big Picture” always calls for taking risks and believing with heart over head. That outlook proves difficult for my often straight column approach to life, but whenever I’ve chosen my heart, I’ve never gone in the wrong direction. Whenever I push away my heart, anxiety suffocates me. Taking a breath, eating a meal, and sleeping at night all become impossible.

My head analysis tells me the “right” decisions, the cautious choices that assure safe passage across rough seas. My head won’t even weigh anchor if the voyage looks too dangerous.  The head must have life boats in tip-top condition. It makes certain there are enough jackets available for unexpected passengers. It plots my route and stays true to my course. But no matter how carefully my head plans for every exigency, a tidal wave broadsides me, flips my vessel over, and makes life boats and life jackets useless.

         My head, you see, doesn’t calculate for the totally unpredictable event. It cannot. That’s the heart’s job. The heart latches onto dreams and nightmares. The heart foresees the tsunami and still sets sail. The heart accepts risk because life’s random. That capriciousness doesn’t dissuade the heart. The heart believes.

         In the rough seas I now traverse, my heart speaks strongly to me. Believe. Believe. Believe. And so I trust my decisions. The moment I listen to the murmuring song of my heart, the decisions I must make ring true and clear. The head will step forward eventually. It will find the means of making the dreams a reality. By singing along with the heart, the voyage will prove challenging, but not impossible.    

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman             

"Lefty Loosey"

      

            I suffer from a lifelong disability—left handedness. Now, some people write or eat with their left hand, but do other things with their right hands. Not me! I drag the right side of my body along with me as a useless attachment that often gets in the way. My left side dominance dictates every aspect of my body. Not only do I write and eat with my left hand, I also chew on the left side of my mouth, listen on the phone with my left ear, and kick with my left foot.

         My first grade teacher, aka The Battleax, made eradicating my handedness her crusade for the few months I remained in her class. I remember her swooping down the aisle as I diligently practiced my letters with my giant pencil and Big Chief pad. She’d harrumph her disapproval, snatch the pencil from my fingers, and force it into my right hand. My smooth, neat letters turned into illegible, rickety scrawls. When the principal suggested my mother pull me out of school, she took over as the handwriting expert. A lefty herself, she’d weathered the same discrimination as a child. Her handwriting, a beautiful, disciplined script that flowered across the page, became my guideline. My mother taught me to write using a blackboard. With the angle changed, I dropped the lefty hook that many left handed people use. As a teacher, watching me write on the board often disturbed my students. They commented every single time I wrote on the board. As a result, I arrived every morning to place the bulk of information on the board ahead of time. I was one of the first teachers to jump at the opportunity to use a computer and projector in the classroom.

         My left side dominance often causes challenges. I do not always approach the physical world in the same way. Many little things in our lives put the lefty at a disadvantage. Cabinet doors open to the wrong side. As I sit at my desk, the drawers run down the right side to make opening and rummaging easy for the right handed person. For me to access the drawers, I have to turn sideways. My mouse, too, rests on the right. I’ve learned to maneuver it by practicing with games like Bejeweled. I practice every day. For some reason, placing keys in locks often creates a challenge. The angle of approach, geared for the right handed person, means I’m battling the door frame as I insert the key. And don’t forget the ignition in cars or the gear shifts!

         Discrimination against lefties is centuries old. I could rattle off many different taboos associated with right versus left. Also, left handed people live shorter lives because they have more accidents. Check your statistics if you don’t believe me. It’s not because we’re klutzes, but because our entire day we must compensate. I figure all of the disadvantages accumulate over our lifetimes, resulting in the false reputation of being clumsy when we’re not.

         So as you cut your Christmas wrapping paper in straight lines with grace and ease I hope you remember your lefty friend’s struggle with right handed scissors. When you examine the not-so-perfect wrapping on the gift you receive, keep in mind the challenges of snipping and folding for the left handed.

                  

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Brain Challenges!”

In October, I began using the mini-Mac my son gifted me when Windows 10 no longer had support. Over the years, I’ve used Mac hardware and software, but each time I shift back, my brain stubbornly sticks to the other computer. 

