Category: Letters from Purgatory

For All the Girls on the Schoolyard

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, Book of Angels, Essays andinterviews, Fight Club, Key of Mystery, Letters from Purgatory, Night Angels Chronicles, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Beautiful morning, out running the streets of Phoenix, fantasizing about the Zombie Apocalypse because those wide, eerily empty and silent streets always make me imagine hordes of zombies are about to burst around a corner (I love my imagination).

Anyway, as I ended with some jump squats, two men on bicycles, decked out in bright blue helmets and tight spandex outfits that showed off their paunches, whizzed by yelling “ribbit, ribbit!” and laughing obnoxiously.

Suddenly, instead of the Zombie Apocalypse, I was someplace far worse: back on the schoolyard with all those entitled boys, and me wanting to join in the dodge ball, basketball, and handball games and them pushing me out.

“Why can’t I play?”

“Cuz you’re a girl.”

I pushed back and got in those games, and I was as good and most times better than those boys. It makes me mad to this day that I had to “prove” myself. In fact, I realize now that they were intimidated by me. I was taller than all of them. Maybe not always as strong, but a whole lot more focused and generally more coordinated. There were a couple of boys who gave me respect, but even they never gave up the distinction that I was a girl in a boy’s game. I got made fun of constantly. I was called all kinds of derogatory terms, but the one I remember is “Mommy Long Legs” which I would now consider a compliment, but they didn’t mean it that way.

The school bully was named Bill. I know it sounds cliché, but that was really his name. Even more cliché, he had a blond buzz cut, was meaty, and turned pink under the hot sun. Bill would stand at the end of the street, just beyond the school, and demand money from everyone who needed to walk home that way. In the private world of children, where real monsters are always more prolific and scarier than imagined ones, no one said anything to the clueless adults about this.

I never gave Bill a penny. It was one of those important life lessons where I learned how to get out of a sticky situation by using my  brain and not giving in to fear. Bill was lazy and hid his own fear inside his big body, preying on the weak. Except that he was really weaker than everyone else. I always managed to talk my way around Bill, confusing him with language, until before he knew it, I was gone.

You learn to pick your battles.

As for the incident this morning, if I’d been a hefty guy doing those jump squats, or if a guy had been jumping with me, not a peep would have come out of those smirking, lily-white mouths.

I envisioned chasing after them, pulling them off their bikes and grounding their smirking mugs into the pavement. Making them apologize, not to me because what do I care, I’m a fighter who can well defend myself, but to all the little girls they must have intimidated on the schoolyard and then the women in the workplace and just generally in everyday life that they must somehow feel they have the right to lord it over.

Ah, the satisfaction of making them grovel.

I used to train with some British Kyokushin men who would come to Los Angeles every summer. I was the only women “allowed” to train with them. These guys were tough, seemingly oblivious to pain. The workouts were grueling, probably the hardest I’ve ever experienced. That’s why I liked them. It was freeing to train like that, to have all thought of differences in sex or ability fall away. I do remember one time when the guy who led the class, a scrappy fellow with a heavy cockney accent, tough as nails, half my height, yelled out, “Come on, don’t fucking hit like a bunch of girls!”

I was right in the front row, in the middle. No one reacted, I didn’t think anyone but me  realized he had made a faux pas. But then, maybe to them I wasn’t a “girl.” But then, what was I? Should I have taken it as a compliment that they didn’t put me in that category? Of course not. Still, I didn’t say anything. I didn’t throw a fit, demand an apology, or walk out in a huff. I just kept on training.

Again, you pick your battles. I was already doing something that most women never get the chance to experience. My actions spoke for me because afterwards, a couple of the men came up to me and apologized, explaining their fearless leader came from a rough background and wasn’t all that educated in proper etiquette.

“He didn’t mean it that way.”

I didn’t want to say, “What way?” I just left it at that.

As I did with the twerps on the bikes. I didn’t attack. I continued to jump my way home. Ribbit, ribbit….

And then, I did the same I did with Bill. I used my brain and wrote these words.

Do Artists have a Responsibility to Society?

