Waves of random showers soak once-parched plants on this wet October day. Some soothe forgotten succulents, while others cue autumnal chapters of bubbling baked apples, laced with sugar and cinnamon, brimming with melted butter, delivered simply and securely, without a dog-eared recipe, directly from her heart and Midwestern oven.
The sweet, fruity aroma stirs my creative spirit, fires my tired fingers, fuels my ever-willing voice, and ignites tomorrow’s best intentions to nurture seedlings of songs and stories that otherwise might never grow, never emerge, never be written.
And nights of our lives angling for the next fish.
We rush from place to place, moment to moment,
Often derailed and distracted by constant noise,
Often unfulfilled as the day’s last light descends.
Maybe, to catch the one we dream of catching,
It’s best to pause in silence at the water’s edge,
To give thanks for what passes before us,
To be still beside the simple silhouette cast.
At dusk, on Sunday, October 4, 2026, I captured this silhouette of a boy waiting patiently for his next fish along the Crosscut Canal in Scottsdale, Arizona.
If you enjoyed reading my poem, check out my book of poetry, A Path I Might Have Missed. It (and all six of my books) are available on Amazon.
Somewhere between Jasper and Banff–during the last week of July 2026 in Alberta, Canada, on a coach, on a trail, or in a hotel room–I lost my neon-yellow Phoenix Gay Men’s Chorus cap.
But what I found with my husband in Canada’s astounding scenery and emerald waters is far greater, more meaningful, and certainly more lasting in the flipping pages of my memory.
Tom and I planned our Canada adventure months ago to commemorate thirty years of being together. (We met in the Chicago suburbs in August 1996.) Fresh Tracks, a Canadian tour group, helped us orchestrate our eight-day itinerary.
I told my husband, “I want to spend money in Canada in 2026.” I wanted to see the beauty above us on the map. I wanted to embrace the scenery and people, who are our northern neighbors.
I wanted them to know that many–probably most–Americans love and respect them. We admire their commitment to protect their natural resources.
Over the course of the next week, I was able to see that first-hand in the cleanliness of their national parks. No plastic bottles rattled around in rivers, lakes, or streams.
I have craved a visit to the coastline and mountains of Vancouver for years. So, we started there.
Fresh Tracks arranged an exquisite dinner for us at the Coal Harbour Cactus Club. We toasted each of with a glass of prosecco and watched the sun set over the bay. It painted a tranquil mood across a colorful canvas.
We expected to spend the following few days traveling via train on the Rocky Mountaineer through the Canadian Rockies. But fires in British Columbia limited the rail portion of our excursion to one day.
We made the best of it, traveling from Vancouver to Kamloops via coach with about thirty others. Two kind, upbeat Rocky Mountaineer staffers walked down the aisle handing out water and snacks–packages of chips, cookies, and candy.
Early on the morning of July 24, we climbed onto another coach that escorted us to the Rocky Mountaineer rail station in Kamloops a mere twenty minutes away.
Sifting through the smoke-tinged skies of Kamloops, we boarded the train and arrived on the top deck for a Gold Leaf view through a glass-encased dome.
We introduced ourselves to Mark and Kim, a fun-and-friendly couple from Abilene, Texas, who sat across the aisle. All four of us–and a train full of others–faced forward.
For the following ten hours, the welcoming, service-focused Rocky Mountaineer team entertained us with vivid stories of the landscape we would traverse together and the animals we might encounter.
At scheduled intervals, they invited us to the lower level of the train for a sumptuous, gourmet breakfast … I fell in love with the lemon cranberry bread topped with a decadent glaze.
Several hours later, we returned there for a delicious lunch/dinner, prepared magically by a team of chefs on board. The wine and drinks were free flowing.
We downed a glass of mimosa–and later pinot noir–as we traded stories with Mark and Kim and gasped at the steep river-laden mountains and canyons that brought us to Jasper … an easy-going ski-town still recovering and rebuilding after a devastating forest fire in 2024.
Along the way, eagles, elk, and big horn sheep guided us sparingly. They appeared unimpressed and unconcerned with our presence as we rode by, though we on our train cars and coaches lunged for our cameras and phones in pockets to bring home evidence that we had actually seen wildlife, unjaded and unaware of the news in any day.
