Question of the week: How do you reclaim a place with memories of sorrow? I recently read a piece by Martha Beck on how to mentally rewrite your tragedies so that you can find meaning even in the random badness that sometimes happens to us. In the case Beck describes, a woman is able to… Read more
Adventures
I recently heard Neil Gaiman tell an interviewer that getting old involved doing fewer and fewer things for the first time. I came up with a cure for that kind of aging that involves two parts: 1. Do something you’ve done before in a new way. 2. Bring a kid who is still doing everything for… Read more
“It’s way too big to be a squirrel,” I said as I looked in the tree. My teenaged son and I were camping near Shelton, WA and sitting by the fire he had been thrilled to build when I had noticed a creature settling into the branches above us. We kept staring and squinting at… Read more
Sometimes when my reasonably fine life gets to be too much, I pull out my clarinet from its beaten case with the sides all sliced and peeling from when it faced various indignities on long ago band trips. I open the metal clasps on the side and look into that velvet-lined interior to find the… Read more
I once was quite certain I would be a German teacher. I knew like I knew that German was fabulous, and I had spent plenty of time already studying it (like 2 years). I transferred from the University of Washington to Western Washington University with the more than rather dour Herr Brockhaus because I was so… Read more
The wrecking balls plan to smash down Auburn High School this summer so I decided to take one last look during the open house for alumni and friends. I don’t remember setting foot in the place since I graduated 25 years ago. I’m still unsure how I feel about saying goodbye to those cracked and beat… Read more
Lately, I’ve felt traumatized by books. Two of the books I was able to stop reading when they upset me. I didn’t care enough about the characters to make myself read any more about teenagers doing drugs and blowing up their lives or risk running into another scene like the botched horse euthanasia that I… Read more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_DaizJnnJQ I showed my son this video with Elsa from Frozen singing “Let it Go” as she gets interrupted by screaming goats and he said, “Yeah. Goats have been out for a while now. They’ve been sticking them in YouTube videos all over the place. It’s kind of old.” So once again I’m behind the teenage… Read more