More to This

More to This   A beloved pointed out these flowers (“The Pink Dogwood”) because the petals point upward to the sky.   I wonder how they have such strength to go against gravity. Now I see them everywhere. I’ve been taking photos of them because I think the delicate petals are looking up–reaching up, imagining … Read more

Thoughts on Love

Thoughts on Love     Speaking of love, I met Anne Lamott once, and by “met,” I mean fangirled. She may have been accosted at her speaking event in Corta Madera, CA. Today is publication day for her new book, Somehow: Thoughts on Love. I rapid-fire downloaded the Kindle and Audible versions this morning so … Read more

What Do I Wear?

  What Do I Wear?   At the bottom of Snoqualmie Falls in Washington State, there’s a jungly showcase—lush towers of green. Bottom to top, seamless, monochromatic, intricately adorned trees dressed by Nature’s Tailor.  Trunk after trunk bear tangled arms and fingers that reach out one to another in majestic hand-holding. Many engaged in a … Read more

Voices

Voices   From upstairs I could hear a conversation coming from the kitchen.   John’s voice.   I wondered who he was talking to.   And then I heard Joey answer his dad. I thought, “Joey’s here!?” and so I yelled out.   “JOEY!?”   My voice woke me   and then the realization it … Read more

Urgent Alert

I hear the whirlwind whip, the pummeling, relentless rain, and the sudden, extended chime on my phone: the National Weather Service warning me of flash flooding.   It’s been “flooding” for a while over here, guys. Maybe where you are, too.   I look back down at my computer and re-read the two quotes I’ve … Read more

The Heal

“Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. … Read more

So Be It

It’s that thing where you read a random quote and you so completely identify with it you say, This is me—I embody these words. This quote tells my story and my state in just one, razor-sharp, spot-on, succinct, nailed-it line. Metaphorically, I slapped this name tag on my New Year’s Eve pajamas by posting it … Read more

Home for Christmas

Home for Christmas   A film that covers three days where scenes are sequenced backward and the story unfolds in reverse, ala “Memento:” Christmas Eve, 2022, we were on the phone with a funeral home making arrangements. The day before that, I was sitting at my dad’s kitchen table playing Rummikub with him when we … Read more

Superpower

This L.R. Knost quote is a powerful and freeing truth bomb. I’ve lived this way. Not that life had been easy—because it never has been—but noticing beauty had always been easy and routine for me. Underneath a cape, maybe I thought it was a superpower. Now I consider there was perhaps a sort of arrogant … Read more

Surprise Gift on Dispirit Airlines: The Bickertons

Surprise Gift on Dispirit Airlines: The Bickertons   Sometimes a gift is wrapped in a prickly porcupine. Or a hedgehog. As a rule, I get those two mixed up. Maybe the Bickertons were one of each, which might explain their combative, openly caustic relationship. The Hatfields and McCoys hook up. I was on the aisle, … Read more