Just Show Up

In the last weeks of outpatient treatment for alcoholism, my counselor talked to us about what was coming next.  She felt it imperative that we find a weekly AA meeting that we attended no matter what.  So she enjoined us to “just show up.”.  If we were...

Garden Artist

My mother was an artist but she died before I was old enough to recognize that.  A primary location for her to practice her art was her garden.   She and Daddy had bought a bigger house and the vacant lot attached, so Mamie (what most people called my mother) decided...

“GET OUT”

Because I usually can’t get myself organized to go see movies in theaters, I’m often late to see important films.  So it has been with “GET OUT,” the important 2017 film directed by Jordan Peele.  I just watched it on DVD in the quiet of my own...

Moment of Truth

It was an early and violent fall.  By mid-October, most leaves were down on lawns, in gutters, in the crooks of steps.  The night of the 22nd, a high wind blew and rain fell hard against my face and jacket.  I’d spent the evening at Karen’s apartment on...

Palm Sunday, II

After the first reading from the Hebrew Bible, the congregation at my church always listens and responds to a Psalm.  On Palm Sunday, it is always Psalm 22, all about how badly other people are treating Jesus.  It’s a powerful account that always moves me...

A Fall

A Fall driving the New York Thruway later than I mean to I feel the sky quite near                                           “twinkle, twinkle, little star…”                                                                                          you...