It was a delightful surprise — Last year, my annual end-of-year retreat was a 3-day dance meditation held over Zoom. At the time, I was still mostly okay with the isolation, just starting to touch the edges of despair and loneliness. …

The quietest of stressors — There are only two kinds of soundscapes at my mother’s house: silence, or CBS morning news. Both of these are gently punctuated by other sounds: plates going into the dishwasher, the muted beeps of cooking timers, or soft feet padding down the hall to retrieve a book from the tall…

The last day of this poem — (The month of September, I am reading “My mother’s body” by Marge Piercy every day. I am also coming here as many days as possible to share what happens for me when you visit a poem so often.) I have neglected writing about my experience with this poem — but…

The gentle angels of our last moments — (The month of September, I am reading “My mother’s body” by Marge Piercy every day. I am also coming here as many days as possible to share what happens for me when you visit a poem so often.) I live just down the street from a cemetery. Not just any…

Where I find the depths of grief in this poem — (The month of September, I am reading “My mother’s body” by Marge Piercy every day. I am also coming here as many days as possible to share what happens for me when you visit a poem so often.) The deep, endless caverns of grief and compassion rule today. This is…

Lessons from reading the same poem every day for a month — I don’t know where the idea originated, but somewhere a friend of mine saw the suggestion of choosing one poem, and reading it every day for a month. I like how words go, and I especially like how poets make words go. …

Not quite last place, but definitely not winning — I used to run lots of races. I was a constant presence in the back of the pack, running for myself, for time, for that good feeling of tired legs at the top of a long hill. When the race ran on trails, the first person to an obstacle would…

(This post is inspired by this week’s Write Here prompt: “What do you need to take responsibility for?” This is an excerpt from a… — (This post is inspired by this week’s Write Here prompt: “What do you need to take responsibility for?” This is an excerpt from a memoir-in-progress. Read more excerpts here.) His name was Mitch. I latched onto the image of Svengali when I thought of him. Will I now have to…

If I have to walk sometimes, does it still count as a run? — I have been dealing with exercise-induced asthma for several months now. I was actually diagnosed with this years ago, but it remained so mild that I could do just fine with no interventions. These past few months, however, an evil mix of weather and wild fire-induced poor air quality, intense…