The reminder email comes every day: “You have a new document that requires your signature.” It’s my teaching contract for next year. I’m not signing it. After 16 years in the classroom, I’m taking a sabbatical. The reminders were annoying last week, cluttering up my work inbox, but this week I found they only strengthened … Continue reading Just Another Midlife Crisis
Dreams
My Dreams are Chasing Puerto Rico
I keep waking up in Pickens, South Carolina, but my dreams are still in this tropical town on Puerto Rico’s west coast. It’s such a hidden gem that I won’t give up the name so quickly, but I’ll take you there in stories and photos; it’s like stepping into my desktop background, all sandy surf … Continue reading My Dreams are Chasing Puerto Rico
The Last Spring
A sweet Carolina sunset taunts me with spring. There’s promise in the tulips, hope in sparrows, and new life evident in the allergy attack seizing Pickens County. The juxtaposition of life and death sobers me now, and the mountains here are likewise juxtaposed with the oceans I left behind... (a tribute to Joshua Welker)
When You’re Not a Mother
I love my mother, but not Mother’s Day. It comes every year. I can set my biological watch by it. Like the incremental changes in my garden that happen while I’m not looking, my dislike of the holiday that began as a small seed years ago now has deep roots and casts an even longer … Continue reading When You’re Not a Mother
An Hourglass Minute
My magnolia trees will bloom soon. In fact, a few impatient buds are already crawling out of their casing, begging for light. It will be my second spring in this rented bungalow. Now, I know to expect magnolias. That they’ll be cotton candy pink. That they’ll bloom for only a few weeks. That they’ll shade … Continue reading An Hourglass Minute
The Italian’s American Dream
The blossoms will be pink. Not mine (well, maybe, we’ve just yet to find out), but I'm referring to the Magnolia trees in front of me while I gather myself on the front porch to write again. So much can change in a week’s time in spring, and I only wish the growth were as … Continue reading The Italian’s American Dream
Writer's Growth 