When my son was twelve, he decided he was going to start training for the cross country team. Every morning, he’d get up early, leash up our young blue heeler/lab dog, and head out to the hills behind our house. I’d always say, “Watch out for mountain lions,” and he’d say something like, “I am a Leo, so lion-proof.”
Running was his obsession. He read books, kept a training journal, ran everywhere. He did join the cross country team and made varsity his freshman year.
I don’t know when the voices came. I sometimes wonder if running kept them at bay. Because when Shayne stopped running, some of his behavior changed. I didn’t know schizophrenia was even a possibility, so I wasn’t looking for it.
The voices have taken so much from my son, from me, from our whole family. One piece of advice I was given early on was to read as much as I could and learn about his illness. I did, though I have to say the reading was discouraging. Even though only about one percent of the population has schizophrenia, about ten percent die by suicide. The drugs only work for about eighty percent of people and often come with intense side effects. Success stories are few, and long roads of addiction, jail, and violence are not uncommon.
At first, when I started reading, I was hopeful that maybe we could have a different story. But as our journey continued, and we lived through one dark stretch after another, I wasn’t sure there was hope.
Maybe running was an early clue—fixation becoming obsession. At least it seemed healthy then. Better than being consumed by some unknown creature stealing his soul, or becoming convinced Elon Musk was coming for dinner.
The meds don’t take the voices away; sleeping does. He self-medicates to sleep. I have watched every drug take its toll on his body. The pharmaceuticals have aged his kidneys. The THC has given him the cough of an old man. The beer has left him with a round belly. Watching someone live addicted is its own kind of hell. Many times, I have felt powerless. Watching my son slowly kill himself in front of me is torturous.
Recently, he said he wanted to quit drinking. I didn’t react much. Words are cheap.
But then I saw him carrying one of his old running books up from the basement. He leashed up Stormi. Apparently pit bulls are not natural runners, because he came back carrying her, saying she refused to jog after three minutes. So I sat on the porch with her and watched him jog away.
He doesn’t move with his old easy gait, but he is out there, doing it.
Maybe he will stop after a few weeks. But maybe not. Running was his high for a long time, and I’m hoping it will be again. Maybe it’s the one thing that can save him from himself.
A couple of weeks ago at the school district retirement dinner, one of the board members gave speeches about each of the retirees and handed out gifts with fun but special meaning. I got a jar of Skittles and a metal sign that outlines a move to the beach, because I always say I want to live near the beach. One of my friends recently asked me what I am waiting for.
A few things:
Is there a beach I can afford?
What about my house in Colorado?
Will Shayne be okay?
I have some obligations:
a. Finish the painting on the levee.
b. Update the mural at the Baptist church.
c. Finish my memoir.
I have been concentrating on my obligations first. I am writing three hours a day. That seems like a lot, and I should be able to finish the project. But a lot of that time is spent trying to figure out how to write a section of my life—like college—in a paragraph or a page. I haven’t started the church yet, because I have used my two ideas and I only like painting animals, not people, and there are way more people than animals in the Bible. That leaves the levee.
A few years ago, I blogged about my experiences painting a mural above the Arkansas River in Pueblo. I was so excited to participate in the Pueblo Levee project. I felt like painting a giant mural suspended on ropes would give me mad street cred as a muralist. During that time, though, my son had one of his worst psychotic breaks and was missing for days. Painting on the wall became how I coped. Every time Shayne disappeared, I wondered if I would ever see him again. That time I really did think he might be dead, and I wondered if that would be a relief for him. Living with the voices screaming in his brain is pretty horrible. Then I had all the mom guilt for even thinking those thoughts. So I would go down on the wall and paint my fish and try not to think or feel.
When the project was over, I just sat at the edge of the river and looked down at my work. It felt anticlimactic. I had done this big thing and I wasn’t even really sure that it mattered.
