Along the Writer's Way

Exploring Fortunes and Reflections In Japan

The giant bronze Buddha stares impassively, hands in a mudra of peace and harmony. Somewhere out there, beyond a flawless blue sky, enlightenment resides. I have searched for it, or at least tried.

The white crane in the gardens above Kanazawa wanders through the pond, under the bridge, and strolls out the other end. I watch her graceful pose as I take her picture; white feathers glow in the sun. She represents longevity, purity, peace, and good fortune.

Or the brilliant rose-colored muhlenbergia blooming in profusion at the foot of Fuji-san. My son, my traveling companion and tour guide, is visiting Japan for the third time. We are here at the end of the Flower Festival. He and I were supposed to make this trip 22 years ago, but a typhoon canceled my plans.

Here in Japan, just a walk through a garden can ease, although hardly erase, the horror of Hiroshima, where flowers rise on a pathway leading to the Atomic Dome. Bonsai trees glow in golden sunlight near the pond with koi fish, and the graceful wooden temple with a sloping roof, built in the 8^th century, stands as a testament to past and present.

Our lives are gone in an instant, but here in the Land of the Rising Sun, the sense of God, perfection, is felt…

Back on the bullet train, a high-speed machine that traverses the country at 120 mph, we head to the next stop in our journey. On the train, everyone is dressed in black, white, and tan, as if in uniforms; the plainer and more nondescript, the better. Almost everyone’s eyes are glued to their cellphone. I check mine, only for the time. It is already 3 p.m., and the sun goes down here by 5:30, and the shops in the geisha district close at the same time.

Red paper lanterns light the narrow streets, evoking old Japan. I read my fortune after shaking a bamboo stick that releases a number, and the assigned numerical drawer holds my fortune. I have an “excellent” fortune, filled with good things, including “Your fame and honor rise all over society”… and “Your request will be granted. The patient will get well soon. The lost article will be found.” I get the part about the patient getting well soon. But “the lost will be found” is strange. This could be anyone, anything, or me.

Not all fortunes are good. Those who got a bad one tie their paper fortunes to a line outside the temple so that the bad luck can be left behind and not follow them home.

Ordering food is done through kiosks, and checking in at our VRBOs is also done through a touch screen. When a person does appear, whether to assist with leading you to a table in the small restaurant, specializing in udon in hot broth with soy sauce and scallions, it is usually a petite woman wearing mostly black or tan who smiles graciously. There is a quiet patience and kindness to this place and its people, especially the women. That counts for a lot when you are 7,000 miles from home.

The older I get, the more I wonder how much, if anything, lies beyond the horizon. I’ve done so much in my life; what else is there?

Still, instead, I will let the moments simmer, savoring the simplicity, the smell of sandalwood incense burning everywhere, permeating the air. At an ancient samurai house swarming with tourists, I see them so preoccupied with taking photos that the garden beneath the terrace and the warm air of an October morning seem lost on them. One has stopped on a dime in front of me on the narrow wooden stairways; I need to catch the railing to keep from falling.

I will ponder the beauty and complexity of an evening walk at nightfall, led by a Buddhist monk who tells us that this past summer he spent two months in Wilmington, Delaware, of all places. He thought it a very cool place. It is a small world, even here on Koyasan’s mountaintop. He leads us through a cemetery, paying homage to Jizo, the guardian of deceased children, miscarried or aborted. We stop at the corporate grave sites, one of which bears the Nissan symbol, the maker of my car. Would I want to be buried next to those I went to work with every day? I think not.

How do I apply these travels to my life? To my writing? I know about loss, about grief, but, for me, depression rarely comes calling. Or am I numb after all the losses that come with aging?

I am open to those different from me while recognizing how many similarities we share, including the ubiquitous cellphone. I learn more about myself, who I am, what I love most; the garden where lanterns glow with orange light at sunset, how to shut out the noise in the midst of a world that at times seems to have gone mad—the protests in France, the corrupt presidents at home and in the Middle East. As the great Zen Buddhist writer, D. T. Suzuki, said: “The privilege of being human is to discriminate between the good from the evil, and just because of this discrimination we can transcend the two and live in a world of innocence … transcendence does not mean dropping off, or leaving behind or ignoring or being indifferent.”

Travel is a landscape of many parts that come together in a whole. Nothing resides in a void, neither our innocence nor our fury at the unjust, which we acknowledge when we open our senses to the world, take stock, and pause like the white crane. My fortune is excellent, after all. And so, I travel and pass through the gates where others have gone before me, seeking quiet, hope, and faith.

