I’ve grown up in a home that did not lock its doors – sharing an adjoining driveway with neighbors in the country – and to this day I do not lock my doors, even at night, or on vacation, even at the age of 80.  I love that I can be trusting – yes, I do lock my car, only if I leave my purse inside.

“No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience,” applies so I ask why can I trust so easily when others think I’m foolish? “The mind furnishes its own ideas by reflecting on its own operations within itself.” I agree with Locke until I read “reason must be our last edge and guide in everything.” Maybe if you allow reason to listen to your heart.

TO FEEL. The best F-word going I tell my clients. 😊

Life’s karma is mysterious: how I was created, my mother raped by an American soldier at the end of WWII. They met at a dance, he mickeys her drink. He wanted nothing to do with me, nor did my mother who wanted an abortion when five months pregnant, but a doctor saved my life: “you’re too far along.” Again, the Design Of the Universe (DOU) had my RN nurse-mother fall in love with one of her patients on the ship Huddleston returning to the US. Although adoption came up as an option, my ‘Dad’ chose to keep me, signing my birth certificate. How could he not be the Love of My Life?

HOW did I get so LUCKY?

Although I was brain-heart washed into a strict must be born again religion mostly by my mother; my dad although a scientist also converted from his upbringing as a catholic to my mother’s protestant beliefs. But Dad was more liberal and showed me a love extraordinaire – I have written of his mighty gift of love many times and told his courageous story of sailing to America alone at 17, a stranger to English, becoming a US citizen, then fighting against his homeland, Germany when Hitler came to power. A Ritchie boy!

He fathered my sister Constance and brother Eric, while loving me as his own daughter (as he would say), unbeknownst to me until I was 16, when my mother yelled, “He’s not your father!” angry that I defended him against her meanness.

Dad was the emotional nurturer.

Mom the physical needs provider.

I’m presently writing a book: Dianea and Dad’s Love Story, utilizing over 100 of his letters sent to me while in nursing school and early marriage, written weekly in small cursive, soaked with an extraordinary loving feeling heart that unlocked mine to be able to see and hear that religion is not the answer to security.  TRUTH is.

“To love truth for truth’s sake is the principal part of human perfection in this world, and the seed-plot of all other virtues”, writes Locke.

Adding: “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”  – Henry David Thoreau

I wonder if anyone will believe me. I assure you it is all true! It happened just a year ago, 2025, early fall. I’d been single for over a year, so I decided to try OurTime.com; a dating site for seniors.

His name was Charlie, maybe ten years younger than me, who wrote more in his profile than most men and was willing to hike with me. We met at a restaurant halfway as we lived four hours apart, me in upstate New York, and he in rural Pennsylvania.

So, after sharing an easy conversational brunch, we decided to explore our adventurous side as he looked up a trail to waterfalls, with which I share a love affair for many years. The Trail map showed a seven miler I was interested in when asking, “Are you up for this distance?” He was probably twenty pounds overweight as I wondered. He assured me with a confident yes.

With water bottles and cell phones in hand, we find the first waterfall after hiking 3 miles of mostly flat terrain, wandering at times along a forested creek. We sit for some time to absorb the flowing waterfalls floating whiteness and musical harmonies. Hiking on what we knew to be a loop, we turned and eventually came to another creek wearing waterfalls, I was excited. As the afternoon becomes dusk, Charlie checks his phone as to our location, as we should have arrived back at his car by then. We find ourselves 3 miles off course.

We are lost.

I see a wide opening of telephone lines, after passing a deer stand shelter where Charlie suggests we could stay overnight if we needed to – keep each other warm – as the temperature would drop into the forties. Really?

In the open field, Charlie calls 911. The dispatcher can locate us and sends a fire truck, and an ATV 4-wheeler that reaches us at twilight, chilly, as we were motored to several vehicles, including an ambulance.

When the RN says we’ll take you back in the ambulance, I say I cannot afford to pay for an ambulance.

She replies, “it will be free.”

As we ride, Charlie and I tell our ‘lost story,’ laughing as we say nearly in unison, “what an amazing first date!”

