According to the Arizona Forestry and Fire Management Agency, “Mr. Big” is the largest red gum eucalyptus in the U.S. Located in the picturesque desert confines of Boyce Thompson Arboretum in Superior, Arizona, he stands 117 feet tall with a circumference of 22 feet. He was planted here as a three-year-old sapling in 1926.A wooden fence and security camera surrounding the base of the tree are designed to discourage thoughtless people from carving their initials in the trunk. On February 6, 2025, I captured this photo of Mr. Big with my husband Tom during our Boyce Thompson visit. Mr. Big’s presence, threats to nature from global warming, and the upheaval in our country have inspired me to write this poem.
In the old days (the pre-Covid days)–just five years ago this week–I hawked my books with my husband by my side at a local author book fair at the Scottsdale Public Library.
We didn’t know about the dark days ahead. Holed up in our cozy condo. Wondering if we and our closest family and friends would survive. Wondering if the race to create a viable vaccine might save us.
Fortunately, science did produce a vaccine that saved lives (for those of us who had the gumption to protect ourselves and others).
We did survive and Tom and I have gone on to create new chapters at the library … him leading several successful film series; me guiding those intent upon writing their own memoirs.
Strangely, those Covid years feel quaint now as our nation disintegrates daily. Tom and I cling to one other, as our nation turns a blind eye toward anyone who is different.
Yes, we have many friends and family who love us. But, to put it bluntly, I don’t feel safe. This experience of living in 2025 in the United States (we aren’t really united) has cued old tapes in my psyche that remind me that–once again–I am living in a straight, white world of shallow masculinity.
I will keep trudging along. Loving my husband. Guiding my adult sons. Speaking my mind. Telling my stories. Holding my closest friends close. Giving to organizations that might make a difference. Advocating for those less fortunate. Donating my time, talents, and voice to the Scottsdale Public Library and the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus.
Most of all–like many of you–I just need to keep breathing today. And, for tomorrow and the next day, I need to save any reserves of energy and sanity I have to fight the good fight.
What ailed me for three years–2013 to 2016–was grief spawned by the loss of my mother.
Listening to Annie Lennox’ soaring voice–her Nostalgia--pulled me through and beckoned me to complete my first book From Fertile Ground.
You see, Annie’s rendition of twelve stirring and mostly southern-sometimes-smoldering tunes written in the 1930s and 1940s primed the pump of my southern sensory memories.
Sometime in 2015, I unearthed a tender memory of making homemade peach ice cream with my grandmother Georgia on the rickety porch of my grandparents’ North Carolina farm.
It was Annie who reminded me that I had Georgia on My Mind. Sherrell Richardson Ferrell, too–S.R. for short. He was my farming grandfather who left behind more than fifty years of diary entries.
Annie’s music, Georgia’s love, S.R.’s spartan stories (primitive blog entries really), and Helen’s litany of letters (she was my wise mother) gave me all the creative inspiration I needed to finish and publish my first book in 2016.
Why is this all relevant today? Because I have Helen on my mind. She died twelve years ago on January 26, 2013.
For the most part, my writing and the constant love and support from my husband Tom have helped soften the grief as the years continue to roll by.
Helen would have been happy for me on both counts. She suspected Tom and I would retire in Arizona one day.
However, I doubt she would have imagined the entirety of this literary chapter for me, which lately includes teaching memoir writing at our local library. (I’ve been asked to lead a third workshop in April.)
Or the growing community of loyal followers Tom has inspired with every immersive movie series he hosts (also at the Scottsdale Public Library). His next series–Movies That Matter: The 1970s (a tribute to six film directors)–begins tomorrow and continues on most Mondays until early April.
I firmly believe it is the arts and the artists–like Annie Lennox, even the less renowned ones like Mark Johnson and Tom Samp–who through their music, writing, painting, poetry, and true cultural perspectives will help pull us through this dark and uber-turbulent period in our once-proud country.
For now, that is the hope I cling to. Along with the memories of love and gratitude–the nostalgia–framed by indelible moments with family and friends past and present, who I love dearly.
My mother was a collector of fine furniture, ceramic pitchers, and–occasionally–commemorative coins.
On March 17, 1977, she purchased this Franklin Mint medal. It celebrates the inauguration of Jimmy Carter, the thirty-ninth President of the United States.
This bronze coin has occupied a space inside a box in my father’s WWII army trunk for the past few decades.
I was nineteen and a first-time voter when I cast my ballot for Carter in November 1976.
Most of my college friends at the University of Missouri were Gerald Ford supporters.
I suppose they were willing to forgive him for pardoning Richard Nixon.
I wasn’t. I opted for Carter, the peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia.
As history would have it, Carter’s four years as president (1977 to 1981) included many ups and downs.
For instance, Carter successfully negotiated the Camp David Accords, political agreements signed by then Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin.
Carter also signed into law bills that created the U.S. Department of Energy and Department of Education.
