Why 'The Shrieking Cactus?'

Great question. So much has happened since my "El Blog de Joy" days.

Hi there, readers. Some of you are long-time readers I’ve had since I first started blogging back in 2007. Some of you are new. Either way, welcome.

Once upon a time, I wrote about a lot of funny stuff, especially all the weird experiences I amassed in Mexico City, like the surprisingly arduous effort of finding a replacement toilet seat, and being horrified at the lack of political correctness during news coverage of the Olympics.

But behind the scenes, one of the biggest challenges of my life was brewing. A dear family member of mine became severely mentally ill and repeatedly attempted suicide. She survived, but still struggles off and on to this day.

Back then, and for many years later, I wasn’t ready to tackle the trauma I endured. This was made more difficult from my own complicated childbirth experience, which I shared in a feature story for Cosmopolitan Magazine about the maternal mortality crisis in the US.

Rather than invest in myself via actively seeking out self-healing, I spent a lot of time angry and tired—and pretending I wasn’t either.

That ended during the pandemic, when my coping mechanisms were no longer working. I got myself into (extended!) therapy and started writing. It wasn’t easy. Silent and not-so-silent external shrieking was involved. So was nature. Lots of nature. Spiny and otherwise.

Two years later, I have completed a draft of my memoir, How to Heal Your Cactus. It’s been named a finalist in the Writers’ League of Texas manuscript contest two years in a row. I’m still revising it, but plan to query agents soon. It’s not a fast process, just like healing.

My memoir contains many nuggets of learning, especially on the topics of self-compassion and emotional maturity. But also, the inherited legacy of intergenerational trauma, how the violence endured on a frozen World World II battlefield still reverberates today.

Those nuggets are what I hope to bring to you here, along with my reclaimed sense of humor. Thank you for joining my in this journey.