Dottie Dog
Dottie-3 mos. On a last day of June the best (and at times) the worst distraction came into my life. She weighed six pounds at eight weeks old, sporting long, tan floppy ears. Her black, tan and white body supported by four white stocky legs stood at attention as she let loose a howl rendering eardrums buzzing with a piercing pitch. She ran the perimeters of every room and then, heeding the call of nature, stopped suddenly, sniffed diligently, squatted and peed. Suddenly, her jump start in [...]
Flight Immersion
I hit the road early this day last year with blue skies and a sun that showed the exceptional day well with a temperature of 71 degrees and light winds. Forty-five minutes later, hangar 1005 was difficult to find among the winding, curvy access roads. I didn’t even know I was in terminal 371784. I thought a mere technicality, but later learned these I.D. numbers and acronyms, and there were lots of them, were important. I was cashing in on a Total Immersion Flight lesson at Chicago Executive Flight School [...]
from “Under the Birch Tree” -summertime (full essay)
I grew up attending Holy Cross Catholic grade school in Deerfield where having a conversation with God, or “maintaining a dialogue” as the nuns told us, was as important to our education as getting good grades. I was told that if you prayed, evoking God in your “dialogue,” you will be okay. Trust God and you won’t fear anything. I tried swimming lessons one summer vacation. Mom and I arrived early for my lesson at the Exmoor Country Club swimming pool deck anyway. It was a cool morning, with the [...]
The Pink Journal
I heard the call. It wasn’t a whisper or delicate voice or loud words urging me to transcribe thoughts to paper. But the call did sound like an alarm, telling me it was time to awaken a dormant spirit. I was ready to give voice to my ideas, the beginning of my story telling. When I was fifteen, a pink hardcover book invited me to fill its blank lined pages. A latch was glued to the back of the book and fit snugly into a lock glued to the top. [...]
Taking that First Step
I'm appreciative, if not, lucky to have the opportunity to write the cover-feature of my local magazine. I take comfort knowing my secure place of memoir writing, however, mixing reportage with memoir - now that's a different angle, one that was effortless to take on. I leave the following link to the magazine.http://emagazines.hibu.com/GLENVW
The Plot of Your Life
I reblogged "The Plot of Your Life" because I found it loaded with intangibles yet universal in theme for memoir writers. Memoir writers have accumulated details of their lives that form experiences where a writer can only hope a plot is revealed. And this is where I struggle, straying from my theme. I am motivated to keep developing "Under the Birch Tree," to make sense of my experiences through words. Most times I just don't see the sense maybe because I'm looking too hard and I'm expecting a grandiose revelation. [...]
The Bathroom
The upstairs bathroom on Carlisle Avenue was at the top of the red carpeted stairs, middle of the hall. This kid’s bathroom came standard equipped with a bathtub, showering capabilities and a toilet on one wall and on the opposite wall a beige Formica counter ran the length of the bathroom. The muddy blue double sink holes, one for Timmy and one for me, broke up the long flat surface. And then there was the window, double hung, with a plastic marble coating to diffuse an outsider’s view – and [...]
. . . to a Tree
TO A TREE “The time has come for us to move on Let us nest that time in the Bottom of the tree To grow with each new branch Letting our leaves bud with Each new spring The nest is our home, the branches Our foundation It is the universal home of God For I am set in the ways of the tree I am bound for eternity.” There’s something about trees. My discovery started at 15 when I wrote this poem and I realized I had a place in [...]