I went on with my life. Shayne was found and we started our dance of him trying a new medicine and me pretending that he was doing better until the next episode. I had some ideas about painting on the levee again, but I also thought it might be a one and done for me. It was expensive, the drive was a lot, and honestly, my last years in the classroom took such a toll on my emotional well-being that I was just mostly surviving. I didn’t have the creative energy for much beyond occasional humorous quips on social media.
Last year, though, I decided that maybe leaning into my creativity could help me get through the hard stuff, and I agreed to do another mural. I did a watercolor sketch of horses thundering in the sunset. In my mind, it represented power and freedom. I got the paint, but when I went to the levee, I couldn’t step down on the wall. Fear froze me. I forgot how the equipment worked. Panic set in. Three times I tried. All the memories of Shayne lost came flooding back. All the feelings I hadn’t let myself feel came rushing back. I didn’t want to be on the river or remember any of it, and I didn’t want to paint the mural anymore.
However, part of me did want to paint. I wanted my horses up there. I wanted the mural to live somewhere. I didn’t want to walk away and regret not painting it for the rest of my life.
I met another artist working on a mural. She is from Oregon and only here for another week, but she has made painting a kind of community and helps other people. I always work alone and I hate asking for help, but I also knew that getting back on the ropes was something I wasn’t going to be able to do without an intervention.
She walked me through it. I felt the fear on my first trip down, but then I relaxed enough to be able to go up and down and side to side, and then I painted a little. Then I painted longer, and now I feel ready to start my painting.
To be honest, I don’t know where the beach fits in my future. I just know the ocean calls to me. I don’t know about Shayne or my house. I don’t feel like my list is an excuse or postponement. The list feels like finishing what I started.
All I know is I got on the wall again. Fear isn’t controlling me. The horses are going to run on the levee, and then I will be ready for whatever comes next.
I spent a good portion of my late thirties and early forties riding the hell out of my bike. I had the fancy clothes, clip shoes, aerodynamic handlebars, speedometers, and little black pouches stuffed with Allen wrenches and an extra tube. Sometimes I rode with friends. Mostly I rode alone.
I started riding because I wanted to lose weight. I abhor talking about weight. I once heard that more women my age struggle with eating disorders — diagnosed or not — than breast cancer. But anyway, my son told me the best way to lose weight was to find an exercise I loved as a kid. I chose biking because it seemed more realistic than roller skating.
I always had this idea of riding somewhere epic. The Oregon coast. Something cinematic.
I rode to Alamosa once. It was hard, but it wasn’t the mountain pass that nearly broke me — it was the long, straight gunbarrel highway. Mountains at least give you a rest. On flat roads, if you stop pedaling, you stop.
I drank enough water, but I let myself get hungry. By the end I felt weak and sick. When I finally reached Alamosa, I peeled off my shorts and found saddle blisters despite all the expensive gear. Even with sunscreen, I felt baked alive. The next morning I woke with a fever and caught a ride home.
So much for epic aspirations.
Then I was attacked on a ride.
It was early evening on the riverwalk in spring. A young man walked toward me, dressed all in black with a winter beanie pulled low. Something felt wrong immediately — wrong for the season, wrong for the trail.
As I passed him, he lunged. He grabbed my handlebars and wrenched me to a stop. I yelled — I think I yelled — and he spit in my face, hissing like a wildcat and calling me something filthy. Fortunately other walkers rounded the bend, I shouted again and he disappeared into the trees.
The fear came afterward. My hands shook all the way home.
After that, the trail didn’t quite feel like mine anymore.
My riding partners moved away. I stopped riding every day, then stopped riding regularly, and eventually I stopped riding at all.
During the pandemic I bought a cross bike for fifty dollars on Facebook Marketplace. I met the seller at a Sinclair station in Denver. She looked skinny and homeless-y and walked the bike toward us. My son raised his eyebrows and said, “This is how drug deals go down. That bike is probably stolen.”
Maybe. But I love that bike.
