GET OUTTA UR WAY

Growing up in the 1960s and 1970s, reading paperback fiction books was one of my absolute favorite things to do. My home was filled with books, periodicals, and several types of music. My mother would go to a popular New Orleans department store and buy specific books for each of us. My older sister and I would get so excited when she came home from work with those paperback books. Oftentimes after my sister finished reading her books, I would read them. She is almost four years my senior, so her books had a more mature subject matter. This one specific book has stuck with me. Well, not the book because I do not remember all the details, but there is a line in the book that has stuck with me. The book is entitled *There Must Be a Pony* by Jim Kirkwood. The main character, Josh, has a dream, and if my memory serves me correctly, he was in a barn, and there were just mounds and mounds of horse manure. As he was shoveling through the manure, he exclaimed that underneath all this shit, the...

Is there value in emptiness. That sinking feeling that kind of starts in the stomach and moves up through the chest into the throat and in the eyes and sometimes leads to tears. Today I had a fairly good day at the office. I had some boxes and bags of clothes that belonged to my father who passed away in February of 2022. The exterior of the boxes were marked dishes. As I was opening the boxes, I thought you live your whole life and then the things that you valued end up in boxes in storage units and that's it. I just kept unpacking, and my brother was there, and he had gone through several bags of things that had also been in storage for a few years. Both of us was going through the motions of sorting and clearing through things my brother wanted to keep, give away, or donate. Later we did our usual talking on the way home. I dropped him off and felt gratitude for our banter on current events. When I arrived home, I got off to myself and had dinner then this feeling of deep emptin...

  A few weeks ago I started a YouTube channel called Serendipity Shena. You might think what a strange name. So what does the word serendipity mean? "Serendipity in American English is  (1). an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident, (2). good fortune; luck".  I believe life is full of opportunities whereby we unintentionally find valuable discoveries by chance. I wanted to create a space for me to share two things I love talking about politics and religion. I know these two topics alone have destroyed countries, marriages, friendships, and the list is endless. However, I enjoy taking political and biblical information and applying it to everyday life. The first video for the channel was approximately two weeks after the recent inauguration of the United States president. The word that permeated my mind within the initial days post-inauguration was distraction . People that I had conversations with were becoming fearful. frustrated, and hopeless in a short ...

 Living in Southeast Louisiana our world revolves around weather events. We have become experts at living with hurricanes and flash floods. Our winters consist of at most ten days with morning temperatures in the mid-forties. So, imagine the shock when meteorologists forecasted four inches of snow on January 21, 2025. The snowstorm brought ten inches of snow to New Orleans, tying the record set in 1895. The snowstorm also brought near-blizzard conditions to the city. The New Year 2025 came in with a terrorist attack and many beautiful souls lost their lives and suffered horrible injuries on historic Bourbon Street. The city of New Orleans was numb. Even thinking about it now is earth-shattering. So, the shock of receiving a large amount of snow last month could only be described as magical. It felt so light and airy easing the heavy solemn mood that had eviscerated the city commonly referred to as the Big Easy. We had no experience with driving or walking in the snow. It didn't mat...

It could be the older I get that I start to take inventory of my life and wonder what would be different. What would I have done differently? Where would I have lived? Which places would I have visited? What things have I achieved in life? What have been my biggest successes? What are my failures? As I approach another birthday, I'm thinking about how I can move beyond my limitations. How can I get unstuck? How can I become less comfortable with not planning, not doing, or being? How can I intentionally and on purpose create a meaningful and joyous life? How can I soar above the clouds without turbulence? Why is it so difficult for me to do something as simple as socializing and enjoying the moment? Am I stuck? After living deep in the crevasses of grief and family illnesses for the past four years I feel afraid to plan. I feel like I’m holding my breath and if I exhale some undesirable situation will manifest. I feel like my life is engulfed in problem-solving. And then there’s ...

 Are You the Answer to Someone's Prayer