Memoir Writing: Embracing Life’s Pivotal Moments

I still remember the beautiful sunny Friday, September 11, 1987, peeling carrots in the kitchen for my husband’s 40^th birthday party. The baby wasn’t due for three weeks, but he had other ideas. As John returned home from the hospital, where he had just undergone chemotherapy treatment for his cancer, I said, “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to turn around and go back to the hospital. The baby is coming.”

And so it was that I wrote about this in my memoir, Again in a Heartbeat. Our son was born at 4:12 p.m., in time for John to return home and celebrate his birthday with friends, as we had ordered all the platters of food and it was too late to cancel. I stayed in the hospital with Daniel, whose life would not have been possible if his father had been diagnosed six months earlier than he was, as the operation had left us unable to ever conceive again.

When Daniel turned 14 on September 11, 2001, I was working as a reporter for a major daily newspaper, so of course, his birthday plans were derailed by a tragedy of unimaginable proportions. And just like the day he was born, it was a beautiful, sunny day with flawless blue September skies. How strange life is.

Writing that memory of my husband’s and son’s birthday, and recalling it in as much detail as I can, offers a close look at the memoir writer’s journey. It transports the writer back to that moment, time, and place. Sunlight on the kitchen counter, the quick phone call to my mother, who said it wasn’t possible as the baby wasn’t due for three weeks. The exact details of the memory may have changed over time, but the feelings remain poignant, even as the years pass by. So we share with our readers the days of our lives, especially those that ultimately impacted us and still do.

A field of vibrant yellow wildflowers under a clear blue sky, surrounded by green foliage.

A woman in a blue floral top stands next to a display of books at a table, featuring titles like 'Slants of Light' and 'Morning at Wellington Square'.

It takes a strong person to go back and write the hardest times, but as they say, we don’t have forever, and if we don’t write it, the memory, the life, will be forgotten. Often, we reach for what Julia Cameron calls in The Artist’s Way, “blocks that slow our growth. If we are honest with ourselves, we all know which blocks are the toxic ones for us. Clue: this is the block we defend as our right.”

Is our writing derailed by fear, by something as toxic as diversions such as social media, by eating too much or drinking too much, or by saying, “I’ll get to it tomorrow”? And sometimes, even when we do get to it, we don’t really “get to it”…that being the emotional honesty, or the heart of what we are trying to say, because it is too scary. My husband is sick, so I will write about the treatment and his healing and not my terrible fear that he could die and I will be left alone.

Then we pull out that special photo, or another perfect September day triggers a memory and helps unblock the writer. Which details to include, which to leave out, who is important in that scene, and why that scene and not another come with time, with daily writing and work to improve our craft.

We care for ourselves by lighting a candle, closing the door on the distractions of the outside world, brewing a cup of tea or coffee, and pouring it into our favorite mug.

A stone memorial with the inscription 'An ordinary Man who did so many extraordinary things' surrounded by greenery and a low stone wall.

I remember that September day when Daniel was born; I was a child myself. I had no idea what was in store: the long years without John, the years of raising two sons on my own, and also how much I missed John. “A woman alone” became a tentative title for another memoir, and although I never used it, it served as a useful template to answer that all-important question: what is my story about? But thanks to memoir, I wrote about life’s pivotal moments as best as I could, when I could.

The Unfolding Tragedy in the Himalayas: A Personal Tale

You know how life goes. The day-to-day existence of food shopping, cleaning the house, scheduling a gentle yoga class.

So much of the world news interests me. Still, most of it has little to do with my life—the Strait of Hormuz remains closed another day, Meta is forking over 17.2 billion because they created a product young people are not only addicted to, but that harms their developing brains.

And then one day you open the newspaper, and there it is. Fate’s unforgiving hand. The personal story.

It was barely three months ago my son wended his way through the Gyirong Border Port in Tibet around 10 am on a sunny morning. As he and so many others traveled through Tibet on the journey of a lifetime, getting an up-close and personal look at the Himalayas and Mt. Everest, life was excellent. He sent me photos of sweeping landscapes and snow-peaked, majestic mountain ranges…and of his Tibetan tour guide in saffron robes and dark sunglasses.

Less than a decade ago, I traveled not to Tibet, but to Nepal with my son. We hiked the Annapurna Range, the birthplace of Buddha, in the north-central Nepal Himalayas.

