National Mental Health Awareness Week

It’s National Mental Health Awareness Week and I’m finding new resources to help me help me help me again and pretend there is hope until there is hope all who suffer find some peace and mind that can settle enough to remember joy and grace. and I’m using my trusty computer and low and behold like magic my mind conjures my brothers who I’ve been missing… they live so far away and when I’m convinced I am all alone with no hope I want their company, want some family ya know. And so an email pops up from my brother with a link to an old song coming up new from Jackson Browne and I’m thrown into the past… and how touched I was with his lyrics and music…. I was hopelessly scared and drunk all the time and one day I locked myself in the bathroom, laid on the tiles that were heated copper, naked and listening to Jackson Browne. I knew he knew and I wanted to talk to him and I found his phone number and I called him on my old funky phone that reached all the way to the bathroom, 837-2400…. he was there but I chickened out and hung up, passed out on the hot tiles and woke to the wind rattling the window and noise from down the hall coming from the family room…. the big room, the belly, the heaven and hell where this family dwelled in love and pain and confusion…. ribs, lungs, wooden beams heaved with thunder, rain and we held steady… none of us were ready to be Thrown out into our lives. Thirsty.