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Beginner's Heart

When I married my husband, we had zilch money. We got married quickly, so that I could go to Algeria with him, where his company had transferred him. Actually, we thought we were going to Morocco. A story for another time. 🙂 We had a dear friend, an artisan jeweler, make our wedding rings. Bernie…

As pictures of wounded children — and tiny body bags — cast long shadows across international media these past few days, I am so very grateful to live in a country free from war within our borders. I am grateful my two wonderful sons don’t have to choose between fighting and leaving, as many in…

Today I’m grateful for old friends. Perhaps because I moved so much as a child  and a young adult, I have very few friends from my adolescence. And none, really, from my childhood. No one who knew me in elementary or middle school, for instance. Only a few who knew me in my 20s. So…

  I have too much stuff. I have too many books, too many teapots, and waaay too many tchotchkes. It is, most definitely, a first-world problem. But I’m grateful for my first-world problems, like  clearing out my extra books. I remember helping a colleague — a South African teacher — pack books to take back…

I’m exceedingly thankful for libraries. AND for librarians, who rank up there w/ superheroes (& heroines) to me. From my first foray into the bookmobile (travelling books?? what magic!), to the Việtnamese American Association Library around the street from us in Saigon, to the dusty musty stacks in grad school, I have been faithful to…

Despite what it may look like, this is NOT a torture device. And it’s not really a toe screw (which IS  an official instrument of torture).  Nope, this is what I’m grateful for today: my newest in a long line of weird foot gear… It’s subbing for another painful, disorienting, and EXPENSIVE surgical procedure. So I’m verrry…

the curve of a tree limb against blue sky a patch of yellow asters spangled with blue & black butterflies how fresh-ground coffee tastes on a cold damp morning the smell of November roses This is the kind of thing I’m thankful for today. Nothing spectacular, for most folks. But every now & then, my…

Today’s a bittersweet thank-you. A poet I love dearly — Jack Gilbert — died yesterday. Gilbert was one of the (many) poets who helped me shape my own craft. But even had I not also been a writer, I don’t see how I could have not loved his work. Loved the quiet accommodation to his…

For many of us, Thanksgiving lasts a month. Each day I use Facebook to share something for which I’m grateful. It may be as small as the sunlight that hits the deck chair exactly right on a brisk fall day, or as large as the amazement I feel that my nieces & nephews want to…

 And no one exists alone….We must love one another or die.   ~ Auden A dear former student just posted a line of Auden to my FaceBook: We must love one another or die. It’s from the poem “September 1, 1939,” one of my favourites. Sitting in a cafe, surrounded by friends  who are quietly writing, I…
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