Harriet Lowther Art and her book Tell Your Dog I Love Them!

Quick Update: Harriet Lowther, the artist, has a dog book out. This is wildly important, especially if you need an antidote for whatever ails you. Unless you're a cat person, in which case check out the cat book to your immediate right. 

I'm very much a dog person. Currently, I have three part-time dogs. This is a great gig if you can get it. All you have to do is offer to take someone else's dogs for them whenever they are away, or whenever they are in desperate need of a break from them. Like when one of them eats one of the gold earrings they got for Christmas and has to go to the vet to have vomiting induced, but the only thing that comes out is deceased spiders. 

Guilty Spider-Eater

Harriet Lowther's art is delightful. She has the ability to capture the soul of a dog. I didn't see any big-eared spider-eater dogs in her art but I did find one dog painting that is the very essence of another of my part-time dogs. 

Masterpiece by Harriet Lowther

If you knew this next dog, you'd see that her very essence has been captured by Harriet. 

Vixen hiding a frisbee before having her essence captured.

Vixen claims not to see the resemblance.
Barely misses her soul. 

Everyone else sees the resemblance. Disclaimer: Vixen is actually the best dog on earth. Unless, of course, she passes another dog when going for a walk. In which case she morphs into a soulless murderess enchanting all other dogs in earshot to kill the beast. But everyone needs a hobby.

If you pick up a copy of Tell Your Dog I Love Them on Harriet Lowther's website, you can score an autographed copy. I ordered a couple dog paintings and a small pile of books to gift to some dog lover people I just had to share with. The thoughtful little details in the package that arrived were absolutely endearing. Check it out!

Bad Ass Life Changer, Jeniene Matthews

 

It wasn't Jeniene's Ted Talk that earned her the Bad Ass Life Changer title. It wasn't those who might have faced her during her litigator years, or the students whose lives were affected by her. For me what cemented the moniker were those who spoke during her memorial service and said, she was my best friend. Because once you got to know Jeniene and the honesty and integrity of this incredible woman, likely she became and will remain the best of friends to you. 

We met at a Women Reading Aloud workshop 800 years ago in 2015. The workshop took place on a small island in Greece. Alonissos is a tough island to get to, requiring multiple flights and a ferry ride. After dragging my suitcase aboard and finding a spot to sit on the outside deck of the ferry, I sat and watched an impossibly blue sea where dolphins actually jumped out of the water around the prow. A few other women wandered to the front of the ferry to watch. We exchanged glances until someone asked, "Are you going to the writing retreat?" 

Exhausted but excited, we grouped together, asking, "Where are you from?" "What do you write?" instant confidantes in a foreign land. We marveled at the blue water, the blue sky, rugged islands with white-washed buildings stacked up hillsides. "Can you believe we're in this incredible place?" Jeniene  said, "What did we do right to get to be here?" From the start, she had a knack of saying exactly what I was feeling. 

Over the course of that workshop we wrote together as a group, and read our stories out loud. Skipping the usual pleasantries like, "What do you do for a living?" Instead, we learned the most important facts about each other, love, loss, dreams, and fears. Jeniene told the entire group about her boy, her son. Her entire demeanor brightened when she shared stories of him. She may or may not have said out loud, he is my person, my reason for being, my heart. The sentiment was communicated just the same. Nothing makes a person more attractive than joy. 

Later, over the years and bit by bit, Jeniene would often say, as though in grateful astonishment, "I have the best life. The best husband. The best Golden Retriever. The best cat. The best job." As I got to know her, I'd have to agree. Once, I had the pleasure of spending a morning in her class at St. Marks. This is a private school where most students board and the classroom sizes are small. We sat at a large table with ten students and Jeniene tossed out an ice-breaker about a time you got hurt doing something. As a guest I started with, "Once I sat on a monkey's cage and got bitten." It launched the most entertaining and interesting discussion, and I still remember those students' stories.

After touring the school and the grounds, I wanted to live my life over again and go there. Most of all I agreed with Jeniene, she had the best life. It didn't come easy. She paid her dues becoming a lawyer, being a lawyer, and changing her career path mid-stride. Being a storyteller, she had stories for every step of the way. The best kind of stories, honest, sincere, and relatable. 

