The Lion and the Cobra by Sinéad O’Conner is being played on my turntable right now. It seems fitting. My second copy, I wore one out the very year it came out. The year that my life imploded, well one of the times. I was young and painfully naive. It …
Does this shit ever end? Do we just keep crossing the identity bridge over and over-adjusting and readjusting, putting on and taking off all the hats?
makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. ~Herman Hesse It’s been, as they say, a journey. And I’m standing in the doorway, crossing from what was to what is becoming. Our daughter moved into her first apartment in September. It was a chaotic move, as these things can …
except how to live–Sartre Loooong time no write. First a dead mother and a last ever visit with the sister. Then a pandemic. Then a burnout. Then a job change. Then catching a bad Covid. Then …we lost Bartleby at 18 to kidney disease, cancer and age. He was just …
I admit to a sense of relief when Jackie died. Not immediately, of course. I was shocked and it was unreal until the time I felt my legs give way as I stood from taking communion for the first time in 20 years. After we got home to Eugene, and …
There is a time in every parent’s life, when you can’t fix much  of anything anymore for your offspring. Not because they are difficult, or angry or even annoying. Only because it is time for them to do the fixing themselves. Couldn’t walk into a new school for her on …
“There is always time for another last minute†― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather It wasn’t the best news, but we aren’t giving up. And it never gets easier. Mr. Teatime was named for a character in the Pratchett book Hogfather. Mr. Teatime, when he was a kitten was a tiny little …
I know the way to be a writer is to write. I’ve told that to students. I used to write every day. Somewhere along the line, survival took over. I was working full time and going to school full time. I lived in a tiny apartment in a kinda bad …
I love graveyards. Cemeteries. Boneyards. Cities of the Dead. They are quiet. There is a story for every stone or monument. You can visit for a conversation or just to be. I don’t think I want my body to be buried–though that has always interested me. If I could have, …
Every time I think I’m going to give up with this long long long standing blog, I come back. This is a long one, hold on. Will it click this time, again? I don’t know. The last year and a half has been, well, large. Â Purging a lot. A LOT. …
The Winter Solstice is one of my most thoughtful times. I suppose because I spent so much time with darkness. That sounds terribly dramatic–and it was until I found a way to live with it.
Paint paint fix fix, sell the house, buy the house, move across the country, nervous breakdown.
Madness need not be all breakdown. It may also be break-through. It is potential liberation and renewal as well as enslavement and existential death.
~R. D. Laing
I was given one today. As we try to/prepare to/hope to move to Oregon (when this house sells) I’ve had things on my mind that give me pause. I am estranged from my family. Â This has happened several times through out my life. I’m not sure this one will be …
Sometimes you just let someone else’s music speak for you. (Thank you Abney Park) Why do the things we love Torture us more than the things The things we can do without? I can’t do without The things that you do to me But why d’you do the …
