When I left the Upper Texas coast this time last year, I left behind a storage room full of my…
Home in Blanche—From Under the Avalanche
Southeast Texas has greeted me with heavy rains and heavier traffic. I’m having an asthma attack from weeds and mold…
Digging for Silver: Gratitude in Loss and Recovery
The ring above was bought for me by my mother in 1982 as I started college in Durango, CO. I…
Lake Whitney, TX: Receiving Memory as Healing
The lake rolls, and a distant boat’s attenuated wake sucks gently at the limestone shore. The last tufts of cottonwood…
Sloshing: Trauma, Memory, & Blurting
In the grand scheme of things, nothing I do or don’t do is of any value. I am not a…
Busyhead: Anxiety as a symptom of grief
My head is full of bees. Thoughts hum constantly and without direction. Grief has been the strangest animal for me.…
Afscheidswals
Excerpt from a work-in-progress on this National Mutt day for my most beautiful mutt. April 2019 I hear, tonight, no…
Art & Grief: Finding the Perfection in the Imperfect
I stitched and the dog snored and life was sweet and warm. I finished the biscornu and in all those stitches and waves and snoring came words for the page…
The Joy Between Naps: Facing Mortality
When you walk beside someone daily, you don’t always see the subtle changes in their bodies and faces as they…
Lost Art
These things cloud my head (with my permission) like a perpetual flu. If I were an addict, I could blame drugs or booze, but my addictions are the 3 x 5 screen in my hand and the constant reexamination of pain and rage. Better to binge on pixels and past hurts than to leave the chasm in my brain agape because I simply can’t properly fill it.