Category Archives: Uncategorized

Wisteria, morning glories and mint

Listen, an experienced gardener warned,you want to watch the wisteria. It gets away from you, its dime-sized seedsburrowing into the ground, it’ll growand grow and grow into a constrictor,a green strangler. I’m not kidding. But, I said, I like the … Continue reading →

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For the next hour

One short, measly hour,not a special one, just any oldhour, look around and ask, “What would my life bewithout this thing? Withoutthat thing? Or that one?” Without the tree shadingthe window, without the window,without the kitchen sink you’re standing behind,without … Continue reading →

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Start with easy

You know how you wake up some mornings, the bad dream running laps in your brain, telling yourself it’s not real, but you carry the hangover of free-floating anxiety in your satchel of woes, which, most days, you can set … Continue reading →

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Where did you learn to sing?

If you believe that you were not born to sing,then you must allow the birds to tutor you, sitting in places where they do, allowing themto feel comfortable enough to vocalize near you in your scary human suit. You will … Continue reading →

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Encouraging signs

Let this be a sign unto you,amazing one: You are enough.You are magic. And yes, embrace your mistakes.And look for the signs because, it turns out, they’re everywhere,if we only have the eyes to see them, messages from the unseen … Continue reading →

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Swimmin’ lessons

Six-year-old Lane calls across the pool,“Mom, watch!”His 11-year-old sister Grace echoes,“Watch ME, Mom!” And at the shaded end of my niece’spool, their Mom watches—this womanwho styles my niece’s hair—alongwith her mother, as my sister and I, old enough to be … Continue reading →

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Some day

Not now, deeply into the future,preferably when I don’t knowthat it’s coming, lying on the yoga mat in, appropriately,corpse pose after a gentle backyard sessionon a summer day much like this one, Delta breeze susurrating through the sycamore,the distant call … Continue reading →

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Instructions for a more perfect union

(On the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America) 1. First, there’s no perfect. Just working toward it,a willingness to improve, to strive for better,for what truly matters. 2. There have … Continue reading →

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The ferns that swallowed the rose bush

Watching the enthusiastic ladyferns spread their wings likegreen swans against the fence, I am aware that, with theirseasonal emergence that I donothing to prompt, they have swallowed the rosebush that lives beneath them,I trust that they are sheltering it, rather … Continue reading →

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Needle climbers

“Crazy bastards,” my father used to say whenhe saw young people doing dangerous things— like riding motorcycles or hot-rodding motorboatson the lake on hot summer days—this from a guy who had famously water skied barefoot in his 20s.“Probably drunk,” he’d … Continue reading →

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