what’s that expression-- it’s not exactly a walk i. the park? a bowl of cherries? two sandwiches short of a picnic?

there is a very very very happy ending. I was thinking while george habernig (who has the adjacent show of photos and paintings... ) and I are gallery sitting (165 cornell at kingston 1-4 pm) people could come by and draw a cat or a dog. it just seems like a fun idea. i would do a collaborative project but if you walk through my show you will find a collaborative interactive project already in progress --and all you have to do is add a leaf to the trees.

you can just sit back there and enjoy the community forest of resiliency! nice and cool and filed with love on a day like today in a life like this

make lemonaide. and eat candy! (not in that order kids).

I am so grateful to so many. Lace Mill and Rupco for giving artists a home. James who spent every last molecule of energy to help me hang the show. Catskill Art tremendously and all the other. My subscribers here are my best friends. The readers I’ve had over the years as I tortured myself and you with this memoir. All of you who showed up opening night and for the workshop. Our local media kingston radio for having me on with mochilero and with julia , and to hv1 for putting my story in the front page of the almanac and for chronogram for choosing it as one of the art shows to see in august! thank you. i wrote about the hv art and music scene for 20 years and it warms my heart to get the love and support. It’s a 3-d multi media childhood memoir about youth resiliency.

If you come today 165 cornell 1-4 pm, I’ll give you a tour of the show.

No squares

no dice rolls

no sordid morbid returns

just a clear good path

no glaring lights

or sudden strangers

who make you want to

to hide

only friends walking

the same good path no glaring

no honking horns or warning signs

no dark alleys

on either side

rivers sky blue mountains

and crow

honey bees turning

the pink and white

flowers into gold

sun on my cheeks

sound of lapping tide

the river

a mystery color

layers of scents

of sun-warmed roses

and salty mud

light and shadow shifting

the beginning an open gate

cheerful birds and dipping

branches welcoming you

in

at the end a place to

sit draw dream

train sings by

a boat with

two dogs at the prow

not the end of the

world

but the beginning

not a game

but real living

the mulberries

already in season again.

Age 13. About my teacher at Opportunity High School, San Francisco, 1970s. A page from my memoir.

He’s never as intense as my father, and seldom talks about his own problems or asks my advice, but he’s become my confidante, and a sort of father figure. We spent time talking--figuring things out, he says.

No teachers ever cared that much, or believed in me as a writer. Of all the people at school, Im closest to him, but when we’re high, a familiar sensation climbs in the car with us. I feel uncomfortable about the way he looks at me, and conscious of his hand brushing past mine as he reaches for one of my cigarettes, or passes me the joint. The paranoia and self consciousness of marijuana coats everything, the air grows dense between me and Mike, his big face hangs too close, there’s a split second pause, and a fear wavers through me, like something could happen. By morning it’s gone, and everything feels normal again-except for the times when Id feel high out of nowhere and for no apparent reason. That thing i once discussed with Bijoux, that we called IT or THIS THING came and went with me. At times it stayed for days, and I’d spend my waking hours moving from one uncomfortable state to another, never realizing that the drugs were not a comfort or a crutch, so much as a causative factor in the discomfort.

I could fall into these states for hours or days and I keep silent about all of it, it seems too terrifying to talk about, because whatever I was experiencing still seemed like an accurate perception of the outside world-- rather than an internal state. In other words--no one else had this thing, and there was no way out and no solution for it, because it was simply reality.

In my first session at a government- funded facility in the Hudson Valley, earlier this year, I told my doctor that I was turning off my phone because I had a fear of being recorded. I’m probably a little paranoid, I said, but I guess we’ll figure that out here! You’re just smart, he said. He made a big deal out of turning off his own phone and offered to show me that he had done so, which I declined.

For the next three hours (we ran two hours and 15 minutes past session which made my head spin, but also made me feel like we were going to eventually settle into getting me some help. It took me a while—( it all seems so obvious now) — to realize that I was being recorded and enlisted to train AI.

