About the Author/Artist

• 57 years of chronological living
• about 50 years of voracious reading
• 12 years of teaching seventh grade
• 23 years of active recovery
• 10 years of one-on-one therapy
• 27 years of journal writing
• 16 years of painting
• 16 years of cartooning and writing
• 4 years of being an educational resource in a life-issues bookstore
• 3 years of graduate-level classwork towards a masters-in-counseling
• a willingness to pass on what I know in order to be able to reinforce it within myself
• a desire to give to others what people have given to me
• I wish to keep what I've got ~~ I don't want to back "where I came from"
• I like what I'm getting ~~ so I'll keep doing what I'm doing!

How did I get to my most current "here"?� Where to start?�� At the beginning, of course.� My dilemma is:� Which beginning?� There's the very beginning of "I was born", but that's the opening line of Charles Dickens' book, David Copperfield.� Ok, yes, I was born ~~ June, 1950 ~~ but that's way too far back.

There's a more recent beginning:� I started writing a newsletter called LIFESTUFF on May 29, 1998, when I created a physical template on the computer and asked the various pages "what goes here?", and began the actual writing.� That lead me to learn web page creation. which is one of the places I am now.� The newsletter evolved into this online anthology of stories, cartoons, posters, articles, etc.� The site has gone through many transformations, some due to my own curiosity and growth, and some due to changes beyond my control which pushed me to grow.� I'd not previously envisioned myself in such arenas.� So how did I "get here"?

Each beginning has an ending as it's precursor, so how much history is pertinent?� I have quite a history of beginnings.� I could start with December, 1989, when I left teaching 7th grade social studies at Mt. Ararat School in Topsham, Maine (US).� I was moving across country with a new partner, and had� intended to transfer and continue teaching in Santa Fe, New Mexico (US).� The relationship abruptly ended and I didn't then know that it would take me four more years to actually relocate.� I suddenly had more unstructured time than I easily knew how to fill.� In January,1990, I started writing a children's picture book on recovery from parental alcoholism ~~ only to learn after, several months of submissions, that what I had was a good start yet not a publishable manuscript.� I put this writing project on "Hold" for the next 8 years, occassionally revising yet not submitting.

I could start 5 years earlier, with my sobriety beginning in April, 1984.� That was the end (so far, at least) of 16 years of active alcoholism, as well as the beginning of 15 years (to date) of alcohol, etc., recovery experience.� All of these were pieces which eventually led to the new partner that didn't last, and the ending of my 12 1/2 years of 7th grade teaching at Mt. Ararat, and the choice to stick with the decision to leave Maine and move to New Mexico.� The reasons take up more space than I'm willing to delve into here.� Suffice it to say they felt valid, and I've not been proven wrong in the years after.� During that 4-year relocation process, the children's recovery book was born, rejected as incomplete, and placed on "Hold".� In November, 1992, I had an opportunity to fulfill the move-to-New-Mexico dream (no, not with the original person), and went.� I moved back to Maine for the months of February-May, 1993, then returned to New Mexico to live in Albuquerque.� Two-and-a-day one-way Greyhound bus trips became an interesting way to travel ~~ New Mexico to Maine, then Maine back to New Mexico!� Important stuff was gained during those major adjustments!

In May,1993, in Albuquerque,NM (US), the "teaching door" closed.� For the next four years, I poured my writing, art, recovery, and teaching skills into my employment as an educational resource and assistant manager of a bookstore which specialized in dealing with life issues & recovery from addictions.� I loved what I did at the bookstore, yet the environment in which I worked changed.� In March, 1998, it became time to leave the bookstore.� Again I found myself with huge amounts of unstructured time to full, and I taught myself Word Perfect 8, Corel Photo Paint 8, basic HTML, and several different methods of web page publishing.� I not only resurrected the previously-dormant children's recovery story, I expanded it to the� Spike stories� included here.

I could choose September, 1979, the time when I began one-on-one therapy, which led to my sobriety and the ending of my 6-year dysfunctional marriage in April, 1984, which lead to all the openings and closings for future relationships and changing careers, and having the time, energy, circumstance, and inclination to write, draw, cartoon, and learn Word Perfect 5.1.... and make the leap to teaching myself Windows 95 then 98, then Word Perfect 8 & Corel PhotoPaint 8 & Internet Publisher, etc, and basic HTML, along with resurrecting a dormant children's recovery story and expanding it for a newsletter that eventually evolved into this web site!� Phew!

I could choose January, 1977, when my new husband and I left California and moved to Maine for a photographic business adventure with one of his childhood friends who had also moved there.... which didn't work out.... I still call that move "the geographical cure that took seven years to work" as I sobered up in Maine.� And then left the marriage, left teaching, left Maine and moved to New Mexico.... it's all in the above paragraphs.......

I could go on choosing.� No matter which time period or event I select as a beginning place, what I really did was end one aspect of my life and begin another.� I left California and began Maine.� I left my dysfunctional marriage and began a series of increasingly-healthier relationships.� I left active alcoholism and began active recovery/sobriety.� I left teaching and began writing, drawing, cartooning, and painting.� I left Maine and began New Mexico.� I let go of teaching in public school systems and began being an educational resource, first in a life-issues recovery bookstore and then in a newsletter and now here in this recovery anthology.� I let go of teaching and began a master-in-counseling program.� I eventually let go of the masters in-counseling program along the way as it wasn't where I wanted to be.� I let go of the bookstore and began learning that working at home did indeed have more value than I'd ever been taught to believe.� I left go of working FOR others and began working WITH my current partner in a variety of self-employed ways ~~ office manager and construction-assistant are two of the ways I currently earn my way in the world, income wise.� That's a long way from where I ever saw myself when I was in my teens and people said, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"!!!� Then I ended an old century, and began a new one.

Many beginnings and endings overlapped each other.� My job along the way was to see my options, make my choices, review my choices, to stop playing the solo-stoic and learn to ask for help....� and then to accept that help!.... and to not "freak out" too badly along the way as I continued to learn to deal with new & unfamiliar uncharted territory as well as to let go of old familiar outmoded survival skills, and to learn the difference between change/flexibility and chaos/anarchy.� I needed to grieve the losses, to make room for the new beginnings, and continue to give myself permission to grow into more of to "thine own self be true", and let simultaneous feelings of terror and exhilaration calm down into being merely scary and exciting!� I continue to watch my path unfold as I create my new life, bit by bit, nervous yet excited, listening to my intuition and my higher power, and just being more who I am.� I look forward to the new beginnings all this will beget!