on 12/12/21, my husband Andy died. two days later, I put this snippet into the notes on my phone: you ordered my life gave me ground and that’s what he did. also he loved me all the way–fully. the internal pressure I feel to meet the immensity of this subject with perfect verbal expression cannot…
loss and red tape
I was pregnant with a living, growing being for six weeks and one day. it was my first, and so far, my only pregnancy. my fiancé Andy and I hadn’t been “trying,” per se…nor were we doing anything to prevent it. I was not wanting to waste any time, I guess. I’ll be forty-one in…
the crying
early on in my grieving process, I discovered that grief–the crying–could strike me at any moment, including whilst sitting on the toilet or with a mouthful of spaghetti. boom: you’re crying now. interestingly, and having always been a crier, but one who worked hard to not cry so much, my experience with crying was that…
getting married
I found this draft on my phone, written in August of 2019, days before my wedding. I don’t think I ever published it, so here it is, minimally edited from its found state: my head is swimming. there are so many things I’m thinking about. wedding things. beauty things. change things. things tangential to all…
on work: a beginning
there is only one way to do this, and that is by just writing–making a beginning. I have been thinking about writing for a while now. maybe almost daily. there will never be a better time to start writing than now. pick a topic. write about it, however imperfectly. the writing is the important thing….
update
so it’s been a while. you might have thought, oh, she gets a boyfriend and she disappears. that was certainly true of my nineteen- and twenty-year-old selves, but it’s not actually the case with my #fortybelike self. while it’s true I sort of disappeared from the blog scene shortly after getting connected with Andy, it was…
affirmation
I am a writer. I am a photographer. I am an artist. I am a woman. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am an aunt. I am a niece. I am a cousin. I am a granddaughter. I am a cat mama. I am a friend. I am an employee and an…
transition
my life is in transition. one could argue, of course, that we’re always in a state of transition, and I would have to agree, but sometimes it’s more pronounced, like where I am right now. in February, after nearly eight years, I left my job with Starbucks (yes, “S’ucks”). major transition. I was extremely fortunate to…
prayer and meditation
back in 2010, prior to getting hired at S’ucks (aka Starbucks), and prior to my car being stolen, I had my own apartment on the south slope of Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. it was nothing special, but it was mine. after I left the job I had come to dislike so much, I got very…
kinship
recently, I met someone I already knew. we went to the same middle school and high school, but agree that we probably never had a conversation while we were there. somehow (neither of us can remember) we became facebook friends. I mean…you know what I mean. it seems so unlikely to me now because of the whole…
counting snails 