Jeniene Matthews St. Marks Ted Talk

When Jeniene told her stories, she didn't often include battling cancer for sixteen years. Yet she did that too while living her beautiful and amazing life. The kind of life that you want to be close to, and that quietly reminds you that you too can lead a beautiful and amazing life, no matter how much effort it takes. Because isn't that goal worth everything you have to give? She gave it her all, and anyone who saw that wanted to be like that too. 

Me and my bestie, Jeniene

Kathryn Freeman Art is Where My Spirit Animals Live

Henrietta and the Herons by Kathryn Freeman

Recently I discovered Kathryn Freeman's art at a writing workshop. For one of the story prompts, each writer was given a card of her artwork. We were allotted about forty-five minutes to go off and write a story. One of the things I love about prompt writing is that even when every writer gets the same prompt, no two stories are ever anywhere near alike. 

My card delighted me. It reminded me of the escape I find on an island in the Aegean Sea. The open air, blue skies, and the birds. I spent a good ten minutes just looking at it before I wrote. Later, after listening to all of the writers' delicious stories and looking at everyone's cards, it delighted me to notice that the similarity in each painting was the outline of a house with open windows or walls and the animals. It turned into one of the most delightful prompts I've ever been given. We were allowed to keep our cards and I determined then and there to find a way to bring more of Kathryn Freeman's art into my life. 

First I asked a fellow writer for permission to put her beautiful story here on The Glitter Globe. The prompt is seen below, and the story is by writer Lynne Rosenfeld.

Dance 2020 by Kathryn Freeman

Just a Dream by Lynne Rosenfeld

“I know it’s just a dream, but please, can I go back there?”

We were on the phone, a landline, vestige of earlier times. I, a lowly human, stumbling through brambles and vines, she, the Goddess of Dreams.

“Your dreams are programmed…it’s an algorithm,” she replied. “My powers are not as they once were. This dream you so crave came to you before A.I. usurped my gifts. I barely have a seat at the table. I’m given little respect, but they know they cannot discard me. I am a goddess after all. It seems that just the essence of a god, any kind of god, gives them pause, a hesitance to go too far in case they are left in a heap of ashes wrought by their own arrogance and self-destruction.”

“I see,” I replied. “I am sorry to hear, but want to thank you for the places you’ve allowed me to go in my dreams.”

We said goodbye and I was left with a dial tone and a warm phone pressed to my ear. Now, left to my own devices, I was determined to find a way back to my dream. It seemed that each time I tried to capture it, reclaim bits and pieces, the images slipped through my fingers. The Goddess had been my lifeline and she now could do nothing for me. The woven dream catcher hanging over my bed was no help. Its beauty seemed to scorn my grasping eagerness.

This dream was where I thought I wanted to live, even to die. Was it my idea of a heaven?  But why was I so eager to return, when I had barely gotten out of the last one. 

You see, I was walking in the woods across a thick blanket of green, trees reaching to the clouds, canopies of leaves like green balloons. The sun cast long shadows across the grass, washed clear of dried leaves, branches and fallen debris. I felt safe in my wanderings, solitary and safe, but for a ripple of uncertainty as the pheasant I passed offered a sly and knowing smile and the red fox winked and said, “follow me.”

The fox moved ahead quickly, weaving in and out of the trees, I struggled to keep up, the flick of his red tail, the blur of his black legs my only sign posts. I pushed forward, picking up my pace, determined not to lose him. 

He led me to a house with large open windows. I could hear a cello playing, what was it?  A tarantella?  The fox kept over the window ledge into the open air house and I followed. Of course I would. Wherever this dream was taking me wasn’t it where I belonged?  Where I was meant to be?  

The first thing I noticed was a gold and blue tile floor. I stepped over the window ledge into the house and saw a man bent over his cello, the deep and lively chords vibrated in my chest. No dancer was I, but his music, the sight of the foxes dancing in a circle, made me want to join. The man never looked up from his bow as it moved over the strings of the cello, but the foxes beckoned me, welcomed me, and there I was, joyful, free, and yearning.

Spotting a blue hat on a green wicker chair I wondered, was I supposed to leave money for the musician?  I had come into this dream without my wallet, and felt a pang of anxiety at my absence of change. I stepped out of the circle of dancing foxes and looked into the hat. Sure enough there were silver and gold coins, a few dollar bills.

A large black and brown dog lay across the tile floor. He lifted his head and called me over. He did not speak, but I knew he was calling me. As I approached, he thumped his tail on the gold and blue tiles and turned over onto his side. He sniffed my hand and gave it one wet lick. I nestled my face into his fur, then stretched out beside him, feeling his warm breath on my cheek.

