Years ago, I wrote a poem titled “How My Cousin Nancee Died.” I knew only that her husband, Steve, had shot her, and her pianist, and then himself – a double-murder-suicide. (She had a pianist because she was a singer. Her husband evidently suspected an…
Lately I’ve been thinking about my ex-husband. The reasons are three-fold: 1) I watched Ken Burns’ series on the National Parks, which included a lot mountains, which he loved; 2) a friend asked me what drew me to him in the first place; and 3)…
After retiring from a column-writing gig lasting eleven years and yielding over 300 personal essays, I find I still have something to say. My thoughts range far and wide, and occasionally deep, on subjects including being an Iowan who misses Colorado; surviving marital violence; raising an amazing daughter and an equally amazing son; being justifiably angry about the world “these days;” writing poetry and plays; wondering if I’ll get Alzheimer’s like my mom and her two brothers; wanting to write about my twin granddaughters without sounding all Hallmark-y; fixing OCD-ish food; making sense of pants that come in shorts / crops / ankle-grazing / bootcut; being a librarian in public, academic, archival, and medical libraries; waiting 46 years to attend my high school reunion; having a gorgeous garden I can’t take care of; seeing a shaman; loving good men despite all the bad ones; and trying to wrest a little joy from life despite an 11-year-and-counting chronic migraine.