  Facing my 80^th birthday this year, I feel scared to hike in Shenandoah National Park to Overall Run Falls, a six miler, all on my own. I’m driving from New York state to meet Derek, the leader of a Readers Write workshop sponsored by The SUN magazine being held in Asheville, NC.

Maybe because it is March, there are no other hikers for the 3-mile descent just roots and rocks in wait to trip me, as I ask the Design Of the Universe (DOU instead of god) to keep me safe. I have an ongoing love affair with the force of waterfalls…their magnificence, their power, their unique flow, soothing my soul almost as powerfully as do my tears…their flow falling to find the deepest most loving part of me.

After I took a selfie, feeling proud I didn’t fall for the fear to hike alone, as part of me wanted to…the domino effect, of trusting myself, was rewarded as I turned to leave Overall Falls. A cute 19-year-old appeared named Calvin. He shoots out his hand to shake…our eyes meet and I wish I was 19 again!

1. I wrote the original at Derek’s workshop…now edited…so greatfull for the readers write and the whole blooming beautiful magazine I’ve subscribed to for 30 consecutive years, (maybe more) waiting expectantly each month to see it appear in my mailbox, eyes of more than puppy love.

Yesterday. I call it Insanity.

After struggling to remember where my 8×10 framed photo of dad kissing my cheek in the reception line of my first wedding; the only photo displaying demonstrative affection between us as adults, although dad is the love of my life! I pause, as I do not say or write that lightly, but more so with a heavy heart as I miss Dad more every day since he died May 4, 1977, of a sudden heart attack. No chance for goodbyes. For I love you.

I searched upstairs, downstairs, returning while feeling a slow burning desperation, after perusing 100 plus framed photos of mostly family, some human friends integrated with nature friends, like waterfalls and flowers.

Upstairs. Downstairs. Again.

It is the same day I test positive for covid (a third time), a late bloomer after many of the 16 Mostly Motown singers had tested positive. The first person red-lined the day after our concert. Maybe the timing can be lucky – after I had fought steadfastly, begged twice, to sing my two short, assigned solos: Oh Donna, and Sweet Baby James. The director had emailed that he would reassign my solos as I had not sung them well enough at rehearsal, although others had stumbled too. Mostly Motown is an amateur community singing group of mostly seniors. Golden agers.

I need to develop my self-confidence I email back as I have not sung in a group for 20 years and had messed up a Supreme’s song at a concert back then. I begged. Twice. I had something to prove. To myself.

After our concert on Mother’s Day, Annie (another singer) said I sang great and when my 33-year-old granddaughter who lives in Spain heard the video, texted: “amazing singing.”

A week later, I turned light-headed after returning home on my scooter. I lay down for a few minutes, then walked my slice of pizza to the toaster oven. Before I knew what hit me, my forehead knocks the freezer door, then the back of my head whams the sharp edge of its handle – branding a colorful bruise front and back. Why didn’t I fall? Only the pizza slice fell.

Is the Universe trying to knock some sense into me? To become increasingly vulnerable as I was hesitant to test for covid after nearly a week of being asymptomatic. And to text my eldest daughter, “Did I give you my wedding album?” of my first marriage to the father of my two daughters, when I moved last summer? “It’s very important to me, temporarily.” So, I can replace the 8×10 and my memory of where it vanished, my brain knowing I had taken it somewhere. I hadn’t planned to tell her I had covid but added so after she replied that she did not have the album but did have the one of our honeymoon, including photos of her dad in a college gospel quartet, The Defenders. Erin responds: “Oh no! Make sure you eat and drink fluids! Let me know if you need anything.”

This is the daughter who has not told me she loves me and has not written it since she was a teenager. But I am positive I feel her love as tears appear at this moment. And now I realize she writes like my dad had every week in his letters to me while in nursing school; although he did not tell me he loved me face to face, this same day, I happen to read another of his letters, of which I have over a 100 and from which I am writing Our Love Story.

Most of dad’s letters conclude: some version of “take good care of yourself, eat well, and get enough sleep, Love, Dad.” Today, I read “I love you, Diane. Your Dad,” my eyelids steamy. Rigorous honesty opening springs of tears.