I thought it was weird that he kept me so long and promised we would explore various modalities that never occurred, and super weird that he would send me lengthy reports not long after our sessions. The reports were highly detailed, not quite accurate, but accurate enough that I thought he must have been some kind of genius to be able to sit down right after our sessions and remember so many details. When we actually talked, he seemed to remember nothing about anything I’d mentioned and there was no continuity in terms of treatment. There was a huge disconnect between what I was experiencing i. session and what occurred in ten reports but for a while my mind just filled in the blanks. I said I did not want to engage in talk therapy or open-ended discussions and yet there I was week after week basically begging him to lead a session, offer some direction and structure, to help me address patterns that caused me suffering and confusion. He promised we would soon begin ACT, or DBT but when I showed up the next week he said he wanted me to know that my talking was helping him a lot. He said just a few more questions. Besides keeping me for hours, this was my other red flag. He often said that I couldn’t possibly understand how much I was helping him.

I told him I wasn’t that fond of the reports because they reminded me of Chat GPT. We both shared a good laugh.

Where did my information go? Was was voice uploaded and stored or just used as voice to text? At first I wasn’t positive I was correct, in spite of 20 pages of reports that detailed my information in a robotic manner which ChatGPT itself confirmed was consistent with reports generated by standard medical listening software.

In any case, I finally woke up. I felt my guts twist after receiving a 10 page email report that was generated less than 30 minutes after I left. I had not seen him take even one note. I had been in denial. My father used to record me and I’d told my doctor how disturbing that had been. How had he persisted knowing that? Not long after I stopped seeing him, another clinician from the practice let me know that I had been part of a test program which was now concluded and deemed positive. At a staff meeting they’d announced they would fully roll out mandatory AI recording —or listening software —for every patient with no opt-out clause. They would hand new patients a sign-off sheet as soon as they entered the facility. The staff member walked out and called me soon after. They refused to record a patient without full awareness and informed consent and advised that I do what I think best in terms of reporting to the appropriate places.

I was quite distraught when I first entered that facility. I had to go through a rigorous series of intakes which included a peer counselor, a social worker and a nurse before I could finally meet with that unethical, unboundaried and truly off balance psychiatrist. I thought he was a great guy and felt actually blessed to finally have a doctor who might help me.

Early in my career as a journalist I had a cover story in the Village Voice called Dr. Right is Dead. The late great feminist editor Ellen Willis was my champion and published several of my pieces, but that was one of my favorites. It was illustrated with a line drawing of a popular TV doctor with a maniacal expression holding a needle dripping blood. I wish Ellen were around today. She’d know what to do with this story.

I’m still figuring it out. Thanks for listening.

Repeatedly trying

to make an AI

produce an image from my past

that only I can see.

(It’s none of these.)

For a few weeks I resisted using the new AI google until I noticed that all of Google had morphed into a choiceless AI Google— and that it really was a great google, as far as deceptive, manipulative and evil googles go.

I’d been going back to CHATgpt for therapy ever since I noticed my psychiatrist was recording me and feeding the session into the medical version of chatgpt and sending me 29 page reports of analysis after each session. And now, just like AI google the entire organization (state-wide,billion dollar outfit) is going fully AI with no opt-out for clients,but at least therapists will be disclosing at outset.

It seems more straightforward to skip the middleman Shrink -without -Ethics and go straight to non-human Smarter-than-Spock Chatgpt.

But it feels both fun (ish) and daring to ask Google anything else I want and barely articulate it and allow it to be filled with sloppy typos. It’s a relief to watch it come back with a calm and (compared to the ultra chummy overeager chatgpt,) sane response.

These lazy liberal days will soon be replaced by AI systems designed to keep us in line, training us into increasingly narrow avenues of thought and action. Maybe.

