Pare Down to Essential Actions
– Untitled painting by G.R. Iranna One time while traveling in New Mexico to deliver a workshop, I fell off of a curb I didn’t see in the dark and badly injured my ankle. Very badly. “Complete disruption” of all the tendons and ligaments and a fracture in my talar …
The Courage to Be Mortal
Five years ago today, my friend Laurie Foley died. For the last five months of her life, we talked to each other a lot. I wasn’t feeling well myself and mostly tried to sleep on a couch in my office so I wouldn’t disturb John, and she was in the …
65th birthday list for Johnny
I know I joke a lot about Johnny Depp. And I write about Johnny Unitas a lot. And Johnny Appleseed. And Johnny Cash. But the fact is that there is only one Johnny. My Johnny, Mr Brilliant, the father of our two amazing children. And today is his 65th birthday. …
The Cardinal Club by Suzanne Maggio
Families are complex. I think we all know this. But sometimes we need a guide to help us understand that complexity and understand our own part in it. The Cardinal Club has done that for me. This beautifully written memoir by Suzanne Maggio is one of the most satisfying books …
oh, daddy : thirty-nine years ago today.
One Year When I got to his marker, I sat on it, like sitting on the edge of someone’s bed and I rubbed the smooth, speckled granite. I took some tears from my jaw and neck and started to wash a corner of his stone. Then a black and amber …
happy birthday, daddy.
As always on Christmas Day, a remembrancer of my father whose birthday is Christmas. He would have been 92 today. Happy birthday, Daddy. Monogram your pancakes “Surviving a loss and letting go is only half of the story. The other half is the secret belief that we will find, in …
remember.
I am not interested in political statements or warnings or diatribes on this anniversary of 9/11. I’m not inclined to write a post about how we’ve lost our way in the years since then, about how the terrorists have won if their goal was to irretrievably break this country apart …
carry on and buy art.
From a Facebook posting of mine: Friends and Fellow Country(wo)men, A lot of people own small businesses. And many people are artists and musicians and creative sparks who make their living making their art. AND ISN’T THAT FANTASTIC! You know what isn’t fantastic? When you go to an art fair …
poetry wednesday : the middle passage
The Middle Passage by Robert Hayden I Jesús, Estrella, Esperanza, Mercy: Sails flashing to the wind like weapons, sharks following the moans the fever and the dying; horror the corposant and compass rose. Middle Passage: voyage through death to life upon these shores. “10 April …
