“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.” James Baldwin There are things I ‘can’t-not-do’ … Scratch a mosquito bite, run back to the parking lot just after entering Costco to make sure I locked the car if I didn’t recall hearing the ‘beep,’ eat only one potato chip, question […]
Living with a dog is a humbling experience. They are so keenly observant, remarkably intuitive, decisive, affectionate, present in every moment, protective of their people, and, my favorite … utterly thrilled to be alive. Who of us can claim anything even close? I live in something like the Subaru commercial poignantly featuring a family with their dog in three different life stages. Although the ad aired some years back, even now just thinking about it […]
Well, it’s official … our household has gone to the dogs. To two puppies actually, Moose & Maya. These little fur balls with sugar sweet faces and fluffy soft white fur (when they’re not smeared with poop) have turned out to be terrorists in disguise. The M&M’s teethe on everything they can fit in their mouths and generally rip it to shreds, pee copious amounts of urine frequently, howl when they want attention (which […]
I’m going to blame it on Sudoku. For some reason that I cannot understand two of my kids are obsessed with these puzzles. I look at all those numbers and instantly break out in hives. Not them however, my mystifying offspring vie for the daily Sudoku in our newspaper, cynically placed in the want ads just under ‘Pets’ … Wicked. So it happened that at breakfast while working out the days puzzle my son casually […]
Everything about the morning had been ordinary. As usual I was walking my dog Zoe down a well worn path through the woods when unexpectedly, on a small rise next to a sturdy ponderosa pines we were met with a gusty breeze. I stopped. It was as if Mickey Mouse, the sorcerer’s apprentice in Fantasia, his long sleeves falling down around him, frantically waving his master’s magic wand, was conjuring up a whirlwind of the […]
During the Pandemic I was, like so many of us, glued to the TV. CNN on speed dial. I carefully took note of all the suggested protocol involving contact with people, buying groceries, mask wearing, hand sanitizing, and donning disposable gloves whenever possible. I watched with horror the rising death toll and gruesome images of body bags stacked up inside refrigerated semi trucks to accommodate overcrowded morgues. Months passed. We grew accustomed to our new […]
What is it that keeps us tethered to the earth when all around are reasons to float away? It’s early morning and the sky is still dark. A time of magic when all the unknown possibilities a day might hold lie waiting like secrets infused into dew-laden leaves. These liminal moments are fleeting. All too soon the sun will enter the theater and strip away the mysteries under its glare. The shadows will disappear, the […]
I have tried to start this blog for an embarrassingly long time. This attempt will most likely wither on the vine like all the others. While this is not a terribly auspicious beginning I press on in spite of myself. For someone who can’t seem to stop writing, and can’t seem to do anything with it, the guilt adds up over the years along with binders and file folders. I like hard copy. Self reproach […]
The Spill... 