I just returned from a visit to my large, loud, loving Italian-Polish family in the Cleveland suburbs. As we often do, we told stories and looked at old family photos. A poem came today about one of the photos: a photo of my brother and cousin, in their t-shirt and…
Breakfast Sandwich There is a moment when I walk out into the early morning light in my pajamas and robe to offer my son's friend a fried egg sandwich as he waits in the car before school. He looks up from his phone, and his whole face alights.…
Isn't it something, what flows from our bodies, our hearts, our minds? Sometimes I don't even realize how irritable I'm feeling until it comes out at our old dog, who in her senility, forgets that she isn't allowed in the kitchen. I…
A friend once gave me an 'end of the day' clay bead - a bead made of the remnants of all the beads that had been created that day. She gave it to me when I was pregnant with my son, my last child, and was facing new…
"It is not beauty that endures, it is love that makes us see beauty." - Leo Tolstoy In 2010, I sold my beautiful 1908 Craftsman home in a small railroad town in Montana – a home with 'good bones,' a yard full of mud and dog poop,…
When one of my children began to potty train, they were terribly frightened of the noise and size of public toilets. At the time, we lived in a small Montana town, and regularly drove over the mountain pass to the big city of Bozeman (population: 30,000) to do a…
My second daughter was born a bit early at 35 weeks. In her premature arrival, she needed more physical closeness for the first two years of her life. Demanded is a better word: this child was so utterly insistent that she be held, and held by me, that I was…
One June summer day, after spending time on the water with our children and my father in law, visiting from his home in Montana, my husband complained of a headache. His headache grew as we got off the boat, so he handed me the keys and asked me to drive…