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Salty like hot dogs (and tears). Sweet like marmalade (and life).
A friend who is helping care for an elderly relative told me about one evening when she went to visit her aunt and she found her wearing no pants. It reminded me of a poem I had written when my mother did something similar. Here’s my… Continue Reading “The Grandmother’s New Pants”
“Is there going to be a civil war?” one of my children asked yesterday. “Gosh, I hope not,” I replied. The tension in our country is alarming. I’ve never lived in a place where is an active war is being fought, and I don’t… Continue Reading “Civil War”
The other day a friend posted on Facebook a rejection she had received for poetry submitted for publication. She is a wonderful poet and writer, and I ached because a rejection feels like, well, a rejection — a failure — and she is not a… Continue Reading “Success”
Walk around the barn with me. The side facing the road is red, the traditional color of many barns. My mother painted the Peace Dove around 40 years ago on a sheet of plywood. Bud found it in the barn this fall and decided to… Continue Reading “Weathered”
I thought I had a large family when I was growing up. My parents had five children — a nice, symmetrical boy-girl-boy-girl-boy. Then I met my husband. He was the second of thirteen. As if that wasn’t enough, his cousin also came to live… Continue Reading “Big and Small”
“Can I rearrange this room?” “Fred” asked a couple of days before Christmas. “Sure,” I said. “What do you want to do?” “I want to move the Christmas tree,” he said, “and, I don’t know, I need to think about it. But the feng shui in… Continue Reading “Frank Schwa”
My parents did a good job raising colorblind children in a lily-white town. I never heard either of them make any kind of racist statement. Instead I watched both of them operate from a platform of compassion toward all people. Every summer for a… Continue Reading “Colorblind”
Whenever I drive my father anywhere, he comments on the houses we pass. “Those are some well-kept houses,” he says, especially in the summer when the yards are groomed and flowers are blooming. Somewhere along the line maintaining his house became too much. My… Continue Reading “House Beautiful”
In the Book of Common Prayer, the morning prayer of confession begins, ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep… I was interested to read Lancelot Andrewes note on this prayer — We have wittingly and… Continue Reading “Prayer of Confession”
Below is a(nother) dusted-off post from 2011. In 2011 my mother was still alive and living at home. She clearly had dementia and her body was slowly failing on her. My father was her main care-provider, but that summer was hard on him, too.… Continue Reading “Incapable”
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 