A wise friend once gave me a simple piece of advice: “Write as if no one is reading.” Ever since, the blank page has become part of my routine, capturing random thoughts, inspirational ideas and glimpses of everyday life.

After my husband Jim passed away in 2021, the journaling habit multiplied, filling dozens of booklets that one day might find their way into a memoir.

Somewhere along the way, I started experimenting with poetry, especially drawn to haiku. In 2024, the year Jim would have turned 70, I found a creative way to celebrate him, by writing haiku and pairing each one with my photography.

What began as an idea for a single book grew into something bigger. The written tribute, “70 for 70: Haiku for Healing,” turned into a collection of blank journals, published one at a time.

As of today, the first twelve editions are available on Amazon. Each notebook features a haiku paired with artwork inspired by an original photograph, with new volumes added weekly. You can browse the entire collection here.

These blank pages are ready for words, whether for personal reflection, finishing a long-forgotten story, or giving as a thoughtful gift. My hope is that you might find one or two notebooks that catch your eye, and inspire you to write as if no one else is reading.

At our house, summer months were always lively and unpredictable. Music festival, grilling fresh trout, or winding down—with Jim sprawled across the couch, in what he fondly called “nappy hour.”

After years of chaos and comfort, my life came to a sudden halt when Jim died in 2021. One day I was a happily married woman, a week later I was talking to an urn and wondering how Jim’s long bones could fit into such a little box.

Since then, most mornings, I pour a cup of coffee and scroll through my phone. Call it nostalgia or nonsense, the ritual helps to jumpstart my day. Sometimes I giggle at a terrible haircut or one of Jim’s ridiculous grins. Other times I scratch my head, wondering if a blind ghost took the picture.

Last week a video popped up of Jim burning weeds in our backyard. I turned up the volume and watched the clip, laughing and crying in the same breath. Playing it on loop, I was half-hoping it would bring Jim back.

It didn’t.

Yet, for a few minutes, he was right there. I traced his face on my screen and my thoughts wandered back to that forgotten Sunday, in the summer of 2020.

I could almost taste the ash from the smoke.

We had spent a full morning raking and pulling weeds. Hot and sweaty, I ran inside to refill our drinks. When I came back, Jim stood over a dry heap of brush, a propane torch in hand. He had laced up his white sneakers, ditched a baseball cap for sunglasses, and was burning a pile of debris in the dirt.

“Hey, whatcha doing?” I leaned over the balcony, staring for a few seconds, perplexed. “Surely that’s safe, right?”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes dear, of course it’s safe.” Then he grinned. “And don’t call me Shirley.”

“Okay, Jimley.”

“Funny! But hey, you don’t have to worry. It’s a calm day, zero wind, and there’s water.” He pointed his chin toward the hose a few feet away.

“Yeah, but…” I started, then swallowed the rest of my words. No use arguing. I wasn’t sure he heard me anyway, not over his singing “Ring of Fire” in his best Johnny Cash.

I couldn’t help but be amused. My husband, lead guitarist in a rock band and a retired volunteer fire captain, doing what he knew best. Being my hero. Whether it was backyard chores or charging a dead battery on the old Ford, keeping us safe was second nature to him. Even three months into chemo, he didn’t miss a beat. When Jim was in his element, come fire or rain, he kept his cool.

I followed him around, snapping photos as if shooting for one of those beefcake fireman calendars. Jim barely looked at me, intent on his chore, never once stopping to pose.

At the time, it didn’t feel like I missed anything. But looking back, it’s not the smoke curling, it’s the silence that haunts me.

With every opportunity to ask questions, to chime in, I didn’t. Instead, I held back. Not wanting to break the spell of an easy afternoon together, I bit my tongue and let the camera do the talking.

Now, I’d trade every drop of water in my well to know what he was thinking.

Were those dry leaves or prickly tumbleweeds? What made that day feel safe? And, how was I supposed to live without him?

I didn’t ask, not that day, not in the days to come, even as a dreaded disease knocked louder. Hard questions aren’t easy to ask, but simple ones can be just as difficult.

There isn’t a fire extinguisher to douse the heartbreak of a missed moment. Regrets are real. When we’re stretched thin, or just don’t want to make waves, we save conversations for later. Always thinking there’s more time. Time for another coffee, another nap, another chance to make a memory.

Until there isn’t.

Unspoken words have a way of going up in smoke. Sometimes it’s better to not play it safe. To step into the circle, ask the questions, and join in the song. You never know when the last time will be the last time.

