Tag: writing

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Home Improvement

Home. More than a place, it’s the state of living in blissful gratitude—a luxury after decades as a road warrior, where home was an airport, hotel room, rental car.

And even as life later pulled me along its bungee cord of obligation, caring for my mother in the island house of my childhood never felt like home.

Now, having moved her near me, I’ve found my home. I have a routine. I’ve said this before, but it’s been a lie. This time I’m different.

I write at dawn. Run the dogs. Take mom shopping. Spend time with my husband. Volunteer. Hike with friends. On evening strolls, I breathe in muted cheers of a softball game in the park, the thick mesquite of a neighbor’s firepit.

The rhythm of routine seeps into my soul. My soundtrack: the breath of home.

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Upta Camp

It’s the first summer in years we won’t be at camp, and I have to wonder: Is it really summer without camp?

In Maine, we say we’re going “upta camp”—what flatlanders would call a lake house, cabin or cottage.

Enjoyed by family for four generations, camp is my rock. The place where I embrace the extended step-family who grounded me so many years ago, offering a semi-normal life with a brother, grandparents, aunts, nieces, another mother.

Camp is sunrise on the deck with my brother; tubing behind the jetski; chocolate donuts and Orange Crush; kayaking at sunset. Camp is where I snuck out as a teen to meet the boys. And it’s where I unwittingly began writing morning pages two years ago.

At camp, we undock our worries and let them drift away.

Camp is a state of mind.

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Free Fall

Second in the series “A Trilogy of Morning Pages”

“What should I write in here?” a girlfriend asks, of the blank journal I’ve given her to celebrate six months of sobriety.

“Something. Anything. Everything,” I respond. “Write as if no one were reading. Hate. Love. Anger. Gratitude. Write as if your life depends on it.”

This is how I write each morning, as I begin the Morning Pages.

Aside from brewing a pot of French press, I do nothing, read nothing prior to writing. Freedom flows best when you’re propelled by the unconscious rather than down the avenues of distraction.

Fall awake in your Pages. Transform an overheard conversation into dialogue for a short story. Describe a character that didn’t exist until this moment. Write from the lens of your six-year-old self; from the tangled mind of a demented mother.

Write not for accolades or prizes. Write to understand.