Reflecting on other people’s art – literature, fine arts, performing arts, film, music – anything and everything that we consider “art.”
To create something that outlives me. To live a life of integrity. To see what most people are too busy to see. To be grateful for all I have that I never earned. To appreciate the small things. To write. To sing. To love. To laugh. To learn. To pray.
So, Clara, why aren’t you writing much these days? Oh, I don’t know. I think there are just too many distractions. And there’s that giant piece of work I thought I’d finished but now realize it needs more revisions and a new ending. Are you referring to your memoir? Yes! It is the only thing I’ve wanted to write and publish in my entire adulthood since it happened. No wait! I started writing the memoir before the major events in…
Dad, I remember you telling me how, because I was a cesarian-section birth, that you were the first of my parents to hold me. Of course by then you’d had practice holding a baby because my sister was born two and a half years earlier. By the time I came around you knew what to expect from a newborn – the spitting, the diapers, the early-morning feedings. That is not to say that taking care of me was a piece…
Please pardon the expression when I say that perhaps I’ve bitten off more than I can chew when co-adopting a puppy with my mom and her mobility problems that make it difficult to participate in the training. But she loves the puppy and insists we keep her. I tell our puppy I love her too in the same way I did when my cat’s health began to degenerate with old age and he became more and more difficult to care…
In the midst of it all, my mom and I decided to adopt a puppy – a two-month-old pug we named Peggy and she’s a handful but we love her. The beauty of it all is that she’s helped distract me from my negative emotions.