Dear Nicholas, All week I’ve been feeling that I’ve really hit my stride on the book I’m working on. This afternoon my trusty writing group vigorously disagreed with me. They liked earlier chapters and really really didn’t like what I read today. So now I’m in a writing muddle. How to Write Religious Experience […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I just came upon a description of the soul’s afterlife that perfectly describes the intimations I’ve had about what happens to our spirits after death. I was astonished to come across this; I wasn’t looking for any such thing in the book I was reading. The book is A Search in Secret India […] Read More

Nicholas, I’m turning 70 years old at 2:34 this afternoon. A big birthday to anyone who hasn’t yet achieved it, though I know it’s ho-hum to my eighty-something-ish friends. I want to make a deal out of it–increasingly, I feel big birthdays should get their due– but I haven’t fully decided how. What I know […] Read More

Nicholas–My New Year’s Resolve: Find my car in the parking lot. That’s a shorthand way of saying that I mean to pay better attention to what I’m doing and reliably remember what I need to remember. I’m going to improve my memory, at least get it back to where it was a year ago when […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, So far I’ve failed at being frantic about Christmas this year. I can’t say that this is a sign of serenity. Instead, I seem a bit lackadaisical about it. Whatever else the holiday is to me, it has long been a December 25 deadline.  And I’ve never even done much about it. I […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, The power came back on at my house 36 hours after the start of the weekend winter storm. Now I feel like a complete person again. It was only a day and a half– hardly a blip.  But effects of power outage are a psychic shock, much more than simply a sudden inconvenience. […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I’d never heard of the guy until a few months ago or his band Queen. Never expected to be feeling thankful for Freddie Mercury on this Thanksgiving holiday. My acquaintance with his music came about in a curious manner. At Sea With Scaramouches By chance, I’d  joined the first (and for me, last) […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, My new stage of grief is flashing lights. Visual distortions, like at the start of a migraine, but the headache never happens, and the lights go on and on. This past Friday morning, my brothers and I began the process of dismantling the homestead, clearing out my mother‘s house. Much of the time, […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, This subject gets harder to write about. Writing a tribute was easy. Now three weeks after  her death, losing Mom is no longer a hurricane-style crisis full of shock and activity, but instead the start of coping with losing Mom, a long jagged process of dealing with the emotions and changes. First, we […] Read More

Dear Nicholas, I don’t know how to begin about losing Mom. Except to say: she died. My mother.  I don’t know what I want to “discuss,” except maybe just to talk about her.  Her name was Margaret Tucker Payne, nickname “Tuck.” Tuck Forever For so long, we — my brothers and I, and a lot […] Read More