“These foxes are driving me crazy,” he whispered. “I must tolerate them for the sake of my person” he said with a heavy sigh. “It’s the same every day. He plays the same music, the foxes come to dance, and sometimes the women jump out of the painting to join in. That money in the hat, it’s been here forever.”

“Gee, that sounds like a nightmare,” I stammered. 

 

“Yes, exactly. I’m glad you are here. I’ve been so bored.”

“But, this is just a dream,” I said. “I will soon be waking up…won’t I?”

The dog's soulful eyes looked deep into mine, a look more of sadness than regret.

“I don’t think so,” he said. And with a heavy sign he closed his eyes, leaving me with the tarantella and dancing foxes.

What stayed with me most in Lynne's story is the idea that the Goddess of Dreams had been replaced with A.I. Also, the surprise ending, the twist into too much of a good thing changed the entire direction of the story! I didn't see it coming. Lynne has a real grip on her stories and I enjoy the clarity and beauty of them. 

By the way, the above paragraph is the type of feedback welcome in an Amherst Writers and Artists writing workshop. My current favorite online writing workshop is Bibi's Peas with Honey 

In addition to Lynne's beautiful story as a way to share Kathryn Freeman's art, I found a website called Pomegranate where they sell some of her paintings as cards and jigsaw puzzles. I bought myself some, and purchased others for every upcoming birthday I had on my list! 

Pomegranate Cards

After the writing workshop, I found Kathryn Freeman's website and ordered myself a print. It took me a very long time to decide which one I wanted, because I liked all of them! It came in a tube and I piled books along the edges to flatten it out. I left it like that for a couple of weeks as I figured out exactly what size frame and matting I needed. 

Kathryn Freeman

Aren't the colors vibrant? The branches stretching out of the woods and into the house is what my woods feel like, and I want that blue couch! I already have a foxy-faced dog I sit and her name is Vixen. She's got to be the most angelic dog ever. That helped me choose which painting I wanted a print of! When the frame for this photo arrived, I carefully put the print into it, rearranging the edges to be sure that every detail could be seen! There's a frog if you want to put your eyeball up to the screen and try to find it. Yesterday my husband helped me hang it and I couldn't be happier with it! Isn't it gorgeous? You can practically feel all of the textures. It astonishes me and I wonder how paintings like this can be done!

Stories for Foxes by Kathryn Freeman

The Inn at Taughannock Falls and a Women Reading Aloud Writing Retreat

Last week I attended a Women Reading Aloud retreat in the Finger Lakes area of New York State. Women Reading Aloud WRA is my favorite writing retreat that I will travel to, that's how I fell in love with the secluded island of Alonissos, Greece. The Finger Lakes were one heck of a lot easier to get to than Alonissos! They are also incredibly beautiful. 

The Inn at Taughannock Falls rests right at the mouth of the path to the Falls. Our group took over The Inn and the two newer cottages for a long weekend. WRA uses the Amherst Writers and Artists Method that I'm such a fan of. The Director of WRA is Julie Maloney. I've written with her for years and I'm a huge fan. If you're just stepping into writing or if you have been published for years with piles of books to your credit, you'll all fit in and be comfortable with this group of women. 

Every day of the retreat, rain or shine, I took the time to walk to the falls. The Inn loaned me a massive umbrella on the rainy day and I loved every step! The falls are magnificent. 

The little falls at the start of the hike!

 

Our group wrote morning, afternoons, and evenings. Longer retreats offer longer down-time but you're always encouraged to take time for yourself at these workshops and retreats. We write to prompts, read aloud if we so desire, and the other writers offer feedback. Namely, "What works for you?" We're all writing first drafts, all writing is considered to be fiction, and all feedback is so the writer can take away what works in the piece. 

Taughannock Falls

Somehow, this positive feedback encourages writers to dig deep and write from the heart. My first workshops of this type were ages ago, and I wondered how the lack of hard to hear critique could help my writing. Yet it works beautifully. That doesn't mean you won't have to rewrite your brains out for publication later (you will). That doesn't mean you won't need an editor (you do). What it means is that, if you desire to publish someday, that you'll begin with something moving from the start. It also means that you'll enjoy your writing and listening and learning from other writers!

After a rain.

