Blog – Page 5 – Cate Burns, Author of Libido Tsunami: Awash with the Droll in Life

Keeping Pace

I loved my pace, whether walking or brainstorming an idea. A lot of my identity wrapped itself around how fast my brain and body moved. During the years when I enjoyed a long partnership, he strolled as we walked. With him, I slowed down, but sped up again when on my own. When making decisions,…

Line of Fire

It’s horrible to hate someone, like my current colleague, Josephine. She triggers me into instant fury with her insults and lies. I strategize on how to stay out of her way. When I must encounter her, I raise my mental and emotional shields. I repeat affirmations to dispel the dread she inspires in my gut.…

Norman’s Normal

My elderly neighbor, Ed, has a pet fish, Norman, who lives in a thirty-inch-long aquarium. Beige and white speckles adorn the classic-looking fish that seems to have no exotic pedigree. But Norman excels at eating and growing. In the past year, he’s expanded to about eleven inches long. My nine-year-old daughter, Grace, loves to visit…

Smart Water

Water has intelligence. As novelist Tom Robbins explained in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, water originally designed humans, composed of 65% H2O, as receptacles to carry it world-wide. Mankind finds itself in the throes of a pandemic, spread by droplets of fluid that have reached across the globe like a viral tsunami. Daily, people of…

Equal Squabbling

I overheard a woman in a row behind me on an airplane say, with a loud angry voice, “I just wish for once you wouldn’t analyze and criticize every little thing I do and say.” That’s all I heard, for she and a male voice lowered their volume. But I surmised they were married. By…

Odd Confidences: Stand Up and Be Counted

In an unconscious way, I seemed to encourage people to confide in me. I’d always delighted in asking folks questions. Could I help it if they answered me? Recently, I’ve heard three doozies. See links below for all 3. These three unsolicited revelations shocked me and caught me delightfully unaware each time. But, upon reflection,…

Chronicle of Humble Moments

Remembering my humbler moments helped me deflate my monster ego, which, before I knew it, could blow up like the Michelin Man, and look just as ridiculous. Ego could sneak up on me completely unaware, which was always hard for me to believe. Humble Moment #1 I had a silent neighbor who I got along…

The Older Woman

Whenever I visited my artist friend Josie in New York, I knew something remarkable would happen. It always did. Last month, when we’d finished viewing my exhibit of women in yoga postures at a New York art gallery close to the High Line park in West Chelsea, she asked if I wanted to drop in…

Old Joy

In old age we deserve comforts.I look around at other retireesBut can’t see myself on monthly RV trips,Guzzling beer with games on TVOr swilling daily cocktails.Friends with children and grandchildrenConstantly attend theirAthletic and musical events.With one non-reproductive adult son,My time with children is small. Artists and writers indulge their crafts.My beloved literary friend, Mary,In her…

Flush

I learn from my toilet That hate is a choice. An unreliable commode Is like a failing relationship. It hits me at the gut level. Between sobbing and a roiling bowel, I’m in the bathroom for hours, Desperate to depend on The foundations I am used to, A toilet and a mate. I consult with…

Shaman Joy

Who could resist this jolly mask carved out of yellow cedar by Tlingit artist Roy Watkins? Not me. I loved happy art and when I found this turquoise lady, we seemed to be a divine match. In native art, each carving told a story. When I asked the young, eager Tlingit trading-post clerk for this…

To Kill or Not to Kill?

Should I kill the spider inching across my table? I sat in a dilemma. I hated insects in my home. And it would be easy to swat it, an instant solution. But as I looked at the little fellow, I remembered Rosie, a tarantula ambassador at a nature exhibit outside Denver, Colorado. With rose-tinted beige…