I’m writing to you from Southern Oregon, sitting not in the sun at the picnic table but instead from inside our trailer, because Oregon decided to give us hours of misty rainfall, clouds, and fog.

Crescent Moon rises over Bayou St. John

In 1945, my mother had answered an advertisement that Augusta had placed in the local newspaper, seeking employment as a housekeeper.

The Parade of Diaries

I love you so much, Mom, that it sometimes hurts. Dark curls frame your face as I watch you apply your red lipstick. Somehow, you make red lipstick look natural.

Everyone came to our house for Thanksgiving in 1962.

The inimitable sounds and crazy rhythms of ping pong remind me to breathe in the salty smell of spray from waves crashing onto the cliffs at high tide.

As I watched two boys in my grade-school class throw the familiar sphere back and forth to each other, I was amazed at how well it sailed through the air.

It’s only mid-August. The days are still hot and long. Yet there’s an aura of anticipation in the air.

My ball of soft grey baby alpaca yarn, and the round needle where the unraveling strand resides, make up the infant stage of a sweater I am knitting for my sister, Peggy.

Darren dressed up for the biggest dance of his junior high career: red dye in his dreadlocks; ten or twelve bracelets adorning his black and grey outfit; nose ring with the extra ornament dangling from the slender wire;

I pulled my blue camp chair up the garden steps this morning, to a shady spot on the path facing east. The view is tunnel-like, narrow, and tree-lined.

I am craving a daily ritual. I’ve decided to start with Morning Pages, a practice recommended by Julia Cameron in her classic book The Artist’s Way.

Sarah had told me about the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books happening on the USC campus over the weekend. “Interested?” she asked me. “Yes!” I replied.

I wish I could check in with an older, wiser Me. The Me I have not met yet

I remember summer showers in muggy St Louis.

I watch the movie “Out of Africa” every year. I watch alone, curled on the sofa, wrapped in a light blanket.

Guest Post

by Peggy Husch Rothschild (my sister)

I used to do so many things I no longer do.