It’s faster than a mountain bike but sturdier than a road bike. I started riding again a little, mostly with my sister-in-law when she visited from overseas each summer. She’s strong and serious about cycling. After riding her state-of-the-art bike, I decided I needed a new road bike too.
Here’s the absolute truth about me: even if I were a millionaire, I would never feel good paying full price for something I could get on sale.
So I waited for a pandemic bike — one of those expensive purchases abandoned by optimistic urban cyclists. Eventually I found one in a bougie Denver neighborhood. I bought a nearly new road bike for a tenth of its retail price.
It was so fancy that I brought it inside the house instead of leaving it in the garage.
I rode it twice.
The idea of doing something epic never really left me. I imagine riding across the country and writing a blog every night about the day’s miles. I also imagine moving to Philadelphia and winning the lottery.
I have done none of those things.
Yesterday, though, I put on my biking clothes. I filled the tires. I rode about fifteen miles. Mostly flat miles, but still.
And somewhere along the ride I realized maybe epic doesn’t mean crossing a continent. Maybe epic is just getting back on the bike after everything that made you stop.
I wonder how many times life will offer me that lesson before it finally sinks in.
People keep asking me how retirement is treating me, and the easy answer is—great. But the truth is more complicated. I left the classroom four months ago, yet it feels like a lifetime ago. Teaching is so distant in my mind that I wonder if I have dissociated from the experience, like a trauma I just can’t think about. I feel as if I am emerging from a giant battle, struggling to remove the armor. Each day a little piece comes off. I am lighter and a little more free, but the sensation is so unfamiliar that I don’t always trust it or know what to call it.
Every day I wake up and lean into this new life, taking a few tentative steps while my creative soul is completely unleashed and ready to run. So I’ve been letting that part of me have free rein.
I started a stained glass project. I have fused glass, worked with a torch, and done mosaics, but stained glass is a new art for me. Still, I have complete confidence in my ability to do anything artistic. So I planned an eighteen by twenty four design of a horse, chose my colors, and started cutting glass.
The process became mesmerizing for me. Cutting, grinding, designing my own puzzle pieces. When a piece didn’t come out right, I’d try again. I learned about tools that I didn’t know existed-like a table top foiler. And I cut myself and stepped on glass and realized that stained glass is incredibly messy and should be done in a workshop or a studio and maybe not in the dining room. When I was finally ready to solder, I realized I needed some expert advice. Fortunately, I knew the perfect person.
When I began tacking the glass together and small beads of silver formed along the seams, I worried I might ruin hours of labor. My friend assured me it would come together.
My friend is Beki Javernick, the owner of Driftwood and Clay. I met her a number of years ago and I had been aware of her talent, but didn’t realize what a great teacher she is. She was patient and helpful and we laughed at my complete unorthodox way of tackling a giant project. Mostly, she just gave me the space to do my thing. It was exactly what I needed…an eclectic atmosphere of music, art, and a respect of creativity in all its forms.
As I drew lines of liquid silver, I wondered how I had lived so long inside systems that never quite fit me. My art went from glass shapes to a unified flow of mane, head and neck of a majestic animal. I was sort of shocked to set down the patina brush and see this brilliant transformation.
Usually, when I finish a piece of art, I give it away for someone else to love. The joy for me is the process and the gift of sharing. But this time, I fell in love with the end product itself.
Piece by piece, I trusted the process—making mistakes, starting over, accepting guidance without feeling diminished. I surrendered to the work and trusted my intuition. My creative self has been waiting patiently for space and light.
I might be still setting the armor down. It’s not easy because it took half a life to put it on. But I am determined to get it all off and step into freedom. So that’s what retirement has been for me–not really an ending or a rest, but a slow return to myself. And that is great.
Soon the horse will be in a window and sunlight will pass through it. Maybe that’s the real work of this season: learning how to stand still long enough for the light to find its way through me too.
It’s going on eleven years since my parents were killed. Most nights my dad comes to me in dreams. He doesn’t really do much, just shows up and hangs around doing whatever I am doing in the dream. I don’t dream about my mom much, but when I do she is always at the beach. And she always seems happy.
