About

Origins

I come from a long line of survivors throughout the troubled ages of this planet’s history. My forebears survived wars, pestilences, holocausts, and natural disasters by the providential grace of a sovereign God. So here I am: alive to express in journaled form the excitement of the journey I am experiencing while He watches over every step I take, every move I make…

One Small Step…

When I arrived on the scene, God planted me as the fifth child in a family of six children. My mother named me Patricia. My “landing pad” on the planet was the Georgetown borough of Washington, DC, which immersed my early childhood in a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-cultural environment. My parents were white Anglo-Saxon “immigrants” to the DC metro area from the Mid-west during WWII. While they adjusted to the surprise of their new and sudden transition into this multi-ethnic, multi-racial environment, my father was a blue collar worker in a US Government facility which supported our American and allied forces in the war effort. Our family was housed in federally provided housing for war-time laborers leased on Jesuit property adjacent to the prestigious Georgetown University.

New Life Forms…

Many might conclude that everyone who came out of that Georgetown borough of Washington, DC is the product of privilege and affluence; but that was not the case in my life. We were the Capital City’s “poor relatives” until the lease on the land expired in 1955 when the community of which I was a part as a young child was dismantled and scattered. As God saw fit, He provided a tiny house for our family in a working class neighborhood in a suburb of metro DC which introduced me to new schools and a student population which was less diverse culturally and ethnically, and awakened me to the existence of others more privileged and affluent than me. We were now the “poor relatives,” in a growing, suburban post-war region. God provided many mercies in all our circumstances, and my basic material needs were met–very basic. I knew what it means to be a learning-hungry white human child in an “underserved” circle of opportunity where the family economy is borderline and misses by a hair-thin margin the qualification for any supplemental assistance in any amount. I am not a college graduate and I hold no degrees, but my higher education did not end with my graduation from high school. I continue to be a student of life.

Maintaining Orbit…

Fast forwarding to my current blessed state. My husband Edward and I have been married for 52 years. True to my delight in ethnic diversity, my marriage to Edward joined me to an immigrant family, naturalized American citizens of Austro-Hungarian heritage. We enjoy Edward’s retirement and our golden years in a modest garden condo in the working class neighborhood of the burgeoning wealth in the suburban orbit of metro DC. Our little 70s vintage community is a cross-generational garden oasis surrounded by a county redevelopment campaign in steel, glass and austere clusters of multi-use structures. Far from secluded, Edward and I have an outer window on the world. At the same time, we enjoy the inner space of our community as a conservatory of unsullied green open spaces, graced with flowering shrubs under canopies of mature trees, and furnished with sheltered walkways and paths, serenaded with seasonal bird song–the ideal place for a modest student of life to observe, think and write.

More about how I write:

Pilgrim’s Log

More about why I write what I write:

Lover of My Soul