I sit and stare down at the blank screen before me. My mind filled with all the moments in history that I could go back and change. The most devasting of wars, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, mass shootings, the list seems endless. Then I debate what to change, what aspect of each of these should go differently.

Suddenly it dawns on me, I cannot change any aspect of history, because if I do, I am altering a part that we might need. Yes, each event this world has experienced has happened for a reason and it is not up to me to change that. What if I made things worse, a more heinous catastrophe happened than the one I chose to alter. What if other things didn’t happen because of my choice. No, if the events should not have taken place, then I have to believe that God would have intervened.

So, back to square one. Then I realize there is one thing I can go back and change that would only affect this one person. To change, adjust, alter just one aspect of this person’s life and it would directly affect no one other than them. Friends and family would live their lives as they did. The world would continue to progress and change, as it has. The only effects of this alteration would be to this one individual.

I take my opportunity to go back to September 2008, the day my wonderful older sister and best friend received a terminal medical diagnosis. I would take this chance to go back and change the results of the tests and labs she received just after Labor Day that year. A diagnosis that she should never have received. At the young age of just 54 years old my sister, who never smoked a day in her life, was told she had Stage 4 Lung Cancer that had metastasized to other major organs.

Changing the prognosis, the results, the diagnosis would allow her to see her golden years, work towards her life’s goals and follow her dreams. She would see her 55th birthday and all the others that followed.

Yes, this is the right choice to make, to give a loving, outgoing, smart person back her life.

it's not always a mini dress, it's

a pair of tear-proof, water-proof, tear-proof

pants, pulled to the snow, with red

on the ice below

Above, looms the rest of the climb

The cold does not care what I am

It wants to keep me frozen in place but

My lungs burn, my heart, my legs

pumping heat from my blood like weakness

This is just womanhood in the mountains.

Back in heaven

it is clean, pink polyester sheets

that feel like Egyptian cotton

when I am taken

higher than I could ever

climb on my own

That's just a woman's pleasure—many steps, many

mountains. Many days of beating heart and bleeding pain

and tears and tears and dashing, daring partners

dashed hopes/forgotten fears

You want femininity? take a mind and tell it

it's a good thing it's pretty and quiet

and diligent and on it and always

thinking of everybody but herself

Let her dream alone. Let her

sweep the dust from your home

instead of bringing more soil in with her

You want a real woman, watch her climb,

If she so trusts you with the other end of her rope

you can bet she'll haul you out of crevasse

and catastrophe. She knows you will catch her

Photo by Seth Bowen

#femininity #gender #wisdom #life #women

June 25, 2025

This will be my final journal entry.

After decades of research and endless hopeful results that turned into dead ends, tonight, at last, I will fulfill my destiny.

Over the last five and a half decades, my entire professional life, I have been developing the technology for time travel. I have lost so many on this journey, but I’ve always known my perseverance would bear fruit.

When I was a youth, I visited a fair with my parents. I was drawn to the fortune-teller’s tent. As I gave her the requisite nickel, she grabbed my wrist and looked at the palm upon which the nickel lay. She let go as if my skin burned her. She spat and said, “You will do what you are destined to do and I will have to live with that knowledge. Get out!”

I was confused, hurt and more than a little angry at the time. But as I grew older, and found my calling, I remembered her words with delight: I would prevail.

Why does anyone want to go back in time? Perhaps to change a single, personal action one has lived to regret? A vigorous No, I reply. What a waste of such a precious gift! First, the change may but inflict a worse fate. But more importantly, to be able to twist the fabric of existence and slip into the stream of time in order to travel against the current - it cannot be for such an insignificant moment in the history of man. For never doubt, each life that walks upon the Earth is but a grain of sand on a beach…if that.

Perhaps one would wish to meet some great minds of history? That at least has some merit: to learn from those who spent their lives pondering questions that continue to baffle those who still take pleasure in intellectual gymnastics. Socrates? Plato? Aristotle? Da Vinci? Machiavelli? Russell? Or perhaps some well-known historical figure? One might discover if they were really as they have come to be viewed. Christ? Mohammed? Alexander the Great? Attila the Hun? Queen Elizabeth I? Louis XVI? George Washington? Benjamin Franklin? Abraham Lincoln? I do not deny the exhilaration one might feel gaining first hand knowledge of some historical personage, but the gift of time travel would be wasted in such a venture. Change would be limited, personal and, therefore, meaningless.

Chatting with a writer whose works have not yet been erased by the passage of time might be desired. Shakespeare? Cervantes? Tolstoy? Dostoyevsky? Joyce? Lewis? Tolkien? Dickens? Twain? Wells? Verne? Huxley? Orwell? Garcia-Marquez? How to choose? And really, why bother? Do they not all tickle the brain with the words they weave to tell the same stories, depict the same situations, describe the same feelings that have plagued humanity as long as stories have been told?

Or maybe one has a grand altruistic gesture in mind. Perhaps erase the existence of some murdering tyrant, despot, or prolific serial killer? Remove the scourge before it occurs? Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Mao Zedong, King Leopold II. Elizabeth Bathory, Pedro Lopez, H.H Holmes, Dr. Harold Shipman. Alas, each is but an infinitesimal sliver of evil as viewed through the lens of time. What of all that has never been recorded but was? Or that will be.

