Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jan 15, 2012, 9:59 am
Just a couple weeks ago or so I said I was feeling a little "eh" about life...neutral...could take it or leave it. That's not true any more. I know it seems like a fast change, but that's only because I haven't been blogging very regularly. It's a change that has been months in the making, I think, ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jan 14, 2012, 9:58 pm
"Are you Laura? There is a woman who said she has to meet you." And that is how my evening at the Oak Park Art League began, me introducing myself to a woman who found herself seeing my name next to each print she found herself drawn to. And if I hadn't worked so hard on so many levels to be wh...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 30, 2011, 4:08 pm
I've had some more thoughts brewing but I haven't slept through the night in a few weeks now and with the holidays and hot flashes and a cold and tons of travel I'm feeling a little low key. But still I've got that urge to write and to nestle in with thoughts of the New Year's pending arrival. ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 21, 2011, 2:31 pm
If you would have asked me, I would have insisted I was goal-oriented. No bar was too high. No task couldn't be 'multi-ed". There wasn't any ideal I thought I could not reach with just a little more effort, better time management and sheer will power. I remember when I first read that humans are bel...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 20, 2011, 6:37 pm
I was having lunch with the lovely and talented Antonia Ruppert last Friday and she asked me what my typical Friday was like.  I couldn't really answer her because I haven't had any typical days for almost two years now.  It's funny, because it wasn't even until writing that very first lin...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 12, 2011, 5:53 pm
So, there you are, blogging your life and then a bunch of stuff goes down and it makes all that blogging stuff fall right off the plate for quite a long time. And while you aren't blogging you are finding yourself on the other side of a whole crazy litany of events that have changed you in all kinds...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 12, 2011, 11:29 am
That was the phrase Michael and I often used to describe his pace of life and that is what I found myself remembering when I was sitting behind net at the Hawks v. Sharks game last night. It's one of the gifts he gave me and one of the things I am realizing I particularly miss in his physical ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 25, 2011, 10:15 am
When I was a very young girl, maybe 7 or 8 years old, I had a recurring nightmare every time we had a thunderstorm. Last night it dawned on me for the first time who the multi-armed image was that would chase me, surrounded by flames. It was none other than Kali. Score one: Jung. ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 20, 2011, 3:15 pm
"Pop-Up Art 2011" - Once again, Miller Beach Arts & Creative District transforms Lake Street storefronts into an exceptional evening of art and entertainment.   Miller Beach - Gary, Indiana - For several months local artists, musicians and "creative types" from this bohemian lakefront ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 18, 2011, 10:08 am
If you haven't checked out my photography yet, today would be a good day to head over to check out my work because I am having my first sale and it is a rocking cool one. Canvas prints, both gallery wrapped (1 1/2" wrap, black edged, ready to hang) and teak framed large prints like the one you see m...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 15, 2011, 10:15 am
Nick's comment to my last post prompts this one...I'll just tell you what happened and you can draw your own conclusions. It's the kind of thing that happens a lot in my life. A lot. On the first anniversary of Michael's death, I was at my father's house, just as I had been on the very day he d...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 14, 2011, 1:50 pm
Okay, I've been given a green light by my friends that I just have to be me, even if that means straying from whatever fantasy I might have about normal and hey, with a blog name like "No Safe Distance" who was I trying to kid, anyway? I've been gone for a while, that's true. I'm coming back ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 14, 2011, 12:58 pm
The reference comes from the novel, Blue Highways, by William Least Heat Moon. Blue highways are so designated on old road maps (remember when people used paper maps bought in gas stations?), the old secondary roads that took you through little towns that you've never heard of and all manner of oddi...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Oct 13, 2011, 11:56 am
I wrote some time ago that I might be in the best time of my life. That must explain why I still cry every other day. Seriously, sometimes I mystify even myself with my sweeping generalizations. The time I wrote that, I did feel that way, mostly because I was so proud of two friends, ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Sep 10, 2011, 1:12 pm