Haiku

Wings of an Angel
Gracing the afternoon sky
In a last goodbye

For the past two years, I’ve watched the famed bald eagles at Big Bear, fully wrapped up in their daily adventures. I’ve kept the livestream on 24/7, following their everyday movements until their lives were strangely intertwined with mine.

I became mesmerized by everything about them. Their strength and dignity. Their grace and loyalty. Their perseverance and gentleness. Unbothered by the world, they seemed to kiss the sky, soaring effortlessly on wings of pure light.

Eavesdropping on a nest through webcam became an addiction and a cherished distraction. When things were complex in my world, there was comfort in the simplicity of life in a treehouse.

I cried like a baby the day tiny beaks cracked through eggshells and little bobbleheads peeped out. As the babies grew, I wingercized alongside, anticipating the day they’d fly the coop. Whenever the eagles sidestepped onto branches, staring out at the lake as if in a trance, I’d meditate with them, witnessing the world through their eagle eyes. Though hundreds of miles away, they seemed close enough to touch.

Every day was a new thriller, with chortles and bickering, playful bonkings, and epic tug-of-war battles over fresh feeesh. There were food comas and poop shots, and high-speed dinner deliveries, with superstars Jackie or Shadow, swooping into the nest, bloodied coot in a talon, while expertly sticking the landing.

So many extraordinary moments, so much companionship, so many parallels for life. They’ll never know how they inspired me to mimic their habits—to weather a storm, spruce up my own nest, and trust in my intuition. I thought that if they could savor each moment—without rewinding to the past or anticipating the future—perhaps I could too.

The eagle family became more than curious binge-watching. They became my role models and best friends.

On Monday, when I heard of Mama Jackie’s passing, I sobbed, staring at the empty nest on my television. I’ve been following her illness and captivity for weeks, praying for a spontaneous healing. I hoped for an improbable miracle—that she’d be airlifted back to the nest, glide in on wounded wings, and ease into hospice at home. Against all odds, I wished to see her breathe a sigh of relief, move a few twigs around, and enjoy a final meal of a wiggling trout, flown in fresh by her Shadow.

It didn’t happen that way. I like to imagine that in an alternate universe, it might be marvelously true.

But the nest isn’t make-believe. It isn’t a Netflix series or a scripted competition. It’s the greatest show on earth, an epic blockbuster, set in real time, with a twist of comedy and plenty of cliffhangers. We’ve been fortunate to be in on the action, hidden behind a camera, waiting with bated breath for the next episode.

If you’re lucky enough to have tuned in, you’re lucky enough.

Haiku

Choose to take a chance
When the open road is clear
The choice is all mine

Last week on my way home, I pulled up to a semi-truck. Letting off the gas, I slowed to a crawl. It was just my luck, stuck behind a truck, running late for a meeting.

I know this two-lane road by heart—every curve, every cattle guard, every pothole. All the dirt roads, where I’ve pulled over in the past, either to snap a photo or catch my breath in a tumultuous moment. Grief doesn’t have boundaries or speed limits, and I’ve been blindsided more than once.

Glancing at the clock, I inched closer, until I was almost kissing his bumper. In the mirrored chrome of this giant tortoise, the reflection of my car glared back at me.

Veering to the left, I pulled out into the open lane and squinted into the sun.

“Nope. Can’t do it.” Sweat pooled on my palms as I gripped the steering wheel and swerved back into my lane.

It didn’t feel safe. I didn’t trust my own judgement, too nervous to take a risk, even on a familiar road.

In and out. Back and forth. Peeking out, retreating in, tapping the brakes in a panic. The trucker kept his speed steady, ignoring my jittery dance with indecision. I was certain he could see me in his rearview mirror, a wimpy, weeping mess.

Unable to move forward, yet unwilling to stay back. I couldn't make up my mind, wobbling between brave and bold, or timid and safe.

Then it dawned on me. Taking a chance is my choice. It’s in my control to seize an opportunity or let it pass by. The trick lies in weighing the options, being patient, and trusting in my decision.

Sometimes freedom comes in realizing the power to choose has been mine all along.

A light from the dark
Inspiration still rises
Even in the rain

Even before my husband Jim died in 2021, I wrote about our lives. New songs in the making, pizza in the oven, music in the woods. From rehearsals to road trips, I captured it all, posting videos and photos along the way. When Jim’s illness took a turn for the worse, my updates turned somber. Friends, family, and even total strangers surrounded us with love and support, offering hope when we needed it most.

Back in the beginning of his treatment, Jim smirked and said, “You better be writing this down. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.”

“Maybe I will.” I smiled. “You write songs about me, why can’t I write a book about you?”