I was one of the lucky ones, as was my son. We saw what we had come to see and returned home safely.

Reading about the disaster this past week has felt like being caught in a haunted trance. I cannot stop poring over articles about the glacier rushing down the Himalayas at 120 miles an hour, ice pulverized with seismic force before crashing into the river below, now still moving at 45 miles an hour toward Gyirong and the Port Building where my son stood on that sunny May day.

An apocalyptic scene relegating Hollywood disaster films to Tinker Toys.

Why them on August 26 and not me? Over 4,000 dead and missing now. The randomness of it leaves me numb and exhausted. All those Sundays spent in church hearing about and ultimately believing in a loving and merciful God. Had I invested my faith in a false idol?

In clearer moments, I realize this tragedy was human-made, not God-made. We create global warming; we trek the Himalayas, leaving behind human waste and trash defiling the beauty of God’s landscape. We seek the exotic and the spiritual.

Now all we have are the news stories, the Facebook threads and reels of unimaginable catastrophe captured by the ubiquitous cell phone…the unsuspecting going about their day, walking the dog, cutting up vegetables for the noon-day meal…patiently waiting in a passport checkpoint line. Suddenly, completely wiped out, the only warning a deafening, thunderous roar. Then the deluge, the sand, the mud, the boulders burying them with unleashed fury. My mind is a jumble filled with an unimaginable collage of horrifying images.

Mass graves, and then a miraculous story…a 7-year-old girl pulled from the mud and debris.

nepali children — Photo by Susan Weidener

This is why I write, why I write this now.

Putting it down in words.

Melting glacier beside drought-cracked land and wildfire smoke

The total unfairness of life, the beauty, and mostly my life and how I traveled there and remember the people: our Nepali tour guide who dreamed of starting his own tour business and did…the little boy in flip-flops in the flower-scented hills flying a homemade kite made from candy wrappers…the long bus ride past rivers and villages to the search for the elusive Bengal tiger in the jungles of Chitwan.

Gold light slants across brilliant green rice fields as the evening sun sets across a cerulean sky. Old men hunch over, carrying bales of straw on their backs, walking dirt roads where dogs sleep oblivious to passing cars and motorbikes. Women squat along riverbanks, washing clothes.

We all want the same thing: a roof over our heads, food on the table to feed our families, and for our children to survive. This is where I practice gratitude. I have that. What more is needed?

Life goes on. What can be said?

One Nepali man put it best after losing his wife and daughters. “They were unlucky. I was lucky.”

Take Risks in Writing: Embrace Creativity and Justice

This week I scheduled a September 12 read-around. It begins the 17^th season of the Women’s Writing Circle. Over the years, we have welcomed dozens of new writers in the Circle, a sacred container where women find their voice through writing.

One of the reasons I do this year after year, and now it seems more important than ever, is to bring people together in community.

At a roundtable discussion yesterday in church, the topic was how we offer our gifts to help make the community a better place. One question was: When was the last time you saw someone bring harmony or justice to a situation? This was followed by the next question: When was the last time you brought harmony or justice to a situation?

Folded paper sculptures and autumn leaves wrapped in glowing light strands

Some people said they do this simply by listening, not judging, even when what the other person says is personally offensive, usually when it involves politics. It’s safer not to say anything. The priest said that he heard in another group discussion: if you take the risk and say something honestly, even in a family setting, people will listen.

Taking the risk is precisely why I started the Women’s Writing Circle. In the Circle, we empower each other to speak without apology, as reflected in our writing and our stories.

So as this new season begins, whether you belong to a writing group or not, I think we can go in any direction we like. Ralph Waldo Emerson warned against over-caution, advising people not to be “too timid and squeamish about your actions.” Life, after all, is an experiment, he noted.

For the novelist, making up scenes, characters, and situations is the grist of the creative mind. And when the creative mind is free to explore, imagine, and reinvent, the writer has truly found her courage.

Even in memoir and creative nonfiction, writing comes from firsthand knowledge and experience, keeping in mind that people (characters) often come disguised as who they want to be, not who they are.

As always, I have found that a work in progress gives us the desire to get up in the morning and write. The project may not be a “totally safe subject,” but if you believe the goal is harmony and justice—or what writers sometimes call redemption and reconciliation—then you are less cautious about breaking out of your comfort zone and taking risks.