At first that didn’t make any sense to me. My mother was raised on the shores of Northern Ireland and had almost died in a riptide as a child. She had a fear of the water and bathed in inches of water. She was terrified of the ocean. So why is she always near the ocean in my dreams?
In real life, I only saw my mother at the ocean once. It was in Mexico and I’m not sure how old I was when we went there on a family trip. In the photos I was still a head taller than my brother and had a little girl body in my bathing suit.
It was my first trip to the ocean. I swam out to the waves that would break over my body. The first time I was caught by a wave I felt like I had gotten caught in the spin cycle of a washing machine of epic proportions. I was drowning, but fully aware of my coming demise. I remember saying goodbye to my dog, my brothers, my parents, and my grandpa. Then the wave was gone and I was lying waterlogged in inches of sea foam and hard-packed sand. I struggled up and went and sat on my towel by my mother. She was reading a magazine. I thought about telling her that I almost drown, but figured she wouldn’t let me back in the water, so instead I took a sip of my Pepsi and ran to the water’s edge to tell Kevin. He had embraced being swept up in the waves and said it was body surfing and he showed me to turn to face the beach and then to paddle like mad to stay on top. He was younger, but never had any fear.
Our hotel in Acapulco had a swimming pool with a cascading waterfall at the deep end. My brother came up with the idea of climbing to the top of it and diving off. He coaxed me to the top to take my own plunge. He even got my father to do it. And talked my mom to come into the shallow water and we held her hands and let her use our swim floats. She was shaking, but she sat on the steps with the water up her knees and splashed water over her arms and neck. Kevin and I thought we had won a prize getting our mom in the water.
That vacation in Mexico was my best childhood memory. Dad used his Spanish to find us the best food and got us into places tourists didn’t go. Mom wasn’t cooking or cleaning or trying to get me to be a girly, girl. She didn’t let her fear stop us from experiencing the seashore, or the epic pool. My brother was beside me, making me a little braver and pulling me into his adventures. That’s when I fell in love with the exact place where the sky meets the ocean.
I realize that now when I see my dreams of my parents at the beach it is for my comfort, not theirs. I see my dad deep sea fishing and my mom relaxing in the sun with the horizon before them, and I am at peace.
Maybe that’s what love does after it has nowhere left to go—it rearranges itself into something you can visit. Not as it was, with all its edges and fears and unfinished conversations, but as something wider, softer. A place where the things that frightened us no longer have power.
My mother, who once feared the ocean, sits easily beside it now. Not because she changed, but because I needed her to. Because somewhere in me, I am still that child coming up for air, still wanting to turn and say, Did you see that? Am I going to be okay?
And in these dreams, the answer is always yes.
She doesn’t have to speak it. It’s there in the way she faces the water without flinching, in the way the light rests on her shoulders, in the quiet permission to come closer to the edge of things.
Today, she would have been ninety-five.
I imagine her there—on that endless shore where the sky meets the ocean—unafraid, unhurried, and whole. And I understand now that the gift she gave me wasn’t just that one perfect trip, or even the courage to wade in. It was something steadier: the ability to return, again and again, to a place where love outlasts fear.
Not being able to carry a tune kind of sucks. I love music. Ever since I was a little, I’d choose the radio over TV any day of the week. I always wanted to be the girl that wrote the songs. I just always thought having musical ability was a requirement.
When I was a baby, I had Reyes Syndrome–a rare illness that is linked to aspirin that can cause brain inflammation, coma and death. My case became a whole family saga involving a helicopter flight, a team of Army doctors, Native Americans praying over me, and eventually being the first survivor to walk out of that particular hospital.
It was one of those stories my parents liked to tell to strangers. It also kind of made me want to crawl into a hole.
It’s hard to feel heroic about something you barely remember. The memories that I do have are mostly watching things happen while my voice didn’t work. I remember my baby brother walking into the room and no one noticing he wanted his hat off. I remember waking needing to use the bathroom but being pinned down by tubes and not knowing how to get up. Stuff like that.
