Insights & Observations
In addition to my most recent thoughts below, please check out Choices Do Matter, my original blog where I first started sharing my life and experiences – planting the seeds of what would lead to There Are No Answers Here, Only Questions.
Sometimes, You Just Ask
When my memoir, There Are No Answers Here, Only Questions, was ready for publication, my editor ordered a few dozen copies to be printed as proofs. She called them Advance Reader Copies, or ARCs, but I didn’t know that term then.
Tell us your story
What’s your story? We all have one––more if you’re my age. So why not share your wisdom, maybe even write a book, and leave something for your family to remember you by?
Seven Reasons to Write a Review
Many of you have read There Are No Answers Here, Only Questions, and to each of you who did, I say, “Thank you.” Now, I have one more question for you: “Have you written a review?” For some, that answer is “Yes.” And again, “Thank you.” But for those who haven’t, here are seven reasons why you should.
Turns out writing books takes a village too
Editing is a big part of writing; and sometimes, the best advice comes from family. These edits are by Ellie, my granddaughter, who is now at UNC-Chapel Hill studying law. Thanks, Ellie!
Sometimes a t-shirt and smiles are the best medicine
I was sick, very sick. So they came to cheer me up with a “Get Well Soon” T-shirt painted especially for me on my birthday. It’s a lovely T-shirt, and I still have it. But the absolute joy that morning didn’t come from a shirt. It came from these happy faces and my wanting to […]
Lesson learned: it’s not the tools.
“I’ll never make it to the Majors with this mitt,” I said. “Your glove is fine,” my parents replied. “If you want a new glove, get a job and pay for it with your own money.” So that’s what I did. At age ten, I got my first job. I washed mugs in a root-beer […]
“Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day”
The woman is a Juilliard ballerina and certified Pilates instructor. The man a retired business owner, cancer survivor. She choreographed a ballet in his honor. He missed the show. The story of “Zen, Baby” is in the book.
Color-coding cancer. There was always a calendar.
The blue was for preparation, anxiety. Red was treatment. And If I need to draw it again, the color will start in light pink, then gradually build to a fire engine red. Yellow was recovery and Green meant full speed ahead. But of course, I underestimated the length of the yellow and the green was […]
Would you call this kid curious or bored?
He looks bored to me and a bit fed up with it all, like, “When will these people stop talking and just give me an answer.” This kid might be thinking, “Why do so many adults go around Robin Hood’s barn in such an indirect way to get to their destination when all I want […]
There was gold in Alaska, he was told.
Would you let your son head off to Alaska looking for gold when he had only finished grammar school and then, out of money, take a job building telephone offices in Seattle, Washington, when phones were unheard of, and he didn’t know the first thing about electricity? My grandparents did, and my dad got his […]
Mom stories: a day off at the shore.
Would you have let your daughter go to a place you had never been and never even heard of to live with six other girls in a dormatory over the drug store on Collins Avenue and spend her days putting plugs into jacks on a switchboard so fancy real estate men could sell white sandy […]
Happy Thanksgiving. Giving thanks for hope.
There’s a lot involved when you undergo treatment for a severe disease like cancer. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it takes hope. You can prepare all you want, but the storms will come, and there will be times you think you won’t make it, but if you do pull through, you can thank […]
I’m not Chilly anymore. Call me Larry.
I’d spotted Chilly Willy a few times off and on after my return to the Urban Ministry Center, but this Wednesday he looked different, more relaxed. His clothes were cleaner, his hair not so tangled but still in dreadlocks. I didn’t know who was doing his barberin’ these days, but they were better than his […]
Harvesting stories. Preserving a lifetime.
“When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground,” the ancient saying goes, because older adults and even younger women and men and children have much to teach us about life and ourselves if we provide ways for their wisdom to be shared. Dr. Lyndall Hare used those words, “When an old man […]
Inspiration can come from anywhere.
I hope this sign is true because I took the advice and told the story, and soon my account will be in a book that you can buy and hold in your hand and read by turning pages and not merely scrolling down. It’s the story of preparing to retire from the business I loved […]