Midway on our vacation, after leaving Jasper, we spent a night and morning frolicking at the iconic Chateau Lake Louise. We absorbed the privilege of simply being there and seized the moment by capturing photos of the breathtaking scenery … something Tom’s parents had done when they visited Lake Louise in 1988.
A highlight of our trip was journeying to the Columbia Icefield in Alberta. When we arrived there in our Sundog coach, we donned four layers each, including our easily packed windbreakers. They proved ideal as we ventured out to walk on a glacier.
The temperature on my phone said fifty degrees Fahrenheit. In the icy, pine-scented air it felt more like forty with a biting breeze. Of course, my blood is thinner now, living nearly all of my days in the Sonoran Desert.
By the time we arrived in Banff, it meant we were nearing the end of our Canada adventure. I did my best to “soak up the scenery” as my father said back in the 60s as we rode up and down hairpin turns in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina.
Well-appointed lodges and snazzy shops line the main streets in Banff. At times we felt the size of overflowing, late-July crowds and traffic there.
None of that deterred my fascination with the Bow River rapids–and ultimately its falls–that raced through town or the eight-minute gondola ride we took on our final Banff day beyond alpine heights to the top of Sulphur Mountain.
Through it all — as I paused to “soak up” breathtaking scenery in the form of still photos and even a few videos of waterfalls and vast mountain ranges stretching far beyond my senses — I realized the most important thing of all: I was blessed to witness the wonder of western Canada in July 2026 and to see all of it with the man I love.
I live in the Sonoran Desert and the Sonoran Desert lives in me. That’s been the case for nine years. My most prolific ones as a writer.
The language of the desert–like grains of sand that blow in through the door–is now part of my creative being.
Shimmering sunsets. Slithering lizards. Skittish quail. Stray cats. Spiky cacti and succulents. Scattering snowbirds. And those are just a sample from the letter “s”.
When I served as a “Writer in Residence” at the Scottsdale Public Library last spring, I prompted the writers in my workshop to explore the role setting plays in the stories of their lives.
I asked them to consider a place in their lives that is or was prominent and how that place might be considered a character in what they have to say. In the stories they want to show and tell.
The places I have lived or frequented have certainly provided texture to my existence and informed my perspective. The orange earth of the Carolinas. The rolling hills of Missouri. The flatlands of Illinois. The rugged buttes of the Arizona desert.
They represent distinct periods in my life, and–in hindsight–I now understand better why they each deserve their proximity across my body of literary work, six books … a lifetime of stories.
The heat here in July is intense. But it is bearable because the Sonoran Desert–even in its most torrid state–is otherworldly.
At times it feels as if I am living on the moon. The astonishing natural beauty and stately saguaros–sentinels that stand tall in valleys and on hillsides here–have led me to a creative destination outside the orbit of my midwestern sensibilities.
One where I “write on” … as I just celebrated my sixty-ninth birthday and begin this final lap in my sixties. Learning and growing. Teaching and influencing.
Standing tall as a gay man, a husband, a father, a writer. Proud as a saguaro despite my visits to the cardiologist and dermatologist to manage my personal frailties. Rooted to this vivid place, the Valley of the Sun, that is my home.
***
Note to those of you who live in the Phoenix metropolitan area: On Thursday, July 16, from 5 to 7 p.m., I will be signing and selling copies of my latest book, Sixty-Something Days, at Grounds on 2nd in Old Town Scottsdale, located at 3703 N. 69th St.
This charming neighborhood place (coffee and wine bar) is one of my favorite spots in our Scottsdale, Arizona, community. It truly is an inclusive, creative space my husband Tom and I frequent to write, read, and chill with friends. In fact, I wrote and edited a considerable portion of my latest book there.
If you are in the area, stop by to sell hello, grab a book and a glass of wine. I also will have a few copies of my other five books–memoirs, poetry, and short fiction–on hand in case you are looking for options to add to your summer reading list.
In April 2026, friends at the Scottsdale Public Library gave me this shirt after I completed my “Writer in Residence” stint there.
