A few words of caution to deal with the rise of the American Reich... My heart is unsettled. Yes, I just finished scrolling through my Instagram feed. Yes, I peeked at my FB account, which is private so I am not involuntarily following the newly unveiled American Reich. I want to look away. I want... Continue Reading →
The crisis at 30 continues…
Finding self...You may wonder why, at age 54, I am writing about what happened when I was thirty. You may think, time is the great eraser. Get over it. Move on. And you may be right. It may be a healthy way to go, or it may be unhealthy. Everyone’s journey is different. The thing... Continue Reading →
Midlife at Thirty?
If your life is shaken, stirred, and scrambled, probably.I doubt I will pass away at sixty, but the question of "Is this it?" did emerge in my mind like a speech bubble when I turned thirty. By age thirty, I had gotten my first real job, bought my first house, and married my first husband.... Continue Reading →
Into the Deep
A personal essayThe submersible began its slow descent. The ocean's surface light gradually faded into darkness, marking the boundary of the photic zone. The only sound was the pilot’s calm voice announcing our depth. “Sixty meters,” he said, his words echoing over the hydrophone, traveling through the water to the ship above. The submersible was... Continue Reading →
Living with Differences
How I survived a war between Germany and CubaThe little known war between Germany and Cuba happened in my childhood home. It was a two-bedroom apartment on Howard St, the northernmost East-West arterial in the city of Chicago. Rogers Park is known as the most diverse neighborhood in the city of Chicago. I was born... Continue Reading →
Getting into the Writing Groove
What is a writer's life look like?Almost fifteen years ago I determined that writing isn’t an innate talent bequeathed to a few. Despite what my AP English teacher, Mr. Hahn, told me my senior year of high school, I was not a writer. For twenty years, I had checked the proverbial box of being a... Continue Reading →
The writing journey
Moving right along...My first job was as a concessionist at the Evanston Theater during the summer of 1986. I was fifteen years old. My autocorrect doesn’t seem to like the word "concessionist," but that’s the person who serves you popcorn, candy, and drinks at a movie theater. My best friend worked there, and spending a... Continue Reading →
Pretirement
A place in the middle...Where is pretirement? It is a place AARP says is the time when you are closer to retirement from your career, than from the beginning of your career. My definition of pretirement adds the space between leaving said career and the beginning of a new career. The new career is a... Continue Reading →
How do you prepare for a journey?
What is a journey?Baggage. We all have it. We all struggle with how to organize it. Do we get rid of it? Do we throw it in the closet and ignore it? Do we fold it neatly and make neat little piles with it? Organizing the baggage we all have - be it emotional, physical... Continue Reading →
It's a good time to…
To write on Substack... Write I'm taking to Substack because I am procrastinating writing an essay. Finishing a screenplay. Revising a memoir manuscript. Substack was a place for other people's writing. People who are published, famous, arrogant, or courageous. I’m curious about this medium. How is it different than writing on a WordPress blog -... Continue Reading →
Rebecca Francesca Reuter Puerto 