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Children's Books, Essays andinterviews, Key of Mystery, Letters from Purgatory, My World Project, Night Angels Chronicles, raising kids as a single mother on the mean streets of LA suburbia, Uncategorized, urban fantasy, YA Urban Fantasy6 Comments

view from my balcony

Inspiring view from my balcony, Lake Arenal, Costa Rica.

It is my opinion, as an artist, that we do not have a responsibility to society. We are not answerable to anyone other than ourselves.

As artists our struggle is to be true to our own voices, not some else’s. An artist shouldn’t feel a burden or obligation to set an example for the entire world. They shouldn’t feel that they have to reflect the beliefs or opinions of a certain segment of society. Pressure should not be put on an artist to “set a good example.” Or to change people’s political or moral views.

The first books I created were beautiful and sweet children’s books. The Rumpoles & The Barleys series, which I wrote and illustrated, will always be favorites of mine. I am blessed to know they have been a positive force in the lives of children around the world. On the other hand, I always knew I had so much more to say and I fought for years to be able to say it. With my creative nonfiction works and the publication of the NIGHT ANGELS CHRONCILES, I feel I am finally an artist who is true to myself.

Artists create from a deep place inside. It takes courage to go to that place and to let it out. Sometimes this can be horrifying. Sometimes it can be beautiful. Sometimes it can be painful. Sometimes it can be sweet and innocent. Playful. Brutal. Violent. X-rated.

My art (and I mean my paintings and drawings and writing) is mostly fantastical worlds of escape. This is because I find the real world to be horrifying on so many levels. I don’t have answers to the world’s problems. Well, actually, the world doesn’t need answers, it is humanity that needs a makeover. I don’t think we have even come close to figuring out those answers. Or perhaps we are afraid of them…or…I just don’t know. Due to my personality, my life experiences, my spirit, I am compelled to create art that uplifts and brings a ray of light to the darkness. That said, my art can be quite dark in its reflection of my own experiences and the suffering that I see around me.

As a woman artist, once I was married and had children, I was told over and over in many different ways, all of them painful, that I should put aside my compulsion to create, for the sake of my family. That my art should no longer be important. I had a husband and children now. They should be my focus. Of course, they were my focus. But I did not understand why being a good wife and mother and being an artist wasn’t possible. I couldn’t give up creating on paper. I couldn’t give up my imagination or the stories inside of me. Not any more than I could give up breathing. This was a difficult time for me as an artist and as a woman. And it went on for many years.

At various times, I have been told by the men in my life, that they needed to guide me. That I wasn’t a real artist, I was just pretending. That I needed to stop because the amount of time I spent doing my art didn’t make sense monetarily. Once, a drawing that I had worked on at night when my family slept, was thrown in the fire the next morning because it was “worthless.” My nose was broken as a punishment when I painted a picture that did not measure up to my husband’s standard. My writing was ridiculous and why would anyone ever want to read it? I should give up. I was a bad wife and mother because my focus wasn’t completely on them. Anyway, I was far too shy and I had no ability to “sell myself.” On and on. Even when I was finally a free woman and I was seeing someone “in the business,” he told me I should leave it all to him. I didn’t have the experience or the personality to know what was best or how to present anything.

My children are grown now and I am without “entanglements.” I am traveling and writing. I embrace all my life experiences. It comes out in my work. It is coming out right now as I write this! I have remained true to my love of fantasy and now I can indulge it. Fantasy is what got me through the darkness. I love creating that darkness in my writing. And then filtering in those moments of light. I know how it feels. I lived through it. How tragic it would be if I had given up. To think that if I had listened to those voices I would never have written Key of Mystery or Book of Angels, or gone on this NIGHT ANGELS CHRONCILES journey.

We all live through darkness. We are all artists trying to express ourselves. Art is so powerful. It can uplift us. It can spiral us further down. A song or a poem can inspire kindness to a neighbor. Or it can lead to murder and suicide. It can incite riots. It can spark a revolution. It can bring reconciliation. I can’t judge any of that. I don’t understand enough about the forces and motivations behind it all, on a spiritual level.

For so much of my life I was bombarded with angry, resentful voices of society, telling me what I should do with my art. If I had listened to all those voices and let them guide me, I would have lost my balance and fallen too far into the darkness. With my spirit, with the way I see the world, how would I have faced each day?

