I first met Michael in a dog park in Philadelphia while on my Off the Leash journey in July of 2011. It was early on. Libby and I were still getting our sea legs under us, a bit tentative. The vibe in each city, each park, every situation felt different. Michael was cool. He’s a soft-spoken guy, cute, young enough to be one of my sons. He was at the dog park with Frank, his client dog that day. Turns out Michael was a dog walker. We quickly fell in, with … [Read more...]
Three Little Words
March 31, 2014 By
He had no idea the maelstrom of emotion that would blow in behind one short, declarative sentence. On a day when I was supposed to get a make over at the Clinique counter, with a particular interest in the “Dark Circle Corrector” and a new, natural look, which for me is code for “get out of the 80s”, but I cancelled due to too many competing demands for my squeezed-into-two-precious-days life now, I went to the gym instead. The gym was just one entry on my unrealistic … [Read more...]
Own Your Calling
March 5, 2014 By
The man who braved my ice-covered driveway was so quiet the dogs didn’t bark. Shoveling it had become an exercise in futility in the punishing cycle of snow, sub-zero cold, followed by more snow, which has characterized our St. Louis winter. Perhaps the snow muffled the sound of his footsteps, because I didn’t notice either, that someone had come and gone, leaving a large manilla envelope outside my door. Or maybe I was just preoccupied. I was writing a eulogy, on … [Read more...]
This One Moment
January 4, 2014 By
It was happening with so much frequency, I finally had to Google it. When all else fails, when our hamster brains stumble at the starting block of deciphering some meteoric message from the universe, as we wander through the fog which has created an impenetrable shield like a cosmic condom over our antennae, when we’ve leveraged all the drug or drink and every meditative pose or prayer we know in pursuit of enlightenment and still we come up empty handed, it’s time to … [Read more...]
Make Peace With Your Momma
December 30, 2013 By
Discovering the cache of Kodak slides in the basement could have made me feel bad or guilty or filled with regret. Instead, I laughed. I threw back my head and laughed out loud, like l-a-u-g-h-i-n-g out loud, spelled out. Then I said to no one except the cobwebs, “Okay, Mom. You’re in.” I had noticed the honey-colored wooden box on my cluttered work bench, amongst the rusty channel locks, duct tape and socket wrenches, laying where they were dropped by careless kids … [Read more...]
He Gave Me Shelter
August 25, 2013 By
Social media being the thing we often love to hate, Facebook did serve a purpose in delivering news this week that a good friend of our family had passed away suddenly in Winston-Salem. My daughter in Memphis sent around the news to my now far flung brood and we took turns emailogizing our friend David. While their family begins the slow, unwelcome process of figuring out how life will be without a husband, father, grandfather, brother, I feel so blessed that I … [Read more...]
Twenty Seven
July 22, 2013 By
Taillights like domino dots, only red. The anticipation of what a summer night could yield as palpable as the humidity at the intersection of then and now, where I idle. At least there’s a breeze. Windows down, the heat backed off enough to coax me out of my air-conditioned, sensory deprivation pod, arm dangling out the window, hand air surfing, dipping and diving, ribbons of warmth weave through my fingers like batter. Moist. Night. Air. Motown streams from the … [Read more...]
Can You Hear Me in the Back? An interview with Guy Kawasaki
July 12, 2013 By
I'm so pleased to share an interview I did a few days ago with Guy Kawasaki, which I published on SheWrites, a great platform for women authors. Guy is THE deal, man. In addition to being an Apple brainiac, he is the author of 12 books, (including Art of the Start, Enchantment-The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions and most recently APE - Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur.) Mostly, he's just a really bright and decent guy, who never realized how he positively … [Read more...]
Holes in Our Hearts and Maybe My Head
July 11, 2013 By
**Originally posted, July 2011, Revised July 2013** The sign in front of the Standard Artificial Limbs store always makes me think of my step father. On the day he died at the VA hospital in Albuquerque, after my mother and I summoned the rest of the family to tell them he’d passed, once everybody took turns patting him on his rapid cooling forehead, we all walked out into the broiling parking lot, the blacktop almost spongy under the August dessert sun, with my … [Read more...]
How We Rolled
July 7, 2013 By
I’m taking my dog on a road trip. Not a short one, a long one. It’ll be about 8,400 miles, more or less, by the time we get back home. Lord knows what I’ll find when I return. I planted drought-resistant flowers just to hedge my bets. I hope they make it, because we’re going. I’m quitting my job and Libby and I are going. I may run out of gas, fall on my ass and not even make it home, but we’re going. Off the Leash It’s Libby’s fault. She started it. Her acceptance of … [Read more...]
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