BE WARNED: This is a Process Blog Post.

Here is your all-important BACKSTORY:  In July, poof! There was no more job that I love (coordinating ongoing content for small businesses). My position and department were eliminated. And I have three wonderful kids that expect to eat regularly. You wouldn’t believe how often they are hungry. In August, my beloved Papa passed away after […]

Call It A Gift — Wandering Off Is Not So Terrible

I’m prone to inevitable flights of fancy. Call it what you want. I get carried away. It cannot be helped. Neither psychotherapy nor medication have quelled my intermittent love affair with being alive. And my willful experience of being entirely human. Each time someone dies, we are brought to our knees with awareness of the […]

Bracing For A Punch: Or Why I’ve Been a Bad Blogger Lately

Never Not Losing, Never Not Gaining My body is sore from bracing punches. The near-constant rush of dark waves has left me shrill, wordless and unsure. It seems this year has reduced me to a perpetual defensive position, making any agency seem out of reach. It isn’t just me, although losing my grandfather and my […]

Elizabeth McCracken on Humor, Loss, and the Appeal of Broken Characters: “Life Is Full of Bad Jokes”

Originally posted on musing:
Heads-up, members of our First Editions Club. When you receive your autographed copy of Elizabeth McCracken’s Thunderstruck & Other Stories, you’ll be taking possession of something rare. Like a solar eclipse, the stories in this book align darkness and light so precisely that they overlap to create something magical — you can see the edges of…

Tweet of the Day: Get It Together & Let It Fall Apart Edition

I received some tough news this weekend about my Papa. He has been diagnosed with Stage 4 Liver/Pancreatic cancer. This is the same cancer that took my father in eight weeks. There is also a LOT going on in my life right now and my stress levels are pretty epic. I know the danger of […]

When one door closes… #SayingsIHate #IWillSayThisInResponseNextTime

This saying and “Everything happens for a reason” are two of the most sanctimonious expressions…typically used to dismiss loss. Sadness is not the enemy. Untreated depression is the enemy.

30 Days — Celebrating National Poetry Month — April 29

Lavonya Lavonya is a woman my granny knows                 knows about the cancer. Granny’s got the idea                 that life will waste him away                 quicker than a dandelion in late Spring                 until God takes him on home. Lavonya says it is a cruel kind of passage. Granny prays that miles weren’t the cause […]

Cloud Cult: Now this is the healthy way to process grief.

Cloud Cult: Now this is the healthy way to process grief. Taking the kids to school, I heard an interview with Craig Minowa on Morning Edition. I am not cool enough to have heard about the band before today. Minowa explains his long road since losing his son in 2002. This part of the interview brought […]

Letters to Newtown

Letters to Newtown Joint effort between Mother Jones and Tumblr to archive the response from the those from around the world impacted by the massacre. It is a beautiful idea and project. This is a very healthy way to process the grief and to never forget what happened in Connecticut.