How can I breathe if I can’t tell a story?

 

 

TRAVELING THE HARD ROAD

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, Free Silvia Sanchez, Justice for All, Letters from Purgatory, Uncategorized2 Comments

I just received a phone call.

“Governor Brown signed her release!”

My heart soared. It was Silvia’s sister, Veronica, telling me that after twenty years in prison, Silvia was going to be set free.

I met Silvia in 1996, at Central Juvenile Hall, where she was awaiting her trial for a murder committed by her older, abusive boyfriend. She was accused of being an accomplice. She was sixteen years old. Along with seven other girls, Silvia was in my creative writing group. Twice a week I taught them at a steel table in a big room called Omega Unit. The room was filled with forty girls sitting on bunk beds, or walking around, laughing and talking. Baywatch was usually blasting from the television. It was chaos.

But somehow, we blocked it all out and let loose our imaginations. That steel table was like a little boat sailing us away to beautiful shores. There was magic at that table.

Silvia had a powerful voice and her words haunted me when I returned home at night and typed up the girls’ prose and poetry. Through Silvia’s writing, exploring how she became involved in abusive relationships, I was able to face the truth of my own life. It was the beginning of a hard road.

There are many roads, either easy or hard, and myriad reasons why we travel them. Silvia and I parted ways when she was twenty. She went from being chosen prom queen at the first-ever prom at Central, to serving a twenty-five years to life sentence at Chowchilla Women’s Prison. It seemed that the years would never pass. That the road she had been propelled onto would be endless and filled only with despair. There was no reason to believe that she would ever get out.

But the spirit can be incredibly strong. It can overcome the greatest obstacles and lift us from the darkest prison into the heavens. Times change. Climates can turn from icy cold to warm and caressing.

In one single moment, hearing those words, “Governor Brown signed her release,” all the sweat and the agony, all the tears and depression, all the climbing of the mountains, all the enduring of the dangerous quicksand, the stormy darkness, the feeling of losing one’s way–it all fell by the wayside.

For myself, the doubt and the pain that I have experienced over the years, well, I now know it was worth it.

At the end of that hard road, there is another beginning.

JUST BECAUSE I’M AN “ARTIST” I MUST BE FLIGHTY AND DISORGANIZED…EXCUSE ME, WHAT?

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, adventures in travel, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Children's Books, Essays andinterviews, Key of Mystery, Letters from Purgatory, Night Angels Chronicles, raising kids as a single mother on the mean streets of LA suburbia, UncategorizedLeave a comment

402725_10151139639305360_1798525822_n[1]

Writing in a café in Kranj, Slovenia

Throughout my life the assumption has repeatedly been made that because I am an artist (include writer in that title), I must therefore be flighty, impractical, moody and disorganized.

Oh, and most likely a drug addict and/or alcoholic, have loose morals and most definitely, my bedroom must be a mess. The list goes on.

“Artists are ‘all over the place,’ aren’t they?”

All over what place? All over the world? Because I have traveled all over the world, but I did it with super organized planning and a dedication and determination to accomplish  important goals.

If you want to describe me as a high achiever, I’m fine with that. If you want to say, wow, you sure have an imagination that is bigger than most, that’s okay too. It you want to say I am a visionary, hey, I don’t mind. If you want to say I am a pain in the ass because I never give up, even when it seems like no one could care less about what I am creating, I will give you a high-five. And, if you want to point out that I spend days, months and years working on projects that do not seem to make me a whole lot of money, I will have to agree with you.

Island of Dreams

 

One of my pieces of artwork inspired by a story I wrote, The Pool of Labrith, which I have yet to see published.

BUT, don’t dare to suggest that I am disorganized. I really take offense to that. I cannot create in chaos. I have to have a clean and orderly environment in order for me to focus.

Although, I must say, even when my kids were little, I could sit down at the table and focus despite the chaos of them running around and playing and crawling under my feet. I could get up, make the lunch, come back and enter the world of my imagination once again. It wasn’t easy, mind you, but it was out of necessity. It was an acceptable chaos, of a positive nature: my children growing before me. It was not the chaos of a disorganized mind.