My mom said that I had to learn to walk again. I vaguely remember that part–a painful pilgrimage across a bridge in a room with tall people in white coats watching. She said that I lost my rhythm. Before I got sick, I could carry a tune. Afterward, I couldn’t.
Spending time in Asbury Park, walking in the shadows of all the musical history that I grew up with, made me think about it differently. I started writing down images from my life–starting with my grandpa’s kitchen table and ending with throwing a piece of driftwood on the beach last weekend.
The list turned into a poem. The poem turned into a song. Then the song needed a chorus so people could sing along.
I plugged my lyrics into Suno and a track appeared. I was blown away. I accidentally typed in list instead of lost, so one lyric is wrong, and I think the line about counting calories needs a little tweaking. But still–I think it’s a freaking amazing song.
Now I just to need to get a real person. not a robot to sing it.
The nice thing about a robot, though, is that it never loses patience. I change one word, remix it, speed it up , slow it down, add violins–whatever I want.
A real person probably would have quit by lunch.
Yesterday, retirement looked like sitting around in sweats and spending five or six hours writing a single song. I say that like it’s a bad thing, but honestly, I don’t think anything has made me feel so high or so alive.
Maybe I woke up from a coma when I was a little kid. But part of my voice stayed hidden, too scared to enter the room.
Philadelphia is one of my favorite cities to visit. Every place I travel has energy–Alaska is majestic–Oregon is wild–the Philippines are generous–and Philadelphia is vibrant. It is a city of history and art. People talk fast and loud and offer up opinions unsolicited. Maybe it seems brusque and busy, maybe a little dangerous and dirty, but Philadelphia makes me feel alive and awake.
Musical theater took me to Philadelphia on this trip. First off, I am not a musical theater freak, but I have a healthy appreciation born from my experiences in high school. I never performed, but I spent a lot of time backstage painting sets and helping with the design elements. In fact, I used to dream that one day I’d move to Broadway and paint sets. So when a friend of mine from high school co-wrote the musical “Starstruck,” there was no question about flying out for the world premiere in New Hope, PA.
My friend, Mary Ann Stratton wrote “Starstruck” with a Tony award winning actress, Beth Malone. One of the Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers wrote the music. While the musical has only been on stage for about two weeks, it has already made a huge splash in the New York Times. All of this is impressive, but I am not surprised. I have known Mary Ann since I was four years old, and she has big energy and I have always believed that she could make anything happen.
When we were in high school, she’d pull up in my driveway in her ghetto fabulous Pinto and we’d set off for a movie or fries at McDonald’s and a whole adventure would unfold that was always unexpected and usually hilarious and unbelievable at the same time. Mary Ann carried drama with her the same way others bring snacks or sunglasses. Through all those adventures, we formed a bond that years and miles never erased. Seeing her name up on the building marquee made me feel so proud. I know how long this road has been for her and it is an honor to see her dazzle in the light.
Even more exciting than the musical to me was just being able to hang out in my favorite city with my friend. In a typical Mary Ann and Michelle fashion, it got off to a weird start. She put in the address to pick me up without a city and Google Maps took her to New Jersey, then back over the bridge and through the heart of the city out to the suburbs before we connected. While I was waiting, I left my wallet in a flowerpot and had to backtrack to get it. We just laughed because this is exactly how we roll when we are together. We saw the Liberty Bell and the Love sign, checked out all the fun booths and food at Reading Terminal Station and marveled at the murals decorating the skyline. We talked the whole time, but never finished a conversation because we kept interrupting ourselves to ogle over what was right in front of us.
Hours after she dropped me off at the airport, it occurred to me that we might have been in a big city, celebrating big accomplishments, but we are the same two small town girls just spending time doing what we always have done–wandering around, talking over each other, laughing at our own chaos, and soaking up whatever happens to be in front of us.
