#autobiography — Public Fediverse posts

Woman With A Bundle

A few months after my guides told me to write how I got here—I didn’t know they were guides then, I just thought it was voices in my head—plus I wasn’t sure what they meant by ‘here’—my mother died in Illinois. It was sudden, unexpected, and I was six thousand miles away in the British countryside where there had just been a hurricane, also unexpected—the worst they said in five hundred years. Trees were down, there was no way I could get to the airport, so I took my watercolors and sat outside. The air was fresh and clear after the storm, and I painted a picture that’s taken me almost forty years to fully grasp. It sounds weird, experiencing a level of mind in a picture before I knew what it meant. But there it is.

It was a melancholy picture in pinks, purples and blues of a woman striding forth, holding something close to her side. The air was like a restless sea. The wind blew her skirt as if it too was part of the sea. Her expression was sad but determined. She paid no notice to the three figures surrounding her. Her feet were firmly planted on the ground while the two figures on her right beseeched the heavens and the one on her left looked away. Here was a woman who would brave anything to protect what she carried.

This was back in October 1987. When the roads were cleared I flew to Illinois, and on the way the pilot announced the stock market had crashed. I took no notice. I was going back to bury my mother. The stock market was nothing to me.

The years passed and I became a mother with a child of my own. When he grew up and left home I took out the baby blanket I’d crotched in squares of blue and cream-colored wool when I was pregnant, and began sleeping with it folded up by my side. I didn’t make a thing of it, but it was comforting somehow, having something soft by my side, and after a while I exchanged it for a summer blanket in baby blue I happened to have, again folded in a neat bundle.

Then for some reason just the other day, I thought of the picture I’d painted all those years ago when I got the news my mother died. It wasn’t surprising really, as I’d been endlessly writing about the past, trying to make some kind of sense of it. And along the way, quite recently in fact, I realized I’d had a soul agreement with my mother. Something that we’d agreed upon before I got here, and everything that happened between us had been preordained on a soul level. And when I took out the watercolor to look at it again, this time I saw what she was carrying close to her side was the egg she’d reserved for me.

It made sense, now I thought of it, since ten years before she died she’d dropped the bomb on me that she’d conceived me in revenge for World War II. A wave of heat had rushed through me like an electrical charge and I knew she was telling the truth, and that it was my truth too, and I’d been in on it all along.   

Before I left for England that October of ’87, I’d had a premonition something might happen to her while I was away, and I did something I’d never done before—I called a psychic that had been recommended by a friend to tell her my concern and ask her advice. The psychic told me not to worry, that my mother would be fine. I still called my mother the night before I left, and again at the airport to tell her goodbye. Then the night before she had the stroke in Illinois, I dreamed one of my pair of goldfish had died and I was called onto the stage. But to fully understand the extent of our soul agreement, I’ve had to go behind the curtain so to speak. Behind the actions and the words that had played out in real time, and see what was hidden in my soul. I’d have to spend an untold number of nights sleeping with a bundle by my side before I could relate to a woman protecting the egg she carried. It’s taken me thirty-nine years to catch up with what I knew amidst the grief and loss after the storm. But there it is.  

Still reeling from Dolly Parton, we're mourning another great loss: Tim Curry who gave his face & voice to so many great roles
If you want to honour his life by learning more about his achievements, check out his #memoir "Vagabond" here: https://opac.sub.uni-goettingen.de/DB=1/XMLPRS=N/PPN?PPN=1939735882

#autobiography #memoirs #TimCurry

If you want to know where I'm coming from musically—this is the article to read. #music #autobiography

https://lbyrne.me/music/my-long-history-with-music

Listened to Geddy Lee's autobiagraphy, "My Effin' Life" this weekend

It was great to hear it in his ( and sometime Alex' ) voice

Everybody should listen to Chapter 3 about what the Nazis did to his family and the families of many others

As Geddy's mom used to always say, "It could happen again"

Both of Ged's parents were holocaust survivors

https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9780063159433-my-effin-life

1/x

#GeddyLee #Rush #RushIsABand #MyEffinLife #autobiography #AlexLifeson #NeilPeart #RushFans

Debut memoir deals with dating-app fatigue, fertility anxiety and egg-freezing
By Ying-Di Yin

Sheree Joseph always wanted to write the Great Australian Novel. Instead, her first book is a memoir about what happens when life doesn't live up to expectations.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-08-11/sheree-joseph-memoir-juicy-interview/107002892

#Books #Author #ArtsCultureandEntertainment #Autobiography #NonFiction #YingDiYin

#writingprompt ~ #ActuallyTheyDidMeAFavour

#fiction #nonfiction #autobiography. Short or long. Whatever you like.

