Notes from The Middle of Nowhere

Notes from The Middle of Nowhere

When you need a shower after four grubby days of squatting in the sage brush for your early morning pee, when you’ve put on the same clothes day after day because mornings are too cold to rummage around for something clean, be grateful for the hose, stretched out in...
Mama Wants to Fix Everything

Mama Wants to Fix Everything

“Oh Laurie, will you please just go get a boyfriend!” My Mother, Suzy pleads, wringing her hands right there on FaceTime.  Thank goodness for Suzy. She always supplies me with such perfect material when I’m scratching around for a blog post. And here I was going to...
For Dear Life

For Dear Life

The heater isn’t working, so I pull out a hoodie, remembering Zoe telling me last week that everyone needs a hoodie – a cozy pullover that goes over your head, that you might even hide out in. Zoe said that their own hoodie had saved them many times. Maybe it...
Why I Write

Why I Write

Because my 88-year-old mother starts sentences with, “Now don’t you go telling your siblings what I’m about to say.” And because it’s mostly about things she’s forgotten, like a date with a friend that she didn’t write down and how they showed up at her door. She...
A Hall Pass from the Universe

A Hall Pass from the Universe

For a couple of years now I’ve been aware of something that I can only describe as a big bend in the road ahead for me. One of those wide, wide curves you might take in a train or a car in a vast landscape, the bend so wide that you can’t see around it, can’t see...