“Yep, you should.” He picked up his guitar and strummed a few notes. “You know, it’s all about the music,” he said. “Play the music you love, for the people you love.”

He had coined that phrase, sharing it from the stage and in radio interviews, and we’d built our lives around it.

Near the end, he held my hand, his voice dropping to a whisper, “Can you hit the reset button and give me five more minutes?”

My eyes filled with tears. “Oh babe, if I could, I’d give you five trillion.”

A lifetime of recordings, and this was the one soundtrack we couldn’t rewind. Jim didn’t want a grand finale, or a standing ovation. Just more time. Just one more song.

His parting wish stayed with me long after his last breath.

There are a hundred stories I could tell about those unforgettable years. But I want to focus on a specific February night, three years after Jim passed, on what would have been his 70th birthday.

Sleep was impossible. I wandered outside, wrapped in Jim’s favorite flannel blanket, his gray beanie pulled down over my ears. A light mist of frozen rain sprinkled over the porch. Coyotes howled in the neighborhood, their restless cries echoing in the canyon.

I howled back, shaking my fist at the stars. “Not fair that you have him. He should be having a surprise party…right here, right now, on Earth, not in heaven!”

The dark sky blinked back, silent and unbothered. But the idea of a celebration hung in the air, turning into a curious challenge. If I couldn’t bake a cake or sing a birthday song, I could give Jim an encore through a different instrument. My voice on paper.

I’d recently discovered the art of haiku, becoming spellbound with its cadence and simplicity. Instead of counting the weeks since Jim had been gone, I started counting syllables, drumming my fingers to find the beats in a word—five, seven, five. The rhythm broke the rumination loop, anchoring me in the present, even if only for a few moments.

That birthday night it clicked. Although the ending of our story would never change, I could write myself a new beginning. I’d honor Jim’s wish for “one more song.” Not in melodies, not in minutes, but with haiku. Seventy poems, paired with seventy photographs, composed in syllables instead of chords.

With a camera full of photos and a new gel pen, I set out to write one haiku a day, aiming for seventy “keepers” by the end of Jim’s 70th.

“70 for 70; Haiku for Healing.”

What a title. What a concept. I slept better than I had in months.

My vision of one thick book with seventy glossy photos faded quickly. Turns out printing a full-color anthology is daunting and expensive. So I flipped the math. Instead of a single book, I’d make seventy individual ones. Each with an original haiku, paired with a unique photo. Inspired by my own journaling practice, each notebook would have 120 blank pages, lined and numbered, ready to be filled.

The first five journal-notebooks are available now, with more being added to the collection in the weeks ahead.

My hope is that you might find one or two that catch your eye. The themes cover every corner of life—sunsets and thunderstorms, wild horses and wildflowers, coffee and kittens, and everything in between. Whether you’re going through a season of loss, dusting off an unfinished novel, or just need a place to jot your daily thoughts, these blank pages are ready for your words.

It’s always been about the music and sharing the love. Thank you for supporting my work and for helping me keep Jim’s legacy alive.

Below is an audio snippet of an interview Jim did on KMMT-FM for their Arts, Culture & Entertainment program in 2012.

After five years, you would think I’d have mastered the emotional ambush of a predictable holiday. After all, the Fourth of July is set in stone, a bright red circle on the calendar. Yet every summer, a cascade of emotions flares up, and I find myself longing for the happier days. Standing solo in a crowd, bombarded by parades, picnics, and brass bands, I’m left feeling like a fizzled-out sparkler.

For years Jim and I sat together at Pops in the park, humming to patriotic songs, waiting for the night sky to light up. Even in the audience, Jim was the real musician, singing along with his perfect pitch. Although I struggled with the tunes, my off-key melodies never seemed to bother him.

When Jim took his last breath in 2021, a big part of the music died with him. I stopped singing. I stopped eating. Some days I stopped breathing. Widow’s fog was real, keeping me completely out of tune, as useless as a match dropped in a puddle.

That first July without Jim, I sat on our front porch swing, inhaling the last fragrance of his favorite summer lilacs. In a nearby bush, crickets kept time with patriotic tunes drifting from my neighbor’s yard. Instead of hearing the music as somber, I caught a wave of energy from those old anthems. Hymns of courage and chaos. Songs of resilience and remembrance.

For the first time without Jim to back me up, a familiar note burst from my raspy throat. Tentative at first, my voice grew stronger with each round of The Star-Spangled Banner. Intuition took over as the lyrics took on a life of their own, morphing into a personalized dance of freedom. Before the feeling could slip away, I jotted the lyrics down in a notebook, channeling Jim’s songwriting spirit.