The next morning, while waking up in bed, for 30 plus minutes thoughts enter, my liminal unconsciousness enlightening me, as I suddenly remember where my two precious 8×10 framed photos are – with my book graphic designer. What a heart punch! When we meet to return these precious photos to my hands, I see that it is me kissing dad on the cheek, not the other way around. Maybe his kiss is returned to the other side of my cheek.

Maybe being at the threshold of love? Returning from Forgetting to Insanity to Enlightenment?

Assault! Protest! Bombardment!

Plastic pellets raining down on us – to settle into our brain cells.

Plastic bags to carry our groceries have been banned from our local Wegman’s for a few years, yet I squirm to see plastic bags still being pulled from rolls in the vegetable-fruit sections, as I punch in the code for a label stating how much my broccoli crown costs. I slap the sticker on the stem – no bag needed! Why does a bunch of bananas need a plastic bag?

Occasionally, I kindly suggest to a customer a bag is not needed. Mother Earth needs protection, not bananas. They have a peel – appeal😊. Bright Yellow.

For over thirty years, I’ve not bought Puffs tissues; hankies are soft on my nose and useful for my clients and absorb my tears. Easily washed with my laundry.

Nor have I bought paper towels – dish towels are handy. And decorative😊.

As are colorful cloth napkins at the dinner table or on your lap.

More recently, I’ve banished all the plastic flower pots, Tupperware, plastic containers, replaced with glass. Or metal or pottery.

I refuse to buy sodas in plastic bottles and have never bought water in plastic bottles.  Presently, my steel water bottle is wrapped with a photo of my two daughters and I in front of the Grand Tetons.

I even buy milk and orange juice in cartons – no plastic jugs – I humbly smile. Hugging trees while saying I love you to The SUN.

Recently, I returned to the Motown singing group that I participated in nearly 20 years ago, when a member was being treated for cancer. I asked how she was doing; her reply, “Good, knock on wood,” as she knocks on the wall panel. A pagan belief of benevolent spirits residing in trees.

This past week as spring sprung, I was hiking in the woods where tree roots often try to trip me but usually stay afloat in my 79-year-old skin. This day, I lifted my foot to the boardwalk, my shoe tripping me forward, hitting my right shin on the sharp edge, no blood, a black and blue arising for the occasion to which I rub for several moments to increase circulation and comfort.

That same day, I must walk outside to retrieve my laundry in the basement. A light rain caused me to slip on a large rock, falling backwards, my right elbow and lower back receiving the blows. I am able to raise back up easily and greatfully, asking myself why I fall two times the same day. Then, remembering how my car hit a deer in 2023, and then again, a deer hit my car in 2024. Twos.

A common superstition is the belief that bad luck comes in threes; is it good luck to have these come in twos?

Having recovered from a religious addiction, fear of hell, I’m happy to read the definition by numerology, including “emotional depth and partnership”, which I’ve decided to call the DOU, Design Of the Universe as a spiritual “supernatural causality”, however superstitions try to provide comfort and control amidst uncertainty.

My emotional depth has grown a deeper love for myself, and therefore compassion for others, in partnership with tears, grieving losses such as my Dad, garnering growing loving appreciation of him, in partnership with loving myself. Both superstition and supernatural contain a surprising partnership beginning with SUPER. Their contrast being that superstition involves irrational fears, while the supernatural teaches us connection to love releasing fears. Our truest nature.

Now, I sense that the universal energies which keep planet earth spinning is the force of love and comfort evolving. Fear being uprooted into trust in the DOU. A loving force.

Today is April Fool’s Day just after returning from a week’s vacation to waterfalls heaven. Adding a new National Park (to 50 I have hiked and camped in): Sandstone Falls in New River Gorge in West Virginia. In addition to exploring Blackwater Falls State Park in Maryland and Pennsylvania’s World’s End State Park, where I find Double Run Falls.  Really, World’s End?

