A Slice of Humor

back to November 2024 newsletter  
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

Orderliness

I don’t do it ‘cuz
I’m nice.
I do it ‘cuz I fret.
I worry
my town
will go to pot.

So I put on
blue nitrile gloves
and tear off
two large garbage
bags and
pick up trash
in the streets.
Broken glass,
cigarette boxes,
used masks,
candy
wrappers…
I pick it all up.

As I’m picking up,
I’m raging inside:
“Gross! How can
people do this?
So inconsiderate!
Why is it up to me
to pick up their
crap?”
(because I can’t
stand it).

My therapist
calls it a
noble action.
But I feel
disgusting.

Maybe if
my mother
hadn’t been
traumatized;
maybe if
the holocaust
hadn’t happened;
maybe if
I had known
where I
came from…
I wouldn’t
have to pick
anything up.

But bad things
happen.
(They happened
to us.)
I need to be
prepared.

I knew a
bad thing
had happened
back then—
I just didn’t know
what.
But I felt it:
the loss,
confusion,
disorder.

And so I clean
the streets now,
over and over,
until,
as my
therapist says,
I find
orderliness
in my mind.

back to October 2024 newsletter  
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

The moment

your client talks
about his little
brother dying
instead of his
tensions at work.

The moment
your daughter says
“let’s hang out
tomorrow, mom”
instead of
or “you got it
wrong, mother.”

The moment
you pause in your
rumination
to laugh at the
cat kicking your
rolled-up socks.

The moment
a patient says
“I used opposite
action to get out
of bed today….
and it worked.”

The moment
you ride home
from work on
your bike and
feel the wind
flowing past you.

The moment
you say something
funny in your
Toastmasters’
speech
and people
laugh.

The moment
you’re waiting
for the bus
and noticing
other people
waiting too
or walking by.
All you’re doing
is noticing.

Nice not to
chew on
that topic
in your brain ….
to notice.

 

back to September 2024 newsletter  
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

you age….
But you vow
you’re not going
to be like them.

You’re going to keep active.
You need a
stimulating life.
Other people
can sit in their
armchair,
waiting to die.
Other people
can be okay with
being just
“grandma.”

But you’re
going to keep up
with the best of them.
You’ll be climbing
mountains,
riding waves,
biking through France.

You do Botox,
eye creams,
sunscreen.
You listen to
podcasts.
You work.

But your body has
different ideas.
When you do that
2000-foot gain
in two hours,
and come
home sweaty
and exultant,
you can’t walk
for a week.
When you try on
that cute little skirt,
… it looks wrong.
When you work
into your 70s,
people just…
begin to wonder.

You’re old, they think.
You’re not old, you think.

But you’ve already
proven yourself,
my dear.
You were young
and beautiful.
You could compete
with the top tier.
You saw success
at work, at love,
at edge sports.

You don’t need to
do that now.
You can actually
take time
to sit …
to sip your coffee,
to volunteer.

Who are you now?
It really is okay
to be you now.
What are you
afraid of?

back to August 2024 newsletter 

back to July 2024 newsletter
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

It wasn’t like she wasn’t there;
she was there.
But she looked
out of herself
and saw herself
getting dressed.
She didn’t get dressed.

She narrated
the person
getting dressed.
“Now she’s getting her
underwear out,
now she’s deciding
which shirt to wear.
She hears noises
downstairs
and knows Mummy is
making her breakfast.
She yawns.
She’s very tired.”

Sometimes she
couldn’t stop
narrating.
It scared her.

She rarely talked at school—
except to her best friend.
She looked down.
She didn’t know what to
say to people.
She was “too quiet and shy,”
the kindergarten teacher wrote
in the report card.
They held her back
in kindergarten ... twice.

She wore jumpers with pockets.
Her hair was matted.
She rarely washed it.
It was hard to comb,
so she didn’t.
She saw herself as she felt:
not there.

She imagined her mother not there.
She wished her mother not there.
She imagined Mummy
was a mother-thing,
an alien being.
She imagined her real mother
had been kidnapped
and was trying to get home.
The mother-thing who
screamed at her
to set the table
wasn’t her mother.
Her mother was kind
and beautiful
and aching to come
back to her,
to kiss and hug her
and tell her she was loved.

She would do a test.
“Do you love me, Mummy?”
she’d ask.
Mummy wouldn’t
answer right away.
Then she’d say she did.
She wished Mummy
would turn from her cooking
and kiss her.
But Mummy
would keep on
chopping onions.

She’d ask the same thing
a few minutes later.
Mummy would answer,
chopping:
“Yes, I love you,” she’d say.
She’d sound impatient.

Sometimes she
would look
at the chopping knife
and imagine threatening
Mummy until she’d
relent and leave,
and her real mother
could come back.
She was terrified
by the thought.

She retreated into her books:
All of a Kind Family,
All of a Kind Family Uptown.

One day Mummy
took her to get a haircut.
The woman tore at her hair
to get all the knots out.
It hurt each time she pulled.
She started crying.
“Don’t you ever wash your hair?”
the hairdresser asked,
tearing.
“Sometimes,” she whispered.
“You have to wash it
every week. And you
have to comb
it every day,”
the hairdresser said.