#writing

📖 Looking at Women Looking at War by Victoria Amelina (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) #biography #autobiography #nonfiction

When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Victoria Amelina was busy writing a novel, taking part in the country's literary scene, and parenting her son. Now she became someone new: a war crimes researcher and the chronicler of extraordinary women like herself who joined the resistance. These...

https://www.coryd.dev/reading/books/9780008727536/looking-at-women-looking-at-war

Rewriting My Books

I’m rewriting my books-in-progress because they’re mainly a learning process. That has been working because I learned that some things I got wrong and I learned to improve my writing style. The three books are interconnected.

1. Making a Better World: Understanding and Fixing our Broken Social Systems
2. An autobiography
3. Philosophical noteworks

All on ericlawton.org

#systemsThinking #Autobiography #Philosophy

https://ericlawton.org/2026/07/29/rewriting-my-books/

Robert Graves -- Good-Bye To All That

This 1929 autobiographical work is indispensable for an understanding of how many British dealt with the memory of the Great War in the years that followed.

The accounts of the chaos and confusion of military operations were vividly narrated, but did not come as a great surprise to me. I was more taken aback by the stories of allied mistreatment of German prisoners, with Graves picking out Canadian and Australian soldiers as especially notable for this behaviour.

"Good-Bye To All That" is rich with memorable anecdote and imagery, such as tommies using machine gun cooling water to make tea, and incidents of the wartime absurd, like the story of Graves mistakenly being reported as dead, then receiving a communication from his commanding officer: “I cannot tell you how pleased I am you are alive.”

Nevertheless the horror of the war is never forgotten: “The first dead body I came upon was Samson’s. I found that he had forced his knuckles into his mouth to stop himself crying out and attracting any more men to their death. He had been hit in 17 places.”

#Books #RobertGraves #GoodByeToAllThat #Autobiography #BritishLiterature #LiteratureInEnglish #FirstWorldWar #WW1 #History

‘Part Fable, Part Porridge’: Jackie Kay & Dame Hermione Lee on Writing the Self

For many theorists of autobiography, the form assumes a self that can be known & a life that can be accounted for. But how do you write an autobiography when your origin & identity are unknown, uncertain, or multiple?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBRPfyW2Vjk

#Scottish #literature #writing #autobiography #lifewriting #identity #ScottishIdentity #adoption

Finished this last evening. There are parts I enjoyed, but not much, per se, as it’s more ‘informative’ than ‘fun.’

The #CIA assessed the content as mildly self-inflated, as well as some passages being wrong. Don’t read this for the final word on anything.

Mostly it’s a man obsessed with finding a mole in #MI5 who he cannot prove to be one particular person.

The good parts are near the front, with explanations of radio waves used for microphones.

★★★☆☆

#reviews #BooksTodon #Autobiography

📖 Down with the System by Serj Tankian (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) #biography #autobiography #music #nonfiction #biographyautobiography

An exhilarating, thoughtful, and beautifully written debut memoir by musician, songwriter, and lead singer-lyricist of Grammy award-winning metal band, System of a Down , Serj Tankian Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System of a Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever...

https://www.coryd.dev/reading/books/9780306831928/down-with-the-system

Quote of the day, 13 July: St. Teresa of the Andes

I was born in 1900 on the 13th day of July. My mother is Lucía Solar de Fernández, and my father is Michael Fernández Jaraquemada.

We lived with my grandfather, who was already quite old (Juanita was born and lived 7 years in the house of her maternal Grandfather at 1352 Rosas Street in Santiago, Chile. The house has since been demolished).

You can say that he was a saint, since one could see him praying his rosary all day long. His name was Eulogio Solar.

Jesus did not desire me to be born poor like Himself; I was born in the midst of riches, spoiled by all.

I was the fourth child in the family. The first was named Lucía, who was 7 years old; Miguel, the second, was 6 years old and Luís, the third, was 3.

