A YEAR AGO last month, I was celebrating the loss of 30 unwanted pounds and embarking on a bicycle tour of the Coeur d’Alene trail in Idaho. My heart was filled with gratitude, the world was wide open, and anything — truly, anything! — seemed possible. During the tour, my […]
Poems of Solitude March, 2020 The crown virus is king today. Its implications? Solitude and self-reflection. Who will I be through this crisis? Which “self” will control the uncontrollable? Go to the center and ask the spirit’s nucleus — what shall I learn? Clarity will always be paid for by […]
WHEN I’M FEELING LOW, I write. When I’m feeling anxious about circumstances that are beyond my control, journaling helps me to clarify my thoughts and process what is happening. This pandemic is an enigma for the ages. My age, my times. I wanted to record my feelings about it. January […]
THIS MORNING, I was happily nosing around in the back yard, checking to see if my latest veggie plantings were thriving or if everything was watered sufficiently. I even potted a flowering plant in a pot I decorated myself — with mosaic tiles (a ten-year project). As I moved the […]
Life as we knew it is over — at least for the next few weeks. This was the first sentence in my March 15, 2020 journal entry in what happened to be the start of a new journal. Several months ago when I impulsively purchased it from an artist at […]
MY MOM AND I LIVE TOGETHER. She’s 94 and I’m 69, which means we no longer have to work or participate much in society. When the stay-at-home order came down from our governor, we welcomed it as an excuse to stay home even more than usual. Our only disappointment was […]
I AM NOT A STRANGER TO SOLITUDE. At times it has been my best friend as I strived to reach a writing deadline or just wanted to enjoy silence in an otherwise busy household. However, I didn’t know what true solitude was until the Covid-19 pandemic became a reality. Prior […]
IN THIS FIRST guest contribution to the Writing Through Change series, Linda Chisari shares reflections from her Corona Crisis Journal. Please leave a comment and, perhaps, share a reflection from your own Corona Crisis journal. Shelter in Place—A Lesson in Resilience 3/12/20 It’s the direction we’re receiving today: Stay […]
THERE’S MORE THAN ONE WAY to escape a pandemic. You can shelter in place, go nowhere, see no one, exercise indoors. You can catch up on home-improvement projects, learn how to cook, start painting, read that pile of books that’s been gathering dust on your nightstand. You can finally write […]
THIS IS A MEMORIAL DAY like no other in the history of Memorial Days. And it seems fitting on this day when we honor those who have given their lives for the cause of freedom, to ask the question, “What is the freedom we fight for?” It might seem like […]
THOUGH YOU WILL READ THIS AFTER, as I write it is International Women’s Day, a day to highlight the progress toward equality that women have worked toward. It’s part of Women’s History Month — 31 days dedicated to reflect on and celebrate the contributions women have made to U.S. History […]
“The bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts […]