On what would have been his ninety-sixth birthday, I want to remind the world that Harvey Milk’s spirit of compassion, authenticity, equality, and hope still lives within each of us in the LGBTQ community … nearly fifty years after his assassination in November 1978.
In 1977, Harvey Milk was the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in California as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Despite his short political career, he quickly became an icon in San Francisco and a galvanizing force and inspiration for the LGBTQ community for his unbridled commitment to civil rights.
We will never know what Harvey Milk might have said if he had lived to see the dream of national marriage equality become a reality in the United States in 2015 and now–eleven years later on the other end of the spectrum–to witness the rapid, daily decay of American democracy, American institutions, and American civil liberties.
But I’m a hopeful person and so was Harvey.
He believed “hope is never silent.” He also believed in visibility, whether it means two men holding hands while roller-skating under the palms or standing in protest … raising our voices in solidarity … and living openly on days that aren’t nearly as sunny.
In these frightening times, the impulse for some might be to take a step or two back into the closet. But Harvey would have encouraged all of us–gay and straight–to do the opposite. To step forward with conviction.
Take a moment to read some of Harvey’s encouraging words.
Harvey’s hope and memory is a salve for all of us–gay and straight–who believe in truth and decency.
Though Harvey is long gone, his legacy of authenticity and hope still lives.
***
“I know you can’t live on hope alone; but without hope, life is not worth living. So you, and you and you: you got to give them hope; you got to give them hope.”Harvey Milk
“Every gay person must come out. As difficult as it is, you must tell your immediate family. You must tell your relatives. You must tell your friends if indeed they are your friends. You must tell the people you work with. You must tell the people in the stores you shop in. Once they realize that we are indeed their children, that we are indeed everywhere, every myth, every lie, every innuendo will be destroyed once and for all. And once you do, you will feel so much better.”Harvey Milk
Back and forth from one end of the pool to the other on this hotter-than-average, magnificent March morning. March 24, 2026, from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m. to be precise. Thirty lengths in the deep end of Eldorado Pool in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Somehow, I wrangled my own lane today. I don’t mind sharing but always feel freer on unobstructed Tuesdays and Thursdays. There are fewer swim-class participants to contend with on those days and–now that the Cactus League baseball games have ended–some of the snowbirds have begun to flock home.
Breathing every eight or ten strokes, looking over my right shoulder, swimming south to north, I spy the blazing sun that threatens my sensitive skin and the wispy-white contrail of a commercial plane flying high above.
Serendipitously, the repetitive swimming motion reminds me what I want to write about today. It is the tenth anniversary of publishing my first book: From Fertile Ground.
On March 24, 2016, Barack Obama was president. I didn’t imagine the waves of what was to come: the growing political insanity, the dismantling of once-reliable American institutions, the general implosion of our democracy in one decade. Who could?
Back then, Tom and I were snowbirds–splitting time between our homes in Mount Prospect, Illinois, and Scottsdale, Arizona.
I wrote most of my inaugural book–a three-generation writer’s mosaic about love and loss in my family–from the suburban flatness of northern Illinois.
But working online–back and forth like a swimmer logging laps between my editor and book designer in Nashville, Tennessee, and me in Scottsdale–I made my final edits in the rugged western landscape of the Grand Canyon State.
I remember the pride of holding the first physical copy of my first book later that week. I know I cried. It was a release of joy and amazement. Most definitely, a seminal moment I shared with my husband.
Sadness crept in, too, because I had written the book to process my grief after my mother’s passing. In a physical sense, I wasn’t able to celebrate that literary moment with her.
But I also know that writing about her and her wisdom-filled letters, my father and his unrealized poetry, my grandfather and fifty-three years of diary entries, and the general sense of freedom I felt visiting my grandparents in the 1960s at their rambling North Carolina farm allowed me to create a healing path out of my grief.
It was–and still is–a story I was meant to write and publish. One I wanted to share with others navigating the devastation of grief.
In the past ten years since From Fertile Ground was born, writing has become that free, unbridled swimming lane that is purely mine. Welcome waves of water and creativity running from my mid-fifties to my late sixties.
Of course, I take pride in that body of work and–more recently–find it tremendously gratifying to share what I have learned with other writers, who need an experienced coach … and a few practical ideas … to tell their own stories.
