“It was amazing how you could get so far from where you’d planned, and yet find it was exactly were you needed to be.” (Sarah Dessen, What Happened to Goodbye) If things had been going according to plan, I’d be writing this post from Switzerland, on the last leg of a three-week trip that was to begin with a flight … Read More
Limoncello Lessons…Please!
Okay, foodies and mixology mavens. I need your help. I made my first ever batch of limoncello and it looks like this: In case it isn’t obvious from the photograph above, my limoncello is not yellow. A sip sometimes yields hints of Pledge cleaner underscored by notes of blecchh. Although I did try it again today and it was, if I … Read More
Monday Letters
It’s five o’clock on Monday morning and my mother sits in bed, knees up, a pad against her thighs, her second cup of coffee steaming within easy reach. Her pen flies across the page in front of her leaving behind a trail of thoughts that have been on her mind for days, minutes, or take shape as she writes. I … Read More
About A Boy
Today, April 20, is about Easter. It is also about a boy. The boy in this picture came into my life on April 20, 1975. He doesn’t look this way any more. He’s taller, his shoulders sometimes hunch when the world gets a little much for him, there are a few lines at the corners of his eyes when he … Read More
Twenty Nine
When I saw the prompt for an essay contest a while back, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. The prompt was this: write about a moment you would like to have back, to do differently if you could. Although there are many such moments in my life, it wasn’t hard to come up with the one I needed … Read More
The Gift of Found Time
“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ― Annie Dillard A little over eight years ago my father’s heart stopped. One minute he was clutching his tennis racquet and waiting for the other doubles team to serve. The next, he was on the floor. His wife, an ex-firefighter and an amazing human being, resuscitated … Read More
Intervention
I don’t know what kind of bird this is, I don’t know its sex. All I know is that for five days it occupied my backyard, walking around among my herb pots with a bemused air, as if hoping any minute to find a familiar face or landmark. There was no visible injury, no reason that I could see that … Read More
Strangers in a Strange Land
Michael Valentine Smith may have prevented a murder back in the summer of 1974 when my brother and I were stranded in Port Angeles, Washington for nearly ten days. In a Pinto station wagon. In the rain. It was day five or six. I remember the relentless drumming of water against the car roof. I remember waiting to take my … Read More
Fences, Fear, and Friendship Park
I live about 25 miles from the border crossing between California and Mexico and except for a ride to Rosarito Beach back in the eighties, I’ve never been there. I live about 125 miles from Los Angeles and I go there, or through there, five to ten times a year. In fact, I just returned from my most recent trip … Read More
Re-entry
You know that half groan, half-shriek the gears make when you thought you were shifting your car into second and you hit reverse instead? Or, forgot to punch the clutch all the way to the floor before trying to go forward? Oh, you never did that? Fine. I bet you still know what I’m talking about. It’s the sound you … Read More
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