And no, I do not wait for inspiration to strike. If I did, I would not have nineteen children’s books published and numerous essays and short stories. I would not have won awards, co-founded a creative writing nonprofit and now, at last realized my dream of Key of Mystery, the first book in the NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES, being published.

20150129145326_Page_2

Accepting the WOMAN OF DISTINCTION AWARD from the Soroptimists

I do not have to be drunk or high. I confess to having tried marijuana a few times and it was not for me. I have never used any other drugs, no exaggeration. Never. I cannot stand being drunk, but I love a glass of wine or a gin and tonic. Yes, I was young once…. I do know how to have a good time, but I don’t need to be high for that.

1271257_10153349263525360_1062358760_o[1]

College party at St. John’s College, York, England. The artist paints herself as if she is a garden, sort of.

I am self-disciplined and I work out almost every single day. I do not indulge my feelings, I set goals and go at them with energy. And I teach boxing and kickboxing at a martial arts gym.

1045230_10153008764420360_1943823780_n[1]

Where I used to teach, I now teach at House of Champions

Of course, there are artists who have drug problems, who are messy, who are impractical. There are lazy people and driven people in every field. There are also messy plumbers who are like that, and drug-addicted doctors (unfortunately) and even impractical lawyers. You can’t automatically lump one group of people together and assume they are all a certain way.

Now, I might not be a drug addict, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have other issues. I am not good at picking the right men to marry, that is for sure. And I can get depressed about life in general. Like everyone, I have my own weaknesses that I need to overcome. Just don’t put me in a box. I most certainly will jump out.

One thing all us artists will agree on is that it is a lonely calling and requires a huge amount of self-discipline and self-motivation. You are not punching a time-clock. No one is telling you to get the job done. Creating my NIGHT ANGELS CHRONICLES series meant a few years of dogged writing, where no one but myself was encouraging me to do it. There is the danger of beginning to suffer from a myopic view of your art, leading to doubt and discouragement.

Featured Image -- 702

Such an amazing moment, to see my book in print after so much hard work for so long.

But, if you are determined and self-disciplined, you do not rely on your feelings, good or bad. You keep on going.

Never give up, never give in. Write or die. Might sound extreme, but that is my motto, because being an artist is as much a part of me as breathing.

 

SCALIA THE “MASTER OF WORDS”

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, Essays andinterviews, Justice for All, Letters from PurgatoryLeave a comment

Yes, I’ve heard a lot about what a great word master he was since his death. How about this… “Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.” Scalia.

Hmmm, I wonder how he will plead about that now?

World Home

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, Letters from PurgatoryLeave a comment

I’ve been back in Los Angeles a little less than a month and I’ve already taken off for one of my favorite homes away from home, Ojai, and my favorite simple little hotel, Ojai Rancho Inn. I am quite adept at packing up and taking off for locations near and far. This one is just 45 minutes away, and I have escaped many times to find peace and inspiration. It has helped clear my mind so I can reflect and write.

image

The simple yet comfortable rooms.

image

The very rad little bar.

And after having been away for four months, traveling from Costa Rica to Morocco, this is truly like coming home.

image

Where would my writing be without Ojai? It’s sustaining energy has contributed to Night Angels Chronicles, Into the World, Letters from Purgatory, and so much more. And now I breathe in and close my eyes and smile..and sip my cabernet and listen to Spanish music. So many things to think about.

SILVIA ON MY MIND

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, Essays andinterviews, Free Silvia Sanchez, Justice for All, Letters from Purgatory5 Comments

For those who remember, I am supporting the release of Silvia Sanchez after twenty years in prison. I do not cease to think of her every day. Here I am, twenty years later, on a hillside above Lake Arenal, Costa Rica, listening to the driving rain, thunder and lightening and reflecting on how mysterious life is and magical and filled with such pain and joy. The road to where Silvia and I am now has not been 20150607_100335easy.