Or have you been “taught” to write only “feel-good stories” or children’s fantasies posing as truth? For my part, I am working on a novel that takes time and discernment, and I admit I am grappling with fortitude (and courage) to finish. (More on that later.)

Only you know what drives you to write. It’s so easy. Just pick up the pen or open the laptop and do it. Many won’t, however.

I look forward to a new writing season. How about you?

Healing Through Memoir: The Power of Writing

For many memoirists, writing is a heavy yet healing journey. They are willing to look back, for they know that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. They understand that pain, hardship, and loss often come with something else: the realization that their story is now one they can live with and fully embrace. Hopefully, the regrets have been parsed and written down, and the journey leads toward acceptance that life is both trial and triumph, not only for them but for those they write about.

In July, I celebrated the 16^th anniversary of the publication of my memoir Again in a Heartbeat. I wrote that book quickly, without a lot of editing, as a child, a woman journalist, and a bereaved wife. Over and over again, the memoir has given me the gift of fellowship with others who have read the book. They have told me that my story is much like their story, and is—at least to me—our story. A few readers suggested that the book be used as a tool for group therapy for couples struggling with a terminal disease. (I tried that, but was unsuccessful.)

A charming cottage with lit windows surrounded by lush colorful flowers and plants beneath a swirling star-filled night sky with a crescent moon

My memoir journey might really have begun when I was growing up in a small leafy suburb outside Philadelphia. I was aware even as a little girl that people wear masks, that their true selves hid behind closed doors, whether it was to impress the Joneses or because they felt it was unseemly to expose their alcoholism or domestic violence.

One woman I remember well. She was the epitome of the unhappy housewife, overweight and with a face as plain as a pancake. She took out her anger on me, a nine-year-old girl. She blamed me for something I didn’t do, and I ran home crying to my mother when the other children shunned me. The indelible impression this experience left on me was that adults are not to be trusted. Authority was not to be trusted. People had ulterior motives and were capable of doing damage to the most young and impressionable.

As I grew older, I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I could challenge authorities. I could question what others weren’t. The limitations of journalism, however, meant never writing about the people I knew best or even that parochial neighborhood I grew up in.

The joy of creative nonfiction became writing about people and places that framed my story, but were also their story and our story. I began to understand that motivation was complex and that life is never black or white but shades of gray.

But what of those whose “stories” ended abruptly? Those who died too young, or suffered an untimely death? Are their stories forgotten? This is really what writing offers many: an opportunity to keep alive the story of someone greatly loved. Chronicling the death of my husband, John Cavalieri, who died three weeks after his 47^th birthday, opened the door for keeping his memory alive, putting into words that he, too, walked this earth.

Those who want religion to “explain” this tragedy of early death are sometimes a bit annoying and condescending. They want us to understand that even the purest human who ever walked the earth was spat upon and died an unjust and horrible death, so accept it. “Faith Allows for Hardship” was the topic of a recent church lecture. After all, it makes sense intellectually and is a matter of faith, for sure. But emotionally it is hard to come to grips with. Enjoying the beauty of each day, finding gratitude in the unexpected and extraordinary, and accepting that life is a mystery are ways I cope.

Wooden desk with open notebook, pen, books, cup of coffee, and a brass lamp by a window with garden view

Then again, when we lose someone we loved, our own selfishness kicks in. Life didn’t turn out the way we had hoped, dreamed, or expected. It was a betrayal by someone we trusted. How could this happen to me?

Maybe the answer lies in community, in being part of a writing group where all of us write stories that resonate on some level. Group discussion after a piece has been read opens up opportunities to reflect on their own stories. Our Women’s Writing Circle celebrates its 17th anniversary this November.

And so I continue to live not a life unexamined, but one better understood through writing, an ongoing healing tool that my story is their story and our story.

I invite you to reflect on your own experiences. How has writing helped you process regrets or move toward acceptance?

Cherishing Moments with My Aging Lab

I just got back from taking Lily for her annual wellness exam. At 13 years and 2 months old, a lab is already quite old. I know that our time together is coming to a close. But not yet. She has a healthy heart and lungs, and except for honking heavy breathing when it’s hot—a result of a geriatric larynx—I am proud of my old girl. She is a warrior and a survivor, and although she has slowed down, she remains an excellent watchdog with perfect hearing and eyesight, as far as I can tell.

Just watching her contented, utterly peaceful sleep makes idleness seem so much more worthwhile.

This summer is passing by quickly, and I have yet to go anywhere for any extended vacation time, but I count my quiet afternoons reading with Lily by my side as a blessing.