My aunt Juanita Solar lived in my grandfather’s house with her four children. My uncle, Luís Albert Domínguez, had already died. The eldest of my cousins was 13 years old, and the youngest was 5.

My aunt Teresa Vicuña also lived there with her two children. One of her boys died in childhood. Her older child was called Thomas Bernardo (the name of my uncle). And Teresita, her second, was 8 years old.

My uncle Francis (Francisco Solar Armstrong), who was a bachelor, also lived there. He was 23 years old.

A short time later, Rebecca was born, and there was a difference of 1 year and 8 months between us (In 1910, her last brother, Ignacio, came into the world; he died at Santiago, November 2, 1976).

Though quite spoiled, I was very timid. Rebecca was the opposite. We were both very spoiled. We could do whatever we pleased with my Granddaddy, and we used to trick him with our kisses and caresses.

From the time I was small, they used to say that I was the prettiest of my brothers and sisters, but I paid no attention to this. But they kept repeating these same words to me as I grew older, unbeknownst to my mother, since she didn’t like this.

God alone knows what it cost me to overcome this pride or vanity that took possession of my heart as I grew older. My character was timid, my heart sensitive. I used to cry for any reason, but my disposition was extremely gentle; I never used to get mad at anyone.

Saint Teresa of the Andes

Her intimate spiritual diary, 2

Griffin, M D & Teresa of the Andes, S 2021, God, The Joy of My Life: A Biography of Saint Teresa of the Andes With the Saint’s Spiritual Diary, ICS Publications, Washington DC.

Featured image: Saint Teresa of the Andes, not long before she entered the Carmel of Los Andes. Original photograph: Discalced Carmelites (used by permission). Artistic treatment by Carmelite Quotes using Paintt.

The Book That Deserves a Sequel
What’s a book you think deserves a sequel? If I had to pick one book that deserves a sequel, it’d be my autobiography. Minor problem. I haven’t written the first one yet. The first book would mostly be me trying to survive while the universe keeps throwing random garbage at me like it’s running
#autobiography #Blog #book #dailyprompt #Dailyprompt2817 #sequel

Read The Whole Post By Clicking The Link Below:
https://ericfoltin.com/2026/07/09/the-book-that-deserves-a-sequel/

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!

"Global icon Liza Minnelli shares her inspiring story "

Sale: $36 to $4.99

by Liza Minnelli
Rating: 4.5/5 (1,431 Reviews)

#memoir #biography #actors #actresses #hollywood #entertainment #books #booksky #addiction #autobiography

Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!

Cliff Potts: Time in the Frequency of a Nation

By Cliff Potts, CSO, and Editor-in-Chief of WPS News

Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — July 4, 2026 —

Introduction

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a small group of men signed a document declaring independence from empire. Today, from Baybay City in the Philippines, I write as one American citizen who has lived through a slice of what that declaration became.

This is not the story of a public figure. It is the story of a participant. A boy shaped by California lift, a teenager formed in Chicago bleachers, a man who watched systems rise, harden, and strain.

History is not only written in marble halls. It is carried in memory.

California Lift

I was born into early-1960s California. You did not need to hear the word “Gemini” to feel the rockets. Aerospace optimism was atmospheric. Highways grew. Suburbs spread. The future felt engineered.

Songs on AM radio carried that lift. “Up, Up and Away” floated everywhere in 1967, just as we returned from Peru. It was sunlight set to melody. It was motion upward, literal and cultural.

“California Dreamin’” had already framed longing and geography in song. Even before the counterculture defined itself, there was a sense that the West Coast was a place where something was beginning.

In 1966, we left. In 1967, we landed in Chicago. The contrast was immediate. California was horizon and expansion. Chicago was density, machine politics, industry, and winter. The country revealed its internal weather systems.

Prosser and the Rowdies

I attended Prosser Vocational High School on Chicago’s Northwest Side. When I arrived, it was an all-boys school. No cheer squad. Barely a football team. So we built our own energy in the bleachers. We became the Prosser Rowdies.

It was not rebellion for its own sake. It was tribe.

Across the street sat Nicky’s. During study hall, I sometimes signed myself in as office help and crossed over for donuts and coffee. The jukebox became a timestamp.

“Rock On.”
“Life Is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me).”
“Play That Funky Music.”
And above all, “Long Tall Glasses (I Can Dance).”