A few days ago, I couldn’t find the Dictionary and Thesaurus for Pages although I’d used it a couple of weeks before. The shift to Tahoe had rippled down into my having to go into this-n-that and do a restart to access both of those with a highlight and click again. I’d also saved a template to Pages that vanished with the update. I grumble to myself, “I obviously did this before. . .” 

This morning, I decided to capture a few photographs of the remaining ice outside. When using my iPhone, pictures transfer to my new computer effortlessly. Select. Airdrop. Location (usually Downloads for me). Then comes the challenge of editing each picture, which I struggle with every single time. Using my Canon requires me to attach a cable between it and the computer hub. I’m not Tony Stark. This simple mating takes me at least four tries. The camera gives me its usual “BUSY” message, but I drew a blank on how to select and import the newest pictures. I’m not even trying to run them through anything like Photoshop. That’s for a different day. 

I tell myself every time I type a piece or load a picture that adjusting to all of this new stuff is really good for me. I have to do Google searches and view YouTube instructional videos to do something that used to be done on autopilot. I need to view these brain challenges an additional part of my daily exercise routine.

Cardboard left for squirrels!

Copyright 2026 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Have Scissors, Will Cut"

 

            What five-year-old can resist trimming her bangs? I couldn’t. I remember distinctly deciding to cut my hair with my mother’s large, heavy sewing shears. The weight of those scissors meant my hand wavered as I clipped, clipped, clipped. The result? A zigzag of fringe up my forehead and a sound scolding from my mother. I wore my bangs exceedingly short for a few months since to fix my fashion folly, my mother had to cut my bangs back to my hairline.


Notice the crooked bangs?

            Did I learn my lesson and avoid wielding scissors?

            Of course not!

            Over the years, I’ve become a master at cutting my own hair. I have paid for haircuts only three times in thirty-five years!

            Friends can’t believe I’ll snip away until I’ve settled on a new do, but I think it’s rather fun to see the results.

            I never style my hair on a whim. Usually, I debate the change over several days, weighing the pros of my current style, the cons of something different. I may even do something like change the color of my locks before I begin hacking away at them.

            Eventually, the pull of those shears wears me down. Sometimes, it’s simply a little trim to even out growth. Maybe, I just want to see beyond my bangs, so I shorten and feather them softly. Other days, I take the plunge and decide I need a totally new hairdo.

            And so I found myself in the bathroom the other evening, chopping off inches with confidence. If I don’t like my masterpiece? It’s no big deal.

            Hair grows back!!!

Cut in 2014

2025 Hair!

 

Copyright 2014 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

The lyrics from this song bring back my best childhood memories!

"Working Weekend"

 

            Life hands many of us solvable problems that eventually settle down. A sore throat that eases after sipping hot tea laced with lemon and honey.  A car repair setting back the budget for several months. A job loss batters you down for years. If you have family and close friends, you rely upon their experiences, emotional support, and sometimes financial help to recover and move forward.

            Over the years, I cannot remember a time when life handed us an obstacle that we had to handle all alone. As isolating as the caregiver years felt, we still had each other to turn to at the end of each day. In recent months, life has plowed into some of my single friends and family members. An unexpected illness, a slow recovery from surgery, or an overwhelmed and overworked emotional pounding pummeled people I love into a pulp. Always reluctant to ask for help, they put out tentative, subtle signs that events have pulled them underwater. Caught up in my own ups and downs, I missed my own brother’s growing need for relief.

            My brother, challenged by both physical and learning differences, structures his day with routines. He spends his life in a “rinse and repeat” cycle. His work requires the same things daily. He buys the same groceries every week. He pays his bills in person and often in cash when he can. He relies on television for entertainment and news. Last winter, he convinced me to skip our usual trips to his house—he was sick with a stomach bug and wanted rest, and then his job, for several months, required overtime that meant working either extra hours or even extra days. He insisted that he was fine, just tired and not up to visitors.

