In Spring I broke a long blog silence with hope of recommencing a fruitful writing practice. I wrote a couple of essays, three of five planned pieces in the Maxim Matrix series and began a journal of healing I dubbed, Not Too Jazzy. I've decided to leave off blogging. I don't know if I will … Continue reading Finis.
Not Too Jazzy Journal 2
I wrote this on April 27, 2021. I didn't know how much I would be challenged in my willingness to accept what is and still find the joys and comforts and fun in it. Where there's a will, there's another way.Less pain, great gain. For nine years I have clung to the belief that I … Continue reading Not Too Jazzy Journal 2
Not Too Jazzy Journal 1
If you can imagine it, you can achieve it, if you can dream it you can become it.-William Arthur Ward Journal entry adapted from April 24, 2021. Today I went outside to plant some seeds and sit—just sit—in the woods for a little while. My body has humbled me yet again. After nine years of … Continue reading Not Too Jazzy Journal 1
Not Too Jazzy: Introduction
Here's the Introduction to my long-planned "On Healing" thread which was intended originally to be about healing from my chronic physical illnesses. I have about a gazillion rambling pieces I've written but have been too chicken to post. Now that I have taken the leap and posted three of the planned five in the Maxim … Continue reading Not Too Jazzy: Introduction
Coda to Maxim Matrix: Part III, Gender/Identity
Earlier this week, I posted the third in my series of essays exploring bits of my past. I got a lot of responses to one of my posts for the first time. I don't know whether it was image of the perky chicken sporting a familiar maxim, or that the Facebook algorithm showed my link … Continue reading Coda to Maxim Matrix: Part III, Gender/Identity
Maxim Matrix: Part III, Gender
This post is the third in a series about my family's favored maxims and their place in the matrix that shaped my sense of self. The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a maxim as a brief statement of a general truth, principle, or rule for behavior. My family had scores of them in addition to the … Continue reading Maxim Matrix: Part III, Gender
Maxim Matrix: Part II, Perfectionism
Being good was a slippery golden ring to grasp. I wrote that at the end of the last piece I posted, the first in a series about my family's favored maxims and the matrix that shaped how I understand my place and purpose in the world. I "hear" them often, these constant reminders of how … Continue reading Maxim Matrix: Part II, Perfectionism
Maxim Matrix: Part I, Frugality
The film The Matrix haunts me on SO many levels, but this ramble is not about science fiction or film or conspiracy. It's about family (Surprise!), and maxims' role in the larger code of family programming. A maxim is a brief statement of a general truth, principle, or rule for behavior, according to the Cambridge … Continue reading Maxim Matrix: Part I, Frugality
I’m FINE
Until the last in 2017, most of my dear uncle's and my phone calls began the same way. I'd ask how he was, and he'd say, loudly, "I'm foy-in" and laugh. It was a fond tease that reminded him of me when I was small and learning manners. No matter what was going on, I … Continue reading I’m FINE
Perfectionism: A Triad
Greetings! I'm back in a wee way for now. Lots of things percolating, but nothing ready for a good pour. We Druidy types (and many others) are quite fond of things that come in threes. The Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids includes triads as one of the many recurring...hmmm...harmonies?...of their teachings, and in my … Continue reading Perfectionism: A Triad
Death and the Legacy of Guilt
Upon awakening this morning, images of gravestones filled my mind. I’d prefer to say my half-conscious mind was honoring the service and sacrifice of all those who served in the military, but it wouldn’t be truth. On Memorial Day, more intensely than on other days, I’m swamped by guilt that I’ve neglected my final filial … Continue reading Death and the Legacy of Guilt
An Ethical Crisis As Well As a Health Crisis
We’re in an ethical crisis as much as a health crisis. The pandemic is a massive health crisis emerging from an ongoing climate/environmental crisis, leading to a world economic crisis, and resulting in a global humanitarian crisis. The pandemic highlights the ethical conflicts that have led to all of these crises. We, as individuals and … Continue reading An Ethical Crisis As Well As a Health Crisis
Poem of the Month: April 2020
THE WEIGHINGby Jane Hirshfield The heart’s reasonsseen clearly,even the hardestwill carryits whip-marks and sadnessand must be forgiven. As the drought-starvedeland forgivesthe drought-starved lionwho finally takes her,enters willingly thenthe life she cannot refuse,and is lion, is fed,and does not remember the other. So few grains of happinessmeasured against all the darkand still the scales balance. The … Continue reading Poem of the Month: April 2020
On Grief and Facebook
I resumed looking at Facebook a few months back after a year’s absence. I wanted to post links to my blog and had no intention of doing anything more. After only a week of pandemic self-isolation, I found myself longing for connection and some good laughs and links to articles the PBS Newshour doesn’t cover. … Continue reading On Grief and Facebook
