Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. I created a list of things I love about him to equal the number of years he has wandered around on this planet since birth! 67 things! I’ll post it below, but as I finished it, I thought to myself: I wonder if I could …

On days like today, I can tell early that I’m not going to get much work done because I’d rather spend time with Feliks, so I cut my losses, took a shower, got dressed, and went with Feliks to the barn. Better to be outside with him and his beloved …

In early January, I made a pledge to buy nothing other than food, medical needs for pets and humans, gifts for others, and toiletries when they ran out. No shoes, clothes, accessories, magazines, books, notebooks, cards, stationery, household items, or electronics. Those were the conditions of the pledge. How did …

I recently acknowledged on Facebook the seventh anniversary of my January 23, 2016, heart attack–and the quick dismissal of my symptoms the day before by my (former) general practitioner. The Doctor Dude (we nicknamed him Pocket Doc) must’ve been worried when he heard I was in the Heart Tower at …

I just have to tell you again how much I love this book. Here’s my recent tweet about it (image below). The delicious writing, the ways in which he draws in the reader by speaking directly to us, the tone and tenor–everything. It is a sensory experience, a rambunctious torrent …

For the past week, I have been struggling with a pinched nerve, the pain of which is in my back and down my right arm. Until today, when the pain has lessened a little bit because of exercises in a slim volume called “Treat Your Own Neck” by Robin McKenzie, …

My past journals reveal complex New Years’ rituals. There was some overthinking involved. I was younger then. Now, I just ask myself two questions on New Year’s Eve: What do I want to let go of in the New Year? What do I want to create in the New Year? …

Laid to Rest in Suit Number Nine The enormity of her pathology announced itself when Mama opened Great-Granddaddy’s trunk and held up dozens of lustrous pajama sets to bear witness to me. They had no weight yet filled the trunk like flags of small, significant nations. “I wore this for …

I was 16, going on my first plane ride ever, to a country I had never heard of, to live with a family I had never met and attend a school whose name I couldn’t pronounce, but it never occurred to me I should be anxious. Even when we sat …

Grandma always worried about dying of cancer ever since I can remember. And when she did die, in 1980, she died of cancer. That got my attention. I stopped worrying about dying in a car accident immediately. Her son–my father–had died seven months before her, and my aunts and uncles, …