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Flamingo 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 MoreMy Mother’s Dress
Five years ago this month, my sisters and I gathered in my mother’s bedroom. She had died the previous June and we were ready to sort through her clothes. As I wrote in my January 2017 post, she had lots of them. A bulging closetful. A crammed dresser full. A jam-packed trunkful at the foot…
Read MoreWhat I missed when I missed my 50-year high school reunion
I missed my 50-year high school reunion last month. I had purchased a ticket to the event months ahead of time and booked a hotel room in Old Town San Diego for three nights, planning to use it as a mini writing retreat. I was going to write while reuning. But as the date neared,…
Read MoreNeed some book wisdom? Ask a seven-year-old.
Everyone should talk to a seven-year-old booklover. If you haven’t done so lately, enjoy the wisdom of this one named Emma. I interviewed her on Zoom about books. She described with great enthusiasm and in detail the plot and characters of many of her favorite books, but I’ll just share some pithy points she offered…
Read MoreThe 10th birthday of When the de la Cruz Family Danced, my 68th birthday, and other numbers
Today is my birthday and I’m 68 years old. Ten years ago today, I celebrated the publication of my first book When the de la Cruz Family Danced.* My father, to whom the book was dedicated, never got to read it. He had been dead eighteen years. He died the year I turned forty when…
Read MoreFarewell, Henry Darrow
The High Chaparral first aired in 1967. I was fourteen years old and a semi-regular viewer. When I watched, I watched for one reason – Henry Darrow who played Manolito Montoya. He was handsome, charismatic, and Mexican. Or rather, he played a Mexican on TV. Henry Darrow, born Enrique Delgado was Puerto Rican. What mattered…
Read MoreA little boy walks toward the future …
I think about the future a lot lately, like every day, almost endlessly. For one thing, I turn 68 in a few months and the future is not as long or as far away as it once was. For another thing, I have a grandson now, and I wonder what the future means for him.…
Read MoreDecember ends 2020 at last already
It’s time for some brief reflections on this pandemic year that nevertheless had its moments of grace and illumination for me as I hope it did for you. It goes without saying that it leaves lots of room for improvement. The dispirit of Christmas On my morning walk, I often pass a house that…
Read MoreReading books during a pandemic
There’s a terrible inequity in asking people to please read my new book Living Color: Angie Rubio Stories when I’ve been unable to read more than a few books since the pandemic disrupted our lives and unsettled our psyches. While many others found solace and refuge in books, my brain failed to connect with words…
Read MoreThe Pandemic Days of Our Lives
In which my new book of fiction launches amid the reunion of a young family separated by the pandemic, a marriage ceremony, and a first birthday. Plane travel We’re supposed to drive, but the fires up and down the West Coast mean unexpected closures of the interstate in some areas and lanes clogged with evacuees…
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