Worst-Case Scenario: Reflections on Survival
I have always had an aversion to the once-popular game, Worst Case Scenario because it “challenges players to use their survival instincts and skills to outlast their opponents” and to video games that pit players against each other in a battle to survive all sorts of threatening situations. I dislike games like this partly because … Continue reading Worst-Case Scenario: Reflections on Survival
On Suffering and the Fear of Death
The pandemic has spun my ongoing existential crisis into a force 5 hurricane. I’m practicing mindfulness to cope. The practice offers me many moments of calm in the storm, but I possess an overly busy brain, and I’ve continued grappling with big issues of human experience—suffering, death, love, and meaning—and I spin out into the … Continue reading On Suffering and the Fear of Death
Pandemic Journal #6 On Mindfulness
In this third week of isolation, I find myself swirling in a soupy confusion of grief and gratitude. I’m thinking a lot about death. And about love. And about life’s meaning. Each small task I used to do with little thought now seems weighted with import. I gather the mail from my crooked little box … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #6 On Mindfulness
Pandemic Journal #5 On Journaling
I have kept a handwritten daily journal for the past 8 years. Most mornings, I rise from disturbed nights with relief, make coffee, and sit at my desk to tame with syntax some frayed and tangled thread that dangles from the chaos of my consciousness. I'm writing in a crisp new black book now; I … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #5 On Journaling
Pandemic Journal #4 Connection and Distance
I went to Trader Joe’s on Sunday, the first time I’d seen real live humans in-person outside my house for ten days. I’d had to drive to Massachusetts to retrieve my child’s belongings so they would have what they needed to start school on Thursday, online, for the remainder of their senior year of high … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #4 Connection and Distance
Poem of the Month: March 2020
I have loved Mary Oliver's poetry since I stumbled upon "White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field," printed on the back of the order of service at my friend Emily's funeral. I bought my first Oliver collection the next day. Praying It doesn’t have to bethe blue iris, it could beweeds in a … Continue reading Poem of the Month: March 2020
Pandemic Journal #3 On Migraine and Crisis
While watching a television show with my daughter last night, I noticed I was rubbing my eyes a lot. A gray spot surrounded by black was distracting me. The spot began to expand, with bright colored and black moving shapes and lines around it, and yellow lights flashing throughout the colors. It grew to encompass … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #3 On Migraine and Crisis
Pandemic Journal #2 F2F: Evolving Language
Yesterday, Charlie was explaining to me how his school will approach the coming weeks/months. He'll be teaching his courses online, asynchronously, and wrote, "We have office hours during class time." Because so many people are still going into work, I jumped to thinking he would be expected to show up at the school to meet … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #2 F2F: Evolving Language
Pandemic Journal #1 A Pandemic Sonnet
I've been reading (and posting) a lot of poetry which I find to be salve for my suffering soul. I saw a friend's recent Facebook post (McSweeney's recent piece, "Famous Lines of Poetry Revised for the Age of Coronavirus" and was reminded of my long ignored pleasure in tweaking up others' work to make something … Continue reading Pandemic Journal #1 A Pandemic Sonnet
Song of the Month: March 2020
"Swimming to the Other Side" by Pat Humphries/Emma's Revolution (Apologies for whatever ad might come on at the start of it.) I have loved this song since first hearing it long ago. It's a lovely reminder that we are all connected, all even if we often forget that truth. I think we all need this … Continue reading Song of the Month: March 2020
Quote of the Month, March 2020
"Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you." --Jean-Paul Sartre
On Reading, Solitude, and Artistic Energy
This is the first post I've written in nearly a year. Partly it is because I'm reading May Sarton. Again. Her journals and novels sit on my new-yet-to-be-organized bookshelf in my new-old house, but I borrowed The House By The Sea from the library. There's a thing happening where if you borrow and read a … Continue reading On Reading, Solitude, and Artistic Energy
Bottomless Tea
I sat at a formica table at Red’s, spinning my coffee mug around on the paper placemat, still recovering from the significant challenge of getting my wheelchair into the diner’s makeshift accessible entrance (people eating actually had to get up and the server had to move a table so I could get by…aaagh…but that’s a … Continue reading Bottomless Tea
On Choices
A few months ago I drove to New Hampshire, impetuously, to buy a drum I didn’t need and couldn’t really afford. I spent several hours on the sun porch of an old farmhouse at the end of a dirt road. The drum man understood my need to touch and play so many—from small to enormous, … Continue reading On Choices
R U A Yankee Cook?
