I’ve seen three hummingbirds today. There aren’t a lot of birds in Los Angeles. That’s not true, there are birds, but not like the birds near my old house. We had bird nests and birds everywhere. Here things are more city, more crows and seagulls. Today I want to go back. I want to go…
A boy lost his father when he was a child. To work, compromise, and a dash of selfish. The boy cried. A young man lost his father when he was struggling. To indifference, distraction, and lies. The young man yelled. A man lost his father unexpectedly. To the invisible, the invasive, and neglect. The man…
Eight, I counted. Eight blog posts in 2020. All the time in the world with nowhere safe to go, an endless barrage of topics, and I have never written less. Maybe I was traumatized by the pandemic or the litany of lies we tell ourselves as a nation. Maybe I struggled to get over surviving…
Jack and I are trying to walk twice a day. His trainer says he needs two sixty-minute sessions to deal with his anxiety over living in a new city or a city at all. The vast expanse of the desert is all Jack has ever known, so he is learning there are other people, dogs,…
Solitude is essential to who I am, but for many people, it is a tricky business. Quiet, the often companion of solitude, can scare those not familiar with the tick of a clock. I used to have a rush of a life. Music on, chatter, and little alone time. I suffered instead of thriving amid…
What is your greatest fear? I am continuing with Proust’s Questionnaire. This one is easy for me. The answer is in the question. Being fearful is my greatest fear. So many awful things grow from fear. Prejudice, selective ignorance, clutching, smothering, giving up, and giving in. All of it rooted in a dread of the…
There are times when writing is the only thing that makes sense. I’m not talking about the bullshit on Instagram about writing because “I have to.” No one has to do anything except for the taxes and death bit. Writers can be an obnoxious and overdramatic lot. I once typed somewhere that writing is “like…
If I don’t focus, life can be a real pain in the ovaries. Recently, I have started reading about Stoicism. I’m finding meditation is a little too cozy-blanket unless I’m going to be a monk, which is still an option on my table, but in the meantime, I need to strike a balance between…
Seven birds and, as of this morning, six baby mice. That is the death toll this spring. I can not provide context for this loss because I don’t know how many baby birds were in all of the nests around our house, nor do I know how many mice families call our piece of land home.…
