I didn’t want a second chance. I liked my first option, the married life I’d worked on and loved for forty years. My husband Vic and I called our relationship “the Path of Marriage.” In 1967, it had been easy to walk away from graduate school and return to Ithaca where Vic was a graduate […]

  I carry the glass jar outside to a shady patch of white asters. The earth smells musty and moist in rising heat. Too hot for late September, plus a south wind when the butterfly migration depends on winds from the north. There’s always some climate disaster to be alarmed about, so I bring my […]

I roll over and squint at the red numbers on the clock. 3 AM. Too early to plunge into the day if I want to get anything done. I need sleep, but instead my mind spins like a dying fly. Maybe I should plant more lettuce. Or some greens. What about fall kale? What about […]

My mother-in-law grabbed my wrist with her gnarled hand, the way a drowning person grasps a life preserver. “I’m scared,” she said. She was lying in her bed. She’d been frantic all day, up last night and all the day before. “What are you scared of, Virginia?” I asked, never presuming to know what’s on […]

66 words, 9 photos,  1 prayer *** Read the Headlines. Hide under bed. ~~~ Shadow Unleashed. What have we done? ~~~ Scary dreams. No one to tell. ~~~ Hold trembling self. Find Balance somewhere.     Coneflower sways. Monarch rides. Sweetness shared.             Bumblebee in Salvia Loading pollen sacs.   […]

I sit in a woman therapist’s office. On my lap, I hold a dog, too large to be a lap dog. The dog trembles against me in fear. I pull her against my breasts and belly, bury my face in her fur, and inhale deep warm dog scents. The room is filled with nurturing love […]