Tag: March

The Love We Shared

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Phyllis was my St. Louis cousin. We were born a decade apart–she in November 1947, me in July 1957. Her mother Violet and my father Walter were twins.

On Tuesday evening, I learned that Phyllis died March 24, 2026. A series of health complications over the past eighteen months ultimately led to her passing. Ironically, she left this world almost exactly twenty-five years to the day after her mother’s passing in March 2001.

When we were children and teens–at every Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas gathering from the late 1950s to the 1970s–my sister Diane, Phyllis and I represented the youngest contingent of the Johnson family lineage. We were loved and nurtured by our parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles.

I felt close to Phyllis. As I recount my earliest family memories, I admired her style, her intellect, her ambition. Years later, in the 1980s when my sons (Nick and Kirk) and hers (Austin and Bryant) were all born within a five-year period, the arc of our parallel lives as parents brought us together whenever I visited St. Louis from my home in the Chicago area.

Then, in the 1990s and early 2000s, both of us were consumed by our busy careers. She was a life-long educator. I was a communication consultant. We lost touch a bit as all four of our parents aged and died.

But the beauty of family and longevity is that–if you are willing and able–you can recapture the loving connections hard-wired in your early years.

Ultimately, Phyllis and I did that. In our retirement years, we traded texts frequently. We cheered for our beloved St. Louis Cardinals through the highs and lows. We shared family news and photos. Phyllis absolutely adored her four grandchildren!

Even though I left my St. Louis home in 1980 to build a life and career in Chicago–and later moved to Arizona with my husband Tom in 2017–the love I feel for my cousin remains.

I’m thankful that I was able to see Phyllis four times in the last decade of her life. In 2016, we celebrated her and her husband Tom’s fortieth wedding anniversary. In 2017, Phyllis and her family met Tom and me for dinner at an Italian restaurant on The Hill in St. Louis.

In 2021, we gathered for a family breakfast and reunion at Phyllis and Tom’s home in St. Charles, Missouri. Then, in September 2025, Tom and I visited Phyllis and Tom one final time at Breeze Park where she was convalescing.

Because Phyllis was a dedicated teacher and reading tutor, she enjoyed reading my books. She also followed my blog and supported my writing journey. In fact, she encouraged me to capture nostalgic memories of my paternal St. Louis family on the page. That became my second book, Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator.

So, in a sense, today I not only feel I’ve lost my cousin. I also feel I’ve lost a literary friend.

At one point, I remember Phyllis telling me she hoped to write a children’s book one day. Though that never happened, I am certain my cousin–a devoted teacher–had a positive impact on the lives of hundreds of children in her long and successful career. Her legacy will ripple through their lives and those of her children and grandchildren.

Today is the home opener for the St. Louis Cardinals. The first pitch will be thrown in about an hour. I will be watching the game on TV from my home in Scottsdale.

When the Cardinals take the field, I will be thinking of my cousin. She was a knowledgeable, lifelong, tried-and-true Redbird fan. I will imagine her rooting for them from a heavenly perch.

But, most of all, I will remember the family moments and the love we shared for nearly seventy years.

***

The Love We Shared

Heaviness in my strong heart,

numb with dread,

tells me this chapter has ended.

But I will always know

the love we shared,

the stories we treasured,

the early etchings of memories

with those who came before us,

those who embraced us,

those who left us long ago,

and the ones we shaped and loved later,

who have carved and created

paths, deeds, and destinies

of their own.

Now it is time

for you to rest.

And, as you go, I remember

the person you were,

the gifts you gave,

the lessons you taught.

But, most of all,

I remember the countless ways

your love has touched our lives.

***

Phyllis (in the center below) was eleven years old–Diane was four, I was one–when the three of us posed on November 26, 1958, at the golden wedding anniversary party for our grandparents, Albert and Louise Johnson.

Looking Over My Shoulder

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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.