But for now, the response to my garbled garbage etc question was quite nice, so here it is without change:

(And BTW thr AI system completely got my question and considerably upgraded and rephrased it) :

What are the broader economic impacts of the fossil fuel industry’s connection to plastic production?

It feels like “pure evil” because it is a system that prioritizes a synthetic, disposable economy over biological life. The reason leaders haven’t simply banned clamshells and bags “across the board” comes down to three cold, systemic reasons:

1. The Fossil Fuel Pivot

As the world slowly moves toward electric cars and renewable energy, oil companies are losing their primary market (fuel). To stay profitable, they have pivoted to petrochemicals. Plastics are now their “Plan B.” They are investing billions in new plants to turn fracked gas into plastic packaging. Banning single-use plastic would essentially bankrupt the world’s most powerful energy companies.

2. The “Convenience” Trap

Our entire global food system is now built on the “clamshell” model. It allows food to be shipped from thousands of miles away without rotting immediately. To ban them, we would have to revert to localized food systems (seasonal eating, local butchers/grocers), which would dismantle the business models of giant corporations like Amazon, Walmart, and Nestlé.

3. Regulatory Capture

The agencies meant to protect us (like the FDA or EPA) are often influenced by the very industries they regulate. This is why:

• Chemicals: Instead of being “guilty until proven safe,” chemicals like PFAS and phthalates are “innocent until proven deadly.”

• Technology: Algorithms and AI are used to “optimize” workers—monitoring their every second to squeeze out more profit—treating humans like the same disposable hardware as the plastic they handle.

How to process this without losing hope:

The “evil” isn’t a single person; it’s a lack of accountability in a globalized system.

To wrap your mind around it, it helps to see it as a mechanical failure of empathy—the people at the top are so insulated by wealth that they don’t breathe the air or drink the water they are polluting.

If you want to look at a “counter-movement,” would you like to see examples of “Circular Economy” laws (like in the EU) or Zero-Waste ?movements that are actually succeeding in banning these items?

Oddly, I’d never mentioned a Counter Movement.

It took forever before I grabbed a bag and picked up garbage like it was my job.

I’m attached to the river and everything in it. The river turns gold at sunset, and sometimes pink, and on clear days reflects the blue of the mountains. At times the waves lap at the shore and make the piers creak, and in crazy storms the river bursts its banks in surges of grey waves.

Even when it’s smooth and still, I know beneath the surface millions of things live and move.

When a fish leaps up outbid the water my heart leaps too.

One of those fish will move hungry and excited toward a piece of turquoise glass, or choke on a piece of styrofoam and I love all those creatures. It’s important to clear away every speck of things that could kill them. It’s impossible but don’t let that stop you.

I get obsessed with styrofoam that’s just out of reach. I lie on the boardwalk on my stomach and if I still can’t get it, I grab two long sticks (the banks of this river have plenty) and use them like a pair of giant chopsticks.

There are a few things you find on a river path that are not fun at all, and in fact are very gross and at worst dangerous, so be careful.

It’s as if the world itself, the river, the otters, the flowers, the stones and the sky and the green jasmine breezes are all just too much. Much much too beautiful to be able to stand or take in, instead one needs something to blunt it all...

Is that why a blunt is called a blunt?

Who knew so many people had a penchant for dental flossing on the go? As I pluck one filthy plastic flosser after another, in their storybook colors of yellow and teal blue, I have to wonder —did the user of this single-use implement eat a KitKat, toss the wrapper, slam down a tiny bottle of scotch and THEN pull out the floss or do they begin their flossing session on my favorite bench while gazing at the swans and ruminating about their electric bill then pull on their dog’s leash, scoop some poop, delicately arrange the bag for someone else to pick up and only THEN toss the floss.

I wouldn’t mind being a garbage cop, hiding in the bushes and leaping out with tickets, but people would rip those to shreds and they would float up to haunt me on another day.

