We have not taken a trip with our adult children in years. It’s often difficult to agree on a destination or coordinate calendars. When children have their own lives, it is a challenge. But, after a few weeks of wrangling, we did it. We planned a family trip to Costa Rica. Three different areas: cloud…
We moved to Venice, CA, when we left the desert. On our second day in our new city, I saw a woman on a bike in the middle lane of traffic. She was probably in her sixties. One pant leg rolled to reveal blue and white striped knee socks, her curly gray hair secured in…
I have not listened to music in nearly two years. I’ve listened to the occasional song in the car, the focus-chill playlist with no words, and our family plays a game where we pick a theme and then go around the room so everyone gets to play their musical interpretation of the theme. That’s fun.…
“Focus on small things like making tea. Be grateful and break things down to the tiniest piece until you can find good.” That was my response when my youngest, distraught by news and the world, asked me the point of life. Not an easy question at any age, but she wanted to know how I…
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…
