On a recent visit to the Art Institute with Tim and a friend, I dragged a little into the area of the galleries of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean arts that contains one of my favorites, the Ando Gallery. We had already been at the museum for a couple hours and I was running out of […]
There’s some healing going on in our house. My writing is changing as I continue on in my practice. I no longer feel like I need to retell the trauma of Temma’s birth, near-death, coming back to life with profound brain damage and the shame and guilt that I wrestled with for so long. That’s […]
Elena Ferrante, the Italian author of My Beautiful Friend, has a book of four essays out titled, In The Margins: On the Pleasures of Reading and Writing. These are deeply thought out and intimately written essays about some of the influences on her disciplines of reading and writing. She writes about finding her own voice […]
One day this past week I awoke in the feelings of a dream where there was no music. I had accompanied on the piano a small ensemble that would sing in the church talent show. But today, on the day of the performance, I could not find the music and the audience is exiting. I’m […]
Some articles have been appearing lately about an alarming number of teenagers and especially teenage girls who are in despair, struggling to hang on to living. (This has long been true of LGBTQ+ teens. Statistics now showing a dramatic rise in distress and suicidal ideation in teen girls specifically). It’s not news. People have been […]
Temma and I got our little tree trimmed with all our ornaments this afternoon. That is always a nostalgic task. Many of the ornaments come from friends, as far back as when Temma was a baby and coming off life-support at the hospital after her cardiac arrest. Tim and I came home to our apartment […]
We do some reflecting back and forth to each other.
We first began hearing of a deadly virus designated Covid-19 back in late January and early February of 2020. I need to remind myself of that fact. Everyone I talk to about the virus that resulted in a global pandemic will say something like, “It feels like two weeks ago or two months ago rather […]
I just finished reading, A Ghost In the Throat, by the Irish poet and author Doireann Ni Ghriofa, and I wish that I hadn’t (finished it, that is). I am entranced with her voice. I’m in love with her love and obsession. She and I have gone through a similar birthing experience, although our outcomes […]
Tim suggested I write something about this painting of our daughter Temma, titled Rapt, meaning paying rapt attention. This is a state of seeing, listening, waiting, wondering, for something that is coming, like Advent. Temma seems to be ever in the season of Advent. Today, as we cross over once again from Advent to the […]
Writing From the Margins 