Every Fourth of July since, I’ve pulled the poem out of hiding, restructuring and revising, feeling its pulse come alive once again. This year, decked out in a faded red, white, and blue sundress, I rehearsed in front of a mirror, starry-eyed and wondering if my star-spangled tribute will ever be shared from a stage, and who might be watching from the crowd.

I like to imagine Jim cheering from a grandstand, encouraging me to keep dancing and singing, off-key and all.

Although I’d be stepping up to the microphone by myself, I know I’m never alone.

Star-Spangled Dancer

Oh Self, can you see?
With your own inner light
What so proudly you dared
To release while you’re dreamin’

With dark thoughts and false starts
Through the perils of night
O’er the promises lost
In a search for new meaning

In the throes of despair
Grief bombs bursting in terror
Gave proof to your heart
That the song was still there

Oh say does your Soul tango
Shattered yet brave
For a life filled with love
Forever dances in grace

I was at the rural health clinic, waiting for a routine check-up, when a voice inside my head crackled like an overhead intercom:

“Clean up in Room 4.“

Except, unlike the grocery store aisle, there was no shattered glass, no busted jar of pickles. Just me, standing in the exam room, staring out the window with a hot sting behind my eyes. I imagined an intern mopping up a puddle of tears.

It wasn’t the nurse’s fault. She’d just been doing her job, calmly leading me down the corridor, completely oblivious that she was marching me into an emotional warzone. We had just passed the central desk, a cluster of practitioners leaning over stand-up desks, their eyes glued to tiny screens. Nobody looked up. Part of me was grateful they were minding their own business; another part wanted someone to jump up and hug me.

“We’ll be in Room 4,” the young nurse said in a chipper millennial tone. “Right in here.” She gestured with her hand as if presenting me with a penthouse suite.

I stopped behind her, my feet frozen to the floor, and gripped the wall. “Of all the rooms, I would get THIS one. “ I muttered, wiping sweat from my brow. I forced myself to walk in.

The room hadn’t changed. It still smelled of industrial citrus and bad news, the same sharp scent that took my breath away seven years ago. My eyes went straight to the vinyl chair by the wall, the exact spot where Jimmy sat when the doctor delivered the grim diagnosis. Just looking at the cracked blue seat made my skin crawl. I chose the furthest seat, intentionally avoiding the one he had sat in.

While waiting, I thought of how grief bursts out of nowhere, shattering a perfectly ordinary afternoon. One day a familiar song brings a wide-eyed grin, with me dancing in the moonlight, my arms wrapped around my own waist. The next day the same tune sounds like a cruel joke, leaving me slumped on the floor, a blubbering wreck. But the ambush is hardest when it’s this specific, sharp as a splinter, piercing the exact center of a scar.

Grief is an undiagnosed whiplash. You can be fine for days, weeks, even months, and then something as simple as a physician’s waiting room jolts you into the past. I’d spent months believing that I’d be further along when I could keep it together, no matter the memory, no matter the room. In that instant, I realized that sudden spills are part of the healing process.

Recognizing the trauma doesn’t make the heartbreak any easier, but accepting the mess makes it a little easier to pick up the broom.

P.S. From my actual clinic notes:

Patient describes chronic anxiety, which started after her husband’s illness in 2019 and is triggered by reminders of that period, including the exam room today.

Haiku
Piercing rays of gold
Grief is a double-edged sword
Love is the handle.

Walking in the late afternoon, with the sun setting behind the trees, it dawned on me that grief is a double-edged sword. A razor-sharp blade, terrifying to hold, yet impossible to drop.

One edge holds the intensity of joy and meaningful memories—the beauty of what was. The other edge is just as sharp, a painful reminder that even the best of stories have to come to an end. In a single breath, the sword twists from one side to the other, cutting deep either way.

It’s not only found in the finality of death. The same holds true for broken relationships, a friend that suddenly goes silent, or the blank stare of a loved one slipping away. You can’t hang on, but you can’t walk away.

In times when the emotional turmoil gets to be too much and I’m ready to give up the fight, I remember a line from one of Jimmy’s original songs.

The greater the love, the deeper the trial. Without love it’s not worthwhile.

When my grieving heart is trying to make sense of it all, I hear the lyrics like an unspoken mantra. They give me the strength to choose to grip the handle. It’s not effortless and it’s easy to forget. But that’s what makes the journey manageable—to hold on tight, while the blade is flipping back and forth. We have more power than we realize to hang in there while we find our footing.

The edges might be sharp and piercing, often drawing blood. But the handle that holds the two is made of pure love.

