family history

Kind or Write?

I’ve been finding it challenging to encapsulate life with my daughter, Bink, lately. Hard to shape words for the page and even for casual conversation with friends, many of whom have their own experiences with…

MelindaJuly 16, 2019

Nature Women's Issues Writing

Pentimento

pentimento noun pen·ti·men·to | \ ˌpen-tə-ˈmen-(ˌ)tō Definition of pentimento A reappearance in a painting of an original drawn or painted element which was eventually painted over by the artist The canvas: my face in the…

MelindaMay 24, 2019

Family Nature Poem Poetry Spirituality Writing

Our small eyes

Perchance Perhaps nothing begins or ends, not exactly. The field mouse knows the tall grass to be her world. We say morning comes, and yet it is always somewhere, just not in the very front…

MelindaMarch 11, 2019

Family Nature Poem Poetry Singing Writing

Daisy Bell

I'm showing my age, and proudly, when I ask this—do you remember the sweet old song called Daisy Bell? "Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer, do/ I'm half crazy all for the love of you..."…

MelindaFebruary 11, 2019

Art Nature Poem Poetry Singing Spirituality Writing

In praise of song

SONG STORIES You open your mouth and out pours a river carrying the rhythms of fluids— blood and lymph, tears, synovial. It is current, and source, keeper of…

MelindaJanuary 2, 2019

Autism Bink Family Nature Parenting Poem Poetry Spirituality Writing

Arrivals

I'm posting this a day before my daughter's 26th birthday. I've always felt, with certainty, that we were meant to incarnate this way, as mother and daughter, at this particular time in the life of…

MelindaNovember 14, 2018

Autism Bink Family Meditation Parenting Spirituality Writing

The Meaning of Compassion

The Kuan Yin She keeps watch in the warm corner of my bedroom, her bearing almost more regal for the rivers of cracks and generous chips that mark her faded turquoise. Her right hand, the…

MelindaNovember 5, 2018

Autism Bink Family Parenting

Little Things

It was, in my home, an ordinary weekend morning. I rose before him, he before her, the felines were fed. I made three different kinds of tea, two prepared with stevia and soymilk, one with…

MelindaOctober 15, 2018

Autism Family Parenting Poem Poetry Women's Issues Writing

Mothering Outside the Lines

The Bus Stop Moms From my morning window I would watch as they huddled casually, tossed light conversation back and forth, an occasional eye towards their kids who played and laughed together, finding sticks, tracing…

MelindaAugust 1, 2018

Family Nature Parenting Poem Spirituality Writing

Rocking the cosmic swirl

Rocking It comforts me to know the old couple across the street just celebrated fifty years in the same house. Fifty together years with the home they perhaps chose to be new in together, a…

MelindaJune 19, 2018