I’m watching Ava Duvernay’s When They See Us. It’s a tough one. Tin and I watched the first episode together and I realized it was too much for him; it is too much for me. There is a scene where the family is visiting one of the boys and the mom tells him he needs to have something to look forward to and I paused – huh? – something to look forward to? What do…
I moved to Bay Saint Louis in July 2018 because I wanted to leave New Orleans. I was in a bad relationship with the city. I remember driving back and forth between Bay Saint Louis and New Orleans and the thought of moving three blocks from the beach sounded perfect. My friend Laurie said, “Of course it sounds perfect. Everyone wants to live on the beach. But you don’t live on the beach, you vacation…
I began writing this blog one year before the beginning of the end. It was 2004, and I had gone to New Orleans from San Rafael to be near my mother, whose health was spiraling downward. My friend needed a dog and house sitter for the summer, and it proved the perfect respite from my too busy life in the Bay Area. I would walk to the dog park every morning by Cabrini and meet…
I’m writing in fragments on so many platforms, it’s hard to consolidate all that is happening. This is an interview I did with Philip Levin on Meet the Authors that talks about The Writing Room at the 100 Men Hall. This is a benevolent society, 100 WOMEN DBA I have launched this year at the 100 Men Hall. This is an article about me and my new chapter as owner of the 100 Men Hall.…
I had a ritual once, it was that I had to write in this blog. I had to write in a journal. I had to record. Capture. Then I had a child and I had to write about that experience on another blog. And then life got really interesting, so layered there was no way to sit down and write a paragraph or a line to describe it, so I crawled inside this cluttered mind…
Tin tells his friends not to mess with me, he says, “My mom’s the nine-tailed fox.” The nine-tailed fox is a shape shifting fox, beautiful woman, spirit in Naruto, Tin’s favorite Japanese anime. I tell him I am part my mother and part my father and that dad part is undiluted Latin and Sephardic fire blood. So don’t mistake my good (mom) nature for timid, because the nine-tailed fox will come out and then it…
The universe is apt to send me messages when I need them most, and it’s to these message that I listen. About my son – yesterday while practicing with the Amazons for our inaugural parade, a woman approached me the NOMA cafe and said, “I know you. I have read your writing. And we were at an event together when my son fell through the bleachers and your son was the first one there to help…