This evening, I sent my assistants home revealing neither my breakthrough nor my intentions. If I am successful, it will not matter. I will be no more.

I have reviewed the algorithms multiple times to ensure there are no errors. I’ve programmed the portal with the chain of commands that will send me where I can have the greatest impact.

Before the egg. Before the chicken. Before the bang. I will intercept that which precedes all that is.

And I will suggest a rigorous and detailed review of the design blueprints for humanity, for the existing one is fatally flawed.

there is one supreme

blissful presence

here

it's night time

I'm in my element

Freshly awakened

after a day

of sleep

I'm not a vampire

I only used to wish I

were when

I first started living like

this. What can I say, I

was young and playful

Now I know I'm

something

worse than a vampire

My grandmother calls

me a blasphemer

because

God has left day and night

upon this Earth

for work and rest

and I laugh in his face

and piss on his blessing

by using it in

reverse

I sleep in the day

and use the time of

night to

wonder and to ask

why he had created me

the beauty of seeking

answers in the

night is

that you don't have

to use your voice

writing

will do

You won't get the

answers, at least I didn't,

but it feels good to

shoot your

questions at the abyss

without being

stared at

Here I go

again

***

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POETRY READINGS:

https://soundcloud.com/user-937736610/shoot-your-questions-at-the-abyss

Remember when to see me you gathered?

Just born, but my fingers rose pink,

As delicate as what once was madder.

With joy I welcomed my first, painting.

With lilacs and saffrons you taught me what’s life.

Celebrated a child through merry shades of yellow.

And with each mistake you wouldn’t let me cry,

You’d tear it apart, shh, and bury it in your meadow.

On my first medal you brought me lavender.

While you squeezed in the lemon and mint,

You said- be as kind as these petals tender.

So in my naivete I let my parasites win.

You let me believe your art I had mastered.

From oak apples I created an art mine, an art new.

Regal black shone bright, blinded I flustered,

Why, amongst all inventions, are comforting so few?

At my first job you told me with pretty green,

Like nettle, my dear, don't fear to hurt if you gain.

But isn’t my gain is too hurtful for you to see?

I crammed pestle against mortar but was I too late.

The darkness grew and grew, I knew,

I cannot, will not, hear your heart scream.

So I chalked out some ersatz white soon-

Life is all grey if I ignore the rare extremes.

Now red stains the rocky sea cliff edge, I stand,

To see my messy canvas be devoured by blue waves.

Please don’t send me flowers as we planned.

I’m not sure I have it in me a me left to paint.

The mist shrouded the mountain like a snake that is about to squeeze its prey

At this place, far away from human civilization, I found my nirvana—

fresh air, fresh view, and fresh climb

Trees stretched their fingers towards the azure sky while bees and flies

circled around their trunks, always searching for something,

maybe blossoms that never grew on the branches

I too, am searching for something...

Peace and serenity

Darting around in circles, the swallows performed gymnastics as they rushed upwards, plunged down in neat swoops, and then spiraled into the air

Grey-headed bullfinches sat unperturbedly on flowering bushes and fruit-laden trees

as rain lightly licked their feathers

A bird hopped on its feet and looked at me with curious, black eyes

I stood there, unmoving

A straw-thatched house perched on a grassy slope, its door ajar as if inviting me in From the west, a puff of wind lightly tingled the straw on the roof and dipped its fingers in the sluggish river below

Sheltered by lush plants and friendly animals, I even forgot that this was a tourist site—it was a comfortable home for me

However, my reverie was broken when my mother

and some crazy monkeys stepped in my way

“Smile!” my mother yelled to me as she snapped a picture

of me gaping at the mountain

“Oh mom, you broke the silence!” I complained

“We’re going down the mountain anyway,” she replied

As I descended, I took one last look at the startling Giotto-blue sky

and the swallows that dotted it

But before my we reached the bottom, several monkeys blocked the way

One monkey grabbed my leg and hugged it as if it were a precious piece of banana

Another monkey approached and reached for my floral scarf

I was aware that Mom was probably saving this memory inside her camera

As I detangled out of the monkeys’ reaches, I realized that

I was actually enjoying their presence—

that was until one jumped on my back and tried to rip my hair out

And I also realized that my water bottle in my backpack was gone

As I veered off into the craziness that represents my world,

I stole a moment to just breathe,

took in the magnificent view,

and found peace to take with me

But even with the flowers, trees, and other parts of nature

that I feverishly love so much,

from the safe haven of my backyard to the green spaces of the park,

I felt at peace on this mountain

I rested on the rocky slope overlooking the mountain,

able to gaze out much farther and stand much taller than I typically can

I enjoyed the rough climb upwards because at the apex

I could survey what looked like the whole world

On that mountain, I realized that what captured my heart about the climb is that once I reached my destination, I became part of Nature—

I was in the clouds,

the river flowing below,

the ghostly mist,

the twittering birds,

and the playful monkeys

time heals those who move with

for time is no carrying agent

no rive, stream, ocean or wind

it is the oxygen in the air

the necessary factor that is taken

the luxury item that is given

you must act with or against

or you will stay right where you were left