I have never lived a life compromise. When I befriended Silvia Sanchez in 1996, it was a turning point in my life. My husband divorced me for wasting my time with criminals. Silvia was the biggest reason why I made that commitment. I believed in her. In a time when it wasn’t cool to believe in kids who were in juvenile hall, I stuck my neck out. And had it about chopped off so that it was hanging by a thread. Somehow, it got sewed back on again, but I was lucky it didn’t destroy me completely. One thing that kept me going was that if Silvia could survive in her horrible circumstances, I could survive in mine.

There’s so much more to this story. I made a lot of mistakes. But one thing I know, to live life to its fullest you can’t be afraid of mistakes, you can’t allow others to buy you and exploit the situation or make you feel inadequate. You can’t allow them to manipulate you. You have to experience what it is to take a stand, to swim against the tide, to believe in your vision when those in power resent you for it and try to intimidate you. When you own family turns against you. When your husband divorces you. When you lose friends.

Supporting Silvia was not a cool cause like some of the others. Supporting her was deeper and more profound because there was nothing to be gained from it, except to see her make it through each day. Supporting Silvia has never meant a reward, recognition, invites to exclusive high powered political and fundraising parties, offers of movie deals. Supporting Silvia never had the promise of furthering anyone’s career.

Supporting Silvia was important because she was a quiet, unassuming, inspiring, hard-working, ordinary, and at the same time extraordinary, woman who has paid the price and doesn’t deserve to be locked up a minute longer.

And her writing was everything that InsideOUT Writers was about. The power of writing and the ability to show young people whose voices had never been heard that they had something of value to say and that people were going to listen. Silvia went from a quiet insecure girl who didn’t believe in herself to a young woman who could pierce the heart of any issue with her writing.

I believe in Silvia. It is important that I believe in her. She taught me about myself, demanded I face my own abusive relationships. I said good-bye to her in Central Juvenile Hall twenty years ago. And now, on November 6th, she has her first parole hearing. The first parole hearing for someone who never posed a threat to society. But who came to understand full well that, in a moment, she made a choice based on fear and the control of an abusive man, that ruined her young life. Now, she can help other young women to learn from her mistakes. That is what we all should do as we grow.

The miracle is that she is still here and stronger and better and wiser and inspiring me and countless others. A few years  back I was put in a position where I believed it was in her best interest if I withdrew from her life. Now, I realize I don’t have to think like that. I can be there for her. For her and her family as much as I am able. I love Silvia for all she is and for all she has done for me.

So People! Stand with me! If someone from InsideOUT Writers wrote a letter to the parole board on behalf of Silvia, I would appreciate knowing about it. Silvia represents everything that IOW is founded upon. IOW participants should know who Silvia is and the history that made it possible for them to benefit from the sacrifice of those before them.

Anyone reading this, send the best thoughts you can, pray if it is what you do. Let’s bring Silvia home.  And when she is out, because I believe she will be, let’s celebrate the young women who were in that first InsideOUT Writers class, the very first class ever held. Watching Silvia rise above the labels that were put on her inspired me to do the same. I expect to celebrate her freedoms. I expect to see her do wonderful things.

November 6th. The truth shall set you free.

Saying Good-Bye

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, Essays andinterviews, Free Silvia Sanchez, Justice for All, Letters from Purgatory2 Comments

“Without a vision, the people will perish.” Proverbs 29:18

297

Dear Karen,

Hello, it’s me, Silvia. I decided to write you this letter to say good-bye. Yes, my time has come. I hardly cry. I haven’t cried for a long time, but today I shed some tears as my friends brought memories of my trial and the last day I got convicted. That was the worst day of my incarceration. I cried like a baby all night long.

I remember my friend Ochoa bringing me a cup of water. I showered right after I came from court and me and Ochoa stood inside the bathroom crying. She was telling me she wanted to do some of my time. Then we had to come out of the bathroom because they had cake and ice cream. It was my 18th birthday but I was too sad to celebrate.

The road is long. It might take me years. I might struggle, fall a couple of times, but I’ll pick myself up. I know I must move on with my life and go to prison. At least then I will know my release date and feel that one day I’ll be home. I’m sad because I’m leaving everybody behind. This has been my home for four years. I grew up here.

Well, Karen, I’m going to let you go for now. Take care and thanks for everything.

