On January 3rd at 3 a.m. my very first grandson, Luca Maliek Timothy Donovan was born. He’s well. Mama and Dad are getting better and asking the age old questions, “how do I keep him alive?” and “what have I done?” Here is a poem for little Luca from John…
“Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be Notorious.” Rumi Today I started teaching a class “Living Out Loud ” for the Transformative Language Arts Network . The first class addresses how fear and shame silence us. What do we fear when we consider sharing a…
I told myself, “It’s just a chair. Get rid of it. It’s only a chair.” Ah, but what a chair. Big, soft, comfy, and a recliner. A real chair. A sit back, put your legs up, pop the top, watch tv, fall asleep in, and drool kind of chair. A…
It was 1965, the year of the aluminum Christmas tree and the revolving colored lights. Everything was changing in my hometown, Clayton, NY. We got a stop sign at the corner of James and Riverside Drive. My brothers wore their hair long and my sisters pinned up their skirts on…
My sister Mary and I are playing cops and robbers in the dining room as usual. We play it every night. Mary is always the cop. I’m always the robber. I’m always caught. I’m always guilty. I’m always tortured. I’m the youngest of five. I know my role. She…