Category: Inspiration

Inspiration

How to Fight Domestic Violence

Mona Alvarado Frazier
If I can stop one heart... by Emily Dickinson
If I Can Stop One Heart by Emily Dickinson

Life between the sheets (of paper) is not always rosy. And I know people like to read about the ‘rosy,’ because there’s so much evil and trauma in the world that it can be overwhelming. I understand.

The issue of violence, domestic violence, is one of those non-rosy topics but it’s important to talk about.

Even after many years, my own experience is hard to discuss. Victims/Survivors feel judged if they talk about the topic, sometimes by others and other times by themselves.

Suffice it to say that domestic violence can be deadly at worse and traumatic at best.

I’ve heard it said that writers work out their own issues in story. There’s a lot of truth in that. In one of my novels (unpublished) the main character experiences violence. The opening lines:

I didn’t run because I killed him. I ran because I didn’t. He was alive when I left, but that wasn’t important to the judge who sentenced me to San Bueno Correctional Facility. He was sure of two things: Alek was dead and I was the one who did it.

These are the black and white statistics:

Nearly one in four women, one in seven men and more than 3 million children in the United States are affected by domestic violence.

You can help change those numbers.

Assistance is a used cell phone away.

HopeLine phones are refurbished phones equipped with 3,000 anytime minutes of airtime and texting capabilities. They come with Verizon Wireless Nationwide Coverage, Call Forwarding, Call Waiting, 3-Way Calling, Caller ID, Basic Voice Mail and texting.

They are available to survivors affiliated with participating domestic violence agencies. This program has collected over 10 million phones, while donating over $18 million dollars to domestic violence organizations.

A great explanation of the program can be found here. 

Through HopeLine, the public can help prevent domestic violence by donating no-longer-used wireless phones and accessories in any condition from any service provider at any Verizon Wireless Store, by mail or at special events held throughout the year.

How to Donate

If you donate your phone, erase any personal data from the address book, deleting call logs, erasing messages, removing stored photos and other media. As part of the refurbishing process, phones donated to HopeLine are scrubbed prior to distributing them for reuse to ensure all customer data is removed.

Three ways to help HopeLine:

In Person: Drop phones at any Verizon Wireless communications Store. Visit the online store locator.

By Mail: Print a postage-paid label , adhere it to the box/envelope and mail.

Organize a Phone Drive Suggestions and Tips

Now go find those old phones stashed in the junk drawer and help someone fight back.

 

Books, Inspiration

A Time to Dance- Book Review

Mona Alvarado Frazier

 

Classical Dancer in the style Bharatanatyam- gettyimages.com by elkor
Classical Dancer in the style Bharatanatyam- gettyimages.com by elkor

 

Can you believe it? We’re in the middle of summer already. Days shoot by like the unseasonably hot temperatures recently experienced in Southern California.

A lack of air conditioning and a very warm house makes for evening reading on my porch swing while I occasionally swat at mosquitos or my dog, Chip, who tries to jump up to join me. His 35 pounds of muscle sway the swing enough to give me vertigo. When that happens, I take my book inside and read from 10 p.m to midnight, when it’s cooler.

This is my summer reading list and I’m two books into the pile with one, “The Ice Cream Queen,” a third of the way read.

Research for a current work in progress had me digress into three other books, so my ambitious 10 books to read in 12 weeks of summer has suffered a bit.

But on to the first book: 

A Time To Dance by Padma Venkatram. YA/Adult Fiction

This is the author’s third book. Her critically acclaimed novels Climbing the Stairs and Island’s End were both ALA/YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, NYPL Book for the Teen Age, Kirkus Best Book of the Year, among several other awards.

My skin tingles as I step into the music,

give in to the icy thrill of pleasure

that spreads through me whenever I dance,

the pleasure of leaping into a cool lake on a 

sweltering day.

Veda is a teenager passionate about Bharatanatyam, an ancient classical Indian dance. She wins competitions, lives dance and sees a bright future following this passion although her parents want her to chose another occupation, which causes her some conflict and mimics the conflict that her romantic interest faces.

After an accident, Veda’s leg is amputated below the knee. Adjusting to a prosthetic is not only painful and humbling, but emotionally crushing. When she struggles to dance again, she faces ridicule from schoolmates, stumbles, and physical pain. An opportunity, as an instructor of dance for young children, illustrates the development of Veda’s resilience, character, and her adaptation to a new reality.

The main character’s are likable, realistic in reactions, portray traditional parents and a gentle, inspiring grandmother. What I especially enjoyed were the inclusion of traditional dress, foods, and the prayer rituals.

Each chapter is constructed as a poem, some one page others three or four pages. The writing is poetic, filled with imagery and as rhythmic as the classic dance which Veda studies. If this novel had been written in narrative, it would have been much shorter than 300 pages. It is a quick read and worth the time.

This book is under $10 on Kindle.

Recommendation: Add it to your library.