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Remembering my mother on the second anniversary of her death

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Anne, with cat and my older sister, circa 1959 When it’s gone, it’s over: a riff on “What I want back is what I was” Whe n my mother died two years ago today, it was not sad. Well, that’s not true. Anne: April 2024 It was very sad to be saying a final goodbye to the woman who gave me life and shaped my life with her own. But, while holding her hand as she passed on, I knew our time together on this plane was well past done. Not because of anything between us but because of the state of her body — a body that had carried her well for more than 90 years, but a body that now at 95 and a half years of age was done. It no longer could do its job. We cannot live one without the other — spirit and soul without a body. Well, that’s not true, some would say. Spirits remain and can be felt, some would say. I like that idea, but I have no personal experience of such things. My focus here is on the body that carries us, because, by her end, my mother’s body was broken. No longer able to carry her ...
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The art of persuasion: From NO to Really? to YES, and then $100

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“Art is r(e)ad ”...  make art/make sense    by ALeR March 2026 ONE TRUE STORY TOLD IN THREE DIFFERENT VOICES   Voice 1: “Just the facts” cool   I collaged a tray. I donated it for a good cause. Someone bought it.   Voice 2: Quiet and disbelieving I wanted to see all the donated art pieces, to experience the fundraising event, and to bid on a piece or two myself. I couldn’t attend the opening on Friday evening or the first day of bidding on Saturday, so it wasn’t until Sunday that I got there. A bit late, but there.   At about 3 pm, I climbed the steep stairs to the women’s arts organization hosting the fundraising event , and made my way into the main room that was jam packed with people, leaving barely enough space to thread my way through. As I moved slowly through the crowd, I took in the art on   display all over the walls. So much art, such variety — some by professional artists, some by emerging artists. Each piece had a related sheet on whi...
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Secrets: What happens when we keep them? When we share them? When we don't even know them...

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HAIKU for the Artemis II astronauts      The rocket came home      The crew beamed such love from Space      Giving hope for Earth Living in such close quarters for nine days would make having secrets from each other virtually impossible, I imagine… I have been thinking about secrets because of this quote used recently as a writing prompt: “Everybody has secrets. The only difference is the damage done when they come out.” [Dede, CIA agent in TREASON, Season 1/episode 2]    One person in the group wrote about “gentle gossip”, while I wrote about secrets that, sometimes, we don’t even know we are keeping... THE SECRETS IN OUR LIVES: sweet nothings / explosive somethings When a secret is more  than a whispered sweet nothing,  our world —  the world —  can change Some secrets are dark and dirty, some are light and fun, others difficult and dangerous With any given secret, there is a keeper, a holder; and there is an ...
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A true short story about amazement, hyperbole, dignity, love and magnificence (with pictures)

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TRUE SHORT STORY:   While three men and one woman hurtle their way around the moon, down here on earth an idiot world leader hijacks the major networks to deliver 19 minutes of hyperbolic tripe to a world left wondering WTAF is going to happen next. Meanwhile, a petite French woman shares her story of intimate horrors with calm, intense dignity for all the world to respect. In my small corner of that world, Holly, the cat, turns 18, and I learn of a remarkable American composer who won the first Grammy ever for music scored for a video game. All this together, in just one week. Our world is as mad as it can be magnificent. Let us choose more magnificence, less madness… I was mesmerized by the launch of Artemis II on April 1 -- more vivid in every way than I recall the moon landing on July 20, 1969. Back then, grainy black & white on a tiny TV; today in vivid colour and real time, with ongoing live updates from the crew on any device I choose.  AMAZING In July 2018, during ...
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Nostalgia in three scenes: Visiting the past to tackle today

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The news these days is like a multilateral car crash that I do not want to watch but cannot stop myself from being witness to.  When I do turn away, I tune into a feeling that transports me to simpler times  —   a mix of wistful, mournful longing for days gone by.  Living in that feeling is not productive, but the occasional visit to it is, I think, not harmful; I find it restorative.  A summer day, July 1974, near Banbury, England — My friend Lesley and I somehow wangled permission from our mothers to pack a picnic lunch, get on our bikes and head off for a day-long adult-free adventure in the country. I remember only one thing in any detail but remember it I do: the exhilarating sense of freedom that came from being on our own (just 14 years old), guiding ourselves through the countryside, enjoying the hours of the day, peddling like mad and loving every minute. I remember nothing beyond that. (Nothing bad can have happened or I would remember it quite differ...
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Remembering Mendel Schnitzer: a fine human, a magnificent friend

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a tiny portrait of Mendel I bought at a fundraiser for The Kidney Foundation, an organization for which he volunteered countless hours Thursday, March 26, 2026 Nine years gone Remembered today and every day Dear Mendel:  Your physical self is long gone, but your spirit remains alive. What a presence you were on this earth. Full of life, of good will. Even when pain was getting the best of you through those many years of chronic illness, your eyes twinkled and you claimed  "fabulous" as the way to get through every day, even the darkest.  I know you will be happy to know that I continue to work with your beloved wife Deborah, who remains a force of creative energy, sharing her genius in our writing classes and bringing new stories -- including that novel she promised you -- to life. Though you are gone, your own force of life continues, threaded tightly into your children's and your grandchildren's lives. And, if I may be so bold, into the lives of your friends, includ...
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Hello out there! Are you there? Just let me know you're OK. Please!!

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  The other day I had three active text message chains blinking on my phone. Three different people were communicating with me at the same time — and I was keeping up. Just. I was monitoring their responses, composing my own, keying them in, sending, and waiting for the next reply. All the while marvelling at what texting enables us to do. Too much, maybe, but sometimes it’s kind of fun. I don’t always like juggling so many communication balls in the air, but that morning I was well caffeinated and enjoying the challenge    — a nd keeping the three different chains separate and clear one from the other, which isn’t always the case. But today it was. I’m a communicator. I like connecting with people, having conversations, making meaning with others, sometimes making plans, often merely keeping the thread of relationship alive between us. A quick text asking, ‘How is it going over there?’ or ‘Awful weather today, isn’t it!’ is enough for that. Which is why I am perplexed wh...
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