Today, I also pause and wonder–with a touch of sadness as I write this–how many more stories lie ahead for me. Though I still feel strong, capable, creative, and alive in these golden years swimming back and forth under the Arizona sun, I also feel more vulnerable.
Part of it is the process of aging. The other is the narrowing swim lanes of American society that constrain freedom and the expression of ideas.
Having said that, I choose to end this story on a positive note. Today, I choose to relish the goodness of my life with Tom in this rugged landscape. To give thanks for all the stories that have come from fertile ground over the past ten years … as well as those I have salvaged from the depths of the pool looking over my shoulder to beloved people and places that now live on the page.
In the soundtrack of our lives–I believe one exists–sometimes a word or phrase from a conversation with a friend or acquaintance stops us in our tracks.
That happened for me recently while wearing my Writer in Residence hat at the Scottsdale Public Library in a one-on-one meeting with another writer. She looked at me with kindness and said with a warm smile:
“I’ll bet you’ve had lots of angels in your life.”
My response? “Yes, I have!”
I am not a religious person, but most definitely spiritual. So, I took her observation to mean there are unexplained positive forces at play … weaving in and out of my life with love.
I have definitely had my share of “guardian angels” in my sixty-eight years.
Some have appeared at my side for long stretches. Tom (my husband), Helen (my mother), and Valerie (my therapist years ago) have been visible angels in my life with lasting influence.
Others, like Rachel–a nurse at Barnes Jewish Hospital in St. Louis who floated in and out of my room in the middle of the night–helped keep me alive after I suffered a mild heart attack in 2017. She was mostly assuredly an angel.
Then there are the non-visible angels with wings that take flight in unusual ways. For instance, the serendipitous feelings of warmth and safety I feel when I am gardening, or singing, or swimming, or writing, or walking in nature.
Whenever this happens, I feel like angels are watching over me.
I’m a believer that whatever energy we spread in the universe in our everyday lives–good or bad–it eventually finds its way back to us in waves that envelope us.
As I get older, I find myself pondering these metaphysical or philosophical questions more closely. I’m more open to the idea of forces at play that don’t always add up mathematically or logically.
Certainly, at the end of the day–at the end of my life whenever that may be–I’d rather be held up by the wings of an angel for the love and goodness I’ve brought to the world than destroyed by the deleterious effects of a devil for the havoc I’ve caused.
In mid-February, fourteen gathered around a long, rectangular table with me.
Now, as sunset approaches on this “Writer in Residence” version of my memoir-writing workshop, the group has winnowed to a tenacious, courageous ten. Eight women and two men intent upon writing and sharing stories from their vivid lives.
In less than three weeks, this talented group has bonded over personal stories of deep reflection, relationships, transformation, and wonder. These are a collection of some of the images and settings I will remember from the pages of our storied moments together:
Recalling the lingering, indelible scent of a father’s shaving creme permeating a modest 1960’s back bathroom;
Uprooting a life to care for an aging parent only to discover new love and an unanticipated chapter in an unlikely land;
Finding the energy and conviction to finish that marathon that no one in her family thought she would complete decades ago;
Channeling every ounce of strength to leave an abusive relationship and find much-needed support;
Recounting an early-in-life adventure to Los Angeles to fulfill a California dream;
Forgiving a gang of grackles for their messy transgressions;
Revisiting and releasing decades of shame and blame for the loss of a cow and calf in the barn of one’s rural past;
Celebrating the sacred space of freedom and unbridled joy forged inside a first car; and
Trudging along a circuitous trail to discover a meadow of brilliant fireflies dancing on the crest of a hill.
My role has been to provide tools, encouragement, and a safe place for these and other creative odysseys to emerge, land on the page, gain traction, and marry with the proud and animated vocal cords of these ten inspiring individuals.
On March 6, the sun sets on our journey together. Before we depart, I will encourage my newest friends to keep writing.
Together, we also will give thanks for the creative talent that lies within each of us … and the collective magic we manufactured on three consecutive Fridays in an otherwise ordinary Civic Center conference room on the first floor of a remarkable community space: the Scottsdale Public Library.
