List of posts

  • WORTHWHILE

    WORTHWHILE

    “… it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the proverbial confectioner’s apprentice does towards macaroons. I do not think that education ought to be anyone’s whole profession: it should be undertaken for at most two hours a day…

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  • SUBMIT

    SUBMIT

    I submit. There it is. That word again. Eighteen months after sending a query to an agent, I heard back yesterday. She doesn’t want that book but would be willing to hear about my next project. Not that I am complaining. A few agents I queried failed to make any sort of response. (I had…

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  • WEATHER CHANGE

    WEATHER CHANGE

    We like being the first out, while the sand is still unmarked by dogs and people. Usually we find prints and recognize by position who they belong to. That’s John out for his run because the bare feet make prints so close together. Larry drags a bit. Tammy walks close to the water. The tracks…

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  • BIRTHDAY

    won’t you celebrate with me Lucille Clifton – 1936-2010 won’t you celebrate with me what i have shaped into a kind of life? i had no model. born in babylon both nonwhite and woman what did i see to be except myself? i made it up here on this bridge between starshine and clay, my…

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  • AGING IN PLACE

    AGING IN PLACE

    On the beach before dawn yesterday, rainclouds had moved off, and the sky was aqua over the ocean. My husband Gary and I followed the tideline until we met a friend and stood for a time admiring the cool air, the empty beach. We shared news of neighbors, and then said goodbye until tomorrow. We…

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  • ‘in my great and unmatched wisdom’

    What are we doing here? The President has invited foreign powers to interfere in the US presidential election. Democrats want to impeach him for it. Or, as my husband says, “We’ve been interfering in their government; it’s only fair that they should be allowed to interfere with ours.” Of course, Gary is being facetious.

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  • IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME

    I hope to take my third quilt up to be quilted this week—that’s it above while it was about a third complete. I am waiting to hear when I can deliver it because I need to send my laptop in for repair. Again. I have been using a Mac daily since 1990 and until this…

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  • BEING SMART & HIDDEN

    BEING SMART & HIDDEN

    The student stopped me in the hall one Fall day to tell me another teacher thought she was stupid, had told her she was stupid. I did not entirely believe her. And then a few days later, that teacher she’d complained of also stopped me in the hall, in almost the same spot, and told…

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  • BEAUTIFUL THINGS

    BEAUTIFUL THINGS

    My brief essay appears on Monday’s River Teeth Journal‘s “Beautiful Things.” Please have a look or even comment: https://www.riverteethjournal.com/blog/2019/09/30/simplify-simplify “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify, simplify! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your…

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  • WET

    WET

    Yesterday there were deer tracks at the base of our path to the beach. This morning a coyote had passed by. We went out a bit late, and I did not put up my hair or even put on a hat because it wasn’t cold or windy, just cooler and damp the way we like…

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