So far

I turn 44 today. Beyond that statement, I’ll set aside the cold metrics of life evaluation. How does one quantify joy? Sadness? Accomplishments, rage, grief, disappointments? Contentment, heartache? So let’s leave off the numbers. My specialty was always qual, anyway. This past year has been, without question, the worst I’ve lived so far. (I say…

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About being bi…

Given that nowadays I’ve got a half-dozen things going on at any moment (with at least another half-dozen that I should be doing instead of procrastinating on), I slipped on talking about Bi Visibility Day on the 23rd. I totally meant to. I even had planned to do a cute little “It’s visiBIlity Day!” post.…

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When rage is grief, and must come light

Since the election, my necessary rage has settled into banked coals with hearts of grief. I have never handled grief well. Anger is easier, and there are times when rage is exactly the right and needed response (and this is one, this is one), and righteous ire is a blessing. It is an instrument, an…

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Journeys of a thousand li

There are many things I haven’t said too much about in public. The Dakota Access Pipeline, the ongoing shit show of American policing and our war on black folks, BLM, the ever-present cultural genocide of Native peoples, the horrible disrepair of our educational system, the ridiculous state of our healthcare system… there’s just so much.…

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When the wolves come

One of the things that has always stuck with me from my early days in college was a discussion amongst my Jewish friends about what to do if (when) the wolves came. Do you have friends you could hide your children with? (This was before any of us had kids, but this is an old,…

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So we’re clear:

I have no room for conciliation. I have no use for a false unity whose only purpose is to co-opt my consent to oppress me. I have no patience for calls to work together with those who seek to undermine my humanity. I have no respect for those who hate that I dare to believe…

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Dandelion dreams

I fell asleep on the sofa and woke up at half-past three in the morning. I don’t remember dreaming. I take my final on Tuesday, official grades post on Wednesday, and my pinning ceremony is on Saturday. I graduate, and I’ll be one exam away from my license and being a registered nurse. Things feel…

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In the forcing jar, does the bulb dream of spring?

It strikes me that sometimes my imagination is too small. When I started on this path, I did not begin to have anything beyond the vaguest outlines of how the choice to become a nurse would change me. Yes, yes, I knew that it would do so, and I even had intellectualized that knowledge into…

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The Practicalities of Wellbeing and Being Well

A long time ago, when I was in high school in the early 1990’s, I was a peer counselor. My local county health and human services administration had a program where they taught some of us high school students the very basics of active listening, warned us against giving advice, armed us with resource guides,…

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new story published!

For relative values of “new,” I suppose. The first draft was written in 2011. “The Coffinmaker’s Love” had its start at Clarion West. It was the first story that I wrote there, on Week Two, with Nancy Kress instructing. Week One was Paul Park, and he helped us lay groundwork and ran us through exercises, but…

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