Printed in memory of Michael Schwass, who completed his life on Earth one year ago today. No mind, no form, I only exist;Now ceased all will and thought;The final end of Nature's dance,I am it whom I have sought.A realm of Bliss bare, ultimate;Beyond both knower and known;A rest immense I enjoy...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Sep 1, 2011, 1:43 am
They call it an “anniversary reaction.” In just two days I will mark the first anniversary of the last time I saw Michael and as the first twinges of autumn chill arrive in the evening breeze, it hits me anew that I will not be seeing him again. That fact has only become more incomprehen...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Aug 24, 2011, 3:34 pm
 Big Rock. Little Rock. The Valley. The Secret Passage Way. The names flashed through my head as I read Clare Cooper Marcus’ book, House as Mirror of Self. She wrote, in part, about the unique and magical relationships children form with their environments, both in their larger surroundings ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jul 3, 2011, 10:14 am
  (This is reposted from my photography blog to help get the word out.) I have so many lovely shots from that site, and so many you haven't seen yet. I'll be working to add more images in the days ahead but at least we can get started to help do our part for the relief effort. At the Garf...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jun 23, 2011, 8:17 am
It's 4:30 in the morning and the birds have begun their pre-dawn chorus. Penny and I have just come in from the rain. She ate her breakfast while I made a cup of coffee and has settled down next to the chair where I sit in the dark, smelling coffee and wet fur and the cool morning breeze coming in ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jun 2, 2011, 7:48 am
(This article also appears in the June 2011 issue of Designer Health Today.) They say you can’t go home again. But that is where I have found myself this second summer since my Father’s passing. I’m living more often than I had intended, in the very home I grew up in, same bedroo...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 31, 2011, 4:29 pm
I have long been a fan of David Whyte's poetry. He has recently released a new collection of poetry set to music. Here is a sample track that I am sure will resonate with some of my faithful readers...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 31, 2011, 10:41 am
I said that to Michael not long before he died and I meant it in all its seriousness and weight. This was not a gushy, mushy profession of adoration. No infatuation was involved. There wasn't anything romantic about it. It was just a fact of my existence...the culmination of the work we had don...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 30, 2011, 12:37 pm
(Go here if you want to take it from the top.) As we approach the 1st anniversary of my Dad's death, his house is now on the market. So is Michael's. Now that my sister's kids are getting out of school, I can pass the baton for the house on to her and her family. For the first time in a long t...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 30, 2011, 8:56 am
This goes out to the poor guy who didn't get to hear it, since I love the song, too, and I feel a little bad for busting Brad Roberts' chops because I don't know what made him so bitter and what battles he might be fighting that have turned him into such a whack job at this point in his life. So, he...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 30, 2011, 8:31 am
You all deserve a little Antje Duvekot this morning while I work on finishing up the latest blog post series.
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 29, 2011, 9:10 pm
I do know that one imploding musician does not mean all live shows are akin to visiting various levels of Dante's Inferno but I'm glad the Crash Test Dummies scared me into thinking it might because I really don't have the money for that kind of thing anymore. That is a crazy thing to say at cl...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 29, 2011, 6:19 pm
In short, the Crash Test Dummies concert was awesome, in an "I'm scarred for life but I wouldn't have missed that for the world" kind of way. But back to my fantasies of wanting to see all my favorite musicians play at SPACE... We were listening to Shawn Mullins recently and I said to my ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 29, 2011, 5:30 pm
So, there we were sitting just a few feet from Brad Roberts as the Crash Test Dummies took the stage at SPACE a few days ago. Now, I know it's been quite a few years since God Shuffled His Feet came out (1993) but I love that album. LOVE it. Brilliant lyrics, pithy humor, quirky sound...it's a...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 28, 2011, 3:51 pm
Let's start here for now: Backward Miracle By Kay Ryan (from The Niagara River: Poems ) Every once in a while we need a backward miracle that will strip language, make it hold for a minute: just the vessel with the wine in it — a sacramental refusal to multiply, reclaiming the single loaf and the ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 16, 2011, 6:25 pm
I just couldn't resist. Here's my knee-high girl in our local leash-free prairie...      
