Over this past year and a half of pandemic and lockdown, it was a blessing that so many of my family, friends, and acquaintances remained healthy and free of the virus. No one I know (that I’m aware of) succumbed to COVID 19. However, over the course of this past decade, I have lost four people whom … Continue reading Spirit Animals
I need new glasses. I’ve needed new glasses for several months now, but I didn’t want to go for a vision exam until after I was vaccinated. I finally called to make an appointment in April, and the first opening they had was June 28th. Obviously I was not the only one who had waited. The day … Continue reading Wait
Because it was spring, Marilee decided to do one of her obsessive tears through the house—not a quick surface dust and sweep, but a deep dive, boring down beneath cushions and floor rugs, under tables and chairs, to clear out accumulated dust bunnies, cat toys, stray pens and lost coins. Her compulsion to clean next sent … Continue reading Spring Cleaning
To finish off our National Poetry Month celebration, I offer a more recent creation of mine. Thanks for reading! I made that girl, but is she grateful? No. True, I drove her to the edge of consciousness dumped her on a shore peopled with past failures and traumas, to the lip of a river … Continue reading My Insomnia Gossips About Me Behind My Back
I think I can say without fear of contradiction that this has been a weird year. And hey!--suddenly, it's Easter again. It feels rather surreal. Like many people, I have done very little to celebrate holidays during the pandemic. That's okay; I'm all for downsizing the fuss and nonsense and commercialization. Truth be told, I … Continue reading Easter Greetings/Pandemic Edition
Greetings! This week I've updated a Christmas post from a few years past. It seems more meaningful than ever right now. Long ago, in the pagan cultures of the far north, work and travel were severely limited by cold and snow as days grew shorter. Farmers and their families would remove a wheel from their carts … Continue reading Meditation on an Advent Wreath
We’ve all been “sheltering” now, to one degree or another, for seven and a half months. Initially I was both alarmed and secretly pleased—because suddenly I could be my introvert self without apology. My biggest fear was that the whole thing would end too soon—before I completed the half-finished novel I’d been sitting on for the past … Continue reading Sheltering, Part 4
Goodreads had a Facebook post a week or so ago asking readers to “describe the book you’re currently reading in one word.” I’m generally too verbose to succeed with such restrictions, but this time it was easy. The Earthseed Series by the late African American science fiction writer Octavia Butler is like nothing else out there—and … Continue reading Earthseed, a review
I dedicate this week’s post to the memory of a great American hero, a supreme court justice, mother, grandmother, wife and beloved role model for women everywhere, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Ruth Bader Ginsburg may go down in history as the person who advanced the cause of women’s equality and freedom more than any other in … Continue reading In Memory of Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Years ago I had a student named Joseph who was deaf and mute and on the autism spectrum. He was 9 years-old, with big brown eyes, and sandy hair. I loved him and I knew he trusted me. When it was time to come in from the playground, he could not hear the bell, so … Continue reading Wagons