Last month I entered another contest with New York City Midnight. Seems I am a sucker for a writing challenge, especially one with a ticking clock and a jackpot prize. I’ve always worked best after midnight, a habit stretching from college days into widowhood.

This time, the competition was for a 100-word story, to be written in twenty-four hours, with a genre, action and a random word. It’s not as easy as it sounds—creating a streamlined story, with a clear beginning, middle and end, in less than a day.

On the night of the assignments, I sat glued to my computer, waiting for my prompt to drop.

“Anything but romance," I pleaded to the website.

I had spent the evening missing my husband, a familiar heartache as fierce as the storm outside. A monsoon had blown in, cold and relentless, with howling winds rattling the windows like the big bad wolf. Even though it had been five years since Jim’s last text, I kept looking at my phone for a message that I knew would never come.

In a perfect world, I would've gotten assigned a ghost story, fairy tale, or historical drama. Imagine my surprise when my genre was "Comedy." What were the odds of turning miserable into hysterical? I was in the mood to write something dark and dreary, not quirky and clever. Grief has a bizarre way of twisting our darkest moments into the absurd, finding a bit of humor in hardship.

So, I started to write. Through hot tears, memories surfaced and punchlines appeared. My prompt had the action of visiting, and it felt as if Jim had pulled up a chair next to me, encouraging me and suggesting the next line. I finished the story just as the clock struck midnight on the East Coast.

Two months later, the contest results came in. My silly story landed in the top ten, advancing me to the next round. Whoo hoo! From the side of my eye, I caught Jim’s smile on a photo, as if he knew all along that there is laughter, even in the rain.

Stay tuned for Round Two.

—As submitted to NYC Midnight 100-word Challenge 2026. Round One

Missing Person Report

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“Help! I’m missing my husband.”

“How long’s he been gone?”

“Five years.”

“Hmmm. Recent communication?”

“Sure. Off-and-on. He sends signs.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Hearts. Dimes. Butterflies. Love songs playing out of nowhere.”

“So, he randomly stops by?“

“Yeah. Surprises me, on a whim.”

“Well, alrighty. Any physical contact?”

“No, but do I ever need a hug. Oh gawd! Just one…”

“Look lady, don’t cry. We’ll open a case. Description of missing party.”

“Party? It was no party, it was a funeral!”

“M’am, I’m confused. Who’s exactly missing?”

“Me.”

“You?”

“Yes. I’m the person missing my husband.”

Haiku

Garden of stardust

Harvest moon ripe on the vine

Food for an old soul

Writing helps me process grief. When sorrow overwhelms me, I grab a pen and spill out a waterfall of words. Sometimes my thoughts are free-flowing, perfect on the first pass. Other times, they’re a surge of emotions, circling through every depth before landing on a truth. More often than not, my musings end up as a haiku.

Last week, one of my pieces was accepted by Haiku Pause, for their current series inspired by the Artemis II Mission. The collection is made up of “Haiga,” an ancient style of poetry that pairs a traditional haiku with an illustration or photograph.

Scrolling through the gallery on my phone, it was easy to find one to submit. I’d been a moon-watcher most of my life, but after my husband Jim died in 2021, the fascination deepened. I became even more in tune with the night sky, following celestial rhythms and tracking every phase of the moon.

The way I captured last year’s Harvest moon stopped me in my tracks. There it was, hanging in a galactic garden, juicy and ripe as a watermelon. The eerie green tint made me wonder if the Northern Lights had leaked into my backyard, or if Jim decided to grow melons in the sky. Watermelon was always his favorite.

One summer he planted a few watermelon seeds in a haphazard garden bed in the backyard. We’d recently moved into a new home, and this was our first attempt at an organic garden.

“They’re not going to grow,” I said, observing from a beach chair in the shade, my feet tucked up underneath me.

Jim was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat, khaki shorts, and a pair of flip-flops. The afternoon sun glowed on his bare shoulders, and I could see the dirt under his fingernails. A sly smile played on his lips, as if he had a glimpse of the upcoming October.

“Wanna bet?” he replied.

He won. That fall we picked the sweetest watermelon this side of heaven. We cut it open straight from the vine, juice running down our chins. I might have lost that bet, but found myself believing in the seemingly impossible.

Back then, I was laughing through the miracles. Nowadays, I question the signs and wonder if they’re real.

That is, until I feel a hummingbird brush my cheek, hear a whistle in the wind, or find a favorite fruit on the moon. Even in the depths of sorrow, there are reasons to trust in the unseen.

I betcha Jim is smiling from the far side of the moon—sticky fingers and all—waiting for me to write the next verse.

