Grief
LOSING MY EYE AND GAINING A FAKE ONE: Art Meets Science in the Making of a Prosthetic Eye (plus FAQ)
I’d never heard of ocular/uveal melanoma before I was told I had it. Odds: six in a million. My vision in my right eye had become blurry. I thought it was my cataract progressing. Surprise. Had my ophthalmologist been using early detection retinal imaging, it would have been caught sooner, the tumor small enough to…
Read MoreMASKS FOR LIFE: Wearing a mask is liberating. I’m not saying good-bye for good to mine yet.
It took me a nanosecond to embrace wearing a mask when the pandemic hit. Aside from deterring all airborne infections and reducing the risk to others, it checked these boxes: • No one sees my “phony smile” • No one sees me talking to myself • No one sees my Resting Bitch Face Nor did…
Read More2020: The Ups and Downs, a New Year’s Eve Invitation, and Wedding Photos!
A Year Like No Other How many times in 2020 did you say: “What a year!” I hope you didn’t lose a loved one to Covid-19 or meet with financial ruin. Surely, someone reading this has and you have my deepest sympathies. Please keep reading. I have something to invite you to at the end that might be…
Read MoreFREE THINKING: The #1 way to increase happiness is…
Life is not a bowl of cherries for anyone. We must take the bitter with the sweet, we’re told. But some people seem to have an innate melancholy they can never shake. Studies now show that we stay at the same level of happiness our entire life. There’s only one thing that’s been proven to…
Read MoreZERK ‘EM: Another surprise in a pile of old family papers
In honor of Aviation History Month, Veteran’s Day, and my father’s birthday, I’m sharing a peek at a treasure I unearthed when his widow died. I was asked by her executor if I would like his papers. What papers?, I thought. When he passed she became obsessed with ballroom dancing and turned his office into…
Read MoreMAMA JO REVISITED: Mother’s Day Without Her
This Mother’s Day, 2016, marks the eleventh one without Mama Jo. It’s always been tinged with sadness since her passing, but this one will be particularly hard. I recently completed reading and editing the audiobook of When I Married My Mother. I read it four times, all nine hours, before I had it right. Every single…
Read MoreBURIED WORDS OF WISDOM: Love, loss and what I tossed. Or didn’t.
I’m going through two trunks of stuff related to a documentary I once tried to make about my aunt, Julie Arden, and her companion Charlotte Brooks. I’m determined to whittle it down to one big box. It should be easy. Just don’t look too closely. Keep the essentials. Toss, toss, toss. I find scraps…
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