YOU NEVER THINK IT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO YOU

Until it does.

The odds of losing a child before you lose yourself…by age 60, in US, is about one in ten.

I was only 45 on May 9, 1987, when it happened to me.

I am reading Fi: A Memoir of My Son, by Alexandra Fuller, whose son died at the same age my son did (21), 37 years ago. The quote above is from her book; It has been an accidental read--I saw it suggested at the bottom of the last kindle book I’d finished and having loved her other books, ordered this one.

Read more

MOVING ON

I gave a reading of my poetry two nights ago, here at the Virginia Center for the Arts, and it was incredibly well-received; there couldn’t have been a better audience. I felt great, the poems I chose made a good arc, and the discussion afterwards was excellent.

Read more

STUFF

I’m at a writing residency, struggling with what to write next—blog post, another poem? Just now I walked over to the kitchen, where we go to pick up our box lunches. I usually come back to my studio to eat so as not to be distracted from what I’m working on by the desire to chat, as there are always fellows (that’s what we are called here) there, but today I sat down and ate my tofu salad with A and C, badly needing the break of human connection.

Read more