Haiku Pause

Haiku

Flower moon rises
Blooming through a velvet veil
Harbinger of hope

The Flower Moon is in full bloom tonight, rising like royalty over the White Mountains. The charcoal sky swirls with dark shadows and burnt-orange edges, reminding me of the last time Jim saw this moon.

Six years ago, we swung on a hammock, curled up under a flannel blanket, singing every Moon song we could think of. When Jim tuned his guitar, channeling his inner Cat Stevens, the night stood still, and I memorized the way the moonlight hit his hands. The air tasted like lavender and the promise of spring. Little did we know the chaos the next few months would bring.

Only six Flower moons have risen since the last time I heard his voice.

Counting in moons makes the years since his death seem less distant—a shorter stretch rather than a long dark trek. It seems easier to hear him sing across the haze, his hands strumming a guitar somewhere just out of sight, wrapped in the warmth of an old flannel blanket.

Makes me want to start singing moon songs once again.

Haiku

One piece at a time

Life unfolds within a dash

One peace at a time

On the five-year anniversary of Jim’s last breath, I knelt beneath a shade tree at the cemetery. I curled up next to my husband’s gravestone, my flannel scarf folded under me like a blanket. I inhaled sunshine and exhaled sorrow. For the first time all week, my grip relaxed.

Tracing the inscription on his stone, I paused on the dash between the dates, a tiny sliver holding every inch of Jim’s life. My Aquarius rockstar, with ocean eyes and a guitar slung over his shoulder like a second heartbeat. His calming wisdom could tame the sea.

I put my ear against the cool granite, listening for the music that has never stopped. Although I know every word to every song, it’s not the same as hearing Jim singing out loud. Still, whenever a Beatles tune comes on, I catch myself humming along, thinking of the impersonations and our fourteen years of musical madness. Jim left this earth with songs in his heart, trusting the melody would live on. And somehow, it does.

Sixty months later, the loss isn't any easier. Grief softens with time, changing slowly for the better. The words on Jim’s plaque ground me, bringing what truly matters back into focus. Not the sunrise. Not the sunset. But the ocean in the middle. There’s a comfort in piecing it all together, one peace at a time.

On the difficult days, when grief cracks open and I’m searching for meaning, I remember the dash. It’s filled with Jim’s lambent love.

And sometimes, love is all you need.

Some babies are born with a silver spoon, others with a microphone, finding their voice before they find their feet.

I had a feeling it was more than luck when my second child burst into the world like a shooting star. Even in the womb, she kicked up a storm, long before the first note. She arrived with the pink light of dawn, as if already knowing something the rest of us were still figuring out.

After a lifetime of turning family dinners into cabarets and each room into a stage, now that baby—thirty-five years later—is turning that creativity into her sharpest work yet.

While the world discovers her songs one verse at a time, I’ve been fortunate to have a front-row seat to the spunk behind the spotlight.

From toddler to teen, the story wrote itself. Pirouettes across the living room floor. Rehearsing lines on the way to a play. Spiral notebooks filled with crossed-out lyrics and ink-stained margins. Long commutes to grueling American Idol auditions. Landing the first real gigs. In between diapers and peacoats, I’ve been the mom manager, cheering the loudest during the silent stretches between the applause.

As the years unfolded, my daughter brought her joy of music to life, either with a band or on her own. Little did she know that another superstar was wiggling his way onto the stage, living a similar dream in a different city with different crowds, under the same midnight sky. Neither one knew the other was humming their missing verse.

Then, as kismet would have it, their parallel lines finally crossed. On a sunny day last May, twin flames collided, spellbinding into something electric, and the real alchemy began.

From that moment, the melody found its harmony, and a new duo was born.

Their first single, Eureka, arrived in the early hours of the third, at 3:33 am, beneath the eclipse of the blood moon.

A little wild. A little healing. Sometimes goofy, always fierce. A gold rush meant to lift your spirits and stir your soul.

Give WYRDandy a listen. Mandy and Dante, bopping together.

Once the music starts, there’s nothing left to figure out.

And this is only the beginning.

As promised—my 250-word story from the New York City Midnight challenge, in the category of Drama, with a specific action (jogging) and a “must-use” word (total).

Jimmy’s scuffed-up tennis shoes were my inspiration.

The Treadmill of Life

The full moon hung low and bright, the same way it glowed the night I went to sleep a wife and awoke a widow.

After hours of staring at the ceiling, I trudged into our workout room, unsure of my next steps. The dusty treadmill stood exactly as Jimmy left it weeks ago, screen glowing on a permanent pause.

“I miss you,” I whispered, brushing a wet blur from my lashes. My fingers slid across the handrail, jogging a memory loose.

