Liesl Whitaker

The choice of active and passive verbs used to describe the experience of attending a live performance is fascinating. Did you ever stop to think about it, or why it matters? Do people “see” or “hear” a performance? Is an artist “heard” or “seen” by an audience? Weren’t super mega rock stars “seen” back in the day, or “heard” at a particular venue? Are those two terms interchangeable?

I love the holiday spirit! I really, really do! Culturally, it’s pure magic! But, as the end of 2023 approached, I felt a strange unease about me. I haven’t been able to put my finger on exactly why. I’m still not sure, but I think it has something to do with this:

If I wanted to go into business, I’d have to sit down and write a business plan. I’d need to know what my operating costs are so that I could appropriately price my product for sale before I open my business. Not doing this is careless.

I’m not a professional writer.

It’s something I rarely do, but once in a while, I feel the Spirit move me, and there I am. First and foremost, I like to write, but only when I do so on my terms. I have some sort of rakish ability to string words together in an effective way. I know that sometimes, it even moves people. I compare it to musical improvisation, only without the music. Second, writing is therapeutic. If I can organize my thoughts on a page, it helps me to sift through them as I go. I can solidify what exactly is going on in my head and heart, and then a strange ease begins to calm me. So, with a lump still in my throat from the past two days, I’ll begin…

I hate being cold.  I loathe that feeling completely.  I know, I know. NO one likes to be cold.  It’s the same argument I use when people tell me, just before I draw their blood, that they hate needles – I’ve never met anyone who likes needles.  Perhaps normalizing their experience a little bit makes them feel a little less odd, and therefore, less nervous.

I’m in a funny place these days. The past two years have brought so much change, pain, insight, and plain old confusion. Simply put, I’m lost, and when I’m lost, I write. So here goes…

In 2020, we collectively came to terms with a pandemic, ignorance and deadly politics that were unforgivable, in my humble opinion. The start of 2021 came in like a quiet, sleeping beast. Then, January 6th rolled around, and the country lost it’s damn mind! An attempted coup at the Capitol, our sacred, national shrine, paralyzed us as we watched it unfold on live television. I sat then with a sinking feeling in my gut, very similar to the feeling I’ve had for the past 24 hours.

I thought I’d be okay. After all, it’s been nearly three weeks since he passed. But I couldn’t make myself open even one of the letters. They were written on his signature yellow legal-pad paper. As I stared down at the pile, I could see the backward-slanting, strangely beautiful writing through the folded paper. I know his writing won’t be much easier to read once I open the paper and peer at the forward-slanting, always first-written inked words: “Dear Liesl”.

I am a white middle aged woman. I’m a daughter, sister and mother. I’m an active duty soldier. I’m an animal advocate. I’m a jazz musician. I’m an empath. I’m a recovering Catholic who loves the art and ritual but hates the learned guilt. Continue reading →

“The victim wasn’t wearing a seatbelt”

How many times have we read that line at the end of a fatal accident report? When you read it, your lips purse, and the thought goes through your head, “Why didn’t they just buckle up? It would have been so easy.” We put our seatbelts on every single time we get in the car for many reasons. It’s the law! It took a long time and thousands of deaths before people listened to the science and statistical data, and enacted mandatory seatbelt laws. Some of us remember the days when we were freely tossed into cars as youngsters. My sister has a permanent inch-long scar on the side of her face because she wasn’t wearing a seatbelt in the back of our Griswold station wagon. My mom had to slam on the brakes suddenly, and her tiny body was thrown into the back door. I don’t remember why she didn’t have it on, but I don’t think any of us six kids were wearing seatbelts. It wasn’t the norm. It was inconvenient, especially for large families like mine, to make sure everyone was strapped in all the time. And, even with the best made plans, kids sometimes take their seatbelts off for no good reason. But the fact is that seatbelts save lives. We know that now. So why do people still get into cars and skip this step? Continue reading →

If we all belong to the Infinite, then we need no further justification for our existence. Explaining the miracle of life is impossible for our limited genesis. The spark that lit us up from the moment we came to be has never been recreated from an empty human page. Therefore, we are part of what has always been from the beginning, created by a Power that we are incapable of wrapping our heads around other than knowing It exists. Continue reading →