If you've never taken a class on writing about your own life, you are missing out on some fun stuff. Yes, some material from your life may be painful to write, but a lot of things are fun to recollect. To help you remember, writing teachers come to class armed with "prompts" to jog your …
Category: memoir
Turkeys and Drains – Never Say Never!
"If Darlene can do it, surely I can," I told myself last week. I was recalling a time I dropped in at my church to find a pair of legs peeking out from under an open lower cabinet door in the kitchen. I came closer and saw our octogenarian, unofficial, in-charge-of-church-kitchen woman halfway under the …
Ice Cream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream
Remember this little ditty? It was first published in 1927, and I wasn't around to hear it then. But I've known the phrase my whole life and have taken it seriously. Even if you all are not screaming for ice cream, I'm screaming loud enough for all of us. So it's natural for me when …
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Growing Older: On Turning 80
"What are you trying to prove?" my friend asked in a text. I had just sent her a photo of me stuck in my closet. I'd been trying to put a new recliner together and had to get behind it. Since it was somewhat heavy, I shimmied myself behind it into the closet. To see …
Colors of Thanksgiving – 2005
“Mom, look what I found,” Kathleen said as she pulled a slip of paper from her shiny fuchsia purse. “A two-for-one Clairol coupon.” That Friday in July had started out okay. Despite my brother facing death from pancreatic cancer in Grand Rapids and the hundred-degree weather in Chicago, I was determined to be upbeat as …
Fibromyalgia is a pain! Literally.
So I've done it again--eaten too much sugar, gotten myself too busy, forgotten to pace myself. And I'm paying for it in pain. Dollars would be easier. I haven't given an update of my fibromyalgia for a long time, so last night I searched for the word in my search box. And below is what …
Thoughts on Character
"I have enough character," I've been known to say when anyone tells me that a trying experience for me "builds character." I've thought a lot about character this last week as I dove into David Brooks' The Road to Character (2015) for a book club discussion. Not a quick read. I could say just slogging …
Z is for Zany
The final entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April challenge At my fiftieth high school reunion some years ago, a grade school classmate, whom I hadn't seen in years, told me she remembered me as being zany. I smiled and hoped it was a compliment, because I didn't know what the word …
Y is for Yellow
An entry for the Blogging from A to Z in April challenge. A true story I wrote about myself in the early 2000s. I was practicing writing in third person; Anne was me at an earlier age. Yellow worked itself into Anne’s life in an odd sort of way. She wasn’t really aware of the …
Write Along with Me 