Covid: Final Update?
[Due to my website being offline while it was being redesigned, this update was previously posted only on Substack and Facebook.] Days 14 – 17 May 3-5 After the rebound of Covid symptoms for forty-eight hours, those symptoms again subsided. On day 17, I saw my doctor...
Covid Update: Misery Loves Company
[Due to my website being offline while it was being redesigned, this update was previously posted only on Substack and Facebook.] Thank you to everyone who responded with your Covid stories. I’m sorry you suffered, and for those still suffering, and I’m also comforted...
Covid: A First Time for Everything, I Guess
[Due to my website being offline while it was being redesigned, April's blog, as well as two Covid updates, were previously posted on Substack and Facebook.] I interrupt the regularly scheduled blog this month to bring you my first bout of Covid-19. I could add, that...
Nobody Cares About Your Dead Relatives
In the writing world the saying goes, nobody cares about your dead relatives. Or the living ones, for that matter. The fact that my Armenian grandmother was dear to me isn’t enough to endear her to readers. Saying my uncle gave me the best books for Christmas doesn’t...
Delights and Joy: There’s a Difference
Inspired by Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights, I’ve kept a Daily Delights journal for the last two years. I wanted to do something different than being grateful at the end of the day. I wanted to note what made me smile or giggle, what lightened my heart, what delighted...
Orbital Sunrises: A chance to revise sixteen times a day
To my chagrin, this month’s blog started with a blank page. Usually I jot material that didn’t get used the month before into a new document. To which I’ll add ideas as they occur to me. That way, when I sit down to draft the blog in earnest, preliminary material is...
December, Endings are also Beginnings
December: a month many of us wrap presents for those we care about—a package of thinking of you, a package of love. Sometimes that present is a card or a text, a Facetime call or a Zoom gathering. It is the present of being present with someone, of being in community....
NOVEMBER, A MONTH TO SWIM IN THE SEA
“This is a wonderful day, I have never seen this one before.” - Maya Angelou This month, on November 6th, the citizens of the United States elected their next president. On November 8th, I left the country. I left my country for a planned trip to Central...
OCTOBER, A MONTH WHEN I DO THINGS FOR MY FUTURE SELF
This month I didn’t meet my short-term writing goals of chapter revision which means I won’t reach my long-term goal of having a complete draft of my Armenian family memoir finished before my sixtieth birthday in February. I’ve written before about what is needed to...
SEPTEMBER, A MONTH OF CHANGES
While August was a month in which to soak up the warmth and outdoor activity of the summer season, September was a month of seasonal changes, especially as the month drew to a close, including the temperature (dropping, a bit quickly this year it seems), leaves...
AUGUST, A MONTH TO TAKE A BREATH?
If July was all about travel and community, from my MFA residency in Tacoma, WA to my family reunion in southern Oregon, August is all about staying home and walking in the forest. Even if that is not exactly how the month has gone. While I did walk in the forest this...
JULY, A MONTH OF REUNIONS
Last month, I mentioned Vivian Gornick’s craft book, The Situation and the Story, and this month my focus on craft continued with my return to the Rainier Writing Workshop (RWW), the low-res MFA program I graduated from in 2021. During the ten-day residency, I...
JUNE, A MONTH OF GLOOM AND BLOOM
I’ve been mentioning flowers in almost every blog this year, not just in the Windows section but in the opening paragraphs. Bits of color holding my attention, lightening my mood, and lifting my energy. June is no different—purple and white lupine, wild daisies,...
MAY, A MONTH OF FLOWERS
April’s bounty, and showers, continue with this month’s collection of blossoms: pink columbine, purple rhododendron, red salvia, sweet woodruff, and the sweet perfume of lilacs and lilies of the valley . . . to name a few. This month also marks a year since I began...
