What I lived and what I read Last week I took my first journey out on my own in the little trailer I call Bag End. I needed to see if the story I’ve been writing was actually set in southern Ohio (it is!) and I also visited a few historical sites: Grant’s birthplace and …
What I read Our book club read this month was Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman. Since we had a few absent members, we met at Panera for discussion and a sweet treat–a little change up from usual. This book club was total serendipity. We first met and organized on a neighborhood social …
For weeks I’ve waited to post about my visit to Canyon Ranch in April because processing my visit was like trying to fit a square peg into the round hole of my experience. I had nothing with which to compare it. When I was gifted a spa package several years ago, the day consisted of …
art·sy-fart·sy/ˌärtsēˈfärtsē/adjective INFORMAL•DEROGATORY 1. associated with or showing a pretentious interest in the arts. No one would ever call me artsy fartsy. This, despite the fact that my father was an architect and a watercolorist. Let’s just say I didn’t get his art gene! Mind you, I love visiting the Chicago Art Institute–but mainly because I …
My earliest memories are of tree canopy and the smell of fresh cut grass, of singing sand and lapping waves and drizzly Sunday afternoons. I’ve never known a life that isn’t saturated with green, that wasn’t waterlogged. My world, clothed in beauty–what I see when I hear the words, “And God saw everything she made, …
School started on a Tuesday in late August and there I was for the first time in twenty-five years–home and in my PJs at 7:30 AM. First hour was about to begin. To quote Shakespeare (as, I suppose, any good English teacher would do) I met that day with bated breath. Would I feel unmoored? …
Before school started last year–before my hall buddies returned to long, hot days in un-air-conditioned rooms, a new principal with all the uncertainty that brings, and meetings, meetings, meetings–I met friend Lindsey, my neighbor in the room next door, to set up a little surprise that I hoped would soften the institutional edges of my …
Six months ago I set out on this new retirement journey, and I want to remember my experiences along the way. I wrote this prologue two years before my last day of teaching and kept it hidden away until now. Early June 2016: Yesterday–before I left for the summer–I tore another June off my desk …
This is my symphony 