"Letters to Use as Guides"

 

The recent deluge of Executive Orders issued from President Trump proves his lies about knowing nothing about Project 2025. You may or may not be invested in the goals and beliefs of this document, but you must know that many of the policies within it are currently guiding this Administration. This communication is to remind you of your duties to your constituents. We are only as strong as a nation for the care we give to the weakest—our children, people with a disability, and elderly. No matter what your personal gains and agenda within this current administration, you will be judged by your voters for how well you serve this community.
 
I do not believe that you want to forsake the important role of the Senate that you’ve served faithfully for so many years to participate with an administration whose purpose is to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy the government on a Federal level.
 
I ask that you work together with other Republicans and Democrats to make certain programs currently funded continue. If the school that’s behind my house, currently with 100% of the children on free breakfasts and lunches, suffers from the cruelty of the current policies being pushed into place, you will have failed your job. History has a way of revealing the cowards of each generation. Do you want to be labeled one?

 

Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

“Overwhelmed”

            Today’s project? I intend to clean the grout around every floor tile in our house. Why? I need to gain control over something that’s specific and concrete. I need to sit on the hard, cold surface and attack it with Bar Keeper’s Friend. I want to mercilessly scrub with my special brush until every inch looks clean and new. I require a massive project that pulls me away from the cruelty pounding upon our doors.  If I spend the day wrapped in a task that has a positive ending, my overwhelming hopelessness will stop hemorrhaging.
            At the keyboard right now, I envision my day. Pulling on old clothing, filling my bucket with nearly scorching water, sprinkling cleanser, scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing until my fingers and knees ache. My attention focused. Honed in onto something totally under my control, I have the luxury of pushing aside the horrors of another Project 2025 day until my personal coping strategies kick in.
            At this very second, uncertainty rides along with me on how I’ll survive four fucking years when one week pulls me down and under.

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman    

“My Secret Stash”

            Occasionally, I purchase a special sweet treat to help me withstand various life trials. Last year, one mini-Milky Way sat on my desk in plain sight. Any tribulation that entered my day had to reach a “Sponge Worthy” status before I’d eat this small indulgence. I became Seinfeld’s Elaine, measuring my distress just like she did to before using her favorite birth control. My ultimate goal is to reshape the day’s strain into a manageable tidbit that saved my candy for an even worst calamity.

            My mini-treat, left uneaten, morphed over time into my way of celebrating my resilience. When our old hot water heater died an untimely death, I tacked onto a credit card unexpected debt. Problem solved enough to save the candy for another day. Massive layoffs at my husband’s company should’ve made me devour the bar plus every sugar laden item in our house. Instead, I maintained that the piece stay in place to celebrate not being unemployed. Illnesses and injuries plagued family and friends, but nothing ever comparable to Mom’s Huntington’s disease battle. The measure I used before consuming my Milky Way mini grew with each day I walked away from wolfing it down.

            At year’s end, I indulged myself with the treat.

            Starting this year, I have Milk Duds sitting on my desk. The little yellow box calls attention to itself in a way my demure Milky Way mini never did. Expecting a more turbulent year, I snuck a LifeSavers hard candy storybook in the bin below my desk and hid some Andes’ in the freezer. Yesterday’s news with withdrawing from WHO, trying to destabilize the Fourteenth Amendment, and pardoning those who brutally attacked police officers with the insurrection left me battered enough to raid one roll of my Lifesavers.

            My personal goal to have the Milk Duds sit uneaten on my desk by year’s end may be unreachable, but I’ll give it my best try.  

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

              

"Snow Day"

 

            San Antonio’s inability to handle snow and ice on bridges and overpasses means a dusting of snow halts the city until temperatures tip above freezing. Yesterday the city stopped for part of the day for less than two inches of snow.  Sleet and ice factor into the decision to shut down. With camera in hand, I document this rare occurrence, capturing the stillness and beauty before it melts away.

 

Copyright 2025 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman

Copyright 2025 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