Maybe that’s why Philadelphia feels so right to me. It’s a city that doesn’t try to smooth out its edges. It’s loud and messy and full of history, but also full of people chasing big, improbable dreams. Standing there looking at my friend’s name on a theater marquee, I realized that the distance between a small-town driveway and a city stage isn’t as impossible as it once seemed. Sometimes it’s just a long string of strange adventures, wrong turns, and good stories with the right people.
Blogging on the road is usually part of my travel plans. I was in Philadelphia in October and didn’t write about it, and I am in Philly again, and writing about New Jersey. I came this weekend to see my friend’s musical that she co-wrote. Another friend of mine from high school also lives out here, so it’s like a mini reunion, but I am squeezing in one or two solo road trips.
Just in case anyone is confused about geography, Philadelphia is an hour away from the beach. If I can get any chance to go to a beach, I am going. When I told the bus driver I was going to the beach, he gave me a look like I was crazy. It was cold, misty, rainy and there is still mounds of snow piled up from a recent storm. I did not care, the ocean is the ocean.
I rented a car and headed on the expressway toward the Jersey shore. Again, I found myself in this place of total nirvana–behind the wheel with the radio up is like church for me. A peace settles in and the possibilities seem as endless as the sky, except in Jersey, the fog creates a dense tunnel framed with pine trees–more of a misty portal than a wide open vista. The landscape doesn’t matter. It’s concentrating on the road ahead that sets me free.
There are lots of beach towns in New Jersey and they all have their own personality. I had my sights set on Asbury Park, because well, Bruce Springsteen. I pulled right up to the old building with the murals where the carousel was housed and I knew I had arrived.
Here is the great thing about being an all around the year beach lover. No crowds. When I stepped out of the car, I could hear the Atlantic. It was roaring. The tide was coming in and big waves were forming and breaking over dark, black rocks and had a moment of hesitation–the historic boardwalk, or the sand?
The ocean won and I headed down to the water. I walked for a couple of hours, just marveling at the waves and the sand and the rock. The tide was coming in, so each wave came in closer and higher. There was one brave surfer taking advantage of the high water and one photographer trying to capture the dolphins that were jumping far out in the gray. For the first time in a long time, I wished that I had a better camera with me.
On my return trip, I took in the Boardwalk. I always can imagine what beach places are like in the summer by their winter bones. Asbury Park isn’t completely hibernating. The music history keeps it drowsy, but not asleep. The Paramount auditorium is massive, ocean weathered, but gothic, impressive, echoing with grandeur and greatness. I saw the Stone Pony and the Wonder Bar and all the amazing murals. There was a band playing, even though the crowd was more like a smattering of dog walkers and locals out for a lark. I could feel the crowds around me though-it’s like spirit of people gathered to see the Doors and the Stones never really left.
I didn’t take the same route back to Philadelphia, instead I went through Atlantic City. I thought I might drop into a casino and play a dollar or two for mom’s luck. Instead, I just parked in the heart of the city and returned a phone call to one of my cousins. We’ve had a couple of deaths in our family and just because I am at the beach doesn’t mean my family isn’t in my heart.
I cannot deny the road is pulling me. There is something about the freedom and the ocean that fills my soul that nothing else ever has. I used to think my family anchored me to a place, but I am questioning that now.
Maybe my family isn’t an anchor at all.
Maybe they are more like a series of buoys, guiding me in and out of the currents.
The expression is…March comes in like a lion…well, I never loved that expression. It implies turbulence and storms. Lions in reality lie around in the sun a lot gathering strength for their one best shot of a good hunt. But I have to say, this March is living up to the old expression.
First of all, I started the month off by painting a store window. In a previously written blog, I mentioned the new location of a local yarn store. The owner asked if I would paint the windows because it may take a while to get a new sign. I love painting windows, so no problem. But I got a slow start because I have lost my rhythm for painting big projects. My truck is not working, so I have to approach the job without my ladders and gear. And, in general I wasn’t sure how it would it would all come together. I decided just to start with cartoon sheep–simple, fun, whimsical. A man came up and asked me if the new shop was a mattress store. I stenciled in “yarn shop.” I painted tassels across the top of the windows and stood back and looked at it and decided it had a faint Asian flair–maybe a Chinese mattress store, but I didn’t have time to fix it because I needed to drive up to Boulder.
