how my ancestry makes me a better writer

I received an email from my half-sister who forwarded an email she received from a man neither of us knew. He had said that we were related in the Chadwick tree limbs of cousins and that he would add me as a guest on Ancestry so I could view his tree of which he had meticulously completed. This prompted me [...]

2023-03-02T19:53:41+00:00March 2, 2023|Categories: ancestry, home, memoir, writers|Tags: , , , |

creating space, from the outside in

Vestiges of fall lay on the ground in bits of dried leaves, acorns, weakened limbs, and memories of a landscape once in vibrancy and motion. A blanket of frost covers it, encased like a tomb to be nudged by a dawning sky and the promise of sun. I was out for a hike in the early morning when I saw [...]

from feeling small to being big

I feel small. And it makes me feel imbalanced. Once feeling large and poised over the summer months with the security of sunny days, familiarity of longer lit hours, and the comfort of happy places at beaches and bike-riding, has now morphed into a perspective that is confined and maybe a little off center. I didn’t realize this until after [...]

In a slump? Stay there for a while

I’m in a slump. The Wisdom of the Willow is completed, polished, shiny and bright, awaiting publication; the momentum of writing an outline for my third book has slowed to a crawl; a documents file of half-baked writing projects has been left to bake further; and I can’t think of a thing worth reflecting on for any meaningful monthly blog [...]

Was it really about a publishing goal?

I recently saw a question posted on a social media author group page, of which I am a member, asking if any writer has earned out the amount she has put into the (hybrid) publication of her book. I read the fifty plus affirmed comments and their details. Sure, every author hopes to cash in on an investment that has [...]

from dark to light-a remembrance day

International Holocaust Remembrance Day is today. This is an essay I wrote a few years ago and have amended with fresh memories and impressions of a day I spent in remembrance. Sometimes, I like to see my world as being black or white, segregated into neat piles. My tidy thinking and tendency to categorize allows me to understand, to make [...]

2022-01-27T20:43:40+00:00January 27, 2022|Categories: home, memoir, personal narratives, self-discovery|Tags: , , , |

A memory tree

winter willow I sat on the floor and pulled the lid from a squat octagonal storage bin, releasing a crisp waft of evergreen. Inside, a trove of trinkets lay in beds of crinkled butcher paper. They varied in size, shape, color—and age. I rummaged through the collection, my fingers becoming sticky from leftover tree sap clinging to the Christmas tree [...]

of old photos and a landmark building

She handed to me a shoe box patterned in stamps from around the world, only the box wasn’t for shoes but was for photographs, and it wasn’t to hold memories of global travels but to house snapshots of the journeys in years of my family. I had placed it among similar boxes in a narrow closet among unused coffee table [...]

Absent but not forgotten

I owe you an apology. I haven’t seen you in two months with no attempt to say hello with even a scribble of a few sentences. We haven’t tangled in sorting mixed words or found clarity in excavating unclear meanings or built a solid structure from a wobbly one in a long time. It’s not that I haven’t thought about [...]

when a winter’s walk was like no other

For most months, I’m out first thing for a brisk walk, or a mighty jog through the woods, depending on how this aging body responds to a willing spirit. But this day was a cold winter one where tears settled in around my eyes and when the sun seemed asleep and blanketed by an off-white canvas overhead. I was desperate [...]

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