Posts exploring death, dying, loss and how we experience grief
Yesterday — by happenstance, it was St Patrick’s Day — marked one year since my office sent everyone home. Like “Ollie Ollie in-free!”, ready or not, run for Home. St Patrick, Ireland’s patron saint, driver-out of snakes, would have been flummoxed. How shall I drive out a disease borne in …
Sometimes, things change for us personally, on a small but important-to-me scale. I got braces and now I feel ugly. I failed an important test and my score to get into college is down a point. My pet hamster died and I’m sad. Sometimes, they change for us personally, but …
I had thought to write a diatribe tonight. Something to scour the smug smiles from the lips of senatorial Republicans, congressionally conspiring to ignore infamy. Three ideas kept me from such grim (if necessary) thoughts. Indeed, I first sought a winter poem to introduce tonight’s theme, of cold and snow …
Warm and cool. Spiky and smooth. The colors of rose petal and rose leaf. Coral, the slow-growing reef left by the tiny houses of sea creatures. Jade, the super-hard stone honored in China. It’s the symbol of good luck, good health, happiness, longevity, peace and wealth. (To say nothing of …
The anxiety brought about by watching the nation descend into bitterly partisan chaos has not been easy to bear. The usually reliable remedies have not worked. The brisk walks along the shore of Budd Inlet … hampered by breathing through a cotton mask. Mental busywork like cataloging 245 guidebooks to …
The old pagan folks knew their weather cycles well. They marked the equinoxes — the day when light and dark are near equal — and the solstices — when daylight and darkness turnabout for mastery over our days. But they also marked other, intermediate days and nights in the wheel …
Pouring rain this Tuesday morning. Lightning flashes. Thunder follows… it can never find us here. “You’re my witness, I’m your mutineer.” Pines on the Priory’s skyline were like twiggy Rorschach tests, blotted against the somber grey sky, barely lighter than they are… if inkblots could sway. High winds, and high …
I wish I could remember just where, quite recently, I heard about the Dutch concept of uitwaaien, which loosely translated means taking a wind-bath. The idea, as best I recall, is that going out for a walk or run or bike-ride in windy weather improves one’s outlook by sweeping healing …
Much as I would have liked for me and Tim to be one of those couples that ambled along hand-in-hand, that wasn’t really an option. He needed both hands to push his wheelchair along. My hands were often full of camera gear or picnic baskets or day-to-day shopping. Whenever we …
I so wanted to write a blithe post about how grateful I am for my “framily.” I usually call them my Family of Friends. Today, I’m totally stealing my boss’s word for the pod her family travels in to avoid the coronavirus. Northwesterners are very happy picturing ourselves as a …
