A mouse takes 130 very rapid little mouse breaths per minute and lives for 1 – 3 years. A whale takes 6 whale-sized breaths every minute and lives to be around 100. It almost makes you think breathing long and slow might be a very […]
All posts filed under: Memoir
Flag girl
We heard the DOT paid great so we decided we’d stand on the highway with a flag in our hand and rake it in for a summer. What a thing; we’d just stand on a road and rake it in. Our assignment was Highway 218…mile […]
Housekeeping
He had stuff I loved. From the minute I pulled into the driveway and saw the shapely Zen garden pot the size of a full-bodied hydrangea bush, I thought the psychiatrist who chose that elegant garden pottery is the psychiatrist for me. It just kept getting better and better […]
Not a cowboy
Hunter had pretty much stopped talking by the time he was two, favoring the mouthfeel of a binky over words. Up to that point, he’d been very verbal, very focused on language. He especially loved newscasters, with Tom Brokaw being his favorite. Of course, we were […]
Extra
It was a totally unorganized attempt at baby-making — just a creative round-up of skin and bones and teeth and hair and other pieces that typically comprise a human being, all bundled together in a grapefruit-sized package I had been carrying around with me for who […]
Just tell me
A dagger and a boule of bread have been placed on the table. The room is unusually quiet; this is not the standard set-up and it does not go unnoticed. When it’s time, we hear the sharp, clip clip clip as Mildred Bensmiller’s practical, medium-heel pumps […]
It tasted proper
There’s a restaurant in Los Angeles called Homegirl Cafe, one of the Homeboy Industries businesses created to provide jobs for former gang members. Gregory Boyle, the Jesuit priest in back of that project, was having lunch with Diane Keaton at the cafe one day. When […]
The long goodbye
Tactical error. I was already halfway across the street, essentially committed to crossing, when I saw the little old lady. Blast. Another person had already claimed that sidewalk. And what’s more, because she was trundling along so slowly while pulling a little red suitcase down the […]
Cocoa Restaurant, part II
After our fun, we get down to business. We are working in the modality of Internal Family Systems (IFS), the only approach that has ever gotten close to truly straightening anything out. All the others — cognitive behavioral, dialectical behavioral, straight-up talk therapy, biofeedback — […]
Cocoa restaurant. All are welcome
A hand-crafted sign is taped on the door to Jonette’s office: Cocoa Restaurant Come in! We have bathrooms! Electronics allowed! This is the artwork of one of Jonette’s clients, most of whom are under the age of 10. Except me. At the age of 55 […]
Wildlife
There’s a part of me as cagey as a cobra silly as a seal dingy as a dodo and sneaky as a fox. There’s a part of me as jumpy as a frog squirrley as a squirrel twitchy as a rabbit and stubborn as an […]
Velvet’s threshold
Part I She held herself like a queen, not in a haughty way, just in full possession of her silly 17-year-old self. Only 4 years older than Velvet myself but nonetheless the teacher of her in my Drama 3/4 class, it took a few weeks […]
Be cool. 