Back story: I’ve been coming to Belize from time to time for 30 years. In 1989, there was no electric power cable under the sea from the mainland to this island. Electricity was supplied by a humongous generator in town that hummed like a sleeping giant. It shook itself awake periodically, knocking out the power, […]
Posts in the Memoir category:
The Piano
During my childhood, I was allowed to visit a classmate after school precisely two times. Two different classmates. Two different years. Two different reasons why I was never allowed to go there again. In 4th grade, I received an invitation from a classmate named Judy. She had been my kindergarten comrade and confidant, and we […]
Winter is Coming
The fog is thick this morning, surrounding us in a soft blanket of grey, creeping close and closer still, cloaking the shrubs, disguising the gardens. The fog horn has blown all night long at intervals as regular as breath. In and out, in and out, in and out. I sync my breathing, pull up the […]
Running
I haven’t followed the sport of running in recent years, but this morning’s profile of Eliud Kipchoge in The New York Times caught my eye and I was only too happy to have it interfere with my writing frustrations. Eliud Kipchoge is the greatest marathoner ever. He broke a world record in Berlin this morning. […]
On my way…
“I’m on my way…” said the Travelocity gnome. And so am I. After a crazy (read: hectic), stressful (read: brutal), downbeat (read: depressing) series of hours, days, weeks, months, I think I’ve finally come out the other side. I’m on my way to a wedding in Hamburg, Germany. Traveling solo—but isn’t that what I’m used […]
Seasonal Blues: Eventually It All Comes Together
Except when it doesn’t. But hang in there—this isn’t a blog about pain and misery. It’s about life’s surprises. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer in December 2017, I actually wasn’t too freaked out. My first response to my primary care physician, who was delivering the news from the other side of the country, […]
Make Beautiful Music
Last night I dreamed that I was getting married. My female relatives, young and old, were gathered all around me. It was a consummate summer scene in a fragrant apple orchard with vivid green grass and brilliant blue sky. Instead of a frothy veil, I wore a simple crown of daisies in my hair. This […]
Write from Passion. Write from Pain.
When I began writing my memoir, it was a bonfire burning brightly, my fingertips hot on a keyboard that had never revealed my thoughts or memories. To anyone. I looked down upon my small-child-self from a bird’s eye view, flying low, watching the small child whose introversion was created by responsibilities and fear. The small […]
Misfits
Misfits are all around us, sitting next to us on trains, wrapped in sleeping bags on wet sidewalks in doorways of businesses darkened for the night, taking deep cleansing breaths on adjacent yoga mats, directing us in traffic, speaking to us from the fronts of classrooms, handing us change at cash registers, sipping a mug […]
Unexpected Triggers
Yesterday, Janet brought me a freshly-picked bouquet of August blooms accented with curly-topped white phlox. They were just like the phlox that were as tall as I in the days when I ran barefoot in dewy cool green grass. I was 3 or 4 years old in that memory and my grandmother’s phlox border must […]