The Inn at Taughannock Falls provided our group with Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner and all the water and tea or coffee we could desire. They catered to our needs, and every time one of us with food allergies asked, "but is it gluten-free?" they answered cheerfully. The food was also quite good, and the gluten-free/dairy-free/nut-free fare was safe and tasty.

Let me just add that my favorite gluten-free comment is calling someone from the kitchen over to ask again, "Is this really gluten-free? It tastes too good to be gluten-free." As a "but, is it gluten-free?" person, that is the highest praise you can give a restaurant!

And I hope we come back again next year!

Peas with Honey and Other Easy Peasy Online Writing Workshops

If you like to write, or used to write, or have always wanted to write, one of the best ways to go about it is to write. Pencil, paper, write. This can possibly lead to staring at the blank page and getting up for a snack. 

One of the best ways to go about jump-starting that part of your brain is to write to prompts, and one of the best ways to go about that is to write in a small group so you don't go snack-hunting, answer your phone, or hop up to let the dog out and stop writing before you really start.

Peas with Honey is an online ZOOM writing workshop that is one of my favorites. It's a small group, takes place on a few Sundays a month, 10:00 a.m. Eastern U.S. Time, 5:00 p.m. Athens, Gr time. It's run by a lovely writer named Bibi, who I met at a big in-person workshop in Greece a very long time ago. I've been to her house, met her husband who also writes, met her kitty named Whippy, and she made me a gluten-free chocolate torte I still dream about. The two-hour class costs whatever you want to donate. Easy Peasy. 

Like all of the workshops I attend, it follows the Amherst Writers and Artists method. In a nutshell this means writing to prompts. Everything is assumed to be fiction. If the writers choses to share and read aloud, the listener shares what works for them. These are first drafts so criticism isn't part of the feedback. You might not think that would work but it actually works beautifully. I've attended classes following the AW&A method for many years and it is magic. 

Below is one of the prompts I wrote to. I'm sharing it with you so you can get the gist of how this prompt writing works. For me these timed stories tend to be comprised of bits and pieces of something I know to be true because you're basically world-building on the fly. For this bit I included the truth of living with chronic vertigo and vestibular migraine. Remember, though, this is FICTION. That means I made it up!

Andy Warhol designed the Campbell's Soup Label

Peas with Honey Prompt: Someone tripping into Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis Painting

by S.R. Karfelt

 

No, thank you. No, thank you for the fifteen minutes of fame. No, thank you for being the klutz moron who wrecked an Andy Warhol painting.

You know how you ask kids what do you want to be when you grow up? Some kids say they want to be famous.

            Morons.

            Idiots.

I was so not that kid.

And I’m not that adult.

But let’s say even if I was like that and wanted to be famous, it sure as hell wouldn’t be for something STUPID.

            Who sets out to win the Darwin Award?

Fame is a dangerous quest. Wishing for fame without parameters or a game plan to be an artist like Warhol, or a scientist who eradicates Tuberculosis for good, or an Olympian. Just fame? Here, take it. I don’t want people to know my name.

Although, I wouldn’t mind if more of them knew the name of my books. I digress.

Who wants to be the NIMROD who steps backwards off the edge of the Grand Canyon while taking a selfie? Or the skydiver who, oops, forgot to put ON the chute? Be careful what you wish for and I most certainly did NOT wish for Fame!

I get these *ucking vestibular migraines is all. They are the nastiest sh*t of all migraines and since ALL migraine is nasty sh*t—that is saying something!

They’re random but sometimes light gets them going. Fluorescents. Industrial or Big Box Store lighting. Or, let’s get to it, MUSEUM lighting. That’s why I had sunglasses on inside a museum. That’s why my glasses always have dark filters in the lenses. Not because I’m faking cool. No one with chronic intermittent vertigo has anything in common with cool.

We’re the NUMBSKULLS that trip off the elevator or turn to look and stumble back a few steps. If you crash-land coming off a moving walk-way at an airport for instance, and you lose your balance and your bearings and your carry-on luggage scatters all over blocking other people. Absolutely no one goes, “Hey, she looks cool.”

They say, “Hey, someone’s been at the airport bar, or hey, weed is legal in New York isn’t it?”

Come on. High? Intoxicated? Hah! You don’t drink or take drugs with vertigo. Those side effects are built-in to your everyday. You just try not to fall into an Andy Warhol at the godd*mn museum is all. So rack this one up to another fail and I'll f*ck off on out of here.