Jimmy in neon shorts, half-marathon medal dangling from his shoulders, laughing like vitality was his middle name. His booming voice egging me on toward the next mile marker, our feet kicking up dry sand.

Months later, with his fragile body in a hospice bed, he made room for me on his chest. I remembered falling asleep—only for a few minutes—never expecting him to cross the finish line without me. When my eyes opened, the room fell into total silence, as if he’d taken all the air with his last breath.

The vision dissolved into darkness.

I pressed my palm to the treadmill screen, tracing smudges of his fingerprints. The glass chilled my skin, but I still felt my husband’s warmth.

My hand hovered over the Start button, at a loss on how to begin. In the hum of the motor, a rhythm rose—steady, strong, so much like Jimmy’s:

“One step at a time.”

And beneath the glow of the moon, I found the courage to take my first step.

—As submitted to Round One of the NYC Midnight 250-word challenge

Sometimes, the best way to find a story is to be thrown into a tornado.

The holidays were turbulent last year, my fifth Christmas without my husband, Jim. To distract myself, I entered a writing contest hosted by New York City Midnight. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a global competition where thousands of writers are tossed into a creative storm, racing against a ticking clock. The challenge is to create an original 250-word story based on an assigned genre, an action, and a specific word.

Once the assigned prompts were released, I had exactly 48 hours to create something from nothing. For this first round, my draw was Drama, Jogging, and the must-use word, “Total.” Not the easiest combination.

I sat at my kitchen table long after dark, the only light coming from my laptop and a glow from the wood-burning stove. In the eye of the storm, I stared at the blinking cursor, trying to imagine a story that could contain such an unlikely trio.

For two days, I rewrote the same paragraph over and over, convinced it wasn’t working. I nearly talked myself out of submitting. But at 11:59 p.m., New York City time, I hit send—with a whole minute to spare.

Two months later, the results were posted. Scrolling through a sea of names, I finally found mine. I could hardly believe my eyes. “First Place!” I’d won my category and was advancing to the next round.

Taking a chance on a challenge didn’t erase the darkness of December, but it gave my pain a temporary place to go. Sometimes, all it takes is a simple hobby to help with the ongoing storms of grief.

To be continued, with the 250-word winning story, “The Treadmill of Life.”

Far from any tide

Buried treasure in the sand

A gift from beyond

The yellow fish was belly-up in my driveway, which might have been fine if I lived at the ocean, instead of on an acre in the desert. He was smudged and scuffed, a castaway floundering in the dirt. My feet uncovered him, a rubbery fin wrapping around my bare toes.

I dusted him off, like an accidental archaeologist uncovering a relic from the Magic Kingdom. It was Flounder, a Happy Meal toy, with the number 70 stamped into his plastic base. He looked up at me with wide, unblinking eyes—a fellow numerologist who seemed to know exactly what day it was.

The next day, February 7th, would be my husband’s 72nd birthday. Five times I’ve celebrated him on earth, while he celebrates in heaven. Two years ago, on his 70th birthday I had a brilliant idea to write a haiku a day, with the intent of publishing “seventy good ones” by the end of the year.

Earlier that morning, on a phone call with a friend, I mentioned the writing project. “I’m still chipping away at it,” I said, “But I keep stalling for no good reason.”

“So, what are you waiting for?” Her voice cut through the miles. “Quit floundering around and just finish it!”

An hour later, Flounder showed up.

The thing about little gifts from the afterlife is this: they’re so oddly specific it’s impossible to call them anything but intentional.

Flounder was the Little Mermaid’s sidekick. Her voice of reason, the one who kept her treasures safe and nudged toward her deepest desires. Same as my husband.

Finding the little fish felt like a familiar elbow poking me in the ribs. A gentle reminder to stop floundering and finish what I started, trusting that even from the great beyond, my love still sees me.

It is just like Jimmy to give me a gift on his birthday.

Clay shatters on stone

A sharp release of pressure

Room to breathe again

I broke a clay platter today. It slipped out of my hands, the terra cotta hitting the pavement like a gunshot at close range.

The warm winter day inspired me to tackle some chores outdoors, specifically a row of dried-up, overgrown plants that I’d ignored since October. I pulled a crusty plate from the tangled, brittle vines, my grip failed, and—boom!

Startled, I jumped back, clutching a dead fern and looking down at the orange ruin on the gray stones. My first thought was: I’ve been here before.

It wasn’t the first time a clay pot crashed at my feet. I’d stood in this spot four years ago, several months after my husband Jim died. Back then I didn’t drop things by accident. I annihilated them on purpose.