            Eventually, he ran out of excuses to delay our visit, and February found us descending into his darkened home. He hadn’t replaced light bulbs in each room. His clean laundry piled high in his bedroom while dirty laundry took over part of his garage. He had handled getting a new thermostat for his air conditioner, but his car’s ENGINE light warned of trouble. When we tried to shower that night, only ice cold water came out. He’d lived without hot water for many months.

            We sat down and made a list and plowed through most of it together. That’s when his “aloneness” hit home. All of the chores, big or small, fall onto him. With his extended working hours over several months, he simply gave up on tackling anything but keeping his clothes clean. Together, we hung and folded, sorted and tossed. Together, we took his car in for its repairs. Usually, he walks home from the repair shop. What a luxury to have someone there to drive him home! As a family, we swept and mopped his floors, took out an oversized bush near his front door, and stripped and remade all of his beds. One working weekend with three people reset his household chores.

            His bathroom, though, required more work. The bolt holding the toilet in place had stripped. My scrub brush with Barkeeper’s Friend erased the mildew, but all of the caulk needed to be removed and replaced. The popcorn ceiling over his tub flaked, and every fixture showed its age. We broke down this room’s work into three parts: plumber repairing the toilet first for sanitary reasons; new caulk and paint that we can do; replacing all of the fixtures and the hot water heater (plumber again).

            Arriving at the house this last weekend, we found the toilet repaired and the mildew completely gone. I “watered” the ceiling to make the popcorn easier to remove. While my husband sliced through the old stuff, caulked the tub, and repainted the room including a touchup of the tub’s exterior, I partnered with my brother to streamline his linen closet to only the sheets and towels he uses, bagging away old sets of sheets for donations.

            This next week, he will call his plumber to get prices for his hot water heater and possibly updating all of the twenty-year-old fixtures, including the light. If all of this is within the budget, he’ll get things fixed. We discussed the importance of having hot water again being more important than updating the shower head, faucets and lights. We made pledges to one another that he will let us know when things go wrong, but I know there are many things around him that he simply doesn’t notice as needing attention. I left with a new list of “Must Do” already started. However, he had maintained all of the housework we’d helped him with from the previous visit—no clean laundry piled high or dirty laundry stacked in the garage, no un-swept or un-mopped floors. If we keep on a regular schedule to provide extra hands on working weekends, all should be well.   

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"From Behind the Glass"

 

Forehead pressed against the pain
with Vision blurred by labored breath        
I push against cold resistance—
on the outside once again
Within sight
Yet out of reach
My desperation weeps
I cannot change
            your heartbreak
I cannot challenge Time—
            Unless I shatter through the glass
                        scarring myself
            to protect you


Copyright 2024 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Rats, a Pond, and Change”

 

            Our never ending battle against roof rats kicked up a solution that I’ve tried to avoid for several years—removing our pond that rests close enough to the house to draw in uninvited guests. When the rodents first appeared, they entered through an extremely small opening by our hot water heater. As time passed, they found other points of entry that always stayed along the back side of our house—near the kitchen and laundry, but also near the pond. At one point, the exterminator suggested that the pond enticed the rats into the area, and their break-in instincts led them into the house. We’ve tried different traps inside the house, including our own more successful live traps. The outside of our house, lined with baited traps by the pond, seemed to work, until this week when we spotted more rat sign in the laundry area.

            Today, I’ll start removing the pond. Draining it won’t take too long as we’ll the fountain pump can clear out the water quickly. Reclaiming the gravel from the interior and edges will take time, and relocating parts of the foliage to different areas of our yard may consume my mornings for a while. I like to think of myself as an ant. If I focus on one part each day, I can shift and move and change.

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Cardinal Flirtation"

 

 

            We have a pair of cardinals nesting in our yard each year. I suspect that the pair we have this year remembers us from last year since they ignore the dogs, barely avoid the squirrels, and linger within sight when I stretch out comfortably in a lounge chair.

            The male teased me mercilessly last night. I saw his brilliant crimson against the green lawn as he cocked his head this way and that. Determined to finally capture him on film, I grabbed my camera and quietly slid outside. I tried to sit off to the side, but soon realized that he kept a distance too far for my camera’s reach. Slowly, I crept under the Live Oak, stopping under the arch our bushes create next to the fish pond.
 

