Author Archives: Peter Sanford Kahrmann

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About Peter Sanford Kahrmann

Writer, disability rights advocate, civil rights advocate.

A Place For Mom? (What about Dad?!)

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Every once in a while a commercial makes me want to yell and break things. Growl. Emit mighty harrumphs into the air.

I do throw a fit when I see A Place for Mom commercials with Joan Lunden (a fine person by any measure).

(What about Dad?! Who finds a place for Dad?!)

With its U.S. Headquarters in Seattle, Washington, A Place for Mom is essentially “400 Senior Living Advisors across the U.S. and Canada” who help you “transition [someone] into senior living,” according to the company’s website.

It may be the best darn company of its kind on planet earth, for all I know.

(I cannot comment on whether the company has expanded to extraterrestrial locations.)

The thing is, I don’t like the company name. Not at all.

Choosing to transition into senior living doesn’t transform an individual into a puddle of helpless flesh and bones. The last thing anyone needs to encounter at a time like that in life is condescension, intentional or not.

And, there’s something else. Best as I can tell, there’s no actual senior living community operated by A Place for Mom. And that’s not fair to Mom. (Or Dad!)

Writing no matter what

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I wish, no matter what, I could write for hours, no matter what, every day, no matter what. I know this to be near impossible for me.

For more years than I will think about I’ve hoped for that moment when I could get myself to sit down and write for hours at a time, every single day. I’ve read about writers who can tuck themselves away in their writing space, and pen away or tap keys for hours on a daily basis.  I keep wondering, what am I doing wrong? Or, am I a fraud as a writer? A fake of some kind? Something like that.

As true as it is that I’m not able to write for hours at a time with any kind of consistency, it’s equally true that I’d likely be a dead man if I did not write at all. It is near fact to say, I wouldn’t know how to function. It’s also stone-cold fact to say that in my darkest moments, writing and books have prevented my suicide.

I often write because I want to, I always write because I have too.

Where do I take a listen?

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For the love of God,  will someone please tell our country’s overabundance of news folk and talking heads to stop saying Take a listen when they introduce an interview clip, or anything for that matter? 

Take a listen?

Where?

 Where do you plan on taking it, and how does one take a listen? 

(Can I pick any listen I want?)

If the person takes a listen, are they obliged to bring it back?

*********

For my mother, VBK.

The pain is not less

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My tear ducts have been to the gym. 

Let me explain. I am 65 and in the process of taking things out of storage. I’m going through boxes and large (sometimes clear, sometimes not) garbage bags. The bags are filled with soft items that mostly turn out to be curtains, fleece blankets, stuffed animals, clothes. Old t-shirts of mine that when held out full, look shockingly small. 

I’m clearly not half the man I used to be.

And then I emptied the contents of a pale cotton bag, maybe a pillow case and a half in size. Out fell a dozen or so neatly folded washcloths,  colors faded, pinks, yellows. Two hand towels. 

I couldn’t place them. 

And then, the coin dropped. They were my mother’s. She committed suicide August 12, 1992. Today is January 17, 2019. No, the pain is not less.

My tear ducts have been to the gym.

Time with being

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Is it all right

if I just am

for a moment?

(A humble request

by any measure.)

What is my life

if my time being

is left unspent?