Tag: memory

  • The Common #21

    The Common #21

    I’m so pleased to have a story, “Misdirection,” in this issue of The Common. Now available for pre-order, digital editions available from April 26.

  • If you’ve ever seen a flamingo. . .

    None of my photos are as close-up, glossy, right there with you as the alert yet resting bird Nowhere Magazine paired with my story, “Of a Feather.” But I did see flamingos in Patagonia a couple of years ago, and I did take pictures. And it did start me thinking about other flamingos I had…

  • Resolution

     I don’t know if I’m afraid of heights, or afraid of getting down from heights–of not getting down–but when the guide said, it looks like rain, let’s start on the roof, I followed her up. Not wanting to miss anything, ready to add to my photo collection, eager to take in every nook and cranny…

  • Exchange Visits

    My mother and my daughter left this week on a two-week trip to Germany, which has me remembering my own trip to Germany with my Oma. I was a year younger than my daughter is now, a high school junior rather than a recent graduate. The first part of the trip was a school trip–our…

  • Little Notebooks

    I always carry a little notebook in my purse. Just in case. Sometimes I’ll carry the same one for years, if it doesn’t fill up fast. When my kids were younger, there would be tic-tac-toe games or weird scribbles on the middle pages, if I’d handed over the notebook in a desperate ploy to entertain…

  • Cardinal Reflections

    It’s a firebird, or maybe a flower. I was out cutting flowers early this morning, six a.m. and muggy in a way it seldom is in Oregon, or maybe my hurry just made it seem warm. And then I was looking for pictures of cardinals, and found instead reflected light on wood. Of course, there…

  • Boxed Set, part II–memory stories in and out of the box

    Literal Latté‘s spring 2015 issue is up–and with it my story, “Cloud Seeding in the Andes,” beautifully illustrated by Joseba Elorza. Coincidentally, today also marks 35 years since we returned to the US from that first trip to Ecuador–first for me, first that counts in memory–the trip that has served as springboard (nest, epicenter, scaffolding, excuse) for…

  • Boxed set (stories in waiting)

    Somewhere at the bottom of this stack of boxes is a stack of notebooks, detailed journals from trips to Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru. I know there are stories in them, waiting to be retrieved, rewound, reworded. Deciphered–I never won a penmanship prize. Embarrassing stories and clever observations and little aha! triumphs. I count them as…

  • Lovely present becomes lovely help

    One of my most favorite books in childhood was Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present (Charlotte Zolotow, illus. Maurice Sendak), in which Mr. Rabbit helps the little girl assemble a birthday gift for her mother. One of the book’s refrains (the story is structured around nested repetitions with variation) has been coming back to me lately…

  • In memoriam (decedent unknown)

    Unknown to me, that’s all, or only slightly known. Familiar, but not close. I expect (I hope) she was better known to others. There’s an assisted living home down the hill from us, close to the stop where I catch the bus to work. Ours is a neighborhood of hills and uneven sidewalking–sidewalks seem to…