Everything that matters in the world to me is right here at home. My yellow lab, my sons who live nearby and visit often, my books—I just ordered the complete collection of stories by Flannery O’Connor, coming late to the party about her but intrigued when hearing she is a touchstone on questions of faith and speaks her mind—and all the streaming services I need to watch a good movie or series at night.

A couple walking down a garden path lined with blooming magnolia trees

I admit that I have a taste for the somewhat saccharine series Sweet Magnolias on Netflix, where three women navigate their relationships and careers. I also find myself drawn to more outrageous options like Worst Neighbor Ever and Worst Ex Ever, also on Netflix. The prevalence of psychotic individuals in these shows is alarming. However, not surprising. Unhinged and psychotic behavior is familiar to many of us who go on to write about it.

I have just started reading Brooklyn, by Colum Toibin, about a young woman coming from Ireland to America. His writing is easy to read, and his stories peppered with interesting and ordinary characters. Although I thought his novel, The Testament of Mary, was a former Catholic’s revolt against the mystery of Christ as God, I was turned on to him by a writer in our Women’s Writing Circle, which is why fellowship in a writing group is not just an exchange of ideas but information on authors to explore.

20260708_1850434331273427540822443 — Lily luxuriating in summer.

July was also the month I celebrated my birthday, and it led me to realize that, like Lily, my aging lab, I am looking at the final third of my life closing in with each passing day.

How to cope with aging was the genesis for my novel And the Memory Returns. I still have no definitive answers other than to keep writing, stay active, keep writing, cultivate friendships, keep writing… and yes, you see? There is one constant refrain.

As Charles Bukowski declared in his poem “So You Want to Be a Writer”… “don’t be like so many writers, don’t be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don’t be dull and boring and pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-love….”

Golden retriever sleeping on porch rug next to rocking chair with book and iced tea

Bukowski also said, and I paraphrase. Writing should never be forced or a chore; rather, you are just bursting to do it.

It’s like Bill Maher said recently, when I watched the Netflix special where he accepted the Mark Twain Prize for comedy at the Kennedy Center: “Love your audience.” He also respects his audience, and they respect him. Why? Because he says they appreciate him for what no one else does, what they are longing to hear and even need to hear. This is the gift of believing in yourself and your art as truth.

As July comes to a close, I find myself reflecting on small moments. The warm sun has cast its golden glow over Lily lounging in the grass. It grows the huge beefsteak tomato plant on my deck. With August just around the corner, I anticipate even more moments etched in memory, warmth and sunshine, mystery and possibilities, healing through writing, and moving forward on this journey with my aging lab.

Healing Through Writing: Unburden and Move On

Writing as a way to heal, unburden ourselves, and move on is at the heart of why we write. The pain and injury we’ve endured, whether from a horribly critical or abusive family member or a total stranger—we make our stand and say what we have to say. Sometimes, we pull out a notebook or grab a napkin if that’s all we have and write it down before the thoughts evaporate. It becomes prose, or poetry, or even a novel, or just a simple narrative, a few words strung together. Enough is enough. After this unburdening, we are free to set boundaries with either the person or the event and move on.

The same goes for situations that impact our lives. The writer has a voice at her disposal. And so it is that I wrote a while back about the impact of the farm right up the road from me being developed for hundreds of houses and a massive swim complex. As Joni Mitchell wrote: “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot…and put all the trees in a tree museum and charged a dollar just to see them.”

These farm fields, now sprouting with row after row of young corn, will soon be covered in asphalt if we allow it. This is still a proposal, not a finality. Fields to asphalt pose an explicit and implicit danger to our lives. We lose the land, we lose ourselves, our way of life, and our peace of mind.

***

Storm clouds approaching over a countryside farm with fields and a dirt road

This July 4th, a deadly storm raged through our area at night, darkening the sky and bringing high winds. The large black walnut trees in my backyard swayed, their branches bending in a frenzied dance. That night, a large limb came down, but luckily it landed in the center of my backyard. Yesterday, my son, Daniel, came over…he broke it up, sawed it apart, and disposed of it for me. His strength and his support of me make me a lucky woman, one who lives alone, widowed now for thirty-two years, but with not just one, but two strong sons, the other being Alex, who lives close to me, too, and cooked a delicious barbecue dinner earlier in the holiday weekend.