 

            I know, without a doubt, that the cardinal spied me. He flitted flirtatiously from branch to branch, following a pattern of perch, hop, perch, hop, swoop, perch and hop. He circled around me in a predictable display of cockiness. He’d linger along the rooftop, grace the back of one of the wrought iron chairs, and play hide-n-seek among the leaves. His head peeked around leaves and small branches as he challenged me to capture his arrogant pose.

 

            Always just a little behind a branch. Always just a little too fast for my shutter. Always just a tease away from the perfect pose.

 

 

Copyright 2013 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

 

"Blocked"

 

         I grabbed my spiral notebook yesterday with the intention of writing something spectacular. The blank page pulsed with emptiness. After a few minutes, I wrote the word “Blocked” across the top, believing that by labeling my affliction, I would begin the process of overcoming it.

         No other words followed. I left pen angled across the page, hoping that seeing the two paired together on the coffee table would trigger some inner well of creativity, and words would flow forth effortlessly.

         Nothing happened.

         Not a single word.

         I don’t know why my ideas and thoughts ram against this invisible wall. In my mind, I see them ebbing and flowing. I stand on a precipice, watching my words undulate in silent waves. They never reach the shore.

         So this morning, instead of taking pen and paper in hand, I pull up Word. The curser’s insistent blink-blink-blink-blink challenges me. I type the single word, “Blocked” again, centered perfectly on the page.

         And words push through the water’s rolling surface.

         Not perfect.

         But there.

Copyright 2012 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Blending in Marriage"

First picture of us together!

  

            After thirty-two years of marriage, friends often query, “How did you stay together so long? What’s the trick?

                I usually shrug my shoulders and shake my head, “I don’t know. Lots of love, but sometimes you fall out of synch with each other. The love may not feel as overpowering as it once was; yet if you wait it out, it comes back stronger and better.” I’ll pause for effect, and then continue, “You have to be friends as well as lovers. And you have to be willing to give up some of the things that are important to you as a person in order to reach for what’s best as a couple. Marriage is never easy—but nothing in life is, right? You’ll both feel anger, frustration and hurt. Own the negative as well as the positive. Always pull together when there’s a problem instead of heading in separate directions or relying on someone outside of your marriage to ‘fix’ things when they go wrong.”

At the Leakey cabin

            One of the tricks of marriage is taking two separate lives, with different upbringings and experiences, and blending them together into something wonderful and new. In the early years of our marriage, we made conscious choices of the things we liked or disliked about our childhood. For example, I hated that we moved every two or three years. I wanted to settle on a city or town, sink in roots, and build a life in one place. That didn’t matter as much to David at first. Later on, when I started looking for a bigger house, it turned out David rooted more deeply than I did; and so we added on to our home instead of moving.

Dinner with friends

            Our biggest area of contention those first years? Keeping house. I grew up a clean freak. Baseboards and door trims got a white glove inspection when we lived on base, and I transferred that tidiness into my adult life. Many of our early arguments revolved around housework. David always pitched in, but did such a horrible job that I ended up redoing many of his chores. After one explosion on why he didn’t clean something correctly, he admitted that he rarely did housework growing up. His bungling attempts, which I misinterpreted as a passive-aggressive dodge of chores, turned out to be total lack of knowledge of how to get something spiffy clean.

            When David and I had been married only a few months, he asked one night, “What do you do to the sheets?”

             “Sheets?” I echoed, puzzled.

          “They always feel so smooth. And they always smell good. Do you do something special with them?”

             “No. I just wash them every week."

           David paused, “Oh, that’s it, then. We didn’t wash our sheets every week. Sometimes more than a month would go by.” He made similar comments on the towels that never became cardboard stiff or smelled sour. Although all of David’s clothing when we first married fit into one paper sack, I was shocked to learn that he’d been told to turn dirty underwear inside-out and wear them a second time!

          These differences in upbringing caused friction during those first years. I couldn’t understand why David didn’t just jump in to clean something, often forgetting that he truly didn’t see that something was dirty because his level of tolerance was so much higher than my own.

