Because Campbell had told me that he was really interested in the Mississippi River, we did not head directly to Chicago after our riverboat ride.  We took a more meandering path north to Moline, IL.  I had envisioned maybe following the path of “Old Man River” through...

I love to pair my travels with literary experiences.  When I took our son Court across the country in 1994, we stopped at several Little House sites. When in New York City I have taken my children to some of the sites in “From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler” and...

My Aunt Martha was the family genealogist.  When she passed away, I asked if I could have all her files.  Her daughter was more than relieved to relinquish them to me, as they were taking up quite a bit of space in her garage.  I culled through them and made digitally produced...

In 1994 I got a crazy idea.  I would drive from California to Michigan with only our eight-year-old son.  My one real fear was that we would get a flat tire somewhere.  But as we pulled off the freeway in Las Vegas the car in front of me got a blow-out, so I figured that he had...

She had a conversation with a crow.
   He laughed at everything she said.
You wouldn’t define his affability
   as friendship, exactly,
nor would he seem unfriendly,
   despite a slightly ominous cackle--
he could be ridiculing her, I suppose,
   or he could...

Lean and leaning,
   top-heavy with a mop
   of madly splaying frond hair,
regally towering above
   and swaying precipitously
   in the slightest tropical breeze
yet holding tenaciously as
   gales blow mighty--
   a miracle of strong...

We were so young.  We didn’t feel young, but I wasn’t quite 22.  We were launching on that big adventure called marriage, forty-eight years ago today.  Our wedding was a small affair in my mother’s home: only David’s immediate family and my extended family...

Every year on this day I remember my Grandma Mary.  Today would be her 128^th birthday.  Some years her birthday falls on Mother’s Day. Not so this year, but the date is still indelibly written on my heart. 

Grandma Mary had one child, my mom.  When my grandfather passed...

Motherhood isn’t always the lovely and rewarding experience described by flowery greeting cards.  I know personally the challenges and even deep sadness that a mother goes through.  I suffered through one child’s learning disabilities and another’s life threatening...

Sing, aged turtle, as you rise
  from the depths of the ocean’s brine;
sing of the world’s primal onset,
  of time and times and half a time.

Sing, tiny seeds dropped in the soil
  amidst the charred remains of trees;
sing of rebirth, of green and spring
  carried along...