Notes from a Parallel Universe
I’ve written a fair amount about life with my adult child. As I plod ever so slowly towards creating a book about the journey, it occurs to me that the pace at which I’m working on that is in sync with the overall pace and rhythm of our life together. Bink will turn 28 this […]
LATELY
The ground seems foreign, new roots and stones anchored in the middle of familiar paths, and my feet stumble more, much more. Are you stumbling too? Such heavy air, a downward press on the shoulders makes it hard to look up, check out the sky. I can’t speak for you, but I feel your heart […]
Gifts and Visitations
It’s been just over a month since my dear friend and soul sister Marina died, after a quick and nasty tussle with appendiceal cancer. She visits my consciousness daily, in ways both fleeting and substantial. We talked a lot about the afterlife in her last months. She told me clearly that, when she visits me […]
Dragonflies
As I write this, my dear friend Marina lies dying in a lovely room inside the oldest house in an historic and pretty New Hampshire town. A wonderful woman who worked with her in the local general store has taken her into her home. Hospice has set her up well with a hospital bed that […]
Little Big Thing
“Stay in awe of life. The little things are the big things. “ ― Richie Norton “I’m cold.” Bink had just gotten up, a good hour later than she used to get up on any given pre-Covid Monday. My eyes scanned her body, noting the hybrid pajamas I’d hastily grabbed for her to put on […]
Time, Place, Classroom
WHEN The world gets so noisy. Too many voices straining, pushing past their natural limits to be heard. Our small ears can’t discern provenance or factuality. Reactions quicken, turning knee-jerk, protective. WHERE There is the place where trees thicken into extended families, root systems entwined beneath the earth. Look for the leafy canopy that forms […]
When all this is over…
WHEN THIS IS OVER Bring bread, chewy and warm, wrapped in that red checkered tablecloth that always sings picnic, which is short for happy family, easy friendships, peace and plenty in our town state country planet. We never went on one, a picnic, not once in all our together years even though we had that […]
Prospecting for Grace
Praise The faithful sun, generously stirring energies of Earth and atmosphere, coaxing every green thing towards the rising song of spring. Parents walking with their children outside, smiling and laughing, nodding at neighbors out washing their cars. Quieted streets yielding their usual ruthless noise to melodious birdsong, squirrels rustling in the brush, the wind whistling […]
Communicable
PROPAGATION I’ve taken to humming in the produce section while caressing the plums, sneaking sniffs of the cilantro, eyeing the lemons, audacious in their yellowry. It’s a low, soothing thing, the thrum of air over vocal chords, nearly a buzz, and I am almost a bumblebee, hovering over color, circling the end caps as I […]
Harmonious Discord
This morning I walked early, mismatched garments layered to repel a cold, spitting rain. I’d pushed his baseball cap down hard over the knitted ear band I bought to share with her, which she most emphatically rejected for not being soft enough, or pink. Featherweight Bean jacket— the one that lifts me to frequent if […]