Imagination-Arts​ Publications

Judith Peck, Ed.D. I took a stand, told him that heavy hands would not be tolerated, but I did not cry, I did not whine, I did not consider leaving him, at least for more than an overnight. I was an electrical engineer, a competent professional, a nurturing mother and intelligent wife. I could handle this. The incidents left no lasting effects upon me and he loved me, he just couldn't help himself. And it was not in my nature to throw a pot, dish, a teaspoon. But I was becoming aware how routinely I kept up my guard and how long gone normal frivolity had become. Stuart's vocabulary began to grow in ferocity and in color. The combinations became more loaded and more ridiculous as well. "Oh, why don't you just go fuck yourself?" he suggested. That argument was about a wasted trip to the movies when the paper listed...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. An unusual bi-product of infidelity is renewed interest in your husband, unless the infidelity is on-going, in which case sex with a spouse has the opposite effect. Whether it was a charged up sense of my womanliness or the guilt of "straying" and wanting to make it up to Stuart or a newly discovered eroticism running through my veins, I don't know. But I seemed to be turned on all day, so much so that a breeze against my cheek or the car's motion under my hips or just seeing something beautiful—a deer, a blue jay, a flight of geese in perfect formation—could make me flush and think of bed and Stuart ... yes, Stuart, of pleasing him and using my affair with Charles to do it. I wanted to keep Charles flowing in my veins -- for Stuart. Seeing in the Dark, Arielle's Story

Judith Peck, Ed.D. Arielle talks to her 18-year old daughter, Cara, who has moved from her dorm to live with a brilliant but surly young man in a passage from Seeing in the Dark, Arielle's Story: I paused and prepared to talk slowly, not my usual style, more like that of a lawyer whose measured talk conveys the weighted importance of each syllable (though one can't ignore that lawyers bill by the hour, the observation  funny to me so I smile.) Cara smiles back, almost automatically; women are less suspicious than men about facial expressions from nowhere. “I know you must see something in Barker I don't see," I say at length. We sipped our coffee and I looked up at her. "I mean, after all, you know him better and I'm sure he's different with you than with me … and maybe with all those others, too, you said don't like him,...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. With her 11-year old son only wait-listed for the team, Mom was given a choice: they needed referees, volunteers who would go out there in the wind and the chill, weathering not only nature but a ball glancing off the head, a kick in the shin, a trampled foot -- inevitable in a field of scampering boys on the cusp of victory -- let alone the shriek of hysterical parents howling on the sidelines. By volunteering for this sacrificial duty, her son would be in. Perhaps five minutes of thought was given to this invitation -- or one. She was provided a study manual. Conscientious as the young mother was and a fast learner, she studied hard and quick, arrived in sweats and sneaks early in the morning on time, took the test and aced it but for one question, confusingly posed: what would you do after...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. Does anyone remember the joy of folding diapers--no I'm serious? Warm and clean from the dryer, all that was expected of you was to lift a bunch, set this down and with two swift folds, set each in its neat little pile. So easy and productive a task. Has anything since compared with the combined relaxation and usefulness of the enterprise? Oh never mind the prelims, the poop a mere splash in the pan and a toss in the washer and then off to the warm comfort of the dryer and your receptive arms that will soon hold the chubby, gurgling recipient who receives this fine wardrobe and the extra few moments you smile as you pin with all limbs dancing in air. Ah, those days! How on earth we gave these soft fluffy things over to plastic, I will never know.  Smart Starts in the Arts

Judith Peck, Ed.D. The dry leaf leaps across the white frozen surface born by a breeze like the brilliant ideas galloping in my head. But then it stops. Is this to collect itself, in need of another push or buried beneath a soft patch of snow? I wait and for minutes there is no movement, when along comes a squirrel. Needing no more than its amazing self it takes the flat surface full throttle, races up the trunk of a tree without slowing and high in the sky leaps to one branch then another before scampering out of my sight. It knows what it must do and does it all year long, no matter the weather, the wind, who’s watching—dazzled as I am by its daring feats—or perhaps even its age. (Have you ever seen a slow-moving squirrel?) The lone leaf, disabled, does not move, its previous life lived on...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. We Should Try It More Often.  Such a blah word, “nice”: a simple, ignorable state of being; a disposition to take little note of; belongs in the category of elevator music. Being nice to your spouse of partner? Who thinks about that with so many pressing demands to accomplish? Getting kids off to school, getting yourself off to work, assembling dinner (who makes dinner nowadays), and money matters flowing intermittently—soft, heaving, or turbulent as the financial weather of the household dictates. Being nice seems necessary to summon on occasion, for example when company comes—at least when they enter your home—on parent-teacher night at the school; at the doctor’s office; sometimes, not always, at the supermarket checkout. In other words, with strangers or folks with whom you need to be nice to demonstrate that you are an agreeable person. Why can’t we be this agreeable person to our...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. Serenity in a baby occurs when she has no need to focus on her nagging innards. She is then free to perceive the outside world, explore it and begin to make those important neural brain connections. But along with responding to physical needs to create a serene environment, a parent must aim to build self-confidence for this is the basic mechanism with which all achievements are constructed. Accomplishing such independent feats as feeding herself, drinking from a cup, gripping a crayon and moving it across a piece of paper (occurring at whatever stage these do) leads her to feel competent towards attempting the next thing on the agenda. She will look forward to that next thing, approaching it from a position of strength with an expectation that she will manage it. With parental calm and encouragement she will sense that she is going in the right direction...

Judith Peck, Ed.D. Fall is what we do with love relationships, like trip or stumble, or roll head over heels; something precarious. It felt like an accident, surely something I didn’t plan on. Well, he was interesting; not a boring thing about him, always something new and challenging to be with him. No, not that or why not go to the library and find an intriguing character you can spend a week with and then toss in the return bin? I don’t know, it could be because I felt intriguing being with him, I myself a new character.  Seeing in the Dark, Arielle's Story

Judith Peck, Ed.D. How to get started creatively in the morning, to start in on the stuff no one else cares about? You feel despicable and cannot stand yourself. Needless to say you have other things that must be done. You have chores, you have some kind of business, you have the array of survivor tasks that bond you to the world at large, and you have loved ones who collectively gnaw at the most vulnerable parts of your frailties. Compounding this are emails endlessly streaming in like wild dreams whose source you cannot control. Longing for a pre-online world is no solution nor is the 75 or 80 times you look out the window as if something out there can ignite a fire or you fling open the refrigerator to find solace. What is the solution? God knows. And that is simply an expression, not an answer. Help is...