My sister Barb once gave me a T-shirt designed to help me remember my roots, my hometown and the pride in which those of us from the Second City have in our town. The message was the same as that pictured below, though the design was different.

Chicago T-Shirt

You’re not likely to get far in the Windy City without being able to defend yourself, but 31 years away, or maybe the Cascadia rainrainrain has softened the shoulder-chip we from there might have developed out of a sheer survival instinct. So how to maintain good boundaries, let the fight or flight syndrome ease a bit and develop a genuine Buddhist lovingkindness? I know what you’re going to say: “stop driving!” HA! Well if we make rhetoric out of our arguments with others and poetry out of those arguments (or discussions) with our deeper selves, then maybe there’s some poetry in the latest poems from my series After The Japanese.