I return to Medium in vastly different circumstances than when I left. I return bearing a few scars, a lot of stories, and a decent load of shit diamonds. (Trust me, mining for shit diamonds is the best way to push through hard times.) I return to find I’ve published…

I was pondering money, my chronic life-long lack of it, the way I usually feel quite rich in spite of that fact. I’ve mastered the art of simple pleasures, and that is all well and good. But it doesn’t help much when an unexpected car repair blows up my simple…

I have a tremendous imagination. That has been a blessing and a curse throughout my life. Reprimanded for daydreaming in school — curse.Being about to think up stories at the drop of a hat — blessing Easily distracted by the next shiny thing and all the outcomes I can see…

This morning I find myself thinking about my cousin, Will. he departed this earthly plane around 2006 (damn, I’m getting old and losing dates!) It broke my heart. I lost one of my best good friends. Will and I were the same age, he the oldest of three boys, I…

I’m a Gen X’er. My tween years can be divided by before and after MTV, Walkmans, the Challenger exploding during mid-terms. You still had to drop your film off a developing place, there were still some of those Kodak booths about. We had radio stations on speed-dial (or, those of…

What if, starting today, I offered 365 gifts? Can I look at my writing as such, a gift? I do not doubt for a moment the discipline of writing a piece a day would yield the gift of more competent writing. What else might it yield? You have to be…

Writing is a lot like cooking. Sometimes you have great ingredients: a funny anecdote, a poignant memory, an insight, a dream. You have these wonderful bits that when mixed with your wordsmithing genius should result in something grand. But if you fail to season it well, or heat it to…

2017 has been a rough ride thus far. It’s like the Universe thought it would be great fun to loose various gremlins into my world to pull things apart at the seams. A lot of tech meltdowns and a few emotional ones as well; weird weather reminding me that Gaia…

Yesterday, I made myself sit and write something…anything, while my “life” teeters on a cliff, with someone else deciding whether to push or not. I’m doing the same today. Writers write. I hope by tomorrow, I’ll have the spoons to write something of value to others. Today, I am handing the ball off to Robert Frost, whose genius captures how this feels. The rain to the wind said, ‘You push and I’ll pelt.’ They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged–though not dead. I know how the flowers felt. ~Robert Frost “Lodged”