            Eventually, we divided house cleaning and yard work not by the usual male/female divisions, but by what each of us likes to do most (or least hates to do). David prefers “picking up” or straightening up clutter. He likes to vacuum, cook, and clean the kitchen. I prefer dusting and laundry. We tackled grocery shopping together until recently. Both of us like working in the yard. Usually David will weed-eat while I’ll mow. We team up for clipping hedges, and I love to piddle in the garden

            Blending occurred in many other areas of our lives. Even after all of these years, we’ll sometimes find ourselves discussing a difference (yes, they still exist) and figuring out the best way to fuse two ways of viewing something into one solution. During this past year, we’ve had new challenges and changes that could strain a marriage; yet we seem to have mastered this blending skill. And frankly, it’s the mixing and merging that makes life interesting. 

Anniversary #45!

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman 

"Haiku Experiment"

 

The Experiment
distilling daily dreams—thoughts
one drop at a time

Morning view outside
velvet red upon green stalks
symmetrical rose
July 4

Daily poetry
huge mountains of words to climb
an endless challenge
July 13

Twelve days of poems
forcing creativity
through the sieve of words
July 14

Impatience is gone
vanishing within a smile
the mood shifts again
July 23

Happiness and joy
are acorns planted in fall
and rooted in time
July 27

The poetry helps
by healing my tattered soul
bandaging worries
August 2

Plunge into a book
evade all-consuming thoughts
escape tomorrow
August 3

 Night’s muffled sighs sound
distant humming of autos
gentle songs of sleep
August 5

Today’s words are forced
curbed and restrained emotions
cotton wraps my mind
August 8

Retreat into sleep
play out other worlds and lives
leave yourself behind
August 8

Hold onto sunshine
gently cup it in your hands
optimistic thoughts
August 16

Sleepy Saturday
singing soft lullabies
snoozing silently
September 11

Copyright 1999 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

For a six month period in 1999, I challenged myself to make my journal entries through some form of poetry. Often, the day's events seemed best expressed through haiku. These are just a few entries from my experiment.

"Lefty Loosey"

       

           I suffer from a lifelong disability—left handedness. Now, some people write or eat with their left hand, but do other things with their right hands. Not me! I drag the right side of my body along with me as a useless attachment that often gets in the way. My left side dominance dictates every aspect of my body. Not only do I write and eat with my left hand, I also chew on the left side of my mouth, listen on the phone with my left ear, and kick with my left foot.

         My first grade teacher, aka The Battleax, made eradicating my handedness her crusade for the few months I remained in her class. I remember her swooping down the aisle as I diligently practiced my letters with my giant pencil and Big Chief pad. She’d harrumph her disapproval, snatch the pencil from my fingers, and force it into my right hand. My smooth, neat letters turned into illegible, rickety scrawls. When the principal suggested my mother pull me out of school, she took over as the handwriting expert. A lefty herself, she’d weathered the same discrimination as a child. Her handwriting, a beautiful, disciplined script that flowered across the page, became my guideline. My mother taught me to write using a blackboard. With the angle changed, I dropped the lefty hook that many left handed people use. As a teacher, watching me write on the board often disturbed my students. They commented every single time I wrote on the board. As a result, I arrived every morning to place the bulk of information on the board ahead of time. I was one of the first teachers to jump at the opportunity to use a computer and projector in the classroom.

         My left side dominance often causes challenges. I do not always approach the physical world in the same way. Many little things in our lives put the lefty at a disadvantage. Cabinet doors open to the wrong side. As I sit at my desk, the drawers run down the right side to make opening and rummaging easy for the right handed person. For me to access the drawers, I have to turn sideways. My mouse, too, rests on the right. I’ve learned to maneuver it by practicing with games like Bejeweled. I practice every day. For some reason, placing keys in locks often creates a challenge. The angle of approach, geared for the right handed person, means I’m battling the door frame as I insert the key. And don’t forget the ignition in cars or the gear shifts!