My last hike was in Pennsylvania’s Rickett’s Glen State Park, new to me as well, although it is only two hours south of my home in Brooktondale, NY. As always, I look for heart rocks at the foot of every waterfall I visit, and I find one that is a purple hue early on of my long hike ahead. So, I laid it aside to retrieve on my return. I hike on to two more large unique waterfalls, finding a heart rock at each that are of dinner dish size, one for each arm to lift up and down for enlarging my biceps, I smile to myself. On my return, I unconsciously bypassed the first heart rock I had left behind, before I realized I was too far along to backtrack. At first, I am disappointed, then realize I have two in my hands, remembering the significance of the number two! Wahoo!

Today is the last day for submission of this reader’s write, when I park in the lot for the WIDE-AWAKE BAKERY. I open my jeep’s door and see only TWO pennies on the ground! I promptly pick them up, grinning with supernatural superstition.

“Drawing a line in the sand,” comes to mind. The most meaningful definition to me: “refusing to be untrue to yourself,” by way of google. Or as a psychotherapist might define: learning to set limits, (not as boundaries which are more rigid whereas limits are more flexible) to be able to grow a healthy loving relationship – especially with oneself. To become your best nature. LOVE.

Many ask, how can I as a Marriage and Family Therapist not take on other people’s problems, adding that what I do must be hard.

An important way I take care of myself is to be out in nature daily, walking to waterfalls is my favorite, lucky enough to live in a city that streams bumper stickers reading ITHACA IS GORGES.

During a recent two-week deep freeze covering the Mid-Atlantic States, our waterfalls graced greatfull eyes with lines frozen into magnificent vertical designs, sometimes adding greens and blues, colored by friendly algae.

When I cautiously ventured onto the southern tip of our 40-mile-long partially frozen Cayuga Lake, my eyes are glued to the lines, where cracks will someday give way to the sun.

As the temperature warms, I photograph, the chunks of ice thrown to the banks of the inlet, broken by straight lines. Then, I notice, up close, that the thick ice blocks have straight lines within.

Then, I am surprised to see a gleaming green feathered mallard duck sitting, resting on one of those crystalline white chunks, still warm. Like my heart. Frozen in love.

I’m obsessed with the truth! Being told.

At 16, I felt betrayed when the truth was shouted in anger by my mother: “He’s not your father!” For some years I could not remember what I did after hearing those traumatic words; I dissociated until I asked years later to be regressed, to retrieve those memories. Sadly, my dad who raised me with love extraordinaire – unusual un the 1950s and 60s – died suddenly of a heart attack at age 60, before I was brave enough to ask why he did not come to comfort me – both of us too scared.

(Like Republicans to stand up to Trump’s daily lies.)

It’s a sad state of humanity, that we don’t feel safe enough to tell the truth but learn to lie to get revenge – get even- as is readily acknowledged.

As a Marriage and Family Therapist, I’ve been in the courtroom a few times to testify for clients falsely accused by the mother that the father sexually abused their child. When the judge asked me for my psychotherapy notes, I refused, and a warrant was put out for my arrest. I had agreed to write a summary, but that was not sufficient for the judge.

A couple months went by before a cop stopped me on route 13 (my lucky number) in Ithaca, NY in broad daylight and cuffed me. Once in the police car, he changed my handcuffs from behind my back to being in front of my lap. This happened two more times as I was driven through two other counties to where I was arraigned, given a $500 fine, then fingerprinted and mug shot taken at the jail. The police were respectfully understanding, while I felt surprisingly relaxed during the ride where there were two transfers of handcuffs, and police officers over county lines. Later that evening, my daughter Erin came to pick up her “ex-con” mom.

Late, when I appeared in court (2012) to support my client on the stand for a custody hearing and again refused to give up my psychotherapy notes as I have client-therapist privilege as do lawyers – I was dismissed as a witness, but I had already said enough to be heard for my client’s benefit. I left with sunshine on my back, and soon thereafter medical release forms were changed to exclude psychotherapy notes.

