Miscellaneous Musings
Month Three in Málaga – Turning Seventy
June is my birthday month and though I’ve never been one to celebrate for an entire month, I thought that because this birthday was doubly significant— hitting the very big Seven-Oh! and doing it in Spain—that every day this month, I would write down something that made me happy. That intention lasted a few days.…
Read MoreMonth Two in Málaga—People to Meet, Places to Go, Spanish to Learn
Month two in Malaga has been all about people and places. And, of course, the vicissitudes of Spanish-language acquisition. People Since my second week here, I’ve been attending a weekly writers’ meetup of mostly expats, seasonals, and short-stays. Regulars and semi-regulars include a pair of very smart and affable former Seattleites who are co-organizers of…
Read MoreFarewell, Seattle (After AWP)
My husband and I are moving to Spain. Soon. Like next week. The idea had been in our heads for a year and the actual visa process was in the works for months. But when the visas arrived in the mail sooner than we imagined and we realized we needed to apply for our residency…
Read MoreMy ears are bigger than yours
Lend me your ears? I wrote a little essay about my ears and other body parts. It’s called “What I Know About Dismemberment” and it will appear in one of my favorite literary journals The Museum of Americana at the end of this month. But I thought it would be fun to talk a little…
Read MoreInsomnia face and how podcasts might mitigate it. Or not.
I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I listen to podcasts to keep my mind from catastrophizing at the end of the day in bed. I’m not one of those people who falls asleep when my head hits the pillow. Lying down and turning out the light are cues to my brain to commence the doomsday…
Read MoreMoments from 2022
Writers always look for the surprising in the mundane, trying to squeeze meaning from every random little moment. A lot of my random moments happened in Northern California and New York City where I spent a good part of the year visiting with one or another daughter and grandchild. Here are a few of those…
Read MoreA long overdue thank-you to my 11th grade teacher (on the second anniversary of my book)
Sometimes you write something that you didn’t realize you’d written until the book is published and readers weigh in and you find out what you wrote. For instance, I wrote a book of stories about a young girl who learns how to exist in the world as a visibly brown, yet invisible girl. Writer, editor,…
Read MoreOn Not Writing About Death
For my 69th birthday in June, one of my sisters gave me a book called The Art of Death by Edwidge Danticat. The subtitle is Writing the Final Story. It’s from The Art Of series edited by Charles Baxter and published by Graywolf Press. In it, Danticat examines death scenes from works by Toni Morrison,…
Read MoreFlamingo Prayer
My newborn granddaughter is leggy with long feet and long toes. Her wingspan gives her the appearance of a flamingo, her long fingers the mechanisms for flight. A group of flamingoes is called a “flamboyance.” But Malaya on her own is flamboyant as she crosses one thigh over the other and throws an arm above…
Read MoreTurning sixty-nine
Partly from nostalgia for a more youthful me and partly from bemusement at having arrived at the age of 69, I tried to remember what marked each of the years of my life ending in the number nine in terms of my writing. Age 9 – It was the year and month of the Cuban…
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