“Don’t worry about anything – or anyone,” my grandmother said, and thumped her cane emphatically, underlining her words. She was speaking from the “other side,” a world where I could not hear her directly, but a gifted psychic could translate her words to me. I don’t...
“Okay, then, 2018.” Those are the words Alex Poulsen and I had engraved on our wedding bands, now stashed in a dresser drawer awaiting our marriage. Alex bought the rings on the Friday before Earth Day, and in backwards fashion proposed on April 22. When 2018 dawned,...
Maya began drinking young - she was binge drinking by the age of 15 at weekend house parties in Walnut Creek. I was a young, naive, overstretched single mom with no concept of the party culture in the wealthy suburbs of Contra Costa County where we lived in the late...
On this day 46 years ago I gave birth to a baby girl. We named her Maya. She arrived three weeks early so she was was tiny, just 5 lbs. 4 oz. For the rest of her life, Maya was in a hurry. Friends called her "Barbie" because of her white-blonde hair. She had dark...
“Write your mind!” This exhortation originated with Allen Ginsberg and came to me via one of my favorite poets Frank X Gaspar (Late Rapturous, Night of a Thousand Blossoms). Gaspar speaks of his own need for encouragement, and his realization that Ginsberg was right –...
It’s a day to celebrate, and to mourn. Maya died on April 6, 1992, twenty-six years ago. And on this day, my dear friend Patti Frame received my daughter’s liver, and her life began again. Others received the gift of sight, or a new heart, or a new kidney. And many...
I get to know a city with my taste buds. So the Fitz and Follwell tour “Flavors of Montreal” spoke to me. F & F also offers bicycle tours - they are a bicycle shop - but I wanted a slower pace and a chance to sample some classic Montreal foods. Our guide,...
St. Viateur bagels are a Montreal institution. When Montreal was just a gleam in my eye and my plans still vague, a friend who grew up here was already telling me about "the best bagels in the world." Julia Scott told me I had to go to St. Viateur to sample the...
If you are anything like me (an uniformed American) you might not have realized that Montreal is actually named after a mountain, Mont Royal. Said mountain is in a beautiful park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (1822 - 1903), the same landscape architecture genius...
Waiting for the muse to descend so you can write is, sadly, a tragic fallacy. “Writing is 99 percent perspiration, and one percent inspiration,” a wise person once said. Writing is work, and like any job, it requires commitment and sustained focus. I recently taught a...