My devotion to the truth is born out in watching a TV series called BULL, even repeats, because he is a psychologist who unravels the truth with the assistance of his employees: a lawyer, an investigator, a computer hacker, while being a trial scientist as a voir dire expert. He can tell when people lie, by assessing their body language.

So, I’m bullish as I quote Henry David Thoreau – “Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.” For without truth, our love is thin as ice broken through on a (Walden😊) pond.

I know I will not be popular hearing what I have to say, even though I am known to love The SUN for maybe 30 years, looking forward to seeing The SUN in my mailbox. Even my first sentence is a distraction, delaying me writing: I hate the “F” word. It’s not that I don’t swear, I do: Oh shit! God damn it!

So, when I read the poem Pinkie Masters (December 2025) I’m distracted reading the 18^th line: “I have the hiccups like a motherfucker.” Really? The poem stops in midair.

“I still know a few things, you say. You said.” The last line of the poem, myself feeling intensely disappointed that our language, our anger is directed at sex. That’s what fucking is – right? And with your mother?? Oh shit!

Google defines fuck: have sex with (someone), ruin or damage (something.) “To express annoyance, contempt, infuriating.” In other words, expressing anger. Violence. Violation. Distorting any sensibility, or sacredness to sex – destroying any semblance of making love.

Until recently, I hadn’t encountered ‘fuck’ written in The SUN, or novels, old or new. Yet, this past month I read My Other Heart (novel published in 2025) which I very much like, as its detail of intimate conversations and thoughts between two Asian American girlfriends are unusually truthful. “You know with life, sometimes its good, sometimes it really fucking sucks. But I’ll tell you one thing I’ve learned, and it’s always something I come back to, this whole living up to expectations and feeling invisible is also about who we are in our core. We can change that to a point because nothing stays the same, but it’s a matter of how much we’re willing to be controlled from the outside, and how invisible we are willing to be.”

Now I am deeply visible, as a psychotherapist still practicing at age 79 when clients say “sorry” after saying the F-word. I emphasize that it is okay in this therapy room, where expression should not be thwarted by limiting words.

Smiling, I add, “Feelings is the best F-word going!”

Addendum:

On a lighter note, I’m distracted by my need to find heart rocks, my attention taken away from the waterfalls I’ve hiked to see! Take in.

And I love being distracted, as I walk down the stairs of my apartment, to stare at one of the many people I love, framed in my photo gallery, like wallpaper.

Pregnant with my second daughter, Megan, I was determined to experience natural childbirth, without an episiotomy, and walk off the delivery table. Surprisingly, an obstetrician open to natural childbirth was hard to find in Cincinnati, Ohio. Another surprise was hearing the name of the physician who agreed to my wishes: Doctor Harry Roach. I did become the first mother to walk off the delivery table and sign out AMA (against medical advice) in 1974. More importantly, I felt proud when the nurse who returned Megan to me after cleaning her up, told me, “That’s the first time I had a newborn baby burp up breastmilk on my way to the nursery.”

Although small breasted, I produced plenty of milk; milk spraying out of the nipple not being suckled, able to collect milk to freeze, being available when I returned to work part-time nursing profession, when my first-born Erin was six months old, and Megan at nine months old. (Also, I felt privileged when Megan was willing to suckle another mother, to maintain her milk supply for Noah, her premature infant still in the hospital.) Breast pumps weren’t successful.

This past July 2025, I was lucky enough to rent half of a duplex home, a wide waterfall in my backyard, certainly a dream come true! Reminding me of natural waterfalls of breastmilk. Their full gown of white. So greatfull, Erin adding folds of fat when at three months of age, she had more than doubled her birth weight – don’t you just love baby fat? 😊It was challenging to get my fingers in between her folds.

But a most important waterfall happened the 2025 Monday before thanksgiving, while writing in my journal – reflecting on the previous weekend I had attended of ballroom dancing. While at breakfast, talking to a dance acquaintance, Mike, about our marriages; then sharing a past life as a prima ballerina which milked my tears to spill, Mike reaches to squeeze my hand. Tears fell as I wrote, “Mike’s loving connection: tears milking truer love for myself.” And then for others, like when I feel rejected by a few dance leaders.