Getting Into the Swing

Even though most of you know I am a playful person, I haven’t been feeling very playful these past months. But Thursday at my physical therapy appointment I unexpectedly amused myself (and my PT). Let me back up.   When you were a kid did you like to swing your legs?...

Themes and Variations

I’ve just finished putting together the Soundtrack of My Life. Not a survey of music that was popular during various eras I have lived through. Not simply songs I’ve loved. This is a list of songs that at different times resonated deeply with me, that persisted, or...

A Tribute

In this bittersweet season of colorful leaves, dying and letting go, I am moved to tell you a little story. My childhood home on Grey Cloud Island was in the country, on an acre-and-a-half lot. There were many trees on the property—in high school I did a biology...

A Slippage in Time

Have you ever been two people at once—two people in one place in two different times simultaneously? Not just in your mind, but in your body? Once this happened to me. January 2010, Kona, Hawaii. I remember the soft bluish green tide pool extending around and below...

Nuts About Dragons

This week begins the Chinese New Year of the Wood Dragon. Generally, I hold only a passing interest in this annual cycle of the Chinese zodiac—it isn’t my culture, after all—but I am thrilled this year. (I admit that I did note I was born under the sign of the Snake...

Searching for Words in a Fog

There once was a woman of age Who struggled to honor a page With some nourishing words Ones that sang, flew like birds, But alas! She was never a sage. (And such hopes are so often a cage.)   Plus it’s winter, it’s cold and it’s dark, And her mind must be locked...