Radha Krueger
June 8, 2016

When I was 6, we briefly lived behind the Pike House, roughly Midtown. My family ate dinner on the floor with a coffee table between us like we were normal. No air conditioning back then. Just the soggy heat that would get still and choke you if you didn’t move around. While we kids cleaned up dinner and washed dishes, my parents would go for a walk in the evening’s long, yellow sunlight. I would squash my face against the dusty, worn screen door and watch them go until I couldn’t see their shadows anymore. I knew they were coming back. Eventually. But just then I felt the most alone I’ve ever felt. Every evening I watched them go and held my panic in my chest so, so tight. Suffocating on it and the crushing heat of the end of the day.

There’s really no point here except that this was a powerful, brief time in my life. I learned the vast difference between feeling and knowing. And how little it mattered. And I learned how to hold onto my fear. Because the feeling and the knowing still don’t grant you power over how the world unfolds around you. Sometimes you just hold still and watch for the next thing to happen.

Daniella P.: Is this the beginning of your novel? If so, I wanna read it.

Nicole C.M.: In the foster care world, one of the distinctions that the caregivers have to understand is that a child has to “feel” safe. It is very different from “knowing” they’re safe. Your words so eloquently describe this feeling. ((Hugs))

Gopala R.: i always love your thoughts, especially when written.

Donna Nikki K.: And my thought while reading this was how oblivious parents can be to their own child’s fears. Also that when a child is fearful of something that all of our logic will make not a dent in their fear. Looking back now I see parenting as terrifying because it is so easy to traumatized a child without even knowing it. ♡

Donna Nikki K.: Then again I remember that Radha was born afraid (can you believe that?) She was, as a baby, even afraid of her own dad and would burst out crying if a stranger looked at her in a grocery store. Somehow she turned out to be a courageous woman.

Radha Krueger
June 8, 2016

Overheard, “I gave that muthafuckah blue bawls!” <=some random neighborhood dude the next street over yelled this.

Cassandra W.: Dude I didn’t think you could hear me and now you’re straight putting me on blast

Radha Krueger: If you sound like a semi-drunk older trailer park dude with 12 teeth left, this is the least of your problems.

Cassandra W.: Putting me on blast even further. I lost my dentures. Damn. Cold.

Rachel R. is with Radha Krueger.
June 8, 2016

Noodles (foster kitty) “helping” me pay bills.

Radha Krueger: Hope he enjoys his last weekend with nads 😉 snip snip and then he’s up for adoption!

Radha Krueger added a new photo to the album: Summer 2016, The Inferno.
June 8, 2016

A day in the life…

Piso Ray: It lead you to wine?

Radha Krueger: Wine and cooking dinner…. 😉