When a friend’s engineer husband decided to go back to school to become a lawyer, for some reason I couldn’t get over his decision to dive into three grueling years. This sounded just awful to me — they had two young kids at home. And […]
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Some good news
There was one sad winter when even the sound of a siren would bring tears to my eyes just thinking about the tragic mission that emergency vehicle might be on. But that was also the winter I discovered The Office, the legendary sitcom series set […]
Advice from a strange place
A hypochondriac might not be the first person you’d go to for advice about managing anxiety in a pandemic, but a recovering hypochondriac…now that’s a different story. They’ve figured out how to look their own fear in the face and not freak out. For that […]
Doll baby
Over the weekend my mother and I put a puzzle together out in the common area of the memory unit where she lives. A couple of other women were sitting at a table right in back of us. As Mom and I chatted, I became […]
Leaving your mark
There is a lady who walks her dog on State Street in Portland every day. When she gets to Mercy Hospital, she takes a little detour so she can place a painted rock on the hospital’s front entrance steps or the guardrail going down to […]
Scene 6 — the playbook
I’ve been promising the steps of a self-leadership playbook for thousands upon thousands of words now, spanning across 7 long stories. In an act of unprecedented brevity, here they are in 4 numbers and 4 words: Anchor Identify Integrate Act Logically progressive. Beautifully efficient. And […]
Misunderstanding
There has been a misunderstanding. I thought the object was to be better, thinner, faster and richer. I see now I was confused. The object is to hold my seat so that I can know and be who I truly am.
Welcome to my mountain
I was in a situation I couldn’t see my way out of short of calling in the ski patrol, however you do that. The problem: the bottom of the mountain was very different from the top. What had been manageable down below on my amateur […]
A silly lunch
I could hear the laughing getting closer and closer before they busted through the door of the drama lab, shouting out, “Ms. Clayton, do you want to know how to eat a peanut butter sandwich in one bite?” They tumbled in like puppies, these two freshmen from […]
Inspirito
“I got the breath of life put in me.” He said it slow, unable to get over the wonder of it. “There was an accident. I’ve been to the county home.” Christine and her friend Kathy had been walking across an old bridge on a […]
Just kiss him
“If you can drive safely while kissing a girl, you are simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.” — Einstein. Reportedly. Photo credit: Lanakila MacNaughton
Flag girl, part II
A classmate and her mother were murdered in their home when I was a sophomore in high school, first her mother, who was shot in the basement where they were both were watching tv, then Karol, who was chased up the stairs into the garage […]
Be cool. 