 

This Explains my Childhood

Frankly, I think that this is the best photo ever taken. Maybe because that’s my Gram holding her pet monkey (Gomer—who along with our Toy Fox Terrier growing up will be barring the pearly gates of heaven to me and my 36-First Cousins on my Mom’s Side).

It’s just a theory, okay?

It’s not that we did anything particularly worrisome. In fact Gomer was the one who yanked my hair and bit my bottom when I sat on his cage that one time. 

A Few of my Favorite Things 2025

These are a few of my favorite things from the past year. 

First being an eye massager. It might sound weird, it did to me when I received not one but TWO as gifts!

They don't massage your eyeballs. They gently press around them and come heated or both heated and cooled. It helps my dry eye and migraine before it really gets going, and even some of my vertigo. 

This is the first thing I've found that helps any of those things (except eye drops do help with dry eyes, if you're not allergic to them!). Since receiving them, I've given many as gifts. They're wonderful! They come in various brands and styles, so look at your choices and chose what works for you! 

No, I don't get kickbacks for any of these things. This is just a short list of things that really worked for me this past year!

Another favorite thing is a dog from the SPCA. (A cat even, if you roll like that!) It's a wonderful organization and this little girl in the lilac sweater is my latest favorite doggo. 

Yes, yes, she's not a thing. She's a person and thanks to the SPCA she's part of my family now!

Any of the online writing workshops from Peas with Honey. They're for any level of writing, including beginners. I've been taking these the past few months and I love them.                                                                                                                                                     It's always a real commitment for me to give up a couple hours on the weekend, yet I love every minute I spend writing with this teacher, Bibi. It's prompt writing using the Amherst Writers and Artists method, which is a positive reinforcement and inclusive type of writing workshop. It inspires writers to dig deep and put it on the page using fun and clever prompts.                                                                                                    I highly recommend Peas with Honey. It's fun and inspiring. It's done via ZOOM a couple hours about once a week. You can sign up for just one class or whatever works for you.                                                                                                                                         If you have any questions you'd like to ask me about it, please contact me through this website. I've written with this teacher for years and highly recommend this group. Classes have a bit of an international flair and they offer a variety of class types. 

Yellowstone

It must leave a Jurassic-size carbon footprint connecting flights from airport to airport to get to where you're going. That’s the reality of traveling from the little commuter airport where I live! Yet I do it because as the late great Freddie Mercury once said, Keep Yourself Alive. After doing time at my little airport, and then the Atlanta Airport, followed by the Salt Lake City Airport, I got myself to the Jackson Hole Airport during a torrential rainstorm. I dragged my luggage through all that rain because planes there let you off outside and there is no choice. (I’m skipping over the part about flying through a thunderstorm because I was so glad to finally get to where I was going that I didn’t mind that part.)

My rental car ended up getting super-sized, but why stop now? After driving through Jackson Hole in the dark and more rain, I eventually found the condo I’d rented and hurled myself into bed and slept. 

My first few days around Jackson Hole were spent exploring The Grand Tetons. 

Although I took countless photos, they don’t do any of the sights justice. The Grand Tetons are outside of Yellowstone. Yellowstone National Park is so enormous it's in both Wyoming and Montana. First I visited the Teton area. Then I moved into the Yellowstone National Park enormity. 

My photos just don’t capture the massiveness of these places, you can't smell the fresh air, or the way you can drive only a couple miles and go from gigantic mountains, to forests, to plains, lakes, geysers, canyons, and hot springs of every imaginable color. Even words can't grasp this place. Not to mention all of the wildlife. There are bison everywhere (think buffalo). Moose. Bear. Coyotes. Foxes. Wolves. The hassle of getting to this place is well worth the effort. 

After my days exploring the Jackson Hole area, I stayed in various places within Yellowstone National Park. I booked whatever availability there was in the villages within the park. In Grant Village I had a room, but also stayed in cabins at both Mammoth and Old Faithful. You do need to book about a year ahead, and that includes booking meals at the various restaurants. 

Hiking was my favorite activity during this trip. There are geysers and hot springs dotted over the park. They even ring Yellowstone Lake, which is incredibly huge. The pathways are mostly made up of decking material and you're safe to walk around as long as you stay on the paths. You can purchase these honking huge cans of bear spray for going off the grid hiking too. 

