My young brain saw the resemblance – the mud-colored crawfish skirting the shallows of Chester Creek and the bright red lobster tails on our dinner table. “Forget it,” I said, though it was clear Mom and Dad enjoyed all steps of the ritual. First broil on the same cookie sheet that birthed hundreds of Christmas […]
No hourglass, more like a windswept dune, blazing sun and footing that shifts just before I step. Seemed solid, now I fall, again, and look back at the hollow traces of my scrambling, as if to read my mistake, to learn something, anything, from these bruises. Heat shimmers at the horizon tempt me to change […]
Eye drawn to gray weathered splintering wood on the railroad trestle, as I approach I see wing feathers fluttering in the wind – a red tailed hawk struck by a train. I am compelled to apologize for our blunt mechanized intrusion on the freedom of the air. And to utter gratitude for magnificence, though cut […]
Pleasure, even joy, can be had by the wispiest shift into appreciation of what is served to me, right now. Yes, it could be an IPA, or a red light, or a pain in my wrist, or an unexpected smile, yet perhaps there is no more encouraging bequeathal to us humans than the ability to […]
It is rare when a friend asks you to join on a bucket list pilgrimage, especially one so unlikely that I never really considered going. Unlike seeing Carnival in Brazil, visiting Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house just required a day’s drive and sharing accommodations already booked. Perfect! We visited 5 FLW designs (2 by apprentices) […]
There are times in attending a friends-and-family event that expectations are shattered by awesomeness. So it was with Mia Kaplan’s solo art opening at Liberty Arts, after a summer as an intern, working with their artists in so many different media – casting metal, welding, pottery, wood, sheet metal wall art, jewelry (probably should really […]
25 years ago today, I woke up at the beautiful Asilomar Center on Monterey peninsula, sat up in bed and wondered if I had a birthday poem in me. This mindset was inspired by a man at the conference named Roy Jordan, who enthusiastically recited his poems at any moment, especially in the dining hall. […]
This school never closes though students can be dismissed any time they can never go home again and again they try to master today’s lesson for totally ingrained is the grief for today as it fades and the fear of what the new teacher, tomorrow, will require of us
Blood, rubble, hate, outrage what hysterical god made forgiveness and reconciliation so difficult? It appears we can never walk together our words congeal and dissolve on the screen of I blame assigned as precisely as a misguided missile as carefully as a spent cartridge on concrete. Miles and years away we both thresh pain seeking […]
Hot beignet drops from shaking hand, phosphorescent meteor of confectioners sugar scatters sweetness to a silent Jackson Square. The plump fried pastry sparks to life upon splashdown in a Mississippi colored puddle, succulent ripples breach the curb, strut down the sidewalk, lap on doors, then leap to the humid air, to penetrate every lacy wrought […]