APRIL, A MONTH WITH TWO ANNIVERSARIES
April showers bring May flowers, so the saying goes. In other words, endure April for the reward of May. Yet April offers its own bounty: cherry blossoms, swaths of tulips, and the unfurling of maple leaves, to name a few. April also brings those showers, tree pollen,...
March, A Month To Spring Forward, Still
The harbingers of spring continue this month, with azaleas, daffodils, and forsythia in full bloom, and maples, alders, and dogwood trees beginning to bud out. We have a mallard couple visiting our pond and a blush of robins spreads over the front field bobbing for...
FEBRUARY, A MONTH OF HARBINGERS
If last month winter was on my mind (winter projects, wintering, snow), the month of February has me noticing the harbingers of spring (daffodil buds, the morning bird chorus, the emergence of Pacific banana slugs), even if the temperatures are still on the chilly...
JANUARY, A MONTH TOO SHORT AND TOO LONG
January bears the burden of high expectations: A New Year! Resolutions! Winter projects! If last month I was tired, this month, the winter holidays behind me now, I felt ready to be productive—I will get so much done this month! And yet this month has flown by—is it...
WORK, AND WALKING AWAY
I restarted my blog in May and with December’s blog, I’ve met my goal of blogging at least once a month. I almost didn’t reach that goal. I’m tired and considered not blogging this month. I’m tired and considered just posting a picture captioned with Happy Holidays!...
WORK ALWAYS
September’s blog was all windows, October’s wonder, so it follows that this month’s will be about the work, the ongoing writer’s work. The fulfilling and frustrating act of creating art. Though, as I seek more equanimity in all aspects of my life, my mindset regarding...
Wonder, All The Time
Wonder When We’ll Give Peace A Chance Ukraine and Russia. Israel and Palestine. Armenia & Artsakh and Azerbaijan & Turkey. Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, . . . United States. How to replace hate with empathy? How to halt bombs and advancing armies by other than...
Windows, All The Way Around
September brought two local end-of-summer camping trips and while my writing work continued albeit at a much slower pace and there was much to wonder, this blog is all about what was outside the windows of the trailer, plus a welcome-home view. Kayak Point: A new...
Work, Wonder, and Windows
Work: Have you heard the term micro prose? I recently took a class from Darien Hsu Gee, a fellow Rainier Writing Workshop alum, in which she illuminated the benefits of writing micro prose: pieces of 300 words or less. She is passionate about this form, and offered...
Work, Wonder, and Windows
Work: Traveling along the Oregon coast for two weeks this month took me out of my usual writing and exercise routines. (For more on the latter, check out this blog post.) Most mornings, I had to choose whether to write or exercise. Road trips require more sitting, so...
Work, Wonder, and Windows
Welcome to my blog. First time here? Check out May’s blog for info on my intentions for this space. Work: Last October while reading Judith Kitchen’s The Circus Train, a novella-length essay in fragments about, to name a few, mortality, Samuel Beckett, and memory, I...
Work, Wonder, and Windows
June 2023 Welcome to my blog. First time here? Check out last month’s blog for info on my intentions for this space. Work: I’ve started on the next draft of my book, my untitled Armenian family memoir. The last draft I refused to begin with page one—I was sick of page...
Work, Wonder, and Windows
May 2023 One of my motivations to write is connecting with others, and that connection can’t begin until the work goes out into the world. As I am currently writing a book, it’s a long slog before that engagement can begin. So I’ve decided to reboot, revive, and...
GERANIUMS
Today is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. In honor of my ancestors, I’m grateful to have this short piece up at Complete Sentence.
LOOK WITH YOUR EYES
Look with your eyes, not your hands My mother said in gift shops, antique stores, the five and dime Now, in my mask and gloves, I peer at Avocados and apples, grapefruit and lemons Using my eyes to discern Firmness, ripeness, compatibility ...
REMEMBER YOUR TRAINING
When, not if, you get tossed out of your boat in a rapid on a river, don’t panic. Hang onto the boat if you can, and with or without the boat, assume the floating lounge chair position: feet up, knees bent, and head back. Ride out the rapid and then, in calmer water,...