I'd seen the videos of tourists doing foolish things, but what took me by surprise is that it's going on in real time every moment you're there. I saw people stick their fingers into bubbling hot springs, people darting off the clearly marked paths, to run across thin earthen crusts full of oozing bubbling smoking geysers and variations of other volcanic activity, just to get a better picture. Every snap of your camera takes another fantastic picture. There's no need to risk your life. People raced toward wild animals to pet them. Where I live in the shire is full of wildlife. I've been battling a mangy little black bear all summer trying to keep him out of my trash. I know you don't fool with WILD ANIMALS. THEY DO NOT FOLLOW YOUR RULES. THEY DO NOT LIKE YOU. THEY LIKE FOOD. Including your trash. 

Obviously, too many of us don't live near wild animals on a daily basis. We have forgotten what they will do to your house for a half cup of birdseed at 2:00 a.m. We have forgotten how strong a four-hundred plus pound animal is. But, DUDE, don't you see the horns and TEETH? Don't make them remind you. 

Although, look at those sweet baby eyes! It's a trap!

I cannot wait to go back. 

It's September for a while

 

Here in the shire, September is the best month. The forests are still green, with only a few traitor branches sneaking in some autumn color. The skies are pristine blue with floofy white clouds that look like they fell out of a storybook. Our thermals are the best in the world, so sometimes you'll see a glider drifting soundlessly in circles over the low-slung hills. 

Mostly all I want to do this month is play frisbee with my favorite Golden Retriever. It's a heavy yellow and blue water disc that I slam to the ground so it'll roll far and Rupert can pretend he's chasing a rabbit into the woods. There's no real limit to how long Rupert and I can keep at this. He's one of those dogs who will NEVER EVER stop playing, and I literally hurt my arm from throwing that frisbee for hours and days. I've had to learn to throw it well with my other arm, or not play as much, and we can't have that. Playing with a dog is an excellent way to put off sitting in front of the computer and writing. As much as I love to write, I love to spend perfect days with a dog too.

My last book that came out was a Chicken Soup for the Soul Cat Stories one. I got to do a zoom call with some of the other writers and I have to share that it was a delight to see all those zoom boxes with writers looking out, most holding cats. This summer I've taken classes and read books and made art for fun,

and I did whatever Rupert felt like doing, too!

Twenty-Four Years of Chronic Vertigo

 

Ugh. Twenty-four years of chronic vertigo isn't a badge I want to wear. It's not even some grand accomplishment to brag about. Like I've survived this or endured this! Go me! It's not like I have a choice. It won't go away for pity's sake! 

I have a friend with Parkinson's Disease and she says that people will tell her how brave she is because she travels the world solo and continues slogging along in her beautiful DIFFICULT life despite the disease. She says that she isn't brave because she has absolutely no choice but to fight it and move along. I tell her the bravery is in fighting it and doing her absolutely best despite the challenges but I get what she's saying. 

For me, I'm brave every day I don't have vertigo. I'm an absolute hot garbage mess when I get it. Zero brave. Even though I've had it for twenty-four years now, it still comes as a total surprise every single freaking time I get it. I really don't know why I get it or when I'll get it. I get it when I get it, and I don't know what brings it on. (And I have a small hill of paperwork from trying to find a pattern of cause and effect.) It just shows up and I never know its coming. 

Sometimes I get it when I'm sleeping and sometimes I  wake up to it. Sometimes I get it when I throw back my head and laugh and sometimes I get it when I'm sitting and reading or watching a movie. It comes when it comes and I see no rhyme or reason to it. 

There are many variations of vertigo. Mine can be like full spinning or turning to look at something and staggering because I forgot not to ever do that, or tripping off an elevator because holy crap we just landed, or this fun little bounce bounce bounce thing that my head sometimes does when I'm not actually moving, or having to avoid anywhere with a ceiling fan swirling because holy crap everything is spinning, or a clock pendulum going back and forth and making me feel like I'm swinging back and forth, or news scrolling along the bottom of a screen, or, humiliation-upon-humiliation, actually not being able to stomach a rocking chair. 

And some days I'm fine, and almost normal. Or at least I can fake it many days. When this first started and when I gave up on getting any answers to why or help from the medical community, I made a bucket list and went skydiving, hiked The Grand Canyon, ran races, traveled the world solo some, and I didn't die. Yet. 