That Leo Sayer track seemed to play every time I walked in during 1974. To this day, when it comes on, I bounce in my chair. I could never dance well. I could fake a twist. I once nearly injured someone attempting the bump. But that bass line still moves me.

High school was not defined by grades. It was defined by structure and belonging. I understood what I was supposed to do, even when I did not execute perfectly. College later became the place where I proved to myself that I could perform within academic systems.

I loved school because it made sense.

The Soundtrack of Becoming

The late 1960s and 1970s unfolded in music.

“Kicks” warned.
“White Rabbit” experimented.
“Aquarius” announced an age.
“American Pie” autopsied a decade.

“Color My World” meant prom lights and awkward slow dances. “Ballroom Blitz” meant raw energy without ideology. “Barracuda” meant defiance.

And for my tribe in the 1970s, “Dust in the Wind” became a quiet anthem. Even as we gathered to study the Book of Revelation, even as we spoke of prophecy and permanence, we felt the fragility. All we are is dust in the wind. It was not nihilism. It was recognition.

Time moved.

“Fly Like an Eagle” named it. Time keeps on slipping into the future.
“In the Air Tonight” captured the tension that followed. Something unresolved. Something suspended.

Music was not my obsession. It was my barometer. It marked the shifts in atmosphere.

Faith, Work, and Institutions

I moved through religious movements, countercultural remnants, and corporate structures. I saw idealism institutionalize. I saw institutions calcify. I saw protest give way to management. I saw corporate systems consume youth and energy.

The lesson was not despair. It was clarity.

Systems require vigilance. Culture requires renewal. No generation escapes responsibility for maintenance.

From Chicago to other states and eventually to the Philippines, I carried that awareness. Distance sharpens contrast. Watching the United States from Southeast Asia is different than watching it from within.

America at 250

In 1976, the bicentennial arrived. My family largely ignored the fireworks. Today, in 2026, the 250th anniversary arrives under strain.

The United States is older now. Heavier. Divided. Questioning itself again.

The language of liberty remains. The practice of it is contested.

From here, it feels like something is still in the air tonight — unresolved, suspended, waiting for a release that has not yet come.

I do not write this as condemnation or nostalgia. I write it as record.

I was there for California lift.
I was there for Chicago grit.
I was there for bleacher chants and jukebox quarters.
I was there for faith and doubt.
I was there for time slipping.

At 250 years old, the United States is still asking fundamental questions about power, responsibility, and freedom. I am one ordinary citizen who lived through a fraction of its arc.

I did not shape history in dramatic ways. I participated in it quietly. I studied. I worked. I believed. I questioned. I observed.

That is enough to archive.

For more social commentary, please see Occupy 2.5 at https://Occupy25.com

This essay will be archived as part of the ongoing WPS News Monthly Brief Series available through Amazon.

#Suspect on trial for killing of Tupac Shakuur to have #autobiography in which he claimed involvement in case to be used against him in trial

https://apnews.com/article/tupac-shakur-murder-las-vegas-dae886dcf21467d334d308eaff40f0b7 #Tupac #LasVegas #GangstaRap #Legal #CriminalLaw #Books

Lisa Jackson and The National #Film Board - #NFB of #Canada have created a #documentary that redefines #Indigenous #knowledge and #teachings using the life and times of #Elder, #cosmology and #astronomy expert, Wilfred Buck.

“We are in the process of remaking an age-old song . . . signing, dreaming, praying, talking into existence once again the knowledge of our people,” said Wilfred Buck.

Moving between the earth and stars, past and present, this hybrid feature documentary follows the extraordinary life of Wilfred Buck, a charismatic and impertinent #Cree Elder who overcame a harrowing – yet all too familiar — history of displacement, racism and addiction by reclaiming ancestral star knowledge and ceremony.

Buck is humble, profound, funny, always real and a master #storyteller. Narration taken from his #autobiography, I Have Lived Four Lives, condenses the loss and desperate pain of his youth into powerful, Beat-like poetry.

https://rabble.ca/indigenous/wilfred-buck-and-the-revival-of-indigenous-knowledge/

#NativeCanada #IndigenousCanada #NativeMastodon #IndigenousWisdom #NativeKnowledge #DocFilm #educational #Decolonization