         Discrimination against lefties is centuries old. I could rattle off many different taboos associated with right versus left. Also, left handed people live shorter lives because they have more accidents. Check your statistics if you don’t believe me. It’s not because we’re klutzes, but because our entire day we must compensate. I figure all of the disadvantages accumulate over our lifetimes, resulting in the false reputation of being clumsy when we’re not.

         So as you cut your Christmas wrapping paper in straight lines with grace and ease I hope you remember your lefty friend’s struggle with right handed scissors. When you examine the not-so-perfect wrapping on the gift you receive, keep in mind the challenges of snipping and folding for the left handed.

                  

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"Looking for Answers"

          Ever wish for the power to see into the future? Ever long for the ability to know ahead of time if the path you’ve set out on will take you where you really want to go?

In my twenties, I set out on a journey with David that meant we selected a trail and forged ahead no matter what barrier blocked our journey. During the first years, we struggled with meeting basic necessities. Like most people, our twenties meant scrounging for every penny just to make it through each month. I remember evaluating everything by gallons of milk or gas. Did we need to go to a movie? That would be “spending” three gallons of milk on entertainment. How much did I want that new top? It would cost me the same as a tank of gas to go see my family. By being budget conscious and frugal, we pulled together enough money to purchase our home, but it wasn’t easy. Our next goal, having a child, proved an unexpected challenge, too. While many of our friends and family members seemed to pop out babies with great ease, we found ourselves looking for the answers to infertility. The answer we found, adoption, led us onto the wonderful path of parenthood.

         In our thirties, David had the opportunity to start his own business and work from our home. We couldn’t turn down the chance of having one parent at home at all times. The freelance business brought its own trials. Clients loved to send contracts with short turnarounds on completing the work, but then they bogged down the payment process. Sometimes a project’s payment wouldn’t come in for more than two months. If we’d had a crystal ball that could have predicted the shortcomings and obstacles of self-employment, would David have attempted his business? Even with hindsight on the difficulties we faced, we probably would have made the same choices because the benefits of having a parent at home outweighed the uncertainties of sporadic income.

         Every decision we made as a couple, we made with the goal of keeping our family strong. Many times, life piled seemingly insurmountable obstacles on the trail before us. Often, we plowed forward blindly on the pure faith that if we put family first we couldn’t get off track. Sometimes onlookers from the sidelines catcalled and jeered, trying to steer us into another direction. They’d throw large bricks of doubt directly in front of us that made us lose our footing and momentum. Eventually, we learned to block out the noise of the faceless crowd and kept true to our trek.

         I thought, foolishly, that I’d eventually hit an age where everything would fall into place. Where the wisdom of my years and experience would mean I wouldn’t flounder on this winding trail of life. However, questions still plague my days and nights. Obstructions make me pause and second guess myself. I find that I’m still trying to divine the future as I take another loop along the path. My soul searching illuminates the road just far enough ahead for me to know that keeping family whole and strong will secure safe passage.

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"I Want to Give You the World"

 

 

I want to give you the world 

with its promise    

with its pleasure    

with its plenitude  

I want to give you the world     

without the doubts   

without the debt  

without the desperation    

I want to give you the world  

with its splendor  

with its sunrises 

with its surprises   

I want to give you the world    

without the worry     

without the weaknesses    

without the wantonness  

I want to give you the world   

with its hope    

with its humor     

with its happiness    

Copyright 2011 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

"An Ending Begins"

David Chapman-artist

 Standing on the edge looking back—

            So many decisions gone wrong

                        So many decisions proved right

                                    No way of tracing patterns

            The child longs for easier ways—

                        Rainbows, buttercups under the chin

                                    Seeking security

                                                Returning to the womb

Standing on the edge looking ahead—

            So many unknowns

                        So many possibilities

                                    No way of seeing patterns

            The youth longs for challenge—

                        First love, free falling from the sky

                                    Embracing life

                                                Escaping tight bondage

Standing on the edge looking inward—

            So many “what ifs”

                        So many “if onlys”

                                    No way of changing patterns

            The elder dreams on of new beginnings

                        Second chances, another step into sunshine

                                    Gathering warmth

                                                Longing to be young again

Copyright 1996 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman