an itinerant observer

I didn’t set out to build anything. In the late 2000s, in Houston, I was doing what I was employed for, pediatric emergency medicine: long shifts, clinical and academic/research competence, the steady rhythm of a life that made sense on paper. And yet, something was off. Not broken. Not dramatic. Just... hollow in places I couldn’t quite name. I was busy, productive, advancing, while feeling, quietly, that the work was losing its soul. Or maybe I was. Around that time, without fully understanding why, I started writing stories for children. Not to teach. Not to intervene. Just to speak plainly and gently about things that had become too loud and technical in adult language. Fear. Illness. Change. Courage. Curiosity. The small, interior weather of a child’s mind that often gets flattened in clinical encounters. That’s where Biloongra – the kitten, the child, the me - came from. It began with a simple instruction. While I was in Houston, wandering through questions of purpose and...

  T oday heralds the beginning of an era Not of interest to meaningless minds Regardless, the story must be told. Of an apparent merger of Yin and Yang In reality, the triumph of a trichotomy or perhaps a triumvirate? Since there was a He - the babysitter; a She - the divine feminine; and a Me - the Child Three companions on the trip of a lifetime whither thoughts were elicited, meaning sought, and purpose created, if not found. Let’s start at the beginning. But what was that? Or when? Was the origin the bright colors that tasted sweet? Or the vibration of chrysanthemums – a mere conversation with chlorophyll Or the music reverberating, drumming, thrumming…smelling of nostalgia  Or the tablecover’s patchwork of whorls That pulled you in when you felt the threads Drowning, then surfacing and breathing again, once called out Making love through head and hair And fingers reaching for one’s organic and inorganic anchors Or the appearance of dry figs and nuts    sittin...