In my essay “Kitchen People,” I wrote about an old cookbook I discovered in the summer kitchen at our family’s antique family farmhouse in New Hampshire. Imogene Wolcott’s The Yankee Cookbook (1939, Coward-McCann, Inc.) proved to be as humorous as it was inspirational. Using some of her challenge questions I embedded an ersatz quiz for … Continue reading R U A Yankee Cook?
On Death, Parenting, and Writing
At some point I must have subscribed to an online thing from The Paris Review because I get emails from them at least once per week. I sometimes open them, glance at the title and think, “Oh, this looks cool/interesting/intriguing/etc., I’ll bookmark it,” fully intending to go back to it later in the day. Ha! … Continue reading On Death, Parenting, and Writing
Presents and Christmas Guilt
A long time ago, I think there was some tradition in which writers apologized to their readers for the shortcomings their letters, essays, and books may contain. I do so here: this essay rambles, but I felt moved to write it and am posting it in spite of its flaws. I love the Winter holidays. … Continue reading Presents and Christmas Guilt
A Hospital Experience Like No Other
In 2009, our family and another rented bikes and braved the beautiful and traffic-free carriage trails on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. What began as a treat to be on land after our family of four had been snugged up on our 27’ sloop through stormy seas turned into a nightmare. For a week, we’d … Continue reading A Hospital Experience Like No Other
Circles and Stories
In the top drawer of my bureau, I have a collection of rings in a Ziploc bag. It nestles against a not-particularly-useful jewelry organizer I purchased so I would cease to misplace my various bits of adornment. Nearly every piece of jewelry I own, including the bag of rings, has a story. I live amidst … Continue reading Circles and Stories
Kitchen People
I sit on the screened porch of the Summer kitchen at White Cottage Farm in New Hampshire, looking at Lake Sunapee beneath the gentler hills to the east of Mount Sunapee, which is visible with its summer “striped” ski trails if I look to my right. I sit on one of a half-dozen black café … Continue reading Kitchen People
The Garden
I wrote this essay almost twenty-five years ago and have been thinking of it as I plant this year’s seeds, in a different garden in a different yard. Under the guidance of Mrs. Keller, we kindergarteners first learned to grow vegetables, tucking handfuls of beans into the folds of damp towels. The sprouting of their … Continue reading The Garden
Despair, Nature Poetry, and the Big Question
I was in despair on Tuesday. The kind of despair that makes it seem nothing you do matters, and nothing you are matters. That makes action or speaking a Sisyphian effort. That makes you wish, however fleetingly, for the sweet comfort of release from this world. I felt very alone. So often we delude ourselves … Continue reading Despair, Nature Poetry, and the Big Question
A Godly Paradigm
“God” has been on my mind more intensively than usual during this past week when I had to bid an earthly farewell to my uncle, the most important and beloved person in my life from my infancy until I married and had my children. The Reverend Monsignor William J. Kane, Ph.D. (February 27, 1934-December 8, … Continue reading A Godly Paradigm
Mothering
Sarah had flung herself into the easy chair next to mine upon arriving home after a particularly difficult day at school. Then my fourteen-year-old daughter erupted, sobbing and screaming with frustration. I sat with her. After the flood abated, she sniffled, “Can I sit in your lap?” She draped her tall body over my smaller … Continue reading Mothering
Make No Mistake
A perfectionist from the time I can remember, I learned effectively from my mistakes every day. Through cuts, scrapes and broken bones, I learned to climb gaspingly high into treetops, navigate slick rocks across rushing creeks, and coast my bike with no hands or feet. Most learning from mistakes as a young child was painful … Continue reading Make No Mistake
Red Hawk Arts 