However, the Iran hostage crisis (when fifty-three U.S. diplomats and citizens were held hostage at the U.S. embassy in Tehran by a group of Iranian college students who supported the Iranian Revolution) and related oil crisis led to his unraveling popularity.
In November 1980, Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. His loss was punctuated on January 20, 1981, when the hostages were released on the first day of Reagan’s presidency.
Of course, we now know Jimmy Carter wasn’t through yet. He lived another forty-three years and made good use of his century-long (1924-2024) life.
After leaving the White House–with his wife and life partner Rosalynn Carter ever by his side–he established the Carter Center. He worked tirelessly to promote and expand human rights.
That led him to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.
Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter also became famous for the houses they helped build for Habitat for Humanity and the faithful lives they shared with family and friends in their community and all around the world.
***
This morning, after watching C-SPAN coverage of Jimmy Carter’s funeral at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C.–and listening to a parade of praise in eulogies given by past Republican and Democratic leaders and grieving family members–I extricated the bronze medallion.
I brought it into the light. I placed it on the shelf of our bureau in our Arizona sunroom. I pondered Jimmy Carter’s astounding legacy of faith, hope, service, and perseverance.
I wondered if–as he was laid to rest–our nation’s democracy might not be far behind.
I hate the trite phrase “only time will tell.” But it certainly applies as inauguration day–January 20, 2025–approaches.
Consider this. Tucked inside the box that normally houses the Carter medallion is a little booklet with information about the tradition of the presidential inaugural medals. Here is an excerpt:
“The Official 1977 Inaugural Medal commemorates the solemn ritual, repeated every four years, through which Americans and their President refresh the nation’s commitment to free government.
During the inauguration, the President, in the presence of Congress, pledges to serve faithfully and to uphold the Constitution to the best of his ability.
Americans have always treated this ceremony as a portentous moment in the life of the republic, a time of celebration and of renewed dedication.”
But we live in 2025. Will the incoming president uphold the Constitution to the best of his ability?
That bit of history–beyond the funereal pageantry of today–has yet to be written.
It’s a beautiful Friday in Scottsdale, Arizona. The weather is sunny and mild–warm enough for me to swim laps outside a few hours ago–and my brain is firing creatively.
I’m preparing to lead my next memoir writing workshop later this month at the Scottsdale Public Library (Mustang location).
I expect a dozen aspiring writers will file into a large conference room on January 17 for session #1.
I will welcome them with a smile and a commitment to prompt and guide them as they move ahead on their memoir writing journeys.
It will be a free-and-safe space to begin to dislodge vivid memories, write a few pages, share respectful feedback across a table with other writers, develop a writing practice, and (hopefully) leave on the last day (January 31) with a little momentum to tell their stories.
I know how much work, time, and commitment is required to make it happen. But when you are a writer, it’s worth it. It’s what you are meant to do.
You tell stories of all kinds. Simple. Complicated. Painful. Joyful. Unbelievable true-and-false stories.
The best memoirs are filled with emotional and sensory details: visuals, smells, tastes, sounds, personal touches.
I think that is one of my strong suits … not only telling but showing readers the story, so that they must keep reading to find out what happens at the end of the story.
It’s rather like sitting with a friend in front of a cozy fireplace. That is what I will tell my workshop attendees to imagine as they begin to write their memoirs.
I don’t think you need to be famous to write a great memoir. It’s really the story that must be compelling, not the namedropping that some celebrities like to smear over every page.
You simply must be authentic and artful in the way you approach your story–whether it’s a story of love and loss, transformation, redemption, survival, success, or a recollection of a vivid place, time or person that makes your heart swell.
In addition to writing memoirs (somehow, I’ve written and published four since 2016) and encouraging others to bring their stories to the page, I enjoy reading memoirs.
January is a good time of year to assemble a recommended reading list.
Here are ten memoirs (written by famous and ordinary people) I have read over the past ten years that have moved me, entertained me, spoken to me, and broadened my appreciation for creative, true storytelling in the world of nonfiction.
By the way, I will share this same list with my memoir writing workshop attendees later this month. So, in a sense, you are getting an insider’s preview.
(Note: I have included one of my books–From Fertile Ground–on this list … because I feel it is an unusual creative concept/structure for a memoir about a family of writers sharing their diverse voices across three generations.)
Happy memoir reading (and writing), everyone!
***
My Recommended Memoir Reading List
The Year of Magical Thinking (by Joan Didion; 2005) … possibly the best book I’ve read about grief.
Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight Pets (by Nick Trout; 2011) … perfect if you are an animal lover.
From Fertile Ground: The Story of My Journey, My Grief, My Life (by Mark Johnson; 2016) … a writer’s mosaic about love and loss.
Between Them: Remembering My Parents (by Richard Ford; 2017) … revealing portrait of parents.
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me (by Bill Hayes; 2017) … gripping, personal, New York study.
