Are You in a Good Mood?

On holidays, my far-away family makes sure we talk to each other on the phone sometime during the day: my brother calls from Maryland as his wife scurries in the kitchen, my guy’s siblings call at usually a most inconvenient time, like when we’ve just sat down for dessert. But still, we stop, we exclaim Happy Fill in the Blank (Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, Easter) and we fill up with love.

Which brings me to the phone conversation with my son toward the end of Easter. Continue reading

Swimming Upstream Through the Pages

reading, books, porch, summertimeI don’t know about you, but during much of 2018 I felt like I was swimming Upstream. Each day seemed to bring Just One Damned Thing after Another; other days seemed like A Walk in the Park.

On the personal side, my concussion in May led to the The Longest Nine Months of feeling like I lived in an Alternate Side, a side where writing and teaching and thinking were an Unlikely Pilgrimage. Continue reading