That summer I scoured discount stores for ugly platters and cheap pottery, stockpiling them in my backyard. Armed with a heavy hammer and a crushing weight between my ribs, I didn’t plant tulips in the pots. Instead, I planted my feet firmly on the ground and swung hard, shattering the saucers into jagged pieces.

It’s reasonable to stop being civilized when you are recently widowed. Watching the clay explode offered a strange comfort. It was one thing in my life I could control when everything else had spun off its axis. I couldn’t fix the unfixable, but I could break the breakable. It gave my anger a purpose, keeping despair at bay for at least an afternoon.

Fifty months later, the red-hot impulse to destroy has cooled. The sharp edges of grief have weathered into something softer, like a stone tumbled in a river. It is still heavy, but it doesn’t cut to the core as deeply.

I didn’t force this shift. It happened without my prompting. Today, standing over the accidental wreckage, I noticed a change in me. While the jagged shards still brought a sigh of relief, it wasn't because I was holding a hammer.

If you are currently in a volatile phase, swing away. Don’t apologize for the mess. There is no right way to deal with the weight of grief. Sometimes you carry it with grace. Sometimes with grit. Sometimes you smash pumpkins with a sledgehammer. Because there are times when breaking something on the outside helps with the heartbreak on the inside.

“Gimme Gimme Some Oven.”

Seven years ago, my husband sang the oldies tune, belting out the mock lyrics in a high-pitched voice. He wiped his hands on a red-checkered apron, the same silly words Gimme Some Oven stamped across the front in bold black letters.

The 2018 calendar hung open to November—a fall wonderland of pumpkins piled in wheelbarrows and sun-faded scarecrows waving into a golden autumn sky.

Jim was in the kitchen, chopping pecans with his prized Samurai knife, keeping a watchful eye on brown sugar and butter melting in a saucepan. A homemade pie crust cooled on the windowsill, ready to be filled with his famous pecan crumble.

“Food, family, music… now that’s my kind of holiday,” he said, turning off the broiler and pulling out a tray of bubbling sweet potatoes topped with perfectly caramelized marshmallows.

“You timed that to the second!” I said, poking the yams with a fork and popping a glazed sugar puff in my mouth.

“Voila!” he tossed a chef’s kiss to the air. Grinning, he wiped the sticky syrup oozing down my chin. “You know,” he kissed my forehead. “The best part of today is making a memory of you with that gooey mess all over your face.”

I think back to that day, years after Jim’s passing in 2021. Nowadays, I sharpen his old chef’s knife, humming Gimme Some Lovin’, baking my own batch of perfectly broiled sweet potatoes. When I tilt my head toward the stove, I hear his voice in the gravy, dripping with traditions that were important to him, memories that still make me smile.

There’s something about a holiday that is focused on presence, rather than presents. A special uniqueness in making memories with friends and family, sharing a cornucopia of gifts that aren’t wrapped with fancy bows and shiny paper.

It’s gratitude for all that we get to keep. The memories of replaying funny stories, silly jokes, familiar songs—all the sweet, gooey, messy moments of the past that we bring into the present.

Somehow, it makes the holiday feel less like Thanksgiving, and more like Thanksgetting.

It’s hard to deny a message that appears out of the blue, right when you need it most.

A couple of days ago I was lolly-gagging in my backyard, relaxing in the shade, with a curious cat at my feet, and a cup of coffee in my hand. The clouds felt unusually romantic, wisps and wings twirling around the sun. I couldn’t capture their dance fast enough, mesmerized by the beauty of the autumn sky.

Suddenly, a crunch startled me—the sound of dried leaves shuffling behind my back. I turned around to look, surprised by a tiny cluster of leaves swirling in a circle, as if being blown by a holy breath. There was not even a hint of a breeze in the air.

Yet, there it was.

A spirited jig, a swirling ballet right in front of me, right in the middle of the path where the gurney took Jim away—one minute, one day, fifty-six months ago, on March 9, 2021 at 11:10 am.

The magic of 11-10 at 11:11. Even if I wasn’t a numerologist, I’d be convinced of a holy hello and how love follows the sun.

• Lolly-gag: To engage in frivolous or relaxing activities. One of Jim’s favorite words.

Haiku

Higher than the hills
Smaller than a buzzing bee
Most days I am both

Sometimes I feel taller than the mountains; other times I feel smaller than the tiny bee buzzing around my ankles. In a matter of minutes, my emotions can twist from one extreme to the other, my attitude shifting faster than the wind. The trick is to observe the mood swings, stay soft as a kitten, and not linger too long on either side.