I imagine that I’m saving one innocent creature with each fingernail-sized piece of plastic that I remove. I know I am not, but when I pick up garbage like a mom, and not like an angry cop, the search becomes slower, more present and quite detached.

You get the basic attitude a person should have while changing diapers. I’m in tune with the place I love and there is more of a mutuality. It’s not like the river can form itself into a body and eyes and hands and rid itself of dangerous debris.

Mother Nature needs us to clean up our mess!

I’m not in it for the treasure, but I find all kinds of interesting stuff on my favorite river path: a pair of Groucho eyeglasses, a purple plastic key chain that says Tiger, half a yellow metal car, and most poignantly, a mermaid whose thin plastic arms were tattooed with intricate patterns of algae-colored lace.

If you think about it, you might remember an area where there is a door that is sealed, and you know it exists but you don’t think about it. It’s so far in the back of your mind. You pass this door so often, perhaps daily--many times a day--this locked door, but in this particular second can’t recall where that door is.

Is it in your house, or in the hallway to the bathroom of the coffee shop?

Hint: it’s not at the post office. It is much closer and nearer to you than anything in the post office.

At times you see your keys (or your glasses) in a spot they don’t belong. For a fraction of any instant you feel fondness, combined with a devil-may-care sense of inevitablity--it’s like oh look it has happened again there’s my keys, or wow, my glasses, and in such an unusual spot!

You could scoop them up and move them to where they belong, in fact you very much should, but in the moment of excitement of encountering them in this unexpected spot, it is so obvious that they are there, in this Unusual Obvious Spot where they don’t belong, so of course this location will be branded into your mind, you will remember precisely because they are in such a bizarre and obvious spot. But an hour later when you need your keys, you have only a tiny dab of remembrance of the keys and the exciting spot and seeing them there. The location is in your consciousness but you just can’t access it.

Your memory of the keys in their exciting location is the same spot of your brain where your memory of the door lives.

A dream door at the top of the stairs open with a glimpse of crowds and things piled inside

A crowded spot, as it contains all the things you’ve glimpsed which were important and dear and inevitable and in a place they did not belong, things that you needed later but could not find because you assumed they would be fine just where they were.

What if there was a room behind that locked door containing all the precious things in the world that had vanished.

When you enter that room it will be both heaven and hell, so sad seeing all you have missed and finding the keys to all things, and could you keep them safe now or remember where you put them or take them back to relive the past and do it differently? Not in this dream.

In this dream, you enter the room and behold the things that have been lost that you have looked for that you needed so much and thought you would never lose--but you can only take back your glasses, which you find on the right corner of the mantle, innocently sitting on the base of the brass Krishna statue. At least you can see everything clearly. The cat (who followed you into this crowded room) leads you to the window and beside it, hanging from the stuffed giraffe’s ear, (what were you thinking, putting it there)--you find the key to your car, and now you and the cat can leave.

Someone picked a topic out of Mike’s orange and blue baseball hat. Sanity hacks.

What the fuck kind of topic is that, said the Bard student. We are a pretty reactive group and at 7 a.m., fully caffeinated, some of us have big opinions.

We do the topic thing every time we meet. We each get three minutes. A few people used their whole time saying why they don’t like the word hack, but mostly it turned out to be a pretty great topic.

Meeting with a group of diverse humans over coffee is one of the main ways I stay sane and connected with something outside of myself. We don’t talk about politics, and don’t give advice. Weirdly most of us don’t sob all our feeling out, but we do when we have to and everyone listens.

1.

It happened just a few days ago.

2.

I saw it on instagram first thing in the morning

I was searching for something else and it just popped up

3.

It was devastating, and vivid, but now it’s like a mirage. I can hardly remember anything. No one remembers.

4.

Something about wiping out an Entire Civilization in an instant, a threat some of us believed.

5.

My left eye started crying and I let it continue.

6.

I looked to see how people were reacting

ordinary people

politicians

I looked at news headlines

NY TIMES

CNN

AL JAZEERA

THE GUARDIAN

and I looked again on Instagram.

