Category Archives: Uncategorized

It is significant only to me now, but 27 years ago today I married for the first and only time in my life. Clifford Ernest Polland married me on a cold but clear Saturday in a friend’s living room in … Continue reading →

One of the great joys of my life was my 29th birthday, which was when my sister Donna made me an aunt for the first time. Lauren Michelle Just was born six weeks early, and I like to think she … Continue reading →

If you read the previous post, you might be interested to know that after I wrote it, I walked down the street to my neighbor’s to pick up more downed gingko leaves, and I saw an older man out raking. … Continue reading →

I do this every fall now. I did it years before I started leading writing groups that required prompts. I’d go out in the neighborhood—sometimes even stopping by the side of the road if I saw lovely specimens—and load up … Continue reading →

I wrote this on the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, at the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, on the first day of my Saturday fall writing workshop. We’d had a six-week summer hiatus, … Continue reading →

Ms. Coralee Hoffmaster Johnson of Cerritos, California—this is for you, darlin’.   I know that this week you had planned to find yourself on a small raft on the Colorado River with two of your closest women friends—Connie and Shirley. … Continue reading →

Evan Mendonsa is five years old, and he has just completed his third week of kindergarten. He is beyond excited about school. “It’s fun!” he enthuses with the big grin of a shiny new student. He can recognize a few … Continue reading →

It’s been nine and a half years, almost, since he died, and though I wrote a book of poetry called Companion Spirit about his continued presence in my life since then, it still sometimes surprises me when he turns up. … Continue reading →

Traveling home from Canada is always bittersweet, partly because it means vacation is over and partly because I’m looking forward to getting home to (this is embarrassing) my cats. I know they sit around waiting for me, looking for me. … Continue reading →

A word or two about surfing in British Columbia. Some of you are probably thinking what Dick and I thought a decade ago when we learned about this: Surfing in British Columbia? Isn’t that like water-skiing in Death Valley? Like … Continue reading →