Tag: Books

Unpacking

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In my late sixties, I am more aware of what remains in my gas tank.

Not the fuel gauge on our 2012 Hyundai Sonata. I’m talking about the physical and mental energy needed to maneuver life … while keeping a little extra for the seminal moments.

In the span of one week, I am celebrating Kirk’s and Jen’s (my younger son and future-daughter-in-law) engagement with family in Illinois (it already happened June 1) and taking the stage with my chosen Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus family (June 6 and 7 is our raucous Rhinestone Rodeo show) at Tempe Center for the Arts in Arizona.

Both are deeply personal and rewarding.

Seeing my thirty-six-year-old son and his future bride beaming and greeting loved ones on the second floor of a popular neighborhood eatery on Chicago’s northwest side touched me. But there was more to it than that.

Because, there was a culmination of lives … past, present, and future.

Like Tom and me, my older son Nick and his girlfriend Anastasia flew in from Arizona for the festivities … and my sister Diane and brother-in-law Steve were there, too.

Though they live in the Chicago area, they each have difficulty managing stairs. Even so, diligently, they found a way to make the climb to a private dining room inside Zia’s Social. One small step at a time for the sake of a milestone moment with family.

There was another significant emotional layer to the event for me.

Jean, my ex, planned the party. Over the past few decades, we have been in the same room just a few times. At my mother’s funeral. At Kirk’s graduation. Our communication has been sparse at best.

But, at this stage of life, it feels life much of the animosity that existed between us after our divorce in 1992 has dissipated. We have both moved on. We have found vastly different lives with our respective husbands. Ironically, both of them are named Tom.

Bottom line, this engagement party was a joyous and healing experience for me … and I suspect others. There will be another one on August 29, 2026, at Kirk’s and Jen’s wedding. Also, in Chicago.

Now that my Tom and I are back in Scottsdale, I have been rehearsing each night this week. Conserving my energy while putting the smoothing touches on our music.

More than thirty of our Arizona friends–many of them straight allies–will be in the audience this weekend. They will fill the seats you see here alongside hundreds of others.

Smiling. Cheering. Laughing. Crying. Phenomenal music has a way of spurring it all. Touching our hearts and souls in ways we … gay or straight … never imagined.

Make no mistake. The nearly 1,500 who attend our shows this weekend will be entertained by our mix of past and present country western hits … coalescing with our brand of giant gay swirls thrown in for good measure.

Naturally, the pink fringe vest and new black boots I’ve bought for the shows … and will be wearing … will be made for more than walking and singing.

They’ll be carrying me through the two-steppin’ choralography … anchoring me on the top riser (through Pink Pony Club, Ya’ll Means All, Texas Hold ‘Em and much more) with love, gratitude, and pride for a week in June 2025 that will always be dear to me.

Loss in St. Louis

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Photo by Matthias Cooper on Pexels.com

If you follow the weather news in the United States, you know that on Friday, May 16, parts of St. Louis, Missouri–where I was born in 1957 and reborn in 2017–suffered an estimated $1 billion in damages from an EF3 tornado.

The powerful storm tore through central and north St. Louis, killing five people while damaging or destroying 5,000 buildings and countless trees … including many majestic ones in and around one of the city’s gems: Forest Park.

I have no doubt that over the coming days, weeks, months, and years, the citizens of St. Louis will heal and recover. But it will be a tall mountain to climb for many financially and emotionally.

I have made a donation to the American Red Cross disaster relief efforts. But I want to do more for the city I love, which appears in all five of my books. It is hardwired into my prose and poems in large and small ways …

In memories of my hard-working family, our suburban midwestern existence, humid summer days, learning to operator a rollercoaster at Six Flags, working at the top of the Gateway Arch (pictured here) in the late 1970s, rooting for the St. Louis Cardinals, boating on the Mississippi River, visiting the St. Louis Zoo, frequenting the aforementioned Forest Park, and much more.

In addition to making a donation of your own to your favorite relief charity, here’s another way you can help. Buy any of my five books during May and June.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B01DCYIAD4

I will donate $10 for each book I sell (paperback, Kindle, or audiobook) during that period to Forest Park Forever. It is a private nonprofit conservancy.

