Michael Elterman

Receipts Michael Elterman

I once read that your words are the receipts you leave behind when your time is spent. These are your proofs of lived experiences. Many people find getting older to be a humanizing experience and one that brings into sharp focus what is and what is not important. I have found this to be true. I have understood Cat's in the Cradle by Harry Chapin as both the son and the father.




For the people who know you, the receipts you give are not just the words they remember, but how you made them feel. It was therefore important for me to put my words into a book to convey to them how I have felt about them too.




As a psychologist now in practice for many years, I am supposed to be a person who knows how to think, feel and act when things happen. No matter how much education you have you still have to deal with love and loss, being a parent and being a child, and your own mortality. My poetry is my first reactions and sometimes my considered reactions when life change has come at me. My feelings as reflected in my words are my receipts from these experiences.
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