Music Appreciation

I am not a musician. I love music and as a child I wanted to excel at the piano,  but my teacher was strict and I hated to practice.  And didn’t have my sisters’ facility of playing the piano by ear. We didn’t have a guitar, just a ukelele which I strummed atonally as I […]

Laughter…

…It is happiness applauding itself and then taking flight to embrace everyone and everything in this world.  Hafiz I wouldn’t have thought of my laughter as happiness, I would have named it joy.  But that’s semantics.  And regardless of it’s name, laughter is a gift; from a titter, to a bark, to giggles that spills […]

Family Tradition

I’m upholding the family tradition.  I’m saving three lids…in case. I promise that I have made great strides in my quest to de-clutter my life.   I have been taking a tougher stance as I examine the things in my cupboards. Recently I had a major setback in the streamlining of my life when my […]

Years…and Years…

Dear Husband, I don’t write to you often.  Do you feel as if our children and grandchildren take priority?  I hope not.  It’s just that you have heard everything I have to say. LOL How could we ever have imagined the long path we have followed?  Even were it possible for young people to project […]

Don’t be like me…

Hi Kids. I’ve had a repeat “Aha” moment this week. When I listened to Christine Northrup on PBS a few years ago, she commented on the patterns we learn from our parents…specifically from our mothers.  Paraphrasing, she said that it is very difficult to change our patterns of aging from those our own mother has […]

Christmas…the Beginning of the End.

The post is an entry to a fun contest on a great blog, Things I Want to Tell my Mom.  Join it!  It’s interesting to dredge up old memories of Christmas.  Just keep it to 100 words or less.   Yearning defines my early memories of my mother and Christmas.  She loved the church traditions […]

Bookmarking My Life

I bookmark wonderful memories.  At will I call forth a slide show of perfect moments that cycle through my mind’s eye.  They flash so quickly that one photo is still struggling to come into clear focus when the next is embedding itself on the screen.  The pleasure centers in my body sparkle with the visuals […]

Living Through Change

I need a moment here: to be relieved, be angry, to grieve and to have moments of self-doubt.  I need to do it without myself, my family or my friends defending me and minimizing my feelings. It’s hard not to have regret when someone dies.  For my husband and I, the death of each of […]

Holding On

I’m not living in the present.  I’m not living in gratitude. I know, because  this morning I awoke with grief and anxiety.  Having categorized and cataloged everything in my life that might worry me or cause unrest, my thoughts continually returned to my sisters.  And I wonder at the fear that can contaminate the most […]

Oh, the places you’ll go….*

Dear Son, That was a strange way for me to respond to your good news, wasn’t it?  I was being kind of silly and it didn’t come out well. Because it sounded as if I subscribe to the belief that who we are is defined by where we live.  And I don’t think I believe […]