athesaurus.com

…breathe deeply and often…

  • Collections

    Collections Inventory Dishes Antique furniture My journals Cats 2 Dog 1 Twins Lotsa boys Almost two books Two published things I’m in a writer’s permutation of life at the moment. I collect books about writing and writing advice. I have writing friends and their books. I go to writing conferences and groups. I write blogs,… Read more

  • Defensive Secrets

    “You majored in theatre in college, in your twenties and thirties, you were active in community theatre and children’s theatre, you taught theatre, yet you never took your boys to a play or got them involved in theatre when they were little. Why is that?” the news anchor asked me. I had been expecting this… Read more

  • Mom’s Roadtrip

    Mom lost her mind and married Roebuck. None of the kids could stand him, but she was entitled to her midlife crisis, same as anyone else. Since his house burned down on their first date, something about gunpowder gun cleaning equipment and an explosion, such a catastrophe, that they moved to Texas soon after they… Read more

  • My Cloister

    Smile.  I biked to the cathedral in the spring. I was an overweight 40 year old American woman on a bike tangled in British traffic. The underpass near the roundabout before the cathedral was scary, traffic came from everywhere and all directions. I should not have survived the rides into town.  That’s the cloister walk.… Read more

  • Dear Creativity

    Dear Creativity, It’s time we stopped piddling about and started dancing together. Since I was little, you’ve been working against me instead of with me. You and I have been out of time and one ingredient shy of success  since I was born, and you know it. You left me in the dust, or did… Read more

  • Running out of Time in Dante’s Spiral

    “Turn in your papers.” “I’m not finished. You didn’t give us enough time,” said Jason. “You had two days to copy ten sentences correctly. That was enough time,” I said. “I wasn’t listening, that’s not fair. I’m calling my  mom,” said Jason. Pressure.  I wasn’t listening either.  I wasn’t listening half of the time when… Read more


  • Patience of the trees

    I grew up on a dirt road with quiet skies and darkened rooms where there was one light in the center of the room and two table lamps, a luxury beside a rocking chair and one end of the couch for reading. The kitchens had a dim bulb in the middle as did the bedrooms.…

  • Message

    I’ve been to two funerals this week. Two uncles, one from my dad, one from my mom. Dad’s brother had  a military funeral, Mom’s brother had a Masonic funeral. The military funeral had a twenty-one gun salute at the end of it. The Masons chanted and made hand signals. Both were dignified and sent the…

  • A path through the woods

    There were  hundreds of acres to explore and I suppose we stepped through all of them. We walked through the woods for miles, following each other. The path was the one we created, or sometimes the deer or both. They are creatures of habits, the same as we. We had no place in mind to…

  • First Memories

    I have two distinct memories before I could walk. The first one was being held in my uncle’s arms and reaching for my mother. I loved my uncle Paul as much as any six or seven month old can love another human being who’s around all the time. But I remember throwing my body towards…

  • Winter is…is not

    Cold…killing cold.