December 31st New Year’s is an artificial deadline established relatively recently by European calendar enthusiasts… but why not celebrate our trips around the sun and sync chronologies of our shared memories? Everyone I know knows someone with COVID. So far it hasn’t touched my immediate family. Rumor has it that…

Merry Covid Christmas 2! Concentrating on all the good things, family and friends even if we can’t all be together, cooking, decorating, listening to music and singing along. Every ornament has a story and a memory, kids growing up, elders passing on… Zoom present-opening and virtual hugs. One of our…

Summer’s come and gone. A month in NY, upstate and Manhattan, family, friends, swimming, juicy farm stand fruits and veg, cruising on country roads, a city weekend, sunshine, heat, humidity, downpours, electrical storms. Also the first August without my mother. Sorting through the last remnants of her belongings, I found…

If you had seen me as a 9-year old Girl Scout from hell, you might not have believed how my life would turn out. I wouldn’t have. It should have been fine. I had spent hours leafing through an antique Girl Scout Handbook found in our attic, studying all the…

Some things take longer to write than others… Even if there’s a direction and a desire, ripening has to take place in heart and mind before anything comes to life. For a song, it can start with a title or a few notes of melody and a vague lyric, then…

Found an email from my mother to my husband when his mother passed away: Dear Lewis, It is very hard to lose a parent no matter what the circumstances, it is a milestone in your life. I know your mother loved you very much and no doubt contributed greatly to…

This month my family became one of millions to lose a loved one during the pandemic. Ruth, our beautiful mother, grandmother, aunt, and friend left us on March 12, 2021. …