It just so happens I gave my notice at REI this week, just ahead of Jerry Stritzke handing in his letter of resignation over a “consensual relationship” with the head of some other outdoor company. I didn’t play a big role in REI- I was an Action Sports Specialist in the Bend, OR store for […]
Putting lights on the Christmas tree has been the seasonal job I detest most. It never goes well, but I finally figured out the problem: we don’t have enough lights for the tall trees we like. And I tend to do it myself without much help. The help I do get is usually in the […]
Sometimes the most powerful words are your own, recited back to you. Lily is a poet. At 16 she won the Central Oregon Writers Guild poetry award. She won it again this year and I won an award for non-fiction so we each read our pieces at the awards ceremony, mother and daughter. My story […]
Life is good, as it should be at 17. But it’s also scary and uncertain at times.
She wants to save the world, but she’s starting to see how difficult that might be. Yet she still wants to do her part, so she created her own internship with the Global Immersion Project. Read what she writes about crossing the San Diego/Tijuana border: http://globalimmerse.org/embers-silent/
My friend thinks I wear the ‘pants’ in my family, but she says it’s okay since the man of the family is not angry about it. The bigger question, or the underlying issue: Who’s in Charge? So many issues come down to that, the underpants. So I’m thinking about these pants and how they fit– […]
You don’t have to be a mother-everyone has a motherhood story; it’s where you begin.
I sat in the chair breathing deeply, calmly trying to relax since I opted out of sedatives, thinking novocaine should be enough. After all, it wasn’t much of an area that needed a gum graft, just a small nick at the top of number 8, my right front tooth. I fell down a waterfall when […]
Journals provide a reliable path to revisit childhood; they reinforce the relevance of childhood and family as our children grow into adults.
Sometimes the problem with being feminist is how fierce it makes you, how everything becomes a symbol of a dominating patriarchal society…Seeing my dress laid out by his hands brings a wash of tenderness over my fierce resolve.