                                                                                       Love Always,

                                                                                       Silvia Sanchez

Not long after her twentieth birthday, Silvia gave the commencement speech at the Central Juvenile Hall graduation, speaking with eloquence and conviction. When she first entered juvenile hall at sixteen, if anyone would have told her she would do such a thing she would have dismissed them with disdain. Now, I looked at her across the crowd outside the chapel, a tiny twenty year old woman in a cap and gown, talking and smiling with a group of people, and I was so proud and happy for all she had achieved.

I went over and gave her a hug and then she told me the words I had been dreading. “Karen, I’m leaving for prison on Tuesday. I got my clearance, the judge signed my order.”

My first reaction was to say, no, I can fix it, make the judge revoke the order. You haven’t finished your tattoo removal. But I knew that wasn’t what Silvia wanted.

“So I should stop fighting? No more battles?” I said.

She nodded. “I’m ready to go. I mean, it’s not what I want for my life, but I’ve been here long enough.”

Stubbornly, I held on. “But, Silvia, look at your face, your hand. You’ll be in for a long time. I know you’re getting impatient but it’s not going to be better there. And you haven’t finished what you started.”

“Yeah, but they don’t want me here anymore. They want me out. And I’m ready.”

I could see she had closed off the possibility of staying. She wanted to get on with her sentence. She had anticipated it long enough. Sometimes the anticipation of an evil can become worse than the evil itself.

Still, it was maddening. Over a year of treatments and those stubborn tattoos on her face didn’t seem to look much different than they had in the beginning. “It’s because they’re homemade,” the girls had explained to me. “The ink is so concentrated.”

The tattoos on Silvia’s arms had virtually disappeared but the 213 on her fingers was a ghost of its former self, visible still. And then, of course, the sight I could never bear, but that was always there, peeking out from under the orange top, Silvia loves Gerardo, as black as ever, untouched by the laser.

“Won’t it be dangerous to go to prison with that 213 faded so that everyone will know you were trying to get it off?”

She shook her head. “No, it isn’t like that. I’ll be okay.”

So, that morning, under the trees outside the chapel, sipping on bright red fruit punch, Silvia and I said good-bye, with her resigned to her fate and me afraid of letting go. She had been the light in my life, who, without even knowing it, had exposed the dark corners of my heart and made me face the hardest truths about myself.

There were no tears that morning, just a quiet overwhelming sadness. Perhaps, still being young, Silvia thought the story had ended. But that would not be the case. There was never an end. Casey had taught me that.

I wish I could say that she lived happily ever after. I wish I could give the appearance that all the loose ends were tied and the future rosy and filled with promise. I wish I could say I slew the dragon and Silvia won her case, was released and lived a full productive life. I wish I could say she met a good man and got married and rode into the sunset.

I wish I could say all those things. But those are chapters yet to be filled. And the odds are against it. Even if Silvia had found her knight and rode off into the sunset, the cold light of day would have followed, just as it had when she sat on the beach, coming down from her high and crying into the rising sun. Pain and pleasure, love and hate, good and bad, we can’t seem to have one without the other. There are always battles to be fought and winning doesn’t necessarily mean killing the enemy.

For now, Silvia languishes in prison. Her appeals have been denied. One day stretches into the next, just as it has done for years already. A life was taken and whether or not justice was served, the fact remains that Silvia did play a small part and so she must pay. Out of this tragedy, Silvia has transformed herself into a person who, if she had remained on the streets, she might never have become. That is the great dichotomy, the twist of fate. Her tattoos were never completely erased. But she tried through the painful process to cleanse her soul. She graduated from high school with top honors and was chosen as valedictorian. Whereas, before she had been silent and submissive, never able to stand up to a man, she now stood before a crowded room, filled with young people who looked up to her, and spoke with courage and conviction.

I pray her words will not be forgotten.

We all hunger for a vision to carry us through, destined as we are to live by faith, not by sight, and to struggle with mysteries beyond our understanding. This means we all share the same, frightening blindness that can cause us to lash out at one another and stumble and fall. Some of us manage to rise above the melee in the most awe-inspiring and courageous ways. Silvia is one such person. Just because she has been locked away and deemed unworthy to live among the rest of us, does not make it right. And just because it is easy to forget her does not mean that we should.

