As the fall mornings evolve and daylight diminishes, I find myself waking in the dark. It feels like just yesterday when the early morning sun lifted quickly over the horizon, rousing me from sleep, and the bedroom would take on a lighted glow. Now, I struggle to see any hint of light through the trees; the room remains dark. I [...]
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 [...]
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 I was seven or maybe eight, summer vacation was freedom. I would be free of classes, sitting, listening to a teacher, reading from a book, studying a blackboard. I would be free from test-taking anxiety and fear of maybe failing them. Having nothing required of me that would elicit emotional responses was my definition of a summer vacation. Until [...]
I would be remiss if I didn’t write about my reflections during this time of isolation because of the corona virus, when connecting is at odds with social distancing. I know we’ll look back on this when future conversations will begin “remember when” stories that will never end. I think of memories being made now for those “remember when’s” later. [...]
Last month I posted “truth didn’t set me free.” It was about my experience one early January morning in a courtroom. I read the post a week later and then took it down. As a memoir writer, I didn’t like how I wrote it; there should be more meaning to the experience than what I had written. But I wondered [...]
I sized up the sock I was knitting. While following a standard pattern—a one size fits all—I realized my almost-completed-sock would not fit my smaller-than-average foot. I thought about how the term sometimes can’t be taken literally, as for clothing, for example, or figuratively, like for a weight-loss program. I was reminded how “one size fits all” didn’t apply [...]
In November, a traditional month for homecoming, I gave thanks. And now in December as the year ends and calls for holiday parties, tree lighting ceremonies, and Hanukkah preparations, some may recount their year in specifics. Maybe you know what I’m talking about—the letter—tucked inside a holiday card you received. You read a script font printed on holiday paper catching [...]
Memoir writer Alice Tallmadge said it best in an essay, “Your First Book, When the Cheering Stops,” - “But your writing mind is as empty as a flat pocket. You can’t imagine writing another paragraph, ever. You say you are taking a break. And you do. (https://bit.ly/2JzmG7U) And I did. Taking a break from writing seemed to be an excuse, [...]
Have you ever liked an author’s second book more than, let’s say, their first? It’s not that an author’s latest book is better; it may be because the writing was different. You may have enjoyed their work of fiction over their first nonfiction book. I’ve always been a writer. I journaled through my anxious teens and in college, I recorded [...]