As described on their website, the organization “partners with the City of St. Louis to restore, maintain and sustain Forest Park as one of America’s great urban public parks for a diverse community of visitors to enjoy, now and forever.”

Thank you in advance for your support of my literary efforts and the city of St. Louis … as well as its beautiful urban greenspace in the middle of town, which I still love and remember.

***

Incidentally, Tom and I will travel to St. Louis in September to attend a Class of 1975 reunion with my Affton High School classmates. Yikes, fifty years! More to come on that.

Wrist-banding Together

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When you’re living through a full-blown constitutional crisis–and feeling vulnerable–you need to find ways of coping and caring for the ones you love.

So, I bought two of these beaded rainbow wristbands from the Human Rights Campaign for Tom and me to wear.

We are wrist-banding together.

This is a symbolic gesture. I want the world to know that this gay couple isn’t going anywhere, though it is a period in the United States where some would prefer that those of us who are different would go away.

But I–we–remain visible.

As I write this blogpost, I realize it is number 500 … a true milestone for any writer.

When I began blogging in May 2018, I had no illusions of where it might lead.

I simply wanted to give my books and literary voice more room to grow, more visibility.

For that reason, I suppose it is fitting that today I choose to write about my gay identity and continue to exercise personal aspects of my voice … visibly.

In many respects, the life my husband and I lead is not all that different from any couple.

We shop for groceries together. Go to the gym together. Enjoy quiet moments and meals together. Love and nurture each other.

We do our best to support each other and our family members during highs and lows.

We spend time with our friends. They are young and old, straight and gay, black and white.

We love and respect them, and they love and respect us.

I think it’s accurate to say this about our friends: we enrich each other’s lives, no matter our skin color, religious beliefs, cultural perspectives, gender identities, or sexual orientations.

It is a personal jolt to realize–and read on trusted news sources each day–that our differences are under attack and being eroded in my home country … the country I still love.

I don’t think I’m depressed. But I am definitely sad and angry. Definitely grieving. Me and a boatload of others of all backgrounds and persuasions.

There are times when I want to scream from the top of a mountain. “This is my country, too. How dare you try to take that away from me!” But then I wonder, “Is anybody listening?”

So, I bring this here, instead and I type these words in blogpost number 500.

At any rate, thank you for joining me–possibly even enduring me at times–on this blogging journey since May 2018.

As long as I continue to feel I have something important and relevant to say (to shed light on the topics of the day … to celebrate a literary success or the latest Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus performance … to pay tribute to those I love … to tell a funny story about our stray cat Poly … to observe and honor the beauty of nature … to share a vivid, meaningful memory about my childhood … or to pen a poem that is in need of artistic space and oxygen) you will find me here.

I hope you have been informed or entertained and will continue to tag along with me on this organic literary odyssey, wherever it may lead.

As I walked the treadmill at the gym this morning–on Abraham Lincoln’s two-hundred-sixteenth birthday–a weird, dark, and discomforting question swirled through my brain.

What if we–all the diverse people in this country, all the people of color, all the LGBTQ folks–were gone?

That fearful quandary led me to write this poem.

****

If We Were Gone

If we were gone,

you would miss

our minds, our hearts,

our beauty, our tenacity,

our sensitivity,

our sensibility,

our kindness, our love,

our compassion, our humor,

our leadership, our style,

our guidance, our wisdom,

our friendship, our support,

our joy, our pain, our truth,

our sun, our moon, our stars,

our books, our movies,

our artistry,

our contributions,

our serendipitous stories.

But, most of all, you

would miss us.

You would miss

the clarity and

strength of our

distinctive lives

and beautiful voices.

That would be

the greatest loss of all.

In the Old Days

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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.

Write a Memoir, Read a Memoir

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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.

Inside the U

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I have a passion for learning, teaching, and uncovering the truth. So much so, that in another lifetime, I might have pursued a career as a full-time educator.

While that never happened, over the past thirty years, I’ve discovered episodic ways to teach … sharing my communication expertise as an adjunct PR instructor, opening minds as a diversity trainer and consultant, and–now–encouraging others to write and share their stories.

***

On Monday, October 21, fourteen people walked through the door of The Loft on the second floor of the Scottsdale Public Library. Each found a place at the table around a U-shaped configuration.