It's just that there are many days when it feels like I'm going to die because I'm spinning. At this point in time I can honestly say that dying isn't my fear, it's the spinning. 

This is not an every single day problem, thank god, and I don't usually have all of those things happening at the same time. Once, a doctor suggested I try a daily antihistamine to see if it helped, and I didn't get bad vertigo for TEN ENTIRE WHOLE BLESSEDLY AMAZING WONDERFUL MONTHS. But then I had an allergic reaction to NSAIDs and had it for two months. That was last year. 

I think my vertigo is a perfect storm of a MAST cell problem and it stems from chronic migraine because it's mostly intertwined with migraine headaches and allergic reactions. They all showed up at the same time in the same year with each other. I do get BPPV (Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo). That's those ear crystal rock thingies that break off  in the semi-circular canals in your hearing apparatus. There is something called an Epley Maneuver that can help reposition those suckers. That rollover is not a one-trick pony. It depends on where in the canals the crystals break off. It works when done properly by someone who knows what they're doing and can tell where in your canals those crystals are wreaking havoc. 

A specialist can tell where your crystals are by reading variations in the nystagmus in your eyes. If it is done improperly, they can make it a lot worse. I actually have a doctor who specializes in BPPV and she's great. The problem is that when my BPPV gets activated it will continuously act up for weeks and weeks and weeks and forever (a month of vertigo is equal to forever I promise). Also,  I'd like to invite whoever calls it benign to give it a whirl for twenty-four years. 

There is also something called PPPD which is Persistent Postural-Perceptual Dizziness, which in my words means if you've had vertigo for decades, your brain expects it and in that expectation, it can create some of it. Brains are amazing but coupled with all the things that your body can have go wrong, it might not always be trustworthy. 

Mostly I write these occasional vertigo columns to reach out to others who might have it. I'm not a medical professional in any way shape or form. I'm just another spinning body in this universe, and I DO NOT like it. When I read up on vertigo, which I like to do when I have it and I'm trying to not to move my head for days, I'll hold my phone off to one side of my vision and try to read about vertigo from the corner of my eye, without moving my head. I'm kinda waiting for someone to have a cure I can get on Amazon. What I notice is the same old same old, although there is more information now than ever. I see lots of, "Once you go through menopause, it usually stops." Just shut up. No it doesn't. (Like growing out of puberty will cure your acne! LIAR!) Okay, maybe for some one or two persons menopause stopped their vertigo, although I suspect it's more of a hypothesis than a reality. Because if that's a thing, that retiring your uterus means stopping chronic vertigo, there'd be a lot of women asking surgeons for an early retirement of said uterus. 

Ten Years of Greece, How do I Love Thee?

 

For the past ten years I've been going to Greece every summer. Except that year when no one was allowed to travel, I spend weeks to months packing, planning, and plotting my journey. Then a few days travel there, followed by a few weeks being there, and wrap it up with a few days traveling back home. 

The odd thing is that every year I go to the exact same place. Most years I go to write with Women Reading Aloud. Though I arrive early and stay long after. I've never been to Santorini, or any of the popular islands. Often I'll check out places or sights on the mainland during my journey: Athens, Kalamata, Meteora. My favorite museum—The Acropolis Museum—my favorite hotel in Athens—the Airport Sofitel—my favorite Greek Salad.

Usually the only islands I see are Skiathos and Skopelos in the Northern Sporades and only those because I need to pass them on my way to Alonissos, my favorite island. Maybe it's indicative that I don't need to see all of the islands in Greece to pick a favorite. I've been married to the same man for forty years. I didn't have to meet them all to know he was the one for me. I know when something works for me. This man. This island. Dark chocolate. I'm happy. Sure, I like to try different trips, different places at times. This place, however, doesn't change. As long as I can get myself through the long and arduous journey, that's where I'm going. 

Know what I do there? Other than write with WRA, I mean? Nothing. I go to my favorite beaches, drift in the sea, lay under an umbrella or write on top of the stones while laying on the beaches. Sometimes I sit by the sea in a taverna with a cup of cappuccino, fresh watermelon juice, or water and I don't even think. I'm just there. Once, a particularly annoying person kept saying, "Oh, you go there to meet a man." Please, girlfriend, I have a man. I'm not in love with another man. I'm in love with an entire ISLAND, with an entire PLACE, COUNTRY, SEA. Some people do not understand love at all. Greece is very easy to love.