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[Here is an excerpt from a memoir I'm working on—Strands.] Grief does not appear solely through tears; it is also expressed through our anger and outrage. * Maybe twenty years ago, Kevin, a friend of color, said to me, “Patricia?

Six stamps left. Loathe to step inside our tiny, neighborhood post office and wanting to support the currently-endangered USPS, we'd both ordered stamps, lots of stamps—but because so many others have done the same thing, our orders were slow in

Almost home from our daily walk, just as we were walking past, we saw a neighbor we didn't know come out of her front door, sit down on a chair on her cluttered porch, and sing. Loudly. As if in

More than forty years ago, when my oldest daughter was in elementary school, we'd lived in Wethersfield, Connecticut's historic district, its Main Street lined with carefully-restored eighteen-century homes interspersed with newer yet still elegant dutch-colonials and Victorians. (We'd lived in

Here I am, once again, "circling Fort Knox with a butter knife trying to figure out how to get in."* I know I want to write about loss, about sorrow, and about how, for most of my life, I've let

[Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, California, after a fire.] When I was working on WellingUp.net, I told its web developers: "You know? This is probably my last book." "Nah," Byron Hinebaugh replied. "You're just getting started." Turns out Byron was right.

Much is being written or vlogged about Greta Gerwig's "Little Women." May I join in? Seated in perfect seats in the Somerville Theater on a rainy Saturday afternoon, a beloved, grown daughter by my side, I was already prepared to

Sometimes I exchange books with a dear friend. Sometimes I'll notice intriguing titles or descriptives in a box of give-aways on the sidewalk and grab a book or two. Sometimes my grandchildren tell me I should read the YA they've

In order to be very, very careful, I must leave out most of the salient details that would make this post come alive. Pop. For the safety of the person I want to write about, I'm leaving out most of

We talk about "speaking truth to power"; sometimes using just the right words, even if they're highfalutin', can be enormously clarifying. Like "false equivalency." I am loving how, with greater and greater frequency, the media is calling out out the

I have a new mantra these days. And it's powerful. And eerily, mysteriously effective. Here's an example of how it plays out: This morning I read yet another news article about some egregiously, blatantly horrible thing Trump has done, and,

There have been many times over the past month as I either prepared for or recovered from both eyes' cataract surgery, when I simply sat. Sunblocked, broad-brim hatted, adequately hydrated, I just sat. Earlier in the month I silently mourned