Lisanne, the library’s program supervisor, welcomed them, introduced me, and described each of my books (which she propped on easels at the far end of the room).

I sat–inside the U–smiling and ready to share my tips and guide them on their memoir-writing journey.

First, I asked each writer to introduce themselves. Some told me they have been writing in various forms for years.

Others have fought the impulse to do so or simply have never found the time or place but have always wanted to write.

“This is a safe space for you to begin,” I told them.

To mine vivid memories. To spin them into previously unwritten sentences. To shape them into stories that one day they may want to share with the world or simply pass along to immediate family and friends.

By the end of our first session together, we got to know each other better. I walked them through a “prompting” exercise.

Each person selected a random image–fanned out in my hands like a deck of playing cards–and then proceeded to write a paragraph or two relating to it.

One selected a photo of a tiger lily. She wrote (and shared) an especially sad, but poignant and revealing story about her flower-loving mother.

Another recalled a funny encounter with a monarch butterfly. All of the stories written and shared had merit.

During the last part of the class, they completed a three-page “Telling Your Story” Worksheet I prepared. It will be the baseline for each participant to begin to write their memoirs.

I asked each person to write one to two manuscript pages for next Monday’s session. I will offer constructive feedback at that time, and they will share insights with each other.

We will meet one final time to discuss another round of writing on Monday, November 4.

Already, this workshop is proving to be a meaningful experience for me.

I hope it is a catalyst for each of my fourteen fellow writers.

If I can make even a small difference as a library volunteer to help them on their storytelling journeys, my time–inside and outside the U–will be time well spent.

Turning Memories into Memoirs

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Writing is a solitary practice. But when our best ideas flow from our brains through our fingertips, it can feel like we are creating a galaxy of possibilities and fascinating characters to keep us company.

Still, we all need the support and encouragement of others to help us tell our personal-yet-universal stories, so that they touch the hearts and stimulate the minds of our readers.

To meet that need for external creative input, for the next three Mondays –October 21, October 28, and November 4 (from 4 to 6 p.m.) — I will lead a fun, interactive, and free memoir writing workshop at the Scottsdale Public Library, Civic Center location.

If you live in the Phoenix area, I hope you will join me. No reservations are required, but space will be limited. Arrive 30 minutes before the first class to get a ticket at the door. It will entitle you to participate in all three sessions.

Honestly, I’m excited to share a little of my time and memoir writing tips. And–perhaps–give a literary boost to a few individuals who are where I was ten years ago: ready to cross the creative threshold, but in need of direction and inspiration to turn memories into memoirs.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

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It’s been nearly forty-two years since the American TV sitcom Cheers debuted on September 30, 1982.

In its inaugural season (fall 1982 to spring 1983), Cheers ranked near the bottom in the Neilsen ratings. But by the mid-eighties, it caught fire with audiences and became “Must See” TV for millions–ultimately running for eleven seasons and 275 episodes on NBC.

If you aren’t familiar with the concept of the series, the show was set in a Boston neighborhood bar. Locals–like Norm, Cliff, and Frasier–came there to drink, socialize, unwind, and escape the grind of their day-to-day lives.

The opening theme song written by Gary Portnoy, Where Everybody Knows Your Name, captured the sense of familiarity, comfort, and community bar “regulars” knew was waiting for them every time they walked through the door and descended down the steps for a drink.

But it was the bar banter with Sam, the owner, and the escapades (sometimes sexual) of the Cheers staff over the years–Diane, Carla, Coach, Woody, and Rebecca–that drove the creative content, tickled our funny bones, and warmed the hearts of young and old viewers.

***

I write frequently–in my books and blogposts–about the importance of community connections in our lives.

To feel fulfilled, I believe we need frequent connections to people (animals and plants, too) around us, along with a balance of alone time to recharge our personal batteries.

Of course, singing with the Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus (PHXGMC) fills a portion of that need for me. (I’m excited for our first rehearsal this Tuesday evening for the 2024/2025 season. We have a new artistic director and 112 singers!)

Each week, I look forward to the musical mayhem, creative camaraderie, and safe haven we share at PHXGMC.

From a writing standpoint, Tom and I have discovered another source of community connection we cherish just a few miles from our condo.