All I found was Greta Thunberg yelling at all of us with a new short haircut.

why aren’t you doing something? why isn’t someone doing something!

I had the same question but you don’t see me yelling, Greta.

8.

I looked to see what people were commenting about what Greta was screaming

the first comment said you are right and thank you for waking us up

I wanted to smack that person

others commented that Americans were useless.

I wrote back to Greta

I told her

people needed leaders and directives

I told her

don’t just vent, offer something practical, Jesus. I also commended her for her other good works. But basically told her to buck up.

9.

Two of my friends didn’t know about it and didn’t want me to tell them.

I asked someone what he would do if he had a crematorium next door. At what point would he rise up, and how? How close to home would it have to be? I don’t remember what he said but it didn’t seem particularly heartening. I can’t even answer that question myself.

10.

Young mothers posted photos of themselves eating pizza with their darling young ones saying this is what we do today eat pizza when the world might end. That was real.

These posts from young mothers got a few hearts and a crying emoji and a care emoji and a laughing emoji and a prayer emoji. One mother spent the afternoon picking upgarbage with some kids by a river. All of that was real, but it still felt so far away and distant to glimpse through a screen on a phone in my hands.

11.

I made my bed, played with the cat using the sparkly thing, and I said a new prayer. I posted it then I deleted it and I found an old prayer and put it in the pocket of my plaid shirt. I spoke to my kids.

I watched an episode of Love is Blind the Swedish edition, ate a tin of canned oysters with 12 gluten free sesame crackers standing up in the kitchen and gulped a can of soda I found on the counter.

I went to look for more things about the situation but got stopped by a video of a pregnant woman diving into the ocean to pry blood-sucking fish off a dolphin. The dolphin leapt with joy for the new freedom and a whole group of dolphins lead the boat back to shore cavorting and celebrating all the way.

12.

It was mid-afternoon when diplomats from the Entire Civilization replied to the

threatening post with their own post: we can’t open the Strait of Hormuz, we lost

the key.

13.

I hear a dove cooing in the walls of this building

I hear an unknown shushing sound like a fan

I hear a woman practicing drums

klunk klunk klunk,

whack, whack, whack,

tick, tick, tick

the doves are now silent or maybe I just can’t hear them

14.

I’m thirsty but i’m fine. My stomach hurts but it’s no big deal. I’m ready for this inquisition to end.

15.

Around four p.m., by the mailboxes, a neighbor asked if I wanted to light a candle and say a prayer for peace with her outside at ten to 8 because they are going to blow up

the world

I said ok i’ll do it but if you don’t mind, can we not say things like they’re going to blow

up the world while we do it.

Sure, she said, but just in case they don’t know, some people don’t know

I’m just asking, I said. Not to be bossy, just a request.

OK, she said.

16.

I showed up.

A woman in a mask was there pacing.

She couldn’t believe that the first woman had invited her and now was not there.

It’s ok I said, let’s just start.

I’m just gonna call her she said.

She shouted into the phone: where are you you said to be here and I’m here andnow you’re not here.

Everything was in me at that second. The whole world, the whole problem.

17.

I don’t know.

18.

I don’t know

19.
Who’s asking?

20.

The neighbor showed up only a few minutes late, with instruments in a bag.

Another person showed up and so there were four of us, and I remember the prayer we said, and how the silent meditation felt, with a dark warmth, like we were connected with a million others praying at that same time.

I didn’t want to shake the instrument, but I did, because we were all in this together. We fell into a rhythm, without any direction or thought and we kept going for a while, maybe four or five minutes. It felt so unifying, perfect.

21.

In the early evening, the Diplomats from the Entire Civilization posted again! This message is for friends only; we found the key and we’re leaving it under the welcome mat.

