My boundaries were thunderous, not to be missed. But they fell silent upon those who wanted not to hear them. Instead, they had questions. "It's too bad you couldn't spend the whole weekend with us. Did you have a lot…

“Mama” “Mutti” “Mama” “Mutti” Maaa-aaamaaaa” Mutti appeared in the doorway. “Girls. What is this shouting?” “Mutti. Sarah has taken my favorite dress. She won’t give it back.” “Sarah?” “Mama,” Sarah threw up her hands in alarm. Sarah called Mutti, Mama.…

Art has repaid me like this Although educated, Ernst did not go to college. He stepped into the shoes of his father. And, like his father, he was a money lender. He financed fishing ships, out of Bremerhaven, like the…

Art has repaid me like this It took me years to admit to myself that I am an artist. I have a BS in public health, I knew no artists. But part of my first job out of college was…

My somewhat pompous Uncle Bill once explained to me that “Art” was more than drawing. I was around seven, an age when I listened to him, although even then I thought he was a bit overbearing. Art, he said, was…

I woke up this morning thinking about the piano. How sometimes, the music sounds like the flit flit flit of butterflies rings. Or the drop drop drop of rain. Sometimes, if feeling has a sound--not the screech of anger, but…

I walked into the room of ghosts, of people from my past, in theory from my present. I mostly saw the faces of people I don't care to talk to, and of the people I would have wanted to see,…

Agatha awoke. She was hungry. She made breakfast. One piece of toast and jam, no butter. Cold milk. Agatha was still hungry. Agatha knew that she could scream, and her voice would bounce off the walls and echo into the…

We oozed through customs at Lagos International Airport, three separate stops where bags, day packs and purses were examined, with indistinguishable differences between any of the stops. We'd been in the plane from San Francisco for what seemed like an…

I live here in San Francisco. I feel I have always lived here. Except when I lived on Burnt Mill Road, an experience that screams to me in technicolor: my youth, my prime, the colors, the grass, dry and scrappy,…