March 12, 2020: Jim had minor surgery. In the hospital waiting room, large bottles of hand sanitizer were placed on every table and everyone sat far apart from each other. It was clear we’d all heard of something called coronavirus, especially when I sneezed and the entire room got quiet. “It’s just allergies, I’m sure,” … Continue reading Life In (and on the brink of leaving) the Bubble
I’m writing this on February 28, 2021, and I hear a train a mile away as the crow flies. When the wind blows a certain way, its whistle is as loud as if that train was passing through the valley that is my backyard. On February 28, 1983, two weeks before my due date, the … Continue reading The Feeling that Will Never Have an Explanation
I can melt a bowl of ice cream with all the tears I cry when I rewatch This Is Us. Sad tears, happy tears, a-thousand-other-emotions tears. This Is Us opens cages I locked years ago; cages I didn’t think had keys anymore. Didn’t I move on from ______? Apparently not. Part of why I get … Continue reading How “This is Us” got motherhood and grief right
After I do what I can with insurance companies and phone companies and assisted living facilities and banks, I turn it all off, and for thirty minutes, I read music, not emails. For thirty minutes, I’m a guitar player.
Watching Dad drive the Mustang home, cigarette smoke flying out the window, he became a little more hip, a little more Rockford, a little more than just Dad.
"Nut Goodies are Minnesota, same as Old Dutch potato chips, lutefisk, lefse, and pickled pigs feet on Krispy crackers."
I had another Bruce dream on Wednesday night. Number one hundred ninety or so, I think? (Let’s see…thirty eight years times five or six a year…) It wasn’t unexpected, given all the Bruce-centered writing I’ve done the last six months as I slowly write a memoir. But like most of the other Bruce dreams, this … Continue reading You Can Never Unknow Someone
I sometimes meditate, I sometimes “pray,” but as 2020 progressed, the peaceful breathing and quiet communication with the god-presence wasn't enough to pry open the jammed up emotions that have piled up like dead fish on ice. It must be a 2020 thing because I’m (too) good at feeling the feels in “normal” times. Between … Continue reading Feeling the Feels of 2020
It’s been thirteen days since Dad fell, eleven since an ambulance took him to a hospital, six since he was released to a nursing facility and one since someone at the facility tested positive for covid. Dad a few weeks ago. When covid killed Dad’s cousin in April, I wondered how long before it affected … Continue reading Obligation
Pumping gas at the Get Go last week, I noticed that near - not in - the garbage bin was an empty can of Chunky soup and its pull-off lid, a used-up Right Guard roll-on deodorant stick, an empty can of Pringles (the regular kind), and a can of Lysol. I imagined the items were … Continue reading Two Scenes, A Dozen Stories