//

If I were to go back to that windowless basement apartment on the shortest street in San Francisco, I would see myself at age 15 cooking chicken cacciatore for my boss. He was my boss at the audio visual department at San Francisco State where I attended classes and worked as a projectionist. He was twice my age and used me.

I was lonely in that apart meant and still remember the mildew smell and the landlord’s bathroom sounds and the terrifying mouse that ran the pipes above my bed. I played Al Green singing Let’s Stay Together and I’m Still in Love, if I say a thousand times, I mean a thousand, on my little cassette player. I never got tired of it because it was the only love I got back then in 1975. I dropped out of school.

My boss at the college waited about 30 years, retired and sent me a note on Facebook saying I always wondered how you would turn out.

By the time I was 19, I’d lived in 23 places. I counted them and listed them by address in a journal I still have. At 19, I was a bleached blonde red lipstick and black jeans wearing punk rocker who reeked of Coty Wild Musk. I had the coolest Berkeley apartment on Walnut Street for only $165 a month. It didn’t make sense how I got it so cheap. The only thing wrong with it was a guy who tortured a saxophone for hours at a time after midnight. I had a bedroom, a hallway, a kitchen big enough for several families, a pantry which I decorated with punk posters and where I wrote beneath a high window with green glass. For some reason I was clean and neat back then, only owned a few boxes of papers, cassette tapes and books.

I was not a collector of anything. We were all young and felt it was a huge luxury when we got a McRib sandwich from McDonald’s. Forty years later, I looked up the Walnut Street place and found it was scheduled to be torn down in a few days. A news story showed four tenants demonstrating. I tried to see if any of them was the weird neighbor who called me at two one night to say he was longing for me.

UC Berkeley had bought the building and they were going to tear it down and build student housing Would they have a beer garden there on the spot where I had come home and sat with unbearable joy on the stoop knowing I could not walk that happiness into the apartment, that it had to stay as uncontained as the night and I sat until the sun rose, breathing in the humid scent of Berkeley roses and medicinal herbs.

They would certainly have a beer garden with thick-necked frat boys shouting and draining all the color out of Berkeley, the way they drained all the color, virtually overnight in the East Village on another block where I once lived on another coast in another time.

I would never want to see that or hear that. My memories of that place are good.

In my thirties, I went back to 25 Oak Place in Bergenfield, NJ, where my mother tried to kill herself when I was only five. I went back with a boyfriend that I didn’t like but it was nice of him to drive me there. Things are supposed to look small when you go back but they always look bigger to me. I stood outside our old house on the dead end block and stared up at the cement landing, wondering if that was the spot where my mother yanked my hair and called me a bad name in front of the neighbors. I tried to feel something but felt nothing, and all I could see was a tightly drawn drape at the window. At that moment I wasn’t remembering that I would hide between the drapes and the window in the dark waiting for my father’s headlights to appear and watching him crunch up the walk in his hard black shoes until the door would open and he would hug us and make us food. I hid like a cat hides when in danger and I ran to him like a dog jumps for her master.

I stood on the street in front of the curtained window for just a few moments, just long enough for a hand-lettered sign to appear that said GO AWAY. It felt so inevitable.

Tonight I stood in line for coffee at the bookstore and these two guys were talking about a woman who photographed children dressed as dolls, and it sounded weird so I looked at them and it turned out the man was talking about me.

It was you, right? he said. You’re that artist who lives in the house by the river, in Phoenicia, right? In fact, I passed your house just today.

I left 15 years ago, I told him. I lost my house in the hurricane and they foreclosed. I didn’t know, he said. Or maybe I did. Everything is just a fantasy or a rumor, he said. No one knows what anyone is doing behind closed doors. But I still think of it as your house.

The first thing I saw was my 40 year old daughter’s baby blanket, an artifact that no one asks about or expects me to preserve. I sewed a piece of it into a quilt I made for my second youngest grandchild last year and kept the rest.

