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Leaving America Behind
Night fog swirled as I stood at the top of the ramp in my Pan Am uniform, sporting my jaunty blue hat and ready to greet our passengers. I watched as a familiar scene unfolded below me. I looked down...
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The lure of the ordinary and the death of the planet
We are living on the brink of the apocalypse, but the world is asleep. Joel C. Rosenberg Free stock photo edited by the author If there’s anything we humans excel at, it’s lying to ourselves. We use...
View ArticleChristmas is an iceberg decorated with lights and sadness
It’s easy to believe that scars on the skin – the rough, the pitted, the keloid – left by experience or trauma might have correlative emotional reminders inside. I have a stupid scar on my arm from...
View ArticleThe ambivalence of grief
We cry for ourselves when someone is going to die. We cry for the potential loss of them in our lives. When a death sentence is pronounced, we cry for the pain we anticipate. But what happens when...
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Child of God
I was sitting on the balcony, relaxing. Looking at the Skykomish, which, after three months of no rain, is probably the lowest it has been in history. There are places you can rock-hop across it...
View ArticleIt’s the ‘The’ people that make a community
Some weeks in a small town are harder than others. This was one of those weeks. Winters lost two of its icons, only three days apart — and on the heels of another last month. They say bad luck comes in...
View ArticleDenial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance — where are you at?
Yes, my headline ended with a preposition and frankly, I just don’t give a shit. I’m bouncing back and forth between the five stages of grief, and have settled squarely into Depression, and grammar can...
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Grieving the Great American Pussy Grab
The Great American Pussy Grab. Illustration by Maya Spier Stiles North. Last week, I worried that support for Donald Trump was much greater than anyone imagined, and that he might actually win the...
View ArticleTo insist that sorrow not be meaningless
Thank you, Dani Shapiro. Four years ago the first Monday in July was the second. That Monday, July 2, 2012, I was sitting at my desk at work typing an email. It was late in the morning and there was a...
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He really was a good Joe
My friend Joe passed away last night after about a five-year battle with several forms of cancer. By today’s measure, he was still pretty young to be so ill. He was just a couple of month’s shy of his...
View ArticleLife lessons my grandpa taught me
It’s impossible to recall the subjects of countless essays I wrote throughout my college career. Most of them I tossed aside after seeing my final grade. Most, but not all. There is one essay that has...
View ArticleThe real joy of Christmas is just being alive
I know a lot of people feel down this time of year, particularly those who’ve lost loved ones. Christmas becomes an annual reminder of those who aren’t with us anymore. My husband is one of them. Round...
View ArticleMourner’s Prayer
Today surprised me– the sun and skies of blue shading almost translucent, almost too bright, studded with clouds that wandered in stately lines invisible to the naked eye and the grieving heart. It...
View ArticleMourner’s Prayer
Today surprised me — the sun and skies of blue shading almost translucent, almost too bright, studded with clouds that wandered in stately lines invisible to the naked eye and the grieving heart. It...
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First-withouts – the ongoing anguish of grief
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. From a headstone in Ireland My Rob father and my Oliver father — both my REAL fathers. I get to define what is real....
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The journey of adoption – lost and found, part one
If you do it right, children know they’re adopted from their earliest memory. Since I remember being 16 months old, I quite clearly remember the moment I was told I was adopted. It was before things...
View ArticleFor me, loss is like gunshot to a veteran
I watched West Wing, Season 2, Episode 10, on Netflix where Josh Lyman blows up at everyone because he relives the trauma of being shot. The trigger was the brass quintet that he “heard” as sirens. He...
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Remembering my friend
Last week I took a trip up to where two rivers (the Klamath and the Trinity) merge into one near the small town of Weitchepec, California. There are people up there that I love dearly, inlaws you see,...
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One small hominid under an eclipsing moon and our perpetual reason for hope
“Hope” is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops – at all Emily Dickinson Lunar eclipse — Credit: Steve Baroch — April 14, 2010 —...
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Head of Christ?
This past weekend, I had about an hour and a half of uninterrupted television time. It’s Easter season and I was trying to get in that cheery, “mob kills a man who then comes back from the dead to save...
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