Suprise Me

Monsoons are more than just rainy days.  They are the wet season, the dry season’s counterpoint.  The rains are intense downpours, not drizzly affairs, and they sweep in ferociously. They are the annual water renewal that makes life possible.  Of course, that is changing along with the rest of the climate, but still. The small… Read More

My husband only occasionally engaged in DIY projects with me “supervising,” but we did live for 45 years in a house built in 1911. And we loved our old house, despite its frequent need for repairs. Read More

(Please note: I am actually reading, and wish to comment upon, other Retrospect writer’s stories. But for some reason, since early August I am unable to reply to anyone’s stories but my own, no matter where I log in from. All I get is a 503 server error. Until and unless this changes, I will… Read More

A recipe for joy--try this at home! Read More

My parents barely knew one another when they married. They were coming out of WWII, both living with older sisters who were friends with each other, both aged 32. My father had dated a lot of women, but promised his now-deceased father that he would marry a Jewish woman. My mother, who had low self-esteem,… Read More

I knew I really wasn't supposed to take the car to the beach, but the temptation was too much. Read More

“She finds trouble wherever she goes,” my younger brother said of me back in the 1980’s. It was meant as a compliment. At least I chose to take it as such. He said this after I had led (or participated in–I can’t recall for sure) a walkout of reporters at the East Bay weekly paper,… Read More

Quilting in Angola An extraordinary humanitarian project has been on-going at the Louisiana State Prison for years now. That prison is commonly known as Angola, as that was the name of the slave plantation whose land it now occupies. Louise Kelleher was the co-founder of The Social Justice Quilts Project with Kenya Baleech Alkebu, who… Read More

Her mouth rounded as she faced us and said, "This is Oh--Oh--repeat after me: Read More

But I do think some of the changes necessitated by the pandemic will be positive ones if we choose to learn from them. Read More