Next a pencilled note to an unknown teenager. I told him or her or them what saved me as a street kid. I was fourteen when I left home and became an emancipated minor. I longed for closeness, affection, or just one friend. My pen and the stories I wrote became the bridge to a better world. That’s what I told the next kid.

I found photos and more notebooks and lots of my first attempts at mask-making when we were all making them wryly and watching youtube videos to make them look cute. I hadn’t saved my early masks (the ones made from t-shirts) as a ghoulish souvenir; I’d just tossed them in a box on the day of the move. We never expected it to last.

My journey into this box turned up too many things I don’t want to remember, and most of them happy. Photos of me with my family —and our large extended family—laughing, hugging, leaning on one another, my old living room crowded, people eating, waterfalls of warmth and love.

What happened? Besides life and time…some injuries, a hurricane, some moves away, a long recovery, kids growing up, a pandemic, a genocide.

I found the stuffed Babar elephant my last boyfriend bought at the Albany airport gift shop at eight a.m. 19 years ago. He gave it to me at the gates. He was deported soon after, but for the longest time sent me a card every birthday, Mother’s Day and Christmas. He was a good one.

My friend Doug was in three pictures. Doug, how am I still existing without you.

I found the “Goddess, Former Princess” pink and white ceramic jar I bought for myself two weeks after my father died last year. I bought the jar and a stuffed rabbit puppet and I can’t remember what else because I pulled into Rhinebeck that day feeling sorry for myself (it was my birthday) and talking to him. Couldn’t you have left me even one small cute thing I asked him. Like, anything? A watch or a ring or a toy motorcycle or even a stone would have been nice so I could remember you and know you loved me. Not five paces from my car and from these words spoken into the air I found a $50 bill on the ground, and not a soul around. I still feel like he took me shopping that day.

I found a note that said who would have thought the time would come when we would no longer hug or kiss each other?

I didn't realize that five years later we would no longer kiss or hug or not much.

As for the Buddhist things, among the katas and prayers I found something entirely forgotten and precious: I’d driven to the retreat center for the monastery, about an hour away in Andes. Outside the gates I realized I had no gift to give the Rinpoche. I’d seen people give money although that was not my thing. I had $20 in my wallet but no envelope. I ripped an ad out of a throwaway booklet— with a sapling growing from two cupped hands. I folded it into an envelope, in the most satisfying and unexpected moves and admired my work and had a giant heartfelt wish that I could keep it for myself!

About a month after I gave it to the Rinpoche, his aide gave it back to me. Rinpoche said that you’d never given him money before, she told me. He said that your little drawings were more than enough.

By then I’d broken a hand and a foot and had lost my book deal and my house was flooding with every rain and I kept the envelope on the table until one day I couldn’t take it anymore and decided I would get an ice cream. When I opened the envelope to pay, the $20 had multiplied into $200.

I got lost in that box for an hour or so...remembering..wondering... wistful...guilty..grateful ...at this rate I will never be packed. These boxes of mixed blessings are impossible to sort. There are no places to put any of those things. All you can do is put those boxes away as-is and leave them unopened until the next move.

Over the years I’ve kept going back to this story because I was stuck in an obsessive loop— but also because I sought redemption. I sought healing and practical answers. How can someone find meaning and freedom within an untenable situation?

I am connecting the dots between seemingly inconnectable fragments and in this way my story is becoming more whole and more clear and so am I. But this is not just a personal endeavor.

In this long long process that I often question and that seems as if it will kill me or already has, I have also continued to live outside my book.

I have been living a new story as a teacher and mentor, as a friend and grandmother and someone who speaks with raccoons

Now I’m connecting these elements in my book and it gives my story the meaning I have sought. I can feel the pieces of myself —I see evidence of the pieces of myself, of all my identities becoming cohesive.

In a time of violent divisiveness there is solace in finding unity within yourself. It’s a process, just beginning as this book is finally ending.

