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A Lucky Girl
Mom used to clean her paintbrushes with the heavy-duty solvent turpentine. The truth, however, was that she wasn’t painting much anymore in her small art studio upstairs. With Heidi, age six, and myself at age two (almost three) and a husband with dependence issues, she just didn’t have time. So, it made sense that the…
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The Power of Imprinting
Back in the mid-1990’s, I remember shopping one day in a Best Buy. There were rows of boxes lined all the way down the aisle; stacked on slanted display shelves for easy title viewing. Each box held a compact disc; a disc which might become the perfect game for our shiny new computer. “Should I…
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In a Flash
It’s been over a week now, and I am still singing that song. I both want to and don’t want to, if that’s possible. I think it thinks it has found me and has a job to do. My memory banks are encouraging it to stick around. It started on a Sunday morning. I turned…
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The AI Chronicles
I was scrolling through the Word Press Reader a few days ago (a compilation of blogs I follow) and I spotted a photo which didn’t quite look real. Curious, I opened the post titled “My Parents at My Age” by Robert James. It was a thoughtful piece about where the author’s parents’ lives were at,…
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The Art Lesson
In August 1930, my mother’s life began with this birth announcement in a local Cleveland paper: “Grauers Take Up Sculpture” “Word comes from Maternity Hospital that Natalie E. and William C. Grauer have collaborated on a sculptural master piece, their first. It has been entitled Gretchen. It is modernistic to be sure; pleasantly stylized and…
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A Country Thanksgiving…Maybe?
This week, I was sorting through the newest batch of photos from my mom’s home. My sister and I are still going through all of her papers, photos, and mementoes she loved. This particular photo stopped me in my tracks. I had never seen it before. Gretchen is sitting by the fire of their “summer”…
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Caleb
It was just a day; a Tuesday, to be exact. I woke, watched a little news with coffee, dressed and pulled out of the garage at 7:55 am. I drove to work in Evanston, Illinois. My office was on Davis Street and we were lucky to have a parking garage right across the street. I…
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Memoirs on My Mind
Late last spring, I thought it might be a good idea to read a couple of memoirs before spending my summer trying to begin my own. I started with fellow blogger’s Marian Beaman’s newly published follow-up “My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir.” I didn’t even know what I would pick up next until I saw…
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Wide Waters
“The water is wide, I can’t cross overAnd neither have I wings to fly.Give me a boat that can carry twoAnd both shall row my love and I.” These are the opening lyrics to “The Water is Wide.” I first became acquainted with the song when I purchased the Restless Nights album by Karla Bonoff…
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Lessons From Sara
I only had one grandmother growing up. She was my dad’s mother, and she was kind, full of class, and very independent-minded. She was also blind. She wasn’t born blind, but cataracts took her vision in the mid-1950’s. Modern cataract surgery was just around the corner, but it came too late for her. Since…
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