Category: Non-Fiction

On my kitchen windowsill sits a smooth, rounded, medium-sized rock. On its nondescript gray surface is carved, “Nothing is etched in stone.” It reminds me to embrace life’s ambiguities. Sometimes when I’m standing there at the...

Outside the window of my father’s ‘65 Thunderbird, the sky was cobalt blue. There were stars but they didn’t interest me. Trees flew by, and houses and buildings, and foothills in the distance; but the moon skated right along...

Pablo Picasso drew his dog, Lump, in one continuous line. My first-grade teacher called my mother. I wouldn’t stop crying during art time. I couldn’t draw a dog the way a real dog looks. Picasso is credited with developing the...

“Stop the car! Stop the car!” I yelled, startling everyone as I turned around to look out of the back window. “Why? What’s wrong!” asked my husband, quickly stepping on the brakes and pulling over to the...

Ed retired early from his job when his eyes went kaplooey. Kaplooey: Dad’s word for bodily stuff gone wrong. For his pal, Ed, kaplooey was rapid-onset blindness. This I pictured as heavy curtains yanked fiercely across waning...

After midnight, Barry and I would head to the White Castle. This, I should explain, happened decades ago. Not much else stayed open late in the nation’s capital, which wasn’t Manhattan, where Nathan’s never closed. The White...

Nuit en moi, nuit au dehors, Elles risquent leurs etoiles, Les melant sans le savoir. Et je fais force de rames Entre ces nuits coutumieres, Puis je m’arrete et regarde. Comme je me vois de loin! Je ne suis qu’un frele point Qui...

I’m at a writing conference, a small gathering of authors and educators. A place where, inevitably, the question comes up, “What do you do?” I use my stock reply. “I’m a retired English teacher.” I imagine what they see. A...

Magnanimous, the silent standing of Wretched peaks made gravely clean by light, Look, Duality presents on natures sight That covers its connectedness like love. Perhaps its more like a black floor length skirt Teased on top with...

  There’s one place in town I like the most for breakfast. It’s called The Dolphin, located at the very far end of the Santa Cruz Wharf, only a fifteen-minute drive from my house in Aptos. The Dolphin is an old-fashioned...