The Thinking Woman - Words From Out Of The Blue

Fine gray dust hung eerily in the air. Dust from burned papers, computers, clothing, airplanes...and people. There was a powerful silence, as if Nature were holding a Mass.  When the city finally started to speak, it was still silent in our hearts. How would we go about clearing away the blood and dust from the eyes and noses of an entire country of people? How could we? So much loss. I couldn’t get the image of the man falling from the top of the building out of my mind for days. He had time to make a choice about how he wanted to die. He would rather jump than burn.  He got up that morning, maybe he stopped for coffee at Starbucks, took the elevator to the top of one of the Twin Towers and then, jumped to his death. It took so long for him to fall that he had time to understand. I wonder if all he heard as he fell, was silence. So much death.   In the days that followed firefighters, police men and women, ambulance crews, so many volunteers and even dogs worked to preserve th

        Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes       Turn and face the strange Some things in life just come to a close. It can’t be helped and nothing can be done. But there is a saying that, when the old car leaves the garage, there is finally space for a new one. In my life that has been true but I’ve also discovered that the trick is, to not just face the strange, but embrace it. My entire MFA in Creative Non-Fiction at Baypath has been an exercise in embracing the strange. The classes are challenging and instructors, experienced. What is strange is what has flowed from my fingers to the page in the last two years. I started with Nature Writing because that’s what I love to do and the instructor, Sister Karol Jackowski, is a spiritual woman in the deepest of ways. She set the tone for writing anything, and was the first person who actively encouraged me to embrace the strange. “If it’s real to you, then it is real and considered non-fiction,” she coached when I asked if writing about my experie

“Kip, the bird feeders are empty,” I scolded. Kip, my best friend,  pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I guess I forgot,” he yawned. He was perched in his pj’s and fleece jacket on a small wooden kitchen chair pulled close to the woodstove because it was warmest there, and the dogs had all the couch space. It is our routine to fill the birdfeeders in the evening, just after feeding the dogs, and last night, it was Kip’s turn. “You can’t forget the birds,’ I nagged. “We are their Universe, and if we forget them, The Universe will forget us,” I added without any love or light in my voice. Birds are kind of a big deal to me. They are my constant companions. Blue jays peck at the windowsills, crows noisily raise their kids in the pine trees behind the house, and thunderbirds show up in my dreams. None of them have any respect for peace and quiet, but all contribute to my peace of mind. “Yep, I’ll fill them soon,” Kip assured me as he took a sip of coffee. Kip is used to

I am a quiet person. In fact, just yesterday a friend told me that I am the quietest person she knows. I’m not shy or nervous. I can talk in front of large crowds without sweating and love to chat with people who will listen. But right there, that is the problem. When life gets hard, no one listens.  I have become quieter as I’ve grown older. As a sassy teenager, I learned to keep my mouth shut or dad might be in just the wrong mood and shut it for me, as he did to my mother. I became bulimic. It was only the first life-changing illness that I have experienced and recovered from but it set the tone for the secrecy required to maintain a stoic reputation in the face of adversity. The mouth shutting, the silencing of what is too hard for others to hear. I married a wonderful man. He contracted Gillaume-Barre Syndrome while we were travelling in Europe. There were no support groups and when the novelty of his illness wore off, even family members went back to their lives leaving us alone

  Shakespeare and Company photo credit-  Iwannadancewithsomebody2            Yesterday was Halloween. I celebrated by listening to Neil Gaiman, in heavy black-rimmed glasses and a black top hat, read live from an eerie candlelit library at his home in Skye, Scotland. I could hear wind howling on the other side of the library's darkened windows while his lilting, smokey voice lured me into a Click Clack Rattlebag story, which was scary - but not too scary -and yet now my house feels just a bit too big and my front door, a little too slammy. I was first introduced to Neil Gaiman by my friend Nik Palmer. Nik suggested I read  Neverwhere , the story of a man who found another world, an Otherworld, beneath the streets of London. I loved it and went on to read everything Mr. Gaiman has ever written. Nik was pleased. Nik and his wife, Ana, used to live nearby. Nik  is into fantasy video games; he designs them, plays them, and even works on fighting skills in real life. I went with Ana o

As I search for guidance in this time of trouble, I remember another time when I could not see, but found my way I listen to forty rhythmic footsteps of the ten huskies ahead and dogsled runners swishing beneath my feet over soft, silent new snow.  A wind song whispers to the trees. I grip the sled tighter and lean forward, straining to make out striding sleddogs in the snowy, moonlit night, but it’s no use. The lamp on my head reflects twinkling beams from the white crystals into my eyes, and I cannot see through the heavy wet flakes filling the space between us. We are far from home. The forest creaks with silence. I am blinded in the snow cloaked darkness. In frustration, I switch off the artificial light. Darkness surrounds me only for a moment before transforming into a comfortable companion.   Outlines of dogs against luminescent snow come into view, and I catch the flash of loyal eyes dancing back as if to applaud me for figuring it out, this new way to see. The snow f