I was an only child in Chicago in the 1970s. At age eleven, I lost my mother to cancer, an isolating and then emboldening — (maybe not quite empowering!) — experience that I mine in my writing. My memoir, Girl Next Door: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Early Loss, traces the bleak changes to my life and, later, my reliance on my inner compass and the strength instilled by my mom. I’ve finished revising it and am ready to send copies to six beta readers for their feedback. I wrote this book to share with other motherless daughters and those who…
“GIRL NEXT DOOR” is “The Tender Bar” meets “Harriet the Spy” plus lyrical natural beauty. A mom who dies in her 40s leaves her little girl with inner strength to get through the hardest of times, and to make a safe-enough path to adulthood.
Podcaster and grief counselor Ann Faison interviewed me for her podcast. You might find some of this relatable if you had a significant loss as a child.
(I hope) For the past three summers, I’ve grown a few dahlias in some pretty crummy soil above a boulder retaining wall, where I had ripped out some big old shrubs. The first year, the dahlias did really well, growing bushy and full of colorful flowers. This past year, not so much. Three out of nine, brand new, didn’t even come up. The six that grew — three new, three second-year — didn’t flower very much. I realized I had not given them any fertilizer since late spring. At least I kept them watered. By the end of this summer…
“The more we can be ourselves, the more positively we influence others.” – Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person Rogers and other psychologists have said that everyone wants to be influential. But Rogers doesn’t talk about it in the power-hungry sense, or the “compensate for our sense of inferiority” sense. Like most of his writing, it takes a positive view of the human mind, and I appreciate that. Reading about the need to be influential reminded me of when I opened my fitness training business, and how inspired I was to share my own life-improving experiences with other people. Recently a…
We revisited a favorite hike after 20 years and learned about how the terrain has changed with the climate. This glacier and river are so interesting!
Playing music was the most beautiful way I’d watched people express connection and togetherness. I had a persistent fantasy of playing guitar and singing for someone I loved. I couldn’t have articulated that, and I wouldn’t have dared to anyway.
Margaret Verble’s Stealing will stand in my bookshelf among the books it reminds me of: To Kill a Mockingbird, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Harriet the Spy. Stealing needs to be a classic equal to the most important of these other books — whichever one you deem that to be. It’s a story of a motherless daughter who shows the self sufficiency of a skilled and extraordinary child, contributing to her family and loved by them, until a cascade of awful events beyond her ability to manage. It reminds me of the above-mentioned books in its voice and its…
With the death of Sinéad O’Connor, I don’t want to do anything today. It feels like the death of a distant friend. I didn’t follow her closely, even though I loved her singing voice and the songs I heard on the radio. Am I allowed to feel this knocked off my feet? I loved her especially for her image and her actions. She came into my consciousness with the videos of her first hits. I was twenty-four. Her shaved head and boyish clothes zinged into my mind like a secret message of validation to my inner twelve-year-old. She seemed to…
I’m participating in a public reading on Zoom, Wednesday July 19, starting at 5 PM. I’ll read an essay titled, “I Was Lucky,” part of my story of growing up in the shadow of childhood loss. I’d love to have an audience of friends and acquaintances and readers of my blog. I’ll send out the Zoom link in a group email in a few days. To get the Zoom link, enter your email into the Email Update form on the left side of this page, which will also let you receive occasional short pieces of my writing. Thank you! Note:…