About a month ago I wrote a script for a production for a literary show entitled Listen to Your Mother which is a live show in Boulder. My script was chosen for an in-person audition. I was excited, but the trip to Boulder was bizarre. In Colorado Springs, the rain started. My windshield wiper was showing signs of needing to be replaced and the other one wasn’t working at all. I had no idea why. When did it break, anyway? I didn’t stop and try to fix it; my weather app said the rain was going to stop, so I kept going and made it to Boulder early. I drove around a bit in an area now called NOBO. Boulder is SO pretentious. I started remembering some horrible things that happened to me while I was in college. I actually flashed on this image of myself in a black t-shirt standing on a corner with a plastic hospital ID on my wrist, trying to figure out who to call to pick me up when I didn’t have a quarter in my pocket and I wasn’t sure where my car was. I don’t think about college much, and to be transported back in time like that, felt really real, both upsetting and scaring me a bit. I almost started crying, but it was time for the audition. I felt so off my game. Even though I was supposed to stay with a friend afterwards, I just drove home. I drove straight into a swirling, wet snowstorm with a floppy windshield and almost zero disability. I don’t know what it is about going on road trips and ending up in dark weather vortexes that make me wonder if my last will and testament are up to date. I did make it home safe once again.
I didn’t get into the show. I got a nice rejection note, blah, blah. I was a little disappointed, but also okay, because driving up to Boulder a few times might have been a big commitment and maybe a show like that isn’t where my writing is supposed to take me right now.
I did start wondering about WHERE I am supposed to go though. I feel like I have been retired three months now and a direction should be coming clearer. Why isn’t it, though?
Then I got on a plane to Philadelphia. One of childhood my friends wrote a musical. I didn’t want my confusion to diminish how proud I am of her success, so on the way to Philadelphia, I tried to prepare myself for being in the moment for my friend.
Philadelphia is only about sixty miles to Atlantic City. I always want to see the ocean if I can and I had the first day alone. I thought I could get myself to the beach, delight in waves and sea foam, walk in the sand and then get to the musical. I didn’t know trains don’t run until the afternoon during the week, so I found myself on a bus. A very slow bus. After about two hours, I’d only gone half way. I realized that I would not be able to get back in time for the play, so I decided to return to the city. It reminded me of Demon Copperhead, when the character tries to get to ocean, but crappy things keep happening to him.
As I was looking out the bus window at endless strip malls and row houses and graffiti, it felt like being in a music video I had seen back in the early nineties. Out of nowhere I remembered that Bruce Springsteen is from New Jersey and all of a sudden, I realized I didn’t want to go to Atlantic City anyway.
I thought about college and Boulder again. I spent hours listening to music, trying to figure out my way back to myself. One summer I discovered Bruce–not the Born in the USA Bruce–the gritty, unfiltered Bruce. I bought all his music at an Albums on the Hill and then deep dived into his lyrics. I had a Springsteen t-shirt that I wore for so long that it became a rag. I still have it folded into a plastic bag, because for some reason holding on to that scrap of fabric was an important reminder of my survival. I googled how to get to Asbury Park.
So maybe March really does come in like a lion. Not the dramatic, roaring, charging, killing kind, but the real kind. The lion that spends long hours stretched in the sun waiting for that one, decisive moment.
So far this month has felt a little like that–cartoon sheep–painting on glass, a surface that is streaky and difficult–a strange drive through a city I no longer recognize to unbury painful memories of a forgotten time–a kind rejection letter–a drive toward an ocean that I didn’t see. None of it felt like progress if life is measured by neat accomplishments or tidy plans.
