Kona Reset

Just a week ago I was wrapping up my last day of vacation in Kona, Hawaii and preparing for the Covid intense flight home. Flying is now a test for your memory and a resolve to stay safe while holding your bladder full for five straight hours.  And chewing with a mask on. And reminding…

Beautiful Boys

My beautiful boys are mine to count, and grandbaby Joaquin makes them three. Beautiful boys, beautiful boys, I love you sweetly, my beautiful boys. My manly sons are no longer young, but we consider them gifts, Alan and me. They’ve been our teachers and showed us loving and staying the course. We’ve learned acceptance and…

Letting Go Of Something Soft and Blue

It was purchased in Morrow Bay and then moved to the desert town of La Quinta, finally landing in my studio here in the foothills of California. It had been slept on and cried on, and a comfort during nights of insomnia when so many things were going right or wrong, depending on how you…

Filters Lost

Supporting someone through a terminal illness and their ultimate death and taking care of business in the way dying requires, is life changing. I remember feeling capable and ready to meet our fate in the way I’ve met everything else in my life.  Sometimes I was a mess but mostly not. If you look at my…

My Summer Vacation

Bus, Train, Bus to San Francisco and then back home again. Bus Train Bus in reverse. Phew. Hustling is what you do when you travel, especially if you travel using Amtrak along with the rest of the masses It’s always fun but in the past, there was a certain amount of order. Alan would organize…

Simon

Friends do not come a dime a dozen. They shouldn’t be counted or taken less than seriously, is what I think. I have friends and I have friends. I made a new one yesterday and his name is Simon, although I may never see him again. He is only four and his mother and father…

Becoming Boring

Boredom is the last thing a writer wants her readers to feel. Repeating the same stories, belaboring the point is enough to make people quit on you, and in the world of social media, I’ve been quit on numerous times. I don’t want to care, but I do. The past few weeks, when I haven’t…

Supernatural

One of Alan’s supernatural gifts was an internal compass that was unfailing and always trustworthy. I counted on him to lead us to the places we were going and rested in that.  Sometimes I would nap in the passenger seat, that’s how sure I was of him. The only times we turned up lost were…

Developing Atrophied Muscles

In some ways I’ve lost touch with the parts of me that were once strong and confident. I abdicated my power because Alan’s strength in certain areas was well, strong. I gave up on a few things, like my driving skills. When we lived in Grass Valley, before we left and returned, I could zip…

It’s the Strangest Damn Thing

These were Alan’s go to words, when he was completely perplexed and bamboozled. “It’s the strangest damn thing” he'd say, and then proceed to explain his memory lapses,  failing health and not being able to do what he had always done. Last night, I wandered up the street to ‘Lazy Dogs” for a perfectly appointed small…