Today marks my 2-year anniversary of moving into my awesome downtown apartment. Crazy to think about that passage of time – how I’ve become more myself (I think), how I’ve lost a bit of weight, how I’ve become (maybe too) comfortable on my own, how my family unit has shifted, and how I can sit…
NPM – 25 of 30
My pal, Lindsay White, posts a monthly writing challenge. For June it was to write a poem where the total number of words match your age. So mine is 46. Workout #46 my sweat smells sour as I work to lose what I can only kindly describe as grief weight extreme heat presses around me…
NPM – 24 of 30
Caregiving when Dad was released from the hospital to come home for hospice they insisted that he constantly be on oxygen low, whirring concentrator in his room long green tubing before his trek to the living room each morning, then back again for naps and at night, he’d ask for the cannula to be removed…
NPM – 23 of 30
It’s been 5 months today since the day I describe below. ~~ “did he give you a good story for the day he died?” – “The Funeral” by Lindsay White when we could no longer lift him when it took four paramedics to get him back to the bedroom when he was barely able to…
A song moment
“…and tomorrow’s bound to be a better day and I’ll start over, and I’ll find my way yeah, yeah, it’s good to be alive I’m still feeling kinda sad, yeah but it’s good to be alive” – Cathryn Beeks Good to Be It happened on my way home from work. This song came up on…
A body in revolt
Last Friday, I got home a wee bit early and promptly devoured the food I had in my fridge. Yes, it was probably a bit much, but it was turkey nachos, with black beans, 3 kinds of peppers, tomatoes, and cheese. Not completely terrible, but my stomach hurt a bit afterward. I took a walk…
NPM – 22 of 30
Christmas Day what I remember: walking to Starbucks with my sister & her husband tripping and falling flat on my face into a yard on the way home when I told my dad I’d fell, the way he took my hand, patted it, made sympathetic noises knowing it would be my dad’s last Christmas not…
Walking Weekend in San Diego
I haven’t been in my car since I got home from work on Friday afternoon. I love weekends like this. I slept in (for me) on Saturday, getting up a little after 8 am. I got dressed and went to my favorite French cafe where I worked on poems and a little work. I stayed…
NPM – 21 of 30
Searching the Sky flying west toward the coast toward home golden horizon beckons promising nothing I’m familiar with what awaits quiet, unspoken thoughts about the trajectory of my life falling into bed, returning to work spouting canned pleasantries about my trip we hurtle through the sky at death-defying speeds through unimaginable cold in relative comfort…
NPM – 20 of 30
Winter Solstice on the longest night of the year my father told us he was ready to die driving home, those lines popped in my head so I knew this poem had to come at some point it’s impossible to exist in these two roles daughter, poet without overlap ~~ his decision was both shocking…