The hairdresser
looked upset.
She turned to Mummy:
“If you brushed her hair daily,
she wouldn’t
have these knots.”

It hurt so much.
She cried.

Mummy said,
“I tell her all the time to
comb her hair.”

She imagined her real mother
washing and combing her hair,
kissing her hair after.
When the hairdresser
finished,
her head ached
and her hair hung
straight and clean.

Mummy picked up
a black comb from
the salon basket
and gave it to her.
“If you used this
all the time,
you wouldn’t
be crying now.”

She put the comb in her
jumper pocket.
“Do you love me, Mummy?”
she asked quietly.
“Yes, I do. Now let’s go home.“

They went home,
and she set the table
for dinner.

back to July 2024 newsletter

back to June 2024 newsletter
By Edna Wallace, LMFT

You don’t know
what it will be like. 
You think it will be 
the best thing ever. 
You can’t wait!
It’s your solution 
to Zoom, Better Help,
AI, marketing, 
subletting—
the headache of it all. 

You have your main gig
at the hospital. 
You don’t need this. 
You’re too old
for the struggle. 

You’ll close it down. 
So what. 
You’ll say good-bye
to your private clients. 
No more need 
to plan or fret. 
No more heart sinking
to the bottom 
of your seat
at suicidal talk. 
Hallelujah. 

But then 
you miss them.
That’s what’s
unexpected… 
your feelings. 
Turns out 
you can attach. 
You’re feeling the
sadness …
right there 
amid the relishing. 

Strange,
the way this works,
the way you 
never thought 
this would be you. 
You thought you’d be 
all about retiring —
playtime! —
but you’re about the loss too.
You haven’t 
escaped the
business
of being human. 

back to May newsletter
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

You hear the stories…
the man
losing his daughter;
the woman
raped by her brother;
the trans woman
mocked and bullied;
the woman
in whom
speaks the girl
locked in the
bathroom
because she
cried.

You hear the stories,
you witness,
you understand,
you don’t know
what to say.

You do know
what to say…
you know
how to help.
You do the work.
Your client
breathes,
softens,
relaxes.

But at night,
alone with
your cats
and your
glowing fire,
sitting in your
favorite chair,
watching
your favorite comic,
you don’t know
what to think.

It hurts.
The listening hurts.
You feel it…
right there
in your heart.

Back to April newsletter
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

When you’re sick
of your husband
and you’ve looked
at your phone
a thousand times
and there’s nothing new
(imagine that?),
you tell the world
you’re going for a walk
and you go.
Well, first you fuss
with your shoes
and coat
and sunglasses
and list
(which needs updating)
and then you go.

There’s something
that happens
when you’re out.
Your body does
its thing.
You’re moving.
The sun is there
just for you.
You’re cushioned
by a soft breeze.
You’re 100% alive.
You’re happy
(imagine that?).

Your husband
isn’t actually a jerk.
Your lists are
manageable.

Whatever you pass,
it hardly matters.
It’s you in you,
moving.
It’s that miracle
you rarely
remember
to thank
your body for
until that day
that it’s gone.

back to March 2024 newsletter
by Edna Wallace

Hard to imagine when it’s not—
when you’re sitting
in Starbucks,
huddling in the winter
warmth,
sipping a steamed milk,
trying to focus
amid the music
blaring its rock-heavy
distraction.

You’re distracted—
watching the man
talking at a white wire,
the girls laughing
at their laptops,
the crinkled woman
leaning over her
shopping cart
full of paper and cans.
Hard to imagine in that space.

But it’s a gift,
in its time,
that inscrutable gift of quiet.
It’s a time to reflect.
How can you not?
In that space,
it all comes up. 

They live there:
the things you fear,
the things
you treasure.
It happens
in the black of night,
when you wake
up before dawn.
It happens.

It’s not bad.
It’s just a time
when the decks
are cleared,
when you are with you.
You can think
or be…
whichever is safer.

It happens
when a poet
pauses
in his lines.
It happens
when you pause
in the throes of
Starbucks.

Everything happens
in that space—
the good,
the bad,
the magnificent,
the terrible.

The quiet holds it all.
The quiet is
really your time—
it’s what you have.
You can choose to listen.

back to March 2024 newsletter

Back to Winter 2023 Newsletter            
by Edna Wallace, LMFT

What happens when you leave,
when you have to say “good-bye”?
You’re choosing to go.
No-one is making you.
You’re excited about
what’s next -
the new thing
or the freed-up time.

But you haven’t figured in
the pain,
the heartbreak.
You’re leaving a longtime thing,
a familiarity.
You’re leaving
your dreams of what could be,
your experience of what is,
your vision for the future.
All that ends
with the good-bye.

But beyond the thing
is the people,
those lovely people!
You’re leaving a family.
No longer
the close contact,
the jokes,
the wows and the fails.
You’re saying good-bye.

You promise you’ll keep in touch
maybe you will,
maybe not,
but you know
it’s not the same.
It will be something else,
a different connection,
diluted.

And yet
there are always good-byes.
And, of course,
beginnings too—
that thrill of something new,
something better?
something to look forward to.

You hold both together—
Inscrutable Change—
the looking-forward-to
and the sadness.
That’s where you sit.