Storm Connecticut May 15, 2018

Did we have a tornado in Seymour? This photo is taken by my son’s friend here in my town. My iPhone pictures aren’t the best; they’re taken from a moving car. We were lucky really. Easy to take infrastructure for granted, until one no longer has it, and since I work from home this means […]

CHIN UP: Comfort and Faith In a Hospital Room

This is a confessional story. It has an air of “what just happened here?” and “kind words make a difference” and “sheer dumb luck.” It’s about forgiving one’s self, too. It was 1982. I was a mother at 17. Most everyone in my peer group was. I had recently lost my beloved Grandma to “old […]

Where Does The Past Begin?

Great authors turn words of phrase into streams of consciousness. In Amy Tan’s memoir “Where The Past Begins,” she notes the significance of bringing/sending flowers to funerals. I used to wonder why flowers appeared surrounding and draped on caskets. Wasn’t this, I pondered, a cold reminder of life and beauty? A distraction for the living; […]

Only So Much A Soul Can Bear?

Sometimes I feel like a sponge.

Do you Name Your Couches Too? And other musings

I don’t make elves anymore. I make little fairy village houses instead but I used to make elves. I used to snip pieces of fabric to sew into elf outfits. The elves I made myself and stuffed with batting – they were usually made of felt and clothed from things I found in my home, […]

The day I met Polly (a.k.a. Donna Williams-Samuel)

The following is an excerpt from my book, with some changes. ————————– I was taming a steaming pot of wild spaghetti with a wooden spoon when the phone rang. The water had been boiling at quite a roil. If I didn’t stay alert, I sometimes had fires. I had fires a lot. “Hello?” “Kimbuhrley?” Said […]

On Gratitude and Having a Voice Again

This is my 200th post. My very first one was about my thumb… This is what Al has been up to: Al has been making salsa all day and will be canning many jars of it. I was walking through the grocery store yesterday as we shopped for the week and chose produce for the […]

I Learned This from Gelsey

The man came to the edge of a cliff, and the tiger was almost upon him. Having no choice, he held on to a vine with both hands and climbed down.

My Road Trip, In Pictures

I watched a woman walk by; carrying a fairly large shiny brass elephant. I saw homeless people pushing carts; as usual in big cities- a sharp contrast between suited coiffed shiny people, and abject poverty.

Disconnecting Through Connection

In a book I read a few weeks ago (author Jim Sterba’s ‘Frankie’s Place’), Jim refers to reading material that one brings into the bathroom to read as “toi lit.” This term stayed with me-I found it way too amusing. It can be seen as a reflection of times that have changed. Think about it. I’ve […]

Back Off Pigweed OR: Just Enough On The Plate

Deserted houses, forgotten outbuildings, abandoned vehicles, long vacant parking lots, and sunken ships. They’ve all got something in common. Nature gobbles them up. Underground roots (rhizomes) undermine the integrity of foundations. Ivy creeps stealthily into cracks. Temperature extremes, dampness, insects and various wild animals- all play a role in reclaiming structures. In the sea, artificial reefs […]

Having A Walmart Brain

Above: This is an example of a 25 hundred dollar mirror with superb “psyche” tilt. That’s an actual term. Below: a French Budoir mirror (Etsy). And Below: WalMart mirror. Functional simplicity. There are some grand sounding words associated with mirrors. For instance: gadrooning (leaves, flowers, birds, etc. carved on the frame), psyche (the mechanism that […]

Books and Babble; a little wounded, a little dark

Because stuff needs tending. Heaps of unswept dog hair and dirty laundry piles, they’d loom like laughing spectres (we are overthrowing the household!); that’s why! My middle son and I were just discussing today how we share a love of learning. I recently learned that elephants (notably African and Asian) stay pregnant nearly two years! Why […]

The Mustard Seed Story and also my latest Shenanigans

I found this in one of my little drawers: (not my grandson’s fingers; I mean I found this trinket) It’s a mustard seed. I’m a border/hoarder… My mother; she was a full out hoarder (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but I’m just borderline hoarder (thus the term border/hoarder.) As such, I often […]

Fostering Healthy Wariness

Zsolt with Kerry/Silis; my youngest child at her art show. The carved figure between them is hers. I knew a guy (Zsolt) who (camera in hand) used to approach strangers going about their lives… on the sidewalks of New Haven and photograph them. He had a contagious engaging charm and genuine interest, a curiosity- for all […]

Word Power

Firstly, I want to state that this is what fiddlehead ferns and sidewalk purselane look like: They are both fun to say. Fiddlehead ferns. Purselane. That’s the beauty to be found in words. Anyone ever have a kit of these magnetic words that were/are available at Barnes and Noble; for the refrigerator? Interesting sentences can […]

I’m Going Outside

I’m not saying climate change doesn’t loom like a specter in the closet; shadowing out by degrees in a slow scare. It is there. It is real. That said, haven’t we turned into a nation of worriers? ‘They’ say if you’re thinking too much in the past- That’s depression. If you’re worried too much about the […]

Distorted Reality

My first reading material was my set of World Book Encyclopedias. I would buy paperbacks at tag sales. Books like The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Universe, Elvis’s Autobiography and Chariots of The Gods. I read voraciously. I liked comics too… Richie Rich, Casper, Little Lotta and the scary ones were my favorites- the ones where […]

Tinsled Rhetoric

Here it comes. Some more neurons from yours truly, firing off like ping pong balls. When I’m not enjoying the promise of Autumn with short walks to visit old paths and stones in walls I had almost forgotten, I have been compiling thoughts like so many layers of onion. Here, I peel them. I share with […]

Some things to smile about (or…having a rich varied thought life:)

Some things that make me smile in no particular order: Planning and partaking in art projects. Generating a love for the arts and for reading. Learning new things. Reading an engaging book. Receiving feedback about my book. I received a book of cows doing yoga for Christmas from my middle son and I was dreading […]

Seeing All The Sides

When I was 12 a friend plucked a white hair from my head and showed me it; holding it up to the light. I laughed and laughed. This was an unexpected quirk in my day. Eclectic. Funny. When I was in my twenties I saw colonies of white hairs. This time I had a different […]

The Importance of Stories (open ended dates)

I was a small child then, but I heard the stories. When she was in her 40s, my aunt (now passed) drove a cab and smoked cigars. She was always one of my favorite people. “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.” – Macbeth Get the nasty bits […]

Cats and That’s That

Mister Po as a baby: Mister Po now. Resident cats. I remember yearly trips to “the caves” in upstate New York. I don’t mean Howe’s -although I’ve been there numerous times with the kids and spouse (before his illness of course). I’m talking about a cave system accessed by an elevator located at the […]

MOOD JIGSAW (what I found after translating a Chinese article)

As in,

“Where’s the cat?”

“Sleeping on Giddy.”

Or this:

“You are exceptionally comfy this afternoon, Ms. Moonbeam.”

Crows To Roses

“The power of morality is not something that is talked about much these days, especially among contemporary people. But when we look at it from the point of view of commitments as a form of morality, and when we SEE how the Buddhists treat making and keeping commitments as a form of morality, then we can come to a better understanding of Ghandi’s work and how it continues to reverberate with us.”

Contemplating Bad News or What I Learned About Life By Being An Artist

I ponder, I recollect, I remember, I forgive, I pour over the pictures in my mind and also in my boxes and albums. Perhaps he does the same; but like the day he grabbed the shovel while I simultaneously held the potato chip bag, he gets down to the basics of things. We are different but not so different, really.