I love how when someone mentions something about themselves that is honestly a little weird and ridiculous and, before I can stop myself, I blurt out, usually with a silly grin, “Hey, me too!”  I’d so much rather stay private and mysterious, always with a savagely serious Sylvia Plath look occupying my face … but [...]

I cannot get these two words out of my head.  Two small, very simple words. 
Take care.
That’s what a cashier said to me a couple days ago as I completed my transaction and started to push my grocery cart away from the counter.
“Take care,” she said.
She could have said, “See ya.”  It could have [...]

The phone call came late afternoon. Unexpected. Urgent. Dan’s niece had been involved in a horrid car accident and she wasn’t expected to make it. Could we come? Now?
We packed quickly, gravely, weighing whether we should fly or drive the distance from Sacramento to Portland. We decided to drive [...]

I’ve been quiet lately, these last days of winter.  Now, mid-February and, with its 78F degree days, Phoenix is rapidly moving toward another long and endless summer.  Our few winter days seem to number less and less each year.  It’s getting harder and harder to  comfortably wear sweaters or wrap a woolen scarf decoratively around [...]

And now my hands are breaking.
Fitting that they should
Change,
Each little finger looking a different way,
bending awkwardly toward a
Future …
Of different, but not less.
~ Auburn McCanta
This just to mention that my little fingers are each beginning to bend in ways I never expected — the right [...]

I’ve been quiet lately.  Have you noticed?  Since the birthday marking the start of my Purple Years, as I shall call them, I’ve been especially inward.  Thoughtful.  Within my innards, I’ve shuddered and clanked and reeled and pondered about what it might mean to enter one’s Purple Years.
As it turns out, it’s really not much [...]