My house is paid off and offers privacy, yet that privacy is threatened by the specter of unreasonable development up the street. Traffic is already a nightmare in this fast-growing county, once mostly farms and open spaces, but now overrun with townhouses priced from $700,000 and up. Storms have intensified, bringing more flooding and downed trees.

***

But others aren’t so lucky to have a home to call their own. In Brian Goldstone’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book, There Is No Place For Us: Working and Homeless in America, journalism takes center stage as he unflinchingly uses narrative reporting to offer us an up-close and personal lens into the lives of the working poor, African American women and men who have no safety nets. They live in motels, roach-infested low-income apartments, and even sleep in their cars, using gas stations as washrooms before going to dead-end low-wage jobs.

20260703_1146144226803316517358264 — My backyard after the storm

The ideals of friendship, family, community, and reasonable reforms in government, as we face climate change, homelessness, or whatever concerns us, come down to expression and sharing that with a voice that is both true and unflinching.

Writing is a way of healing, and it also offers us that moment to be touched by the beauty around us. The sun on our faces, the darkness serving as an ultimate backdrop to the magic of lightning bugs on a warm July night. A million and one flowers in bloom across the landscape.

Meadow at night with fireflies glowing along a narrow dirt path and starry sky above

While we chronicle the beauty, we also chronicle the pain, the ugliness, the destruction that forms in the path of greed. Yet with turbulence comes hope. With chaos comes calm.

This is why I love writing. The unburdening, the voice, the peace that it brings, speaking that there is no right way how we word it, just that we put it in words. Our Women’s Writing Circle prompt for July begins: “Something I am choosing to let go of this morning…“

What are you choosing to let go of, and do you have the courage to write it?

Reflections on Writing and the Concept of Heaven

For the last two weeks at my church, I’ve been taking a class on the history of the Nicene Creed. The Creed was written as an answer and a rebuttal to those who had proclaimed Jesus was human, created by the Father, and therefore not the eternal God.

What struck me was the teacher’s description of heaven as he spoke about the Creed’s history. A very tall man in his mid-70s, with a shock of white hair, he spoke with great animation and conviction about his vision of what dying would be like and of our entry into heaven. He spoke of unimaginable joy, of seeing people we loved again, of even having a conversation with an angel, maybe even an archangel.

He described heaven in great detail, with beautiful colors and lights, music, and a place where poetry whose meaning had eluded us in life became crystal clear. Those of us in the room sat in stunned silence. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop. This Sunday, he promises to take questions. I wonder what they will be.

Mountain valley at sunrise with wildflowers, a stream, and a cottage

***

The “heavenly” aspects of writing summon me this summer. That means reflecting on loneliness, the camaraderie of good friends, moments of joy, and not-so-joyful moments. It means deciding that tonight I will take in the full strawberry moon, see poetry in the sky, and know I am unable to capture it in words.

Summertime is a season of heat, and with climate change, it often forces us to stay inside cool, air-conditioned rooms. So we make our way to the laptop, or the notebook, or the private writing studio which holds special talismans; for me, a geisha doll bought by my son 22 years ago when he traveled to Japan, where I was supposed to meet him, but a typhoon canceled my trip. A framed black-and-white photograph of me taken when I was twenty-one years old. A pen-and-ink drawing of my son’s dog, Goose.

As a writer, “heaven” this summer is reading a good book. I have just finished three of Alice McDermott’s novels. She is a dense, intricate writer whose subjects are the Irish Catholic family, alcoholism, and the brutish yet dedicated faith of believers. I’ve started reading The Bells of Old Tokyo, a meditation on Japanese history and that city, which I will be visiting in October with my son, yes, finally after 22 years.

Heaven might feel like writing with abandon…banishing the inner voice of criticism or perfectionism, and maybe releasing a distillation of our truths.

In heaven, we might ponder summer fields of daisies and Queen Anne’s lace dressed in sunlight from a vacation long ago in the Pennsylvania Poconos. Or maybe a childhood birthday when Mother served fresh-brewed iced tea with spearmint sprigs in a crystal pitcher. Or a rose-a-sharon blooming in vibrant patches of pink beneath your bedroom window.

Field of white wildflowers with a dirt road, wooden fence, and red barn in the distance

Relishing this moment, on an ordinary day, listening to a mourning dove sing her gentle coo of lament and joy is a taste of heaven. It is setting aside worries about blond hair turned silver or another year passing in the rearview mirror. It is looking up at the blue sky with hardly a cloud and not letting the noise of the world interfere with your self-knowledge, self-acceptance, and confidence, or entering that dark cave which holds the treasures you seek.

