confusing choices open and close doors
If my father lived, he would be ninety-seven years old at the end of April. I can’t imagine him as an old man, because he was forty-eight when he killed himself. In my opinion, alcohol played an enormous role in why he chose suicide, caught in a twofold trap of craving and obsession, wanting to stop, unable to live without it. Continue reading “the story of April” »
it was more about the weed than friendship
A bunch of girls crawled into the bushes at somebody’s sleepover when I was in junior high school and smoked homegrown marijuana, sitting cross legged in a circle, passing around pungent hand-rolled cigarettes. Listening to paper crackle, I inhaled without coughing, because I’d been smoking cigarettes since I was nine years old. Continue reading “my first toke” »
these lines started everything
“These are your private journals, and you can write anything you want.” My sixth grade teacher gave us little booklets with fat blue lines. Writing was a relief. Continue reading “writing the truth” »
Los Angeles is beautiful
My mother was a snob about Marin County, and didn’t like Los Angeles, because of population, traffic congestion and the heat. We had the Bay, which made our lifestyle better, more naturally beautiful than the Los Angeles desert. I was brainwashed to believe that my Southern California relatives didn’t live in as good a place as we did. Continue reading “changing a value” »
the happy spaceman
My dad brought home a record player with one speaker designed like a plastic jukebox and looked like a fabulous little space man. When I plugged it in next to the couch, its silver plastic chrome lit up bright red. Continue reading “the coolest” »
Coastal Miwoks were here first
Nobody taught us about indigenous people in our region of California. Before third grade and the ‘Marin County Unit” we studied that year, kids in my neighborhood made up what we thought the Coastal Miwok tribes did, collecting acorns, what they ate, how they fished, and made shell jewelry. Continue reading “legacy” »
children’s songs are prayers
My enthusiastic nature has caused me problems. Students often called me the TV Romper Room ‘Miss Nancy,’ because they didn’t like the way I expressed energy and drive. Family members order me to ‘relax’ because they tell me I’m high strung. Enthusiasm and being high strung are not the same. Continue reading “in the edges” »
prayers for us all
fitting new faith on top of my old Continue reading “trust” »
learning not to cause the fights isn’t easy
“You can’t keep pain in your body,” my friend observed about me, after I described my part in a family drama a few years ago. I didn’t understand at the time, but now I see a real need for changing my behavior. Continue reading “not disintegrating” »
My grandmother Brown was in her eighties when she moved from Baltimore to live with us. She had nowhere else to go. Neighbors helped my mother convert our garage into her bedroom, with a portable heater. My grandma shipped her stuff in moving crates to Tiburon, and somehow I was in charge of unboxing, deciding values of things I knew nothing about. Continue reading “roots of confusion” »