As I was tucking my three-year-old son into bed tonight, he mentioned that he was concerned that he might have a hard time falling asleep because he was thinking about monsters and ghosts. I set out to explain to him that the wonderful thing about thinking is that we have the option to change our thoughts if we don’t like … Read More
Think like a dog
If you have ever lived with a dog, loved a dog, or even read about a dog, chances are good that you have an entire toolkit of strategies for your writing life woven into your nervous system — imprinted by your canine companion. My dog Henry thinks my company is so exquisite that he literally can’t bear to let a … Read More
The secret to freedom
In the bath last night, it became clear to me that my marriage and divorce had finally and completely reshuffled in my mental-emotional deck to: past tense. As I steeped, I marveled that another human being could change symbolically so quickly and so significantly — from filling me with joy to filling me with despair to not filling me at … Read More
Take the envy and run
For three years, my son has been having a glorious love affair with the lovely grandma next door. They play marbles and dinosaurs, This-Little-Piggy, wrestling, and we all have dance jams to “All The Single Ladies.” This summer, a particularly romantic ritual developed: Jean would leave a bouquet of flowers from her yard woven into the chain link fence by … Read More
October 20: an evening of poetry
I’m very excited to be sharing an intimate evening of poetry, wine, and community next week with two poets I admire, in one of my favorite book stores. I’ll be reading new poems that make my knees wobble. Come on out and join us, won’t you? Thursday, October 20, 7:00 p.m. Poetry reading featuring Kathleen Halme, Carolyn Martin & Sage … Read More
Interview with Poet Carolyn Martin
I admire Carolyn Martin, and I admire her poems; they take me places. Anchored to the ground of truth, soaring into the ether of wisdom, Carolyn’s poetry invites me more deeply into myself — more expansively into the rudderless realm of the human. These poems have an authority about them that is suggestive to this reader of mountains — as … Read More
Living the dream
In Facebook, the terrain of evocative one-liners, I got a note from an old colleague saying that he and his family were “living the dream”. This phrase evokes the image for me of a snake eating its own tail. Living our dreams conflates two very different and necessary dimensions of consciousness into a single, goal-oriented trajectory. Having found dreams to … Read More
Poet’s Market, Writer’s Market & You
For 20 years or so, my life poetic has been steered by a single compass: Poet’s Market. In more recent years, when it occurred to me that all that other stuff I was writing happened to be essays and articles, I became a devotee of Writer’s Market as well. I don’t know how to emphasize the comfort these tomes have … Read More
We the breeders
This week, in a curly-headed flourish of time marching on, my son turned three. This anniversary of our shared birth into the context of family has been accompanied by my interview in the We Who Are About to Breed series of We Who Are About to Die. Both have me thinking. About what it has meant to become a mother. … Read More
Secure your own mask before assisting others
The flight attendant came to our aisle to make sure we were paying attention. She signaled to Jonny–the sweet, 20-something man whose girlfriend was also gluten intolerant, whose parents are too busy to travel to see him–seated beside my son, and let him know that he should secure his own mask before assisting his child. The flight attendant who had … Read More