Tag Archives: history

FMM 3 21 2025 Imaginary Engineers

“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” ~ Alice Walker. I was a bedside nurse in the 1980s, a time when the way the government reimbursed hospitals for patient stays was upended completely.  Prior to this time, any patient whose insurance was paid for by the […]

FMM 1 31 2025 This is just a Test

“In order to succeed, people need a sense of self-efficacy, to struggle together with resilience to meet the inevitable obstacles and inequities of life.” ~ Albert Bandura. I was one of those annoying students who enjoyed exams.  I looked forward (although still with a touch of anxiety) to show what I knew.  Like an athlete […]

FMM 1 17 2025 Past as Prologue

‘What no cost life, no cost nut’n.’ Jamaican saying. Yesterday I lost myself in stories of the past.  I was entrusted with some documents belonging to (and written by) a man who is now almost 90 years old.  There were references to people and places of my past, of the church my father was minister […]

FMM 11 29 2024 In All Things, Give Thanks

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” ~ Friedrich Nietzsche. I have a complicated relationship with the Thanksgiving Holiday.  Like most people born outside of the USA, it was not a holiday which permeated my consciousness until I arrived here in the late 70s.  Since I moved to be with my […]

FMM 11 1 2024 Think for Yourself!

“It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” ~ Audre Lorde. Like many children, I grew up seeing the world through the lens of my parents’ eyes – in particular my father.  He had a way of making observations that helped you to see […]

FMM 10 11 2024 Oh Canada!

“Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”~ Martin Luther King, Jr. I have links with Canada on both sides of my family tree.  Many years ago, my great-grandparents (on my father’s side) decided to emigrate to Canada.  This was their second migration.  Earlier, shortly after they got […]

FMM 9 20 2024 Sticks and Stones

“My fellow Americans, we are and always will be a nation of immigrants. We were strangers once, too.” ~ Barack Obama. I have spent more than 85% of my life living in a land that was not the land of my birth.  Thus, as I recently posted on social media, I identify as Immigrant.  My […]

FMM 7 12 2024 Sustainable Storytelling

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” ~ Ben Okri. My father was a storyteller.  He was also a Minister, and so had the opportunity and the venue, each Sunday morning, to intersperse his preaching with […]

FMM 5 24 2024 A Ton of Bricks

“The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice.” ~ Mark Twain. They say confession is good for the soul.  I was an Elvis fan from early.  You could say I had a celebrity crush on him, and even had a postcard sized head shot in black and white pinned on my […]

FMM 5 6 2022 No wrong path

‘Every breath we take, every step we make, can be filled with peace, joy and serenity.’ ~  Thich Nhat Hanh. The first time I went to Key West, it still had the sleepy quality of a fishing village.  I was immediately in love.  Four years before I had been living in Jamaica, and Key West […]