I had never even ridden a horse, couldn't have identified one breed from the other or known what cutting meant when it concerned a horse. On a cattle ranch, there are many situations in which you need to separate diffreent…

The sort of world we've gotten used to living in is violent, turbulent at its core. Continents split off from each other, or subduct under each other & we experience this as an earthquake. Red fiery lava flows from volcanic…

The heart is a complex machine, made of so many mysterious moving parts, human medicine still has not discovered every one of them yet….those puzzling parts of a game that are vital to the running of the machine, but hidden…

[Context: First half of a personal essay related to my upcoming debut novel for possible pre-publication promotion.] In 1964, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart was asked how he could tell something could be called obscenity. He famously replied, “I know…

I was at my friend Mark’s house the other day. When I arrived, he was on speaker phone, with a friend of his who lives in Gaza. I sat down across from him at the dining room table. His daughter…

(More from my novel in progress) I pulled the Prius into the little trailer park at the edge of town, tucking it behind the dumpster where nobody would see it from the road. People called it a trailer park, but…

For three years, Gwen and I worked on cattle ranches. When I got there, I didn’t know how to ride a horse, through her hard-knocks riding school, I learned. After buying a camera and some sound gear at a used…

The Only True & Lasting Thing. "Class--welcome! It's great to see you here, ready to tackle our unit on sexual health & wellbeing! My hope is that we all learn that honesty, trust, & caring listening is at the heart…

He’s stunned. I can see that from my speeding vehicle, through my dust-streaked windshield. He bobs his body, snaps his head in unnatural directions. What I perceive first as flame– a swath of scarlet amongst the feathers– reveals itself in…

Gwen, my friend for over 50 years, is going to sleep on the couch in my little house and go to the Mill Valley Film Festival with my husband and me. When we became friends, each of us needed something…

Sister MG sat on a favorite rock formation in what she thought of as “her” meadow. The sisters even called it that, when Mother asked where the roaming nun was at a particular moment when she needed her, as the…