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 16, 2011, 5:29 pm
So I’m here at Caribou and there is this man sitting at the table  in his suit and he’s intently studying the money page of the Trib and I can see  it so clearly.  He’s looking at numbers and graphs and lines going up and lines going down and it means something  to him.  It’s telling hi...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 16, 2011, 5:19 pm
As I am working on some behind the scenes writing today I found this in my journal from last fall. Made me smile, maybe it will you, too... I spoke with Imani today about kindergarten, which she is decidedly against. She informed me, solemnly, with no attempt to soften the blow, that in kinderg...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 16, 2011, 5:02 pm
I can hear the red-winged blackbirds calling and that tells me Spring has come and soon school will be out for the Summer. It’s so funny how some feelings never leave you. I can still recall being in my classroom at St. Mary of the Lake on an overcast day, the kind of day where you can feel t...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - May 10, 2011, 6:02 pm
Wondering where the heck I've been? This will fill you in a little... My Dad didn’t have a Will, although there really wasn’t much of an estate to speak of. My parents divorced after 28 years of marriage and my Mom thought the divorce decree left the house to her in a ‘right of survivorsh...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Apr 13, 2011, 1:02 pm
So, there I was, driving and crying. Crying because I'm tired. Crying because I've had a lot of family stuff happen since Dad died. Crying because we're selling his house. Crying because I'm afraid it won't sell in this economy. Crying because I got caught in a family dynamic that I hate more t...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Apr 8, 2011, 9:15 am
I'm getting old. Not ancient. Not feeble. Not "Just set me up in a rocking chair and rub my bunions, please Dearie" old. Just older than I was when I was 30. Older as in "Wow, I don't bounce back like I used to" older. Older as in "Hip hop?! You call that music? Now, Ella. Billie. That wa...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Feb 28, 2011, 1:38 pm
Hiya. I know. It's been a while. Hey, can I just give you the quick version and tell you that the last five months have been challenging? But for some crazy reason (or for a lot of very good and entirely sane reasons), some happiness is finding its way to me. I knew when I bought myself an insa...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Jan 23, 2011, 1:34 pm
(click to enlarge if you have a hard time reading) Ram Dass once said his relationship with his guru actually grew closer after Maharaj-ji left this life. I understand how that could be true. I know I said I wouldn't leave you hanging like so many other blogs that simply end but this ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 28, 2010, 10:07 am
One thing I had not anticipated was how many connections I would be making, even months later, with people who had been in Michael's life and had moved away over the years. I know this could be true of all of us...you get a whim to check up on someone from your past, Google them, and next thing you ...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 21, 2010, 2:43 pm
I have such a strong desire to start a new blog right now. It's that feeling you journallers know well...the ones who always need a new journal with a new pen to match every time a fresh beginning seems to be presenting itself. But I'm resisting that urge. This IS a beginning, of sorts,�...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Dec 4, 2010, 11:37 am
For those of you who live far or who simply didn't get a chance to see Michael's stone before the snow began to fall...  
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 30, 2010, 4:58 pm
One of my father's hobbies was movie collecting. I stumbled on Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium in his collection and it immediately became one of my absolute favorite movies. Fun, playful, fanciful, magical, heartbreaking and poignant.  I leave you here with the dialogue from one of the most lovel...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 29, 2010, 1:30 pm
I wish I were a good enough artist to make this movie and not have the disease. Now THAT would have been talent. ~Ben Byer on making the documentary of his life with ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 26, 2010, 12:55 pm
We can be lonely on our own but it takes a group to be alienated. ~Caroline Casey
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 15, 2010, 5:00 pm
I have no idea what to tell you. I don't even know if finding someone to call guru is what you want to do. However, I've had enough people express to me their wish to have a wise old man whose feet they could sit at in times of trouble that, having had one of those, I both applaud the desire and t...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 12, 2010, 12:57 pm
One of the most beautiful books on grief I have read. Mark Doty is a poet who wrote this book chronicling the death of his partner after years of living with AIDS. Rather than a review, I will share with you some thoughts from my journal after I read it: I think about the one hundred Chine...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 10, 2010, 1:43 pm
Books are good food. When I tested for my licensure as a psychotherapist, nearly every question on the exam contained a choice for "bibliotherapy", the assigning of books as a therapeutic intervention. On the practice test we were to scratch off the mark next to all the choices that would apply...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 8, 2010, 4:33 pm
You may all laugh at me but I am actually recommending this book, written by a life coach. Judy Underwood is a therapist/coach who was asked by a long-time client who found she had cancer to help her die "a good death." Judy said yes despite no background in this area and set out to learn al...
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 7, 2010, 1:16 pm
We read fiction when we want to kill time. We read poetry when time is killing us. ~Kay Ryan shared this quote at a reading. I didn't hear who the original source was. If you know, please share.
Comment - Like

Laura Y. posted an article on No Safe Distance - Nov 5, 2010, 11:58 am
The last post on my process of learning how to support my father and Michael as they were nearing death left out one critical point. I could handle watching them die. Not everyone could. Not everyone wanted to. That is not a judgement. It is permission to know your limits and a plea ...
Comment - Like