I’m a fisherman’s daughter and proud of it, but I will tell you this: I flat-out hate to fish.
I hate the hooks, the bait, the sitting and waiting and most of all, the not talking. The only parts of fishing I don’t hate are the fish I never catch. [Read more…]

 “Between the dark and the daylight, when the night is beginning to lower, comes a pause in the day’s occupations that is known as the Children’s Hour.”
That’s the opening line of a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. I memorized it in fifth grade (the whole poem, not just the first line) and recited it in a school contest in front of God and all his angels and a cafeteria full of parents that included my mother. Much to my surprise, I won a trophy. [Read more…]

What makes a friendship?
Six years ago, I left my life in California to start a new life with my new husband in a new world called Las Vegas. I hoped to stay connected to old friends, and also make a few new ones.
It hasn’t been easy. Keeping and making friends takes time and energy, not to mention attention, all of which I often seem to be in short supply. [Read more…]

The sunflowers that smiled for two weeks on my kitchen table stopped smiling today.
Actually, it wasn’t just a single bunch of flowers. I’d been picking out the ones that faded and buying fresh ones to add to the vase as needed to keep them looking happy _ like me. [Read more…]

Long ago, my grandmother made me a promise.
“It will heal,” she said, dabbing my bloody knee. “Give it time. Healing is what we do best.”
“How much time?” I asked.
“As long as it takes,” she said. Then she added, “But you need to slow down and pay attention to where you’re going.” [Read more…]

If you are anything like me (no, smarty, I don’t mean clumsy) maybe you grew up in a time and place that taught you to be self-reliant and never ask for anything that isn’t offered. [Read more…]

Sometimes the people I love refuse to take me at my word. Usually, this annoys me, but at times, I don’t mind it. It depends not on what I say, but what I mean when I say it. I expect them to know the difference. What else is love for? [Read more…]

When the phone rang, I had no way of knowing it was a call I would treasure forever.

Life is full of surprises, like a storm in the night that leaves you fumbling in the dark for a flashlight, then dazzles you with blazes of lightning. It makes you want to get up each day just to see what will happen, where the lightning will strike, and who might be calling you next. [Read more…]

For Father’s Day when I was 9, I wanted to give my daddy a gift, the best gift he’d ever gotten.
Lucky for me, this would not be too hard. [Read more…]

Out of the blue, he asked me a question about a moment we shared years ago, he and I, a moment so momentous we would never be the same. [Read more…]