I choose San Francisco because I miss ocean air. I’ve been sleep walking in a dusty valley but the air in San Francisco is cold and saline. When you walk through it without a hat or scarf it’s bracing. You feel alive. I choose 1967, imagining the Summer of Love, thinking I might land in … Continue reading When the Time Travel Agent Asks When and Where
I was walking on top of the river levee one morning in early December, before the solstice. The river was looking healthy and full despite our years of drought, but we had had so much rain last winter, so much snow, so much water: it was a bounty and we were grateful. The Army … Continue reading I am out with lanterns, looking for myself
As the holidays approach, we may encounter way too many opportunities to indulge in a bit of unhealthy eating. And so I've decided to share again this cautionary tale of love and lard. Written four years ago with the prompts: when we first met, onions, high tide When we first met he was sitting … Continue reading Big Love
When Fawny walks alone, and she walks alone often, she keeps the river on her left and the levee on her right, so she won’t get lost. But on this day when the levee curves at the bend near the university, she wanders into a stand of cottonwood trees and passes through an invisible curtain … Continue reading Blue Danube
Matilda parked Grandma under the tree while she hung the wet sheets on the line. “I love the smell of fresh laundry,” Grandma said as she watched her hired care giver. Matilda smiled and nodded. “This has always been my favorite tree,” she continued, lifting her arms to take in the outstretched branches, the canopy … Continue reading One Tiny Moth Hole
This is a reprint of one of my most popular stories, a fun little mystery for October. Enjoy! Memorie is in a cozy pace, propped up with pillows and notebook, herbal tea and the most affectionate of her three cats at her right hip on the sofa next to her. She has arrived at this … Continue reading Memorie and the Coyote
Susan lost her glasses one morning, early before seven o’clock, while she was hiking along the American River Parkway. She was crossing the broad pedestrian bridge that spans the river between William Pond Park and Riverbed Park when she heard the river calling to her. This had happened before, rarely of course, but Susan had … Continue reading Lost and Found
Written with my Thursday group with the prompts: she studied her face in the mirror, it was heavy, incredibly crucial, a red balloon landed next to him, settle down, a stranger, who is afraid to live without illusion, one size fits all, I didn’t have the energy for that, what’s in a name, no two’s, … Continue reading Naming
Written with the prompts: just a dream away, as inanimate as a lamp, overlapping, you know the one, hurry/curry/flurry, urgent information, save time, new friends, three years ago, don’t you want more, live like, wander off, never made me feel inept, never been there before, area 51, guarded opinions I’ll remember that night three years … Continue reading Counterintuitive Curry
Written with the prompts: conversation stealer, I am I am, the story of your name, the name of a bar in New Orleans, the brother stared out the window, new ways to harvest, oozy rat in a sanitary zoo (palindrome), naps Ruby the Hummingbird was a conversation stealer. It was her habit to fly through … Continue reading Stolen Conversation