The Best of Us (by Joyce Maynard; 2017) … finding true love late in life, then losing it to pancreatic cancer.
Pops: Fatherhood in Pieces (by Michael Chabon; 2018) … poetic snippets about a son’s love for his father.
All the Young Men (by Ruth Coker Burks; 2020) … a woman comes to the rescue for dying AIDS patients in the 1980s.
My Name is Barbra (by Barbra Streisand; 2023) … if you love Barbra, a must read.
My Mama, Cass: A Memoir (by Owen Elliot-Kugell; 2024) … revealing odyssey of a daughter constructing her life after the death of her famous mother.
What I share here always comes from my heart and the firing (sometimes misfiring) synapses of my brain.
Lately, I have been drawn to writing more poetry. It helps me to process the pain–personal and national–which I have been wearing like a cape that shrouds my best impulses and intentions.
Today, as Christmas and the end of the year approach, I am taking a different path.
Before I take the stage next weekend for my holiday concert with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus, I want to reflect on bright-and-shiny moments–present and past–which have been tempered by devastating-and-unavoidable losses in 2024.
***
Tom and I are among the dwindling few, who continue to send Christmas cards in the mail to our closest friends and loved ones.
It’s something that brings both of us joy, and in my book that means it’s something worth doing–no matter what other Americans do.
I know that practice places us in the minority (rather like the disastrous outcome of our presidential election), but I don’t care.
Since childhood, I have always identified as “different” or–more specifically–as an outsider. Maybe it was my brain’s subconscious attempt at preparing me for the obstacles I would face as a gay man.
At any rate, conformity is for the faint of heart. It takes courage to stand by your differences, and I have a feeling I will need to muster a boatload of courage as we head into 2025.
Maybe that approaching storm is why I have taken comfort recently in an old Christmas memory.
For several years in the late 1950s and early 1960s, before Dad had his first heart attack, he took Diane (my sister) and me in our old, green Plymouth to search for our family Christmas tree.
We didn’t have much money, so he usually drove us to a tree lot adjacent to a Site filling station. Strangely, I remember the price of gas was 29 cents a gallon on the sign that swayed in winter’s wind.
Dad was a tall man–six feet, two inches. One day I would reach that same stature, but going back sixty-five years, I was a little tyke with a wool stocking cap covering my crew cut.
Dad wanted to select a natural tree (usually balsam, because they were cheaper than Scotch Pine) that was at least his height, so when it was placed in a tree stand all of us (he, Mom, Diane, and I) could gaze up at the beauty of its lights, ornaments, and tinsel hanging on every branch.
In the cold and damp St. Louis air, it usually took us several rounds up and down the aisles of the tree lot to find the best shaped tree. But we always found one to our liking and–with heavy twine–somehow tied it to the roof of our sedan.
When we got home on December 4 or 5, our family practice was to cut a small notch off the bottom of the tree trunk, then deposit it into a metal bucket of water to keep it fresh.
Inevitably, the water in the bucket froze, but with a little heat from the Midwestern sun, around the middle of December we were able to pry it out of the bucket, screw it into our stand, and decorate our family Christmas tree in our living room.
***
Back to reality. We lost a few friends in 2024. Peggy’s passing in mid-November is the most recent.
I was touched and honored when Glenn–our dear friend, neighbor and one of the kindest and most dependable people I know–asked me to write his wife’s obituary.
Peggy’s memorial service last week was a beautiful reflection on her meaningful life as a teacher, wife, mother, grandmother, animal-lover, and upstanding citizen. I will miss her.
In general, I am aware of the “shrinkage” (and greater vulnerability) that comes with age–the loss of friends and family one by one, the institutions that close their doors, the connections that fray (literal or otherwise), the visits to the dentist to replace crowns and teeth that wear down and require repairs.
I experienced all of those in 2024. But there were inspiring moments, too.
Tom and I traveled to Minneapolis in July for the quadrennial GALA chorus festival. The singing, listening, bonding, and carousing with other LGBTQ friends and chorus members filled our cups and our hearts.
It was also a privilege to share England and Scotland with my husband in late September. That week-long tour–from London, to Bath, to Lake Windermere, to Shakespeare’s home, to Liverpool, and the cobblestone streets of Edinburgh–was our tenth wedding anniversary gift to each other.
And 2024 was the year I began to teach again. I had fun in October and November coaching a dozen aspiring and diverse writers in my first memoir writing workshop at the Scottsdale Public Library. I will do it again in January 2025 with a new batch of students.
***
It feels like the best way to end this meandering post is on a high note. So, why not share a photo of the pre-lit artificial Christmas tree Tom and I decorated and adore in our Arizona home?
On Christmas Eve, we will sit together in front of our tree, open our presents, and give thanks for the love we share and the diverse branches of family and friends in our lives who adorn our world.
For me, one of those branches is sharing ideas and stories with all of you.
Mark Johnson Stories 