My dream as a writer is to give people stories that will be calming, uplifting and entertaining. As a person (as if writers are not quite people) my goal is to use my experiences good and bad to be of use to someone else. It would be nice if these two dreams could happen in one book but I won’t know until I get to the last page.

If you are working on your hard story consider this a thumb’s up to keep going and to know it is worthwhile. You’re not alone— I’m here with you!

The small things we do and places where we place our attention are our drops of love that we are putting into the world and they matter.

I woke at 5 in the dark with a head full of noise. Opened the window and saw that it has snowed. A pretty thick dusting over the whole parking lot and covering all the trees, everything but my car. Are you fucking kidding me, I said to the cat.

The only question she wanted to hear from me was shall we breakfast before dawn my darling?

I went to another window, pressed my face against it and sure enough snow over everything out there too. Shit! Shit! We were in a nightmare! Time to nosh. On Xanax.

In the bathroom. A glimpse out one last window. One where I could reach my hand out and actually touch a tree or a bush or whatever it is. And —of course, no snow. Just a trick played by a fevered brain to cool itself off.

I could fry up some eggs, make a pot of strong coffee get on with life— but what the hell? I got back into bed and took a snow day.

On a day like today, in a world like this world, I am floating on a broken dock and trying to stay afloat while dreaming of standing on solid ground.

Sometimes I can see that shore. Sometimes not. And YET when I take my shoes off, put down my phone and sit beneath a tree, I know that ground I long for and sanity is restored.

The truth is, some are in danger, because others are dangerous. Some are victims, because some are bullies. Some have no power, because others have all the power.

When I pick up my pen I’ve got the power. Here’s one for you.

I went out before the heat to do my laundry which had sat neatly bundled in the car for a few days, all one thousand pounds of it. It was a whole family's worth of garments and yet they all belonged to me. Either I’d gotten bigger or maybe I’d stopped wearing the same things for weeks.

Why is everything in my closet blue or grey or plaid and back in the darkness hanging by a thread, the one tiny perfect electric lavender thing from my old life.

A storm was a comin and looked like a big one by the size of the black cloud. Around the sides of the cloud was a whole other day, blue sky, puffs of white.

Let the black cloud win because rain is good, just not for days and days and not rain that becomes hail knocking the power out because then why bother washing clothes if you’re just gonna sweat and why get food if it’s just gonna rot?

So it was a race against me—to do wash, to shop, to get home and to eat, to do and do and do before something could come along and stop me from doing it.

The days have been having a covidesque flavor, a lot of worry and scurry, disconnection and longing for things and people to be ok and food and bowls and clothes that scare me with warning labels that they will cause cancer and birth defects. Today I needed all those things, sans cancer por favor.

Washed and dried and folded the clothes, tick, tick, tick.

Next stop: food.

Got some, tick.

Checking out now, tick.

Who could remember how we got started talking about ducks, but the conversation was pleasant, effortlessly smooth, so smooth that both of us kept in time with the things rolling along the belt and being rung up (by her) and being packed (by me).

It turned out that not only did she have a duck pen, but a one year old who could already quack and waddle. I asked if she had a farm and she laughed and said not really, but her husband also wanted to get some pigs and goats maybe. Why not miniature horses too! I said. What fun!

We were both getting in the spirit of this fantasy farm, it was getting us in a great mood. I grew up on a farm, she told me. Really that's so cool I said. And I did 4-H. What kind of animals did you show at the fair? I happy as if the two of us had sat in the shade watching them hatch from little red and brown and yellow chicks!

She was already checking out the next person when she told me that her brother brought cows and had a state champion!

Her name was June Bug. June bug! That is the cutest name I ever heard for a cow, I told her. This was so fun talking about farms, I said. I know she said, it really was.

On the way home, big fat splats whacked themselves against my windshield trying to become hail. So dramatic! I said some prayers, for anyone, everyone, anything, all of it, what I really meant, what I really felt, who I really was, that's what I said and it worked. Tickety tick.