Currently viewing the tag: "connection"
What a great birthday! We started celebrating on Friday and now (Sunday) I still have homemade cake to look forward to! Yesterday morning Louise and I headed up to Sisters, a 3½ hour drive from Portland. Friends of ours bought a place there a few months ago and they invited us and another couple for […]
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It’s my birthday! I wanted to make sure to give a gift in honor of my Mom. And the miracle of circumstance that brought me into this world. I am grateful to be here. Birthdays aren’t so simple, though. It’s usually a time of semi-morbid self-reflection. And – although I am not a big fan […]
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I told my story to about 100 Kaiser Permanente retirees today; it was lovely. They were a very attentive and thoughtful audience and had lots of great questions. Am I ever afraid? How do I choose? How do I start talking to a stranger? What will I do after 100 hundreds in 2011? Why a […]
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The cheapskate in me is not going down easy and that’s a fact. Today I was just pleased as punch because I found a new place to park my car that’s about half a dozen blocks from work. $2 for all-day parking! I’ve been riding the bus whenever I can, but sometimes I travel between […]
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When I headed to bed shortly before midnight last night, I never expected that I would be starting the new day in the emergency pet hospital. On the way up I said goodnight to Patches, the calico who has called our place home for the last five years since we took her in as a […]
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We had a short ceremony today and “unveiled” the headstone marking my mother’s grave. By Jewish tradition, the one-year anniversary of the death of a parent marks the end of a period of deep mourning. It’s just regular old mourning from here on out: the ups and downs of memory and loss. We Jews generally […]
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If you’re not ready to believe in miracles, stop reading right now. The prelude to Mother’s Day was a bit rocky. It’s the first Mother’s Day since my mom died last May and I’ve been feeling the renewed weight of loss and sadness. I wasn’t sure I could find a celebratory mood. When I got […]
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He was standing in the same spot I met these guys on October 15. Tall and skinny, he had a hat turned up on the ground in front of him and was picking away fast on a tiny little worn down guitar. A brindle dog was curled up right next to him. The guy’s playing […]
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I know I’ve said this before, but I don’t think it can be said too often: you just never know what’s going to happen when you step your foot out the door (or stay in, for that matter). We got home from Ireland late Thursday night and I’m still trying to claw my way out […]
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I am seated in front of a coal fire in a cottage on Lough Arrow, deep in the Western Ireland countryside. Yeats country. My dear friend Tess Gallagher has been coming to this area since the 1960s, originally to visit a woman she met named Dymphna Gray. About 20 years ago Tess was introduced to […]
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