The phone rang. That made twenty-two calls from my mother-in-law Virginia that afternoon. I knew because my phone counts how many times a particular number dials my house on a given day. My house phone is the only phone number Virginia remembers. No matter who she wants to call, she dials what was once her only child’s […]

“I have Meniere’s Disease,” I told the receptionist when I called Strong Audiology in Rochester, NY a year ago. “I used to be your patient, but recently I’ve seen someone closer to home. I’m a little desperate. I need an appointment with the best, most experienced audiologist you have.” “Oh,” she said. “Please hold a moment.” “I’ll […]

“I’m sure it’s cancer,” the oncologist said in an I’m-telling-it-straight voice in 2006. He forced himself to look into Vic’s eyes and then mine. “We don’t know what kind, so we can’t treat you until we figure it out.” Vic looked down. Then he looked at me with mournful eyes. He swallowed hard, choking down […]

Anthony Damiani soon realized that the students who had gathered around him to learn meditation and philosophy needed psychological understanding. It was the late 1960s. We sat on lumpy cushions on the floor in the American Brahman Bookstore in Ithaca while Anthony shared passages from Carl Jung, gave examples, and led discussions about shadow, anima, animus, and Self. I longed to understand […]

A New Year’s gift of night skies and poems of joy and hope. Photos labeled “at home” were taken on my hill on the east side of Seneca Lake in the New York Finger Lakes. In 1972, my husband and I bought this land after seeing a sunset here. I’m still watching. It could happen any time, tornado, […]

First the old car had to be replaced, the one Vic and I bought before he got sick. Then the kitchen drain clogged and flooded the floor. Water dripped through the pine boards to the cellar. I called Phil. “My kitchen sink is plugged,” I said. “Draino didn’t help.” He grumbled a little the way he […]