If I seem almost normal now, it’s because of them. I want to talk a minute about friends. It’s easy to take our friends for granted when life is on an even keel. They’re available but not necessarily necessary. You know what I mean? The joy is in knowing they’re…

It’s not kindness when we allow people to be hurt. — There’s much to celebrate in this country, what with a new administration working to right the things that have gone wrong and to change our attitudes about the need for legitimate, responsible Big Government. But at the same time, the forces working against it are building to an obvious pressure…

Or is it just me? — Okay, I’m mortified. I have what I laughingly call my ‘Author’s Page’, only because everyone else has one and some of them are exquisite and I’m a sheep. I’ve been building this page on WordPress and it’s like trying to do brain surgery blindfolded. They have blocks. Or sections. …

She looks at life from both sides now. — Set scene: It’s the Newport Folk Festival, July, 2022. After nine years away from the spotlight and 53 years after the last time she performed at the Festival, Joni Mitchell, in a surprise appearance, is back on stage. She’s singing ‘Both Sides Now’, her signature piece, a grueling song not…

So let me write it out and see what happens. — It’s been just over three months since Ed died and I’m no closer to figuring out what’s next than I was the day it happened. It’s as if my days are spent now, when I’m not filling out paperwork or agonizing over red tape, trying to decide who I am…

Hint: Ultimately nothing to the rest of us. I’m going to start this off with two caveats: One, I didn’t watch the entire Depp-Heard trial, only snippets. And two, I’ve never been the perpetrator or the victim of conjugal abuse. I have no skin in this game, so anything I…

So I might as well write about them. — I had a dream last night. A good dream. I dreamed I pulled out an old, unfinished manuscript and I loved what I was reading! It was so good! And it was already half finished! Then I was writing a query letter and everything I said in it was a…

It’s a fact that many of us get almost all of our news via the internet. It’s because the internet is invaluable when it comes to disseminating information on a minute by minute, blow by blow level, while, at the same time, it’s filled with more data, more history, more…

Mary Oliver — Mary Oliver’s poem ‘When Death Comes’ is her most famous for a reason: It resonates with everyone. It’s here: When death comes like the hungry bear in autumn; when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; when death…