If we do not listen to Silvia and others like her and take their words to heart, then we, as the human race, lose our collective vision.

If only we were willing to admit that we don’t “know” anything, imprisoned as we are within the confines of our own bodies. How much more likely would we then be to show humility and compassion, to reach out and help others when they stumble and fall instead of taking delight in grinding them further into the dirt? How would it be if we opened our minds and learned from unlikely sources; embraced our differences, looked into the eyes and held the hands of those we feared the most?

This “Game of Life,” as the girls in my writing class called it, is not about winning or losing or grasping for a reward in order to prove we are more worthy than someone else. It is about finding our vision and allowing it to lead us forward by faith, from darkness into light, one step at a time.

Memories of Silvia Sanchez

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Dangerous Woman, A Little Bit of This and That, Essays andinterviews, Justice for All, Letters from PurgatoryLeave a comment

20150607_100335   20150607_100118

Here are two photos that I found from the past: Silvia and her date at the prom with me in the background, and Silvia being crowned as Prom Queen at the first-ever prom held at Central Juvenile Hall, June 24, 1999.

Follow-up to my essay WHY I CHOOSE TO REMEMBER MY 50TH BLOOD-BATH OF A BIRTHDAY INSTEAD OF TRYING TO FORGET IT.

https://karenalainehunt.wordpress.com/2015/05/28/why-i-choose-to-remember-my-50th-blood-bath-of-a-birthday-instead-of-trying-to-forget-it/

A CHALLENGING LIFE? THAT MEANS YOU ARE REALLY LIVING!

On By Karen Alaine HuntIn A Little Bit of This and That, Adventures in Travel and Writing, Essays andinterviews, Fight Club, Letters from PurgatoryLeave a comment

So… life is challenging. I am caring for my granddaughter who is now almost 3, and have been for the past year, and off and on before that. Travel is on the horizon in the fall and to some pretty exciting places032. 036My manuscript Letters from Purgatory is with my editor and I am working on illustrations for a children’s book and a childhood memoir, Into the World. Everyday day we make choices about which direction we will go and every step we take reinforces whether we go towards our higher purpose or away from it. Self-discipline is the key. It doesn’t matter how we “feel” about it. Emotions will lead us astray. Whether we feel depressed or happy, excited or bored, it doesn’t matter. We train ourselves to follow through with what we know we need to do in order to reach our goals. I have lived my life with the h…ighest standard of achievement. That doesn’t mean I always reach that goal and that isn’t what matters. What matters is that we do our best. At the moment, my life is extremely challenging (when has it not been). Getting out of the house to train in the morning is a big achievement because I care for my 2 year old granddaughter. Training with Fernando (Zig Zag) keeps me strong. I love this little guy lol! Then, today I taught a Spin class at noon which was cool. Then, I came home and cared for my granddaughter and I worked on my writing, which required great focus because of my granddaughter wanting my attention. This little girl already knows how to do push ups and yoga moves and punching and kicking and so much more. Soccer will be her summer fun! I draw on the self-discipline I have developed over many years, from when I first gave birth to my daughter in London (in the same hospital and on the same weekend as Prince William was born!) and I had to illustrate books with her there, playing beside me while I met my deadlines. There are no excuses for slacking off and not achieving what you want to accomplish. You simply do what you have to do. Then, tonight, I went and taught my class at Tarzana Boxing at 5:30. Teaching this class always gives me back my energy and my inspiration. Thank you to all of my students who come to train. I appreciate every one of you and love teaching this class! You make my day! On Wednesday nights I also go to train with Joseph Ojomoh from 7:30 to 9 pm. I do this because his class on Wednesday nights is a killer and it pushes me hard. Now, at 11:30 pm, it is time to work a little more, get a little further, make another dream come true. I am thankful I had parents who set a high standard for me and I respected them, although I didn’t always agree with their point of view. I have done my best to set a high standard for my children. We all decide in the end what we will do with the opportunities that have been given to us. I hope that at the end of my days, what will be remembered of me will be the difference that I made in the lives of the people around me. Hey Thor Skancke, shout out to you too. You have helped me with my training in so many positive ways and I have enjoyed seeing how you have grown over the years.