Remember last week when I promised Lily, my inner fourteen-year-old, that we’d go to the 1:50 PM screening of “Last Christmas” this Tuesday? I am pleased to report that (drum roll, please!) we did it! We went to the movie!   To a normal person (such as yourself)...

Last week I selected a metaphorical piece of stone, a chunk of blood-red marble veined with gold and black and white, sharpened my writer’s chisels, visualized the crude shape of the story to come. The story of this year of my life, fictionalized. The first draft of a...

What do you do in the week leading up to your 60th birthday? This year it’s a bit strange, as it is not only the first year without Bruce, but also the time of year when, just last year, we were starting to understand how sick he was. I feel like being mostly on my...

Mourning a complicated person can be- -complicated. This week Lily and I made a pilgrimage to Reno, Nevada. The purpose of our trip was Part Two of the Bruce Matley Memorial Trifecta. First cousins, first cousins at one remove and spouses gathered for dinner in his...

Lily, my inner fourteen-year-old, and I have spent the week at home in Walla Walla. It's a welcome break before we take off for Reno and event number two of the Bruce Matley Memorial Trifecta. After the rush of our trip to Port Townsend, it’s been the perfect...

Surreal times: times that have the qualities of surrealism, the irrational juxtaposition of images that seek to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind. Wow. Wow, indeed, Lily. My inner fourteen-year-old and I experienced something like this when we...