Shant Knows It All

Forgetting & Fear @shantellewrites Monday October 9,  2023,   October has a Friday the 13th this year; same day this rent money is due. Oh yeah, it’s Columbus Day today because Indigenous People’s Day has yet to be recognized as a federal holiday. [1] “I Gotta Think Of A Way To Get This Money By Tomorrow.”   -Day-Day , Next Friday [2] Is there a way to do what I need to do even though I’m petrified ? I’m scared of even the footsteps above me. Don’t  matter where I am I realize–in someone else’s home or my own– I  panic when footsteps approach.  In fact, a drawing of my side-door at my old house, that I used to focus on like a horror movie at bedtime, was my creative break. Drawing that door opened me up to the  very scared child-me  behind it. I started to draw more and to brainstorm ways to support that child with many secrets. My purpose is to create an open door to let anyone leave further  terror. It’s that further terror  in a...

A Dog Person @shantellewrites Sunday, December 18th, 2022  3 days after my dog was hit by a car and killed. They say Dog  spelled backwards is God , and it’s easy to believe, because my dog has been the truest representation of unconditional love.  A YouTube  video [1]  grieving the death of your pet taught me that we’re lucky to feel waves of pain. If we felt it all at once, it would be too much to bear. It might kill us. I think about  the old woman that dies shortly after her husband of many years. I think my heart is too empathetic, and at risk of death by grief. It scared me at first to think I’d be crying a year later for my Jah-baby , because I wanted there to be less pain for someone less than human. Those who know say they’ve sometimes grieved harder for pets than people they knew. I thought my aunt’s death sent me into a spiral of addiction, but my dog’s death made me wonder if I could go on. Oddly enough though, today, before I wrote this blog, ...