Miscellaneous Musings
Portal to My Grandmother
Writers write because they have an affinity, even a compulsion, for words. We love and are driven to make sentences that grow into stories that touch the reader in some way. It’s how we communicate. And even though making sentences might require much hair-pulling and brow-furrowing, we trust that the words, sentences, and clarity of…
Read MoreLetting Go
A week after my official retirement date of January 1, I emailed my former colleagues at work. I had been scrupulous about tying up loose ends on my projects before departing in late December, but there was one thing I thought had yet to be resolved for a particular project. My email sparked a string…
Read MoreSuddenly, retirement
When I was in my forties and even my fifties, retirement seemed forever away. Then suddenly I was sixty-five, eligible for Medicare, and attending retirement seminars at work. After filling out and submitting numerous forms over the course of months, I was down to my last week of work after three decades at the same…
Read MoreBorder crossings, mangoes, ghosts, and readings with famous people
Well, summer is officially over and, as usual, it went by in a blur. But in that blur, there were some, as Virginia Woolf described them, “moments of being,” things felt intensely and shot through with awareness. In June, my daughter Natalie and I spent her birthday in Tijuana and Rosarito, sampling street tacos, drinking…
Read MoreArt, a letter to the future, and being human together
It’s a pile-on of abuse – children torn from their parents at the border, women’s reproductive rights incrementally eroded, health care revoked, environmental protections stripped away. It’s violence upon people (mostly black and brown), country, and planet that is built upon or supported by the daily lies that pour forth from the rumpled lips of…
Read MoreWhen the future has not yet arrived
As my husband and I were finishing up weeks of sorting, recycling, and tossing many of our possessions and packing what was left, and the old house was nearly empty and we were days away from leaving a life of blown fuses, roof leaks, the chill from a broken furnace, and other woes of an…
Read MoreA Rat Story
Many years ago, I left my laptop open and my younger daughter read the story I happened to be working on. She asked, “Why did you make me a boy in that story.” “It’s not about you,” I answered. Another time she asked why I killed her off in a story. It’s not about you,…
Read MoreWhat I learned at the San Miguel Writers Conference
Gravitational pull I hadn’t been to Mexico since 1976 when I attended a summer session in Guadalajara after completing an undergraduate degree in zoology. I signed up for Mexican History and Intermediate Spanish but spent most of the time hanging out with a Chicana from L.A. We had spotted each other the first day across…
Read MoreSomeday I will write about the Philippines
I recently spent eight days in the Philippines. That’s eight days out of 64 years of my life. I’ve made a list of over a dozen topics I want to write about. Is it arrogantly absurd that the topics number more than the days I was there? How do I swoop in and out of…
Read MoreWhat to do with a two-star review
“Like reading a soap opera script,” opines sacintl, a user name that faintly suggests the word “succinct,” in keeping with her six-word review of my story collection Hola and Goodbye. Sort of like Hemingway’s six-word story (For sale: baby shoes, never worn) – tragic and sad, but without the tenderness. We are advised not to…
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