We are told we become in our age more transparently the person we have always been.

Cinderella was beautiful, they say.

 I grew up as the one true believer in a family of doubters.

I drew the picture with crayon on a sheet of white paper.

Last week, I wrote about the barrage of “fantastic” offers I’ve been receiving, offers that promise to increase the visibility and sales of my books.

I don’t remember how long ago the first one appeared in my email.  Six months ago, maybe? 

How glad I was to have been born a girl!

I was born at home.

My father was a disappointed man.

He’d been “more fun,”

Mother sometimes told us,

before the Depression.

How to remember my mother?

Throaty wail of the mill whistle.

Chuff, toot, slam of trains.

Towering smokestack

They weren’t thorns exactly, but close enough.

The long struggle is over, done, finished.  My firstborn grandson, Connor, has died.

1960

A stifling night in Oklahoma.

It was huge.  Beyond huge, gigantic.  And the noise was even more overwhelming than the size. 

I don’t know how old I was.  I know only that I still slept in a crib. 

I never meant to grow old. 

A raucous group of five loons swam by my northern Minnesota island this morning, calling back and forth and raising their wings together as though dancing, then diving deep for their breakfasts before moving on, in unison, to the next bay.

Last week I began an exploration on the topic of gratitude in response to a conversation with a friend, Jane Buchanan.

Attention, the beginning of devotion