I changed out my calendars this morning. I felt that I was putting away the second Covid year and looking forward to days that will be filled with bright, happy moments. Never mind that the pace of my life will be slower as age catches up to me and that some days will be cloudy […]
January 1, 2022 Thoughts Read More »
I took my children to Sycamore Grove Park. We walked along the path and enjoyed seeing the birds and ground squirrels. We stopped by a small pond and my two teen-age daughters tried to skip stones across the surface of the water. My four-year-old son picked up a rock and looked at it. “I wish
The Mind Is a Fickle Thing Read More »
Thirty years ago we were homeless. Well, not exactly. We had a house that was covered with ashes and soot. The living room was a burned-out shell. The fire had started in there with a spark from an old TV set and spread to the kitchen before it was contained. So, we did have a
The road ahead vanished into the fog. Darkness closed in around us, isolating the car in a world of gray. The white line on the center of the pavement was our lifeline to safety. The headlights tried, but they could not penetrate the darkness. The side of the road, the trees, the road signs that
A flicker of movement caught my eye as I walked up the sidewalk. A small flock of tiny birds scurried around and hunted for breakfast. Their colors blended with the asphalt driveway in my neighbor’s side yard, and they were hard to see. When they saw me, they ran to the safety of the bushes.
The images were different. They were pen and ink drawings, black silhouettes or very colorful and fancy drawings, but it was clear that they were images of the same bird—the Sankofa bird. The feet faced forward, the head was turned backward, and it held a small ball in its beak. The Sankofa bird has direct
When I read a children’s picture book Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester, it reminded me of my own story. My sister Ruby remembers that day, but I don’t. So, in order to tell my story, I must rely on her memory. The McKinnon School in Wyoming was a four-room schoolhouse. First, second and
I watched my daughter practice juggling. One ball, then two, then three balls were sent flying into the air. As gravity pulled each ball down, she caught it and sent it flying again. How did she learn to do that? I can barely manage to throw and catch one ball. My life is like juggling
There was a time—before Covid, before nine-eleven—when planes were being hijacked and forced to land in an unknown destination. The frequency with which planes were being hijacked was alarming but not of immediate concern to my family. We were involved in trying to find ways to cope with the hot California summer. When temperatures soared
A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author’s ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space. Writing a drabble requires precise editing skills—refining the story by taking out what is not essential and leaving only
