The chatter in my head had been battering me all day. “See?  You’re not a real writer.”  “Who cares about what you have to say?” “Bah! You knew this would happen all along.” A week before, I had signed the publishing contract for my book and now I couldn’t write a damned thing.  The acquiring editor had gushed over my writing - so why this sudden insanity? [Read more]

For my birthday a few years ago my sweetheart made me a poetry box for our front garden. It’s surrounded by an old lavender bush and is a weathered thing of beauty, all wood and amber glass, with a window to view the poem from the sidewalk. I make sure the font is large enough to read when I place a new poem out each week. [Read more]

It never ceases to amaze me the things my third grade students have been exposed to. Not a day goes by when I’m not asked something that forces me to respond to their worry. “Where do homeless children eat?” “Why do cell phone companies destroy rainforests to mine for tungsten?” “Will we all die if fossil fuels continue to be used?”  [Read more]

Baby Emily lay on the hospital bed, dwarfed by a sea of crisp white linen. I held my breath, my fingers gripping the cold metal railing by the side of her bed, relieved to be this close after my isolating hours alone in the small “family room” outside the morgue, [Read more]

Sometimes I’m not sure if I can make it through the night. Or the hour. Or even the next 30 seconds. The pain behind my left eye is a raging clamp of hot metal on muscle, merciless in its persistence, waking me in my sleep. [Read more]

Yesterday I officially told my school district that I’ll be retiring in June. For months now I’ve been purging, each week carrying a box or two of beloved things from my classroom to the faculty room for others to adopt; consulting with my accountant; researching the endless possibilities of what comes next. I’m ready. [Read more]