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The order. “Years and years and years ago” when Mom was still alive, I did what my mother had done and decided on solid black, spindleback wood chairs for her old dining table she’d given me. I wanted four chairs, and bought cheap, unfinished chairs and stained and lacquered them matt black. They are currently…
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There is a novel by Nella Larson called Passing, which includes racial passing by a character. There are other sorts of passing. Passing by, passing judgement, passing the mashed potatoes. A running dog passing another is called a go-by and it’s a good thing. Passing over, we die. Years pass too, time passes. But not…
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Yesterday, though it is October and cooling, the sun was bright overhead and we got in our two beach walks. A huge broken V of birds flew south so fast we were not able to identify the species. Not Canada geese, who fly slower and in a tidier skein and honk. Gary suggested cormorants. The…
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Ursula K. Le Guin once talked about embracing that word, “crone” as an honorific. For most, it is pejorative, inherently agist and sexist, but Ursula argued for a different take. The crone has experience and perspective, intelligence and awareness. The crone is old because she has lived long and prospered. She has earned respect, even…
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I am reading historical fiction just now. The E key on my keyboard has worn down to a splotch—it’s happened before. I had trouble getting to sleep from dwelling on memories of attack. I am waiting for the light so that I can have my walk. I am trying not to make things worse on…
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When I throw an email away, it goes in Trash, but my system also selects what it understands I do not want to see and puts it in another folder as Junk. Junk never appears in my Inbox. Periodically, I review the emails in that Junk folder, just in case something is misdirected. What I…
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I apologize to people who will see no point in reading this post. There is no point in reading this post. I have been trying to think of other things, to focus on the good I know is everywhere around, and to remember that I am a fortunate person. I am the oldest in my…
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Years ago, long before non-GMO became a common label on foods, before Safeway even had an “Organics” section, and before “gluten-free” became a thing, a junior came to class with an idea for her research paper. “It sounds interesting. They are altering the genes of food,” she said about the NPR broadcast she’d listened to…
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The student working on the research paper was well and truly stuck. He walked from the back table to where I sat at the front and asked me for help. “I am really far behind,” he said as if this were a permanent condition. He had the research. He had an idea of what he…
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When I prepared my application to the MFA (Masters of Fine Arts in fiction) at Pacific University, I needed a short story, a very brief literary analysis essay, and a personal statement. This was 2004. My mother had been dying for over two years, and my brother had declared me “the most disfunctional person” he…
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