Over the last 8 months I’ve focused on just, you know, staying in the precise center of my boat. I get hit by the waves but I haven’t been thrown overboard. No thanks to any skill I have, frankly. I’m just trying to get there. Wherever there is. My there is anywhere but here. Here is… Read More The blog of missing: Anywhere but here.
The last few weeks have been exceptionally difficult. Does it have to do with the holidays? I can’t tell. If I could just ferret out why I keep finding myself on the edge, I think I could control it better. You know, not tip into the abyss. I hate having this continual ache because now… Read More 200 days
Someone asked me where Day 1 was of the Blog of Missing. I started with Day 20, which is kind of a let-down, right? Where’s the beginning? There should be a Day 1. A way to find the genesis of the heartache. And there should be words for every day of the missingness. We’ve got… Read More The Blog of Missing Day 118: An update
101 days. No word. I still don’t know where my son is or if he is okay. I am thankful for people who ask about Jake. Please don’t stop. I’ve been dragging my feet about posting because it means I have to unbolt the hatch to the compartment where overwhelm lives. Overwhelm is a troll… Read More Missing: 101
3/1/2016 1:41 PM to CMTN GRDN/CA (310) 345-#### 1 min. This line of text kept me up last night. That, and the fact that I didn’t know my son needed to hear his friend’s voice. Of course he did. And I didn’t know how to create a space that encouraged him to grieve. I’m bugging… Read More Blog of Missing: Day 39
No news. 38 days now. I’ve gleaned a surface narrative from Jake’s phone records over the past year. From May 2015, when he apparently purchased his phone, till mid-September 2015, many of Jake’s voice calls and texts were to the number of his friend who died in September. There are four one-minute conversations to that number on… Read More Surface narrative
I’m tired. So very. Jake must be tired–where’s he sleeping? Did he eat today? Now, every time I see a homeless person, I think, That’s some mother’s child. I had compassion before; this is different. Before, I speculated and sympathized. Now I know. How can I build something good from this? I’ve started something rough–if… Read More 28 days into a dark summer
Sometimes I only have a scent. Ivory Soap. Pine sap. Old Spice. It’s faint, like an afterimage, as Atwood writes in The Handmaid’s Tale. Other times, I catch a memory when I noodle about something peripheral, like the weather of my childhood. And other times, I am knocked into a pit by something that happens,… Read More A Day in the Life of a Writer: Excavation via fresh hurts
I wrote a little about Shenpa in 2012, but I didn’t have a lot to say because, while I recognized it, I didn’t really understand it. I’m not sure I do now, but I’m going to write about it anyway. I’ll share the same quotes: Shenpa is what Pema Chodron calls the hook. We each… Read More Shenpa revisited
Silence has been my project lately, and the hardest time for me has been over the last few days. My original post had this: Silence–Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. I decided to do silence for week 3, and to focus on serenely shutting up. Humility is its companion… Read More Best year ever: weeks 3, 4, and 5