Perhaps the poet Mary Oliver describes what I am trying to say best in her poem “Where Does the Temple Begin, Where Does it End?”

As always, I turn to Oliver for inspiration, and in this poem, she writes, “There are things you can’t reach. But you can reach out to them, and all day long. The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God. And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.“

When the teacher invites us on Sunday to ask questions about our concept of heaven, will one be whether this ordinary life, this moment, is a glimpse of what it might be?

How about you? What would your question be?

Author’s Note: The Nicene Creed is a four-week course being taught by Dr. Chris Hall at the Church of the Good Samaritan in Paoli, Pennsylvania.

Beach Memories and Mindfulness

Beach house near shore at sunset with calm waves and cloudy sky

As I walked from the beach house where I was staying with friends toward the bay, I felt the long-awaited sunshine and heat on my neck and shoulders, the first gifts of approaching summer.

I was born in July, a month of heavy humidity and friends away at the shore, making my birthday parties as a little girl somewhat lonesome affairs. Just me and my dog Lucky, a mix of cocker spaniel and terrier, at my side as I splashed in the plastic swimming pool Dad had blown up for me in our backyard. My birthday is exactly a week after July 4th, a holiday usually spent alone or driving somewhere to watch fireworks.

Rocky coastal path with yellow and white wildflowers and ocean waves

Still, I remember the sweet scent of honeysuckle on those warm days, and now, as I approached the bay, I smelled it again, the purity of summer in full bloom and a bit of nostalgia for long-gone childhood. The pale yellow and white flowers grew in abundance above the dunes.

A jogger passed me; his face contorted with the effort of running, and neither he nor I acknowledged the other. This is our world now, in many ways…ships passing in the night, the friendly wave or hello gone the way of .35-cent-a-gallon gas when I first started driving.

As I looked out toward the bay, it shone with azure…was that a ship on the far horizon? A seagull alighted, head bobbing, long beak picking apart a dead hermit crab washed ashore.

Whenever I go to the shore, my thoughts invariably turn to those who are gone—John, my parents, my brother, Andy, my best friend, Paula. And so I’m forced now to answer the question that the writer Charles Bukowski once asked… “And when nobody wakes you up in the morning, and when nobody waits for you at night, and when you can do whatever you want. What do you call it, freedom or loneliness?”

My life is defined by being a widow for almost thirty-two years. What does widow really mean? There had been others, just not others I married over the years. Alone, but not alone.

The gentle breeze and the sharp cry of the gulls remind me that this was a moment not to be overtaken by sorrow and nostalgia. My friend had asked me earlier. You’re a very confident woman. Was your mother that way? No, I answered. When you have a house paid off and money in the bank that breeds confidence, I joked, although it is the truth. And I don’t need a man for a house, money, or kids, I added.

So this morning, I practiced mindfulness. “Stay in the moment” is the mantra, and let the sea be a meditation on gratitude.

fb_img_17767700710884736124955638476994 — At the beach with Mother and Dad

I walked down the steep wooden steps to the beach and felt the sand’s roughness on my bare toes. Iridescent white and cream-colored seashells awaited. I picked them up to take home. Like those seashells, the peculiarity of memories resides in how their fragility is weathered with time. Some remain as defining moments, like that little girl alone in her swimming pool.

Like memories, we’re all fragile. It’s just that some of us weather time better than others.

When I get home, I arrange the seashells in a Waterford crystal bowl, a wedding present given to him and me so long ago. I put them near the sink in my powder room. No one waits for me except Lily, of course. My “Old Yeller”, now 13 but with hints of the puppy she once was, jumps up and greets me like I’ve been gone three years, not three days. It’s a moment to enjoy.

Writing can be done anywhere, anytime, and so now, I look back on that time, writing to my own prompt for our Women’s Writing Circle, which asks us to take a walk, and write what we see and feel.

Exploring Fear and Freedom in Writing

Stone ruins of old buildings surrounded by olive trees at sunset

I am the first to admit there are subjects I might want to write about, but haven’t.

I rarely write about politics because it’s unlikely to change anyone’s mind, and today’s worries will soon be behind us.

I avoid writing about old age. Many social media and blog posts focus on illness, surgeries, or the harsh realities of getting older. Others may want to explore that, but it’s not for me. There’s no joy in it.

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