Chuckanut Writers Conference
From the opening address by Sonora Jah—The Writer in Uncertain Times—to the closing address by Omar El Akkad—Lies of Our Own Making: The Obligations of Literature in a Politically Fractured Age—my hometown writing conference contained immense ideas, blood-pumping...
SHOTPOUCH
A wash of pink spreads across the lavender sky. The apple orchard grays into view. Soon Shotpouch Creek will surface, rippled in white. But first something new: bits of darkness darting through the air. It’s too early for the robins that will dot the meadow feeling...
WRITING RETREAT
Check out my guest blog at BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog: https://brevity.wordpress.com/2018/05/14/real-life-vs-the-failed-writing-retreat/
I WRITE MEMOIR, PART I
In the third grade, I read The Little House in the Big Woods series of books. You could write about your own life—what a revelation! I wanted to do that. But also, a disappointment—my life wasn’t as interesting as Laura Ingalls Wilder’s. Mine was a normal life. Two...
OUT OF MY BUBBLE
In my Red Wheelbarrow Writers guest blog, Resist: Ignorance, I discussed reading books to help deepen my understanding of and empathy for other people. Still working on that list, still glad I’m doing so. But reading a book is not the same as speaking with a person....
RESIST: IGNORANCE
Check out my guest blog: http://www.redwheelbarrowwriters.com/blog/resist-ignorance/
HUMMINGBIRD WINTER
Upon returning home, from a road trip, in the middle of November, I saw a hummingbird dart out of the large rhody in the backyard to the nearby feeder, a little sugar-water still in it, hover and drink, and then dart back into the rhody. A hummingbird in November—a...
SPEEDY
The vet assures me our cat’s ill health is not my fault. Speedy, our thirteen-year-old tiger tabby, has lost over three pounds, has a urinary tract infection, bleeding gums, and failing kidneys. Cats are stoic, the vet continues, by the time you realize they are ill,...
WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY?
The worst part of my day, on the days I run errands, is in the morning when I’m standing in the grocery store watching the clerk ring up my purchases and she asks, “What are you going to do today?” A part of me finds that question an invasion of my privacy, while at...
Writing For Personal Insight
Check out my first guest blog: http://www.redwheelbarrowwriters.com/blog/writing-for-personal-insight/
THE WRITER AS ATHLETE
I exercise every day. Every day some form of stretching and strengthening, and a hike or a walk must be done. Why such dedication? Because I’m in training, not for a marathon but for a sit-a-thon. And as we are all learning these days, sitting is not for wimps....
CELL PHONES AND THEIR ILK
For over ten years, I had a Nokia cell phone, a standard one piece, no flip, no slide, no touchscreen—a basic cell phone. I used it to make calls, and to receive calls. This phone fulfilled its purpose. When my children entered high school, I was pleased that my basic...
A CHRISTMAS PAST
What sticks in a child’s mind and survives into adulthood? What joy? What fear? What anger? Forty-five years ago, my mom’s extended family rented a large cabin in Big Bear for Christmas. There must have been at least twenty of us, pretty chaotic. It was the first...
I WRITE! PART 1
Every time I start to write a new piece—a story, a novel, a blog post—I get a sinking feeling in my gut, my chest constricts and a sigh slips through my lips. The glorious piece of writing floating in my mind sprawls on the page like a pig wallowing in the mud. A big...
I HAVE A BLOG!
People blog for many reasons: to inform, amuse, advise, pontificate (what a great word—sounds like what it means), but in general, people blog to share their life experiences. And that is what I intend to do here—share my writer’s journey, and, on occasion, the...
I HAVE A WEBSITE!
Authors are expected to have an online presence—when an editor or an agent types your name into a search engine, stuff has to come up. Not only do authors need a website, but they need a twitter account and a Facebook page. They need to be Linked-In and have a...