Tom Howard’s Last Piece of Pie
My dad and me. Photo taken on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2017 Two months ago I lost the person I loved most in the world. I lost my dad. He died on March 9, 2017 at 6:30 AM, of metastasized melanoma. The spot on his head first appeared in 2015, a raised and rough growth, […]
Taos: Making Friends with the Locals
During my recent weeklong Taos Writers Retreat I skipped the scheduled morning dance sessions. Free-form dancing in a group is waaaay too far out of my comfort zone, even though Jen insisted everyone keeps their eyes closed so no one is watching you. Instead, I walked a few blocks from the Mabel Dodge Luhan House […]
The (Snowy) Road to Taos
“Travel not to find yourself but to remember who you’ve been all along.” — as seen on a plaque yesterday in a home decor store In November, Hillary […]
Seven Years
“Seven Years in Tibet,” “The Seven Year Itch,” seven chakras, the seven-year Shemitah cycle, there is a lot tied to this particular number of years. Today marks the seventh anniversary of Marcus’s death. That day. That phone call. That searing pain of a broken heart so shattered I wanted to crawl out of my skin. […]
World Piece: The Homecoming…But Where is Home?
Goodbye, Frankfurt! My very last stop on my World Piece itinerary was Frankfurt, Germany. This was where my flight would take off for Los Angeles. LA was the place where I started, the place where three months earlier I said a tearful goodbye to my parents as they waved to me from the other side […]
Planning, Packing and Paring Down: Does It Spark Joy?
I leave on my round-the-world trip one month from today (though it really begins in just 2-½ weeks with my drive to Iowa to drop off my dog Jack at “summer camp.”) I am excited, yes, but I am also bogged down in planning and packing. And neither of those things are the most enjoyable […]
World Piece: Soundtrack for a Round-the-World Journey
Preparing for a trip around the world requires a little planning. Okay, a lot of planning. And I don’t love planning. I’m more the type to just wing it. I usually get on a plane without ever having glanced at a guidebook and trust that I’ll find my way. In all my years of traveling […]
The Shoes of Palos Verdes
Is this Hawaii? No, it’s Palos Verdes (California). My new neighborhood. I read an essay about 15 years ago titled “The Shoes of Kilimanjaro” by Cameron Burns. In the story he describes his climb up the towering volcano in Tanzania and how he felt bad for the guides whom he assumed were so poor they […]
Finding Solace in Solitaire
I’ve never been a fan of card games. It’s just not my thing to sit at a table and dole out little rectangular pieces of coated paper with numbers and symbols and faces of royalty printed on them. It seems pointless, a waste of precious time that could be—should be—spent doing something productive, like exercising […]
A Letter to my Friend Sue McGuiness Wall (1962 – 2012)
Sue and her daughters with their piping hot apple pies.American Gothic House, August, 11, 2011 Dear Sue, I just got back from your funeral. It was a full house at the Catholic church you attended. You were attending today alright. Just not in the way you would have liked. You would have approved of the […]