Category: Uncategorized

Inherit. I had an inheritance from my father, It was the moon and the sun. And though I roam all over the world, The spending of it’s never done.” ― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls In 2019, I wrote: What will I leave behind? What will I pass down? Sometimes it feels very […]

Steal Like An Artist. (I stole this whole post from myself in 2019 who stole the idea from Austin Kleon.) “Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don’t come out of the womb knowing who we are. In the beginning, we learn by pretending to be our heroes. We learn by copying.”– Austin […]

The Blank Page. To some people, this empty room symbolizes something profound, mysterious, and terrifying: the task of starting with nothing and working your way toward creating something whole and beautiful and satisfying. It’s no different for a writer rolling a fresh sheet of paper into his typewriter (or more likely firing up the blank […]

(I apologize for the late posts but I thought they were published.) Questions, Dinner Parties, and Conversation. Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart. Love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given […]

On Woman. There is no good answer to how to be a woman; the art may instead lie in how we refuse the question. ― Rebecca Solnit, The Mother of All Questions But how can I want my independence and feel taken care of? How can I want to stay small and safe while yearning […]

Gifts. I often tell the following fable. When I read my post from 2019 and talk about each of my children and their gifts, I am reminded of this fable once again. The Animal School: A Fable by George Reavis Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the […]

Resolve. EtymologyMiddle English, from Latin resolvere to unloose, dissolve, from re- + solvere to loosen, release — more at SOLVE 1a: to deal with successfully : clear upb: to find an answer toc: to make clear or understandabled: to find a mathematical solution ofe: to split up into two or more components especially in assigned […]

Smell. In A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman describes this challenge of smell: When we see something, we can describe it in gushing detail, in a cascade of images. We can crawl along its surface like an ant, mapping each feature, feeling each texture, and describing it with visual adjectives like red, blue, bright, […]

Sleep that knits up the raveled sleave of care, The death of each day’s life, sore labor’s bath, Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course, Chief nourisher in life’s feast.” ― William Shakespeare, Macbeth SLEEP. (Shouty capitals because this is an important topic.) I normally walk with the dogs with my husband, bright and […]

Poetry. In a letter to Louis Untermeyer, Frost wrote: A poem…begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words. I discovered […]