For almost a year–two or three times each week, usually in the afternoon–we have packed up our laptops and driven to Grounds on 2nd in Old Town Scottsdale.

It’s our favorite urban market, coffee shop, wine bar, and local hangout … and a conducive spot for writing. In fact, I’m drafting this post there right now.

The owners and staff are fun, friendly, and welcoming. They and we have become fast friends. They greet us with warm smiles, iced coffee (yes, it’s still hot here!), yummy pastries, and a comfortable place to plug in so we can write our next story or plan our next creative endeavor.

It’s pretty simple. Grounds on 2nd is a welcoming, bright, lofty, contemporary neighborhood watering hole with comfy chairs and rambling plants that green up the room and soften the edges.

Best of all, when Tom and I open the glass doors and walk in … to write, or drink, or just relax with friends … everybody knows our names.

Higher Ground

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In January 2014, the fog of grief occupied my brain and body. My mother had been gone one year, but I hadn’t yet found a constructive way to heal and process my grief.

Along the way, my husband Tom and therapist Valerie encouraged me to embark on a new path that would help me recapture my creative spirit.

I decided to leave my communication consulting career. Soon after, I began to write personal stories that mattered to me. Vivid recollections inspired and spawned by grief. Observations about love and loss in my family that helped me chart a new course and publish my first book, From Fertile Ground.

With time and reflection, I wrote four more books about the tender and whimsical ups and downs of childhood, the poignancy of leaving one home and surviving to find another, the adventures of creating a new life in the Arizona desert, and the poetry that has stirred inside me for thirty years and finally escaped to land on a page.

In small and large ways, my mother is in every one of those books and numerous essays. Yet she didn’t live long enough to read any of it, except one poem I gave her on Christmas Eve 2009.

I know now that writing about her in new and different ways has kept her wisdom and generosity alive and accessible for me.

July 26, 2024, would have been Helen F. Johnson’s 101st birthday. I knew I wanted to write about that, but until my fingers hit the keyboard, I wasn’t sure what I would say … because I thought I’d said it all before.

Maybe I haven’t.

How I loved and admired–and still remember–her tenacity. Her legacy of letters. Her devotion to family, friends, and the power of nature.

She would have loved the artistic life Tom and I have created in Arizona among the buttes and cacti. Writing stories, screening movies, singing songs, feeding stray cats.

Making new friends, while remembering old ones. Doing our best to guide and encourage my sons–her beloved grandsons–as they make their way toward the middle of their lives.

Cherishing each moment of our retirement years, without ever knowing where it will lead. Never wanting to know how or when it will end.

On July 26, 2012, we celebrated my mother’s eighty-ninth birthday together. It was her last.

Twelve years have passed. I’m much older, more appreciative and impatient. But also, wiser. Healthier. Gayer. Grayer. More contented with my own life and legacy. More worried about the world’s plight.

Grief is no longer my catalyst, my nemesis, my companion. Of course, I see it in the rearview mirror. But, with the passage of time, I discovered higher ground without the ghost of grief.

I no longer think of my mother every day. But when I do, I am grateful for the moments she and I shared–the gifts of memories and photographs I treasure–and the propensity to write about it.

All of this runs through our DNA.

My mother and me, celebrating her eighty-ninth birthday in Wheaton, Illinois, on July 26, 2012.

The Soldier on the Hill

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I last visited my father’s grave at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery in September 2021.

If there is such a thing as beauty to behold in a final resting place for those who served, it exists there just south of St. Louis on the banks of the Mississippi River–fourteen hundred miles east of where I live and write today.

On this Memorial Day, I remember Dad–and the thousands of fallen soldiers gathered around him–with twelve lines I wrote on August 27, 1996 … almost three years after he died.

This poem and forty-one others appear in my book A Path I Might Have Missed.

***

The Soldier on the Hill

I talked with the soldier on the hill today.

We sat, we cried, we laughed, we prayed.

The bells rang true, the trees stood free.

A breeze swept past to welcome me.

Shadows filled the landscape then.

Tempers rose without his pen.

Snowflakes fell, the grass turned green.

All without a change of scene.

Now the soldier rests with them,

Hand-in-hand–all blessed again.

They greet another trailing soul.

Who makes the journey past the knoll.