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 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…

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….

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

  I’m going to tell you something that may surprise you. I’ve been thinking about it for several days now, mulling it over, and I think I’m good with it. it’s a decision I would not have been comfortable with even pretty recently. but things change. people change. I have changed. in the words of…