But somewhere between the swirling snow, the Jersey strip malls, and the memory of that worn-out Springsteen t-shirt, I remembered something important. There was a time in my life when music and words helped me claw my way back to myself. Back then I didn’t know where I was going either. I just knew that surviving meant listening closely to the voice that said keep going.
Maybe retirement isn’t about immediately discovering a clear new direction. Maybe it’s more like those lions in the sun—resting, watching, remembering who you are, and waiting for the moment when the next right thing appears.
For now, I’ll paint the windows. I’ll write the stories. And if the ocean wants to wait for me a little longer, that’s okay too.
When I was growing up, we had a den with a stone fireplace. In the evenings, we’d gather together as family in front of one of those great family sit-coms-like Happy Days or The Jeffersons. My dad would usually lie on the floor with his feet up on the couch and fall asleep, and my mom would sit in the corner of the couch, her hands busy with something, embroidery or knitting. I loved watching the glint of the firelight reflect off of her flashing needles. I always thought I’d learn to knit, but fiber arts was never really my jam.
When I inherited an art classroom, the yarn was a snarly mess and and I didn’t really know what to do with the cardboard looms, or big, plastic needles, and for awhile I decided that yarn stuff was craft, not art, and I ignored it.
Then I went on a field trip with the fourth graders and learned how to spin wool. I realized that spinning wool, making yarn, and turning the yarn into something beautiful and useful was an opportunity to connect art with history and I began a weaving unit. I knew the basics of weaving, but I just had to be better than a fourth graders.
About a year or so ago, a few of my friends talked me into a knitting class at the local Yarned & Dangerous store. I’d been in the store, because I like color and pattern and texture, but in my head I didn’t consider myself a fiber artist. I went to the class more to be with my friends than to learn a new skill; I didn’t know that the store would change my life.
Yarned & Dangerous is not just a store; it’s a live colorful, warm, inviting community. You are greeted when you walk in the door and welcomed into experiencing the space. There is a big table where people gather to knit, crochet, weave, or just sit a moment and take in the vibe.
The owner of the store, Tammy Cox, has built a rich inventory of all things fiber and she is kind, patient and helpful. She personally helped me knit a sweater, because I always have to start big with everything I try, so I picked a sweater that was made in pieces and stitched together. It took me five months to figure it all out, but I had help at every turn. I call it the village sweater, because it took “the village” to grow it. It’s not perfect, but I love it because I became part of the community during its creation.
Recently, the store has moved across the street. Tammy and her husband Aaron have worked countless hours reburbishing the Old Taggert building downtown into the new yarn space. From the ceiling to the floor, they have stripped, sanded, painted, refit, redid, re-everything and transformed a cold, cavernous skeleton of a warehouse into a kaleidoscope of color. I have been in the building a few times during the transition, but I walked in on opening day and was completely blown away with the beauty. Even though the merchandise hasn’t really changed the space is big enough so all the colors and textures really command their own spotlights. It’s honestly kind of magical. It reminds me of those cozy evenings I had as a kid, surrounded by people I love, where everyone knew my name.
During this time of transition, while I am learning to breathe and heal and listen to my heart, Yarned & Dangerous has become my refuge. Even though, I still consider myself more of a painter or mosaic artist, I’ve come to understand that community doesn’t have to be rooted in one medium, or even one place. Yarned & Dangerous isn’t about just yarn, or any single form of making; it’s about connection, courage, and the shared act of creating in a world that often asks artists to work alone. It allows for restlessness, for movement, for new landscapes both literal and internal. Rather than anchoring me, it travels with me—an open table instead of a fixed studio, a gathering point instead of a destination. In this way, Yarned & Dangerous becomes exactly what I need in this season of life: a creative home that leaves the door open, invites others in, and still lets the road call my name.
I am so grateful that I stumbled into this place. Yarned & Dangerous has helped me realize that I can still grow and learn and thrive. I feel fortunate and proud to know that it is part of my community.
Just Another Damn Thing to be Strong About 