Just drink the coffee.
I call it bloom because that’s not dying. We’re about to see the bloom, I told my friend. It’s growth but not a flower. Not canna not rose, not casket nor corpse; it just means something has opened. My friend draws blood. He says he cried last Sunday. Another counsels the sick and the doctors … Continue reading Pandemic Verse
I usually plant something on the equinox, but today I didn't. I stayed inside. No playing in the dirt. It rained and felt cold where I live, and I'm under self-imposed semi-quarantine because of lingering respiratory symptoms and sporadic fevers (but it's almost gone I think—hoorah!) and general social distancing for us all. When I … Continue reading Spring Sprung
It's time for the jesters and the minstrels. My mother called me this morning filled with contagious anxiety, and it took an anecdote from a friend for me to understand what I could do for both of us: make her laugh. I pulled out the big guns and sent her a Key & Peele skit … Continue reading Fiddlers Three
Tonight I'm reminded that in the face of unprecedented world events, regular life carries on. People are going to break their legs and give birth. We're still going to fall in love and die from all the same circumstances that assailed us before there was a COVID-19 assassin on the global prowl. I wish these … Continue reading Don’t Give Me More Than I Can Hold
I almost started this post with "Good morning," but I caught myself—it's one in the afternoon right now. We're only on day two or so of the officially requested shutdown and reordering of our lives—social distancing—and my concept of time and normalcy blurred a little bit on me. I think that's all of us right … Continue reading We Could Be Heroes
My fairy garden made it through most of winter standing, but I found it today in ruins. If I'd sat outside a few days ago, the ruined garden town might have felt like a heavy-handed metaphor. Today, it's just a thing. The destruction is likely the handiwork of my six-year-old and the neighbor boy, which … Continue reading 02.22.2020
Speaking in metaphor only, I got my ass kicked three days ago and am still slow-motion falling toward the floor. And I can't do that right now. I have deadlines I worked for and open doors and windows all around me. My kids are mostly teens, all brilliant and strong and sensitive and growing, and … Continue reading On a Plain
Lemon balm doesn't grow well indoors. I didn't know that until I moved one into my dining room. She's an unplanned houseplant, a relic from last year's garden I brought inside (because at the end of the growing season, I found her flourishing in the center of the leafy geodome my un-staked tomato plants incidentally … Continue reading Lemon Balm in Winter
Yesterday, my social media feed became a solidified wall of Kobe Bryant. From shares and reshares of news stories to personal testimonies about the inspiring, heroic nature of the athlete who perished alongside his daughter Gianna in a helicopter accident Sunday morning. Lost also were John, Keri, and Alyssa Altobelli; Christina Mauser; Sarah and Payton … Continue reading Kobe Bryant and Getting Triggered
I'm not kicking 2020's ass. I'm not going to conquer this new year. I'm almost 45 years old, so the odds are stacked against me that 2020 will contain loss and death. I might get diagnosed with something I don't want, I could lose a parent (or a grand—by grace, I have one left), and … Continue reading In Closing
Coffee or Suicide 