Whenever I jump into my writing in the deep end of my emotions, I find a way back to the surface with a new story. Many of them have landed on the pages of my other five books: Tales of a Rollercoaster Operator in 2017; An Unobstructed View in 2018; I Think I’ll Prune the Lemon Tree in 2021; A Path I Might Have Missed in 2023; and Sixty-Something Days in 2025.

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.

All About Angels

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Photo by K ZHAO on Pexels.com

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.

They Still Remain

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Without words, they supply sounds, scents, and texture to our everyday lives.

Their furry souls exist unconditionally, by our sides, under the table, on the coolest tile, or the warmest trail to nowhere special or somewhere sacred.

While they are present, our ever-lovable companions spread beauty, comedy, continuity, responsibility, laughter, goodness, grace, and wisdom across crowded kitchens, cozy front porches, and boundless backyards.

And, when nature calls and they pad along to another plane, they still remain family, they still inhabit our hearts forever.

***

For Mason, Katie, Poly, Maggie and all our furry friends who have gone before us.

Vivid Skies, Vivid Lives

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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.

Hang On

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In the course of any life–whether you are a woodpecker, hummingbird or a species without wings–sometimes the best you can do is to find nourishment where you can … and just hang on.

I Don’t Pretend

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It’s late Friday afternoon in the desert. The mockingbird outside our backdoor is singing his or her heart out. It’s a tender, hopeful, pre-weekend serenade … a chirpy, lyrical refrain coming from the top of a telephone pole that connects our heavier world of technology and dissonant news and noise.

None of us knows what tomorrow will bring … ever. But especially now.

Case in point: early this afternoon as Tom and I devoured a few remaining slices of sausage and veggie pizza from the night before, a military jet zoomed overhead.

The sudden surge of decibels jarred our nerves. Though we live near a military base at Papago Park, we rarely hear that intense noise. Only an occasional squadron of helicopters arriving or departing.

We are a nation of divided people living on the edge of time, sound, and sensibility. Each day when we climb out of bed, we are aware of the dismantling of institutions we have come to know and respect.

Each day we are threatened by another batch of edicts tossed out the sidedoor by an authoritarian regime bringing shame and constant anxiety to those of us raised to believe in a country that once valued high ideals over low morals.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I know silence will kill us.

I won’t pretend to be someone I’m not. Or as I have said frequently to friends lately, “I’m not putting this genie back in a bottle.”

What do I mean? I spent too many years as a teenager and young adult (of the 1970s, 80s and early 90s) denying my true gay identity, subverting my whole self to try to fit into a predominantly straight, suburban culture.

That caused me (and others in my life at the time) tremendous personal pain. And, on a larger scale, denying the truth kept our society from advancing to a higher plain of equality, freedom, and human possibilities.

Yet now our federal (and some of our state and local government officials, too) are attempting to wipe away the contributions and accomplishments of our “diverse” people from websites and history books.

For instance, native code talkers who–by virtue of their distinct language–were instrumental in helping to bring an end to World War II.

Did you know that recently pages on the Arlington National Cemetery website–highlighting the graves of Black and female service members–have been removed?

These and other efforts are designed to erase the accomplishments of women and people of color.

How far will this attempt at whitewashing our history go? I don’t pretend to know. But I do know that the best attributes of our diverse culture exist in the past and present and people need to know about these contributions.

My husband Tom, an aficionado of films from the 1960s and 70s, has been leading a film series this winter and spring at the Scottsdale Public Library, titled “Movies That Matter: the 1970s.”

Each Monday afternoon, between 75 and 100 people attend this free series. The audience is mostly white people who love great films.

Last week, Tom screened “Dog Day Afternoon”. Directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Al Pacino, the film–based on a true story that occurred in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1970s–chronicles a botched bank robbery in the heat of the summer.

It’s an intense and sometimes funny film early on. Pacino plays Sonny. He’s desperate to get the money his partner needs for a sex change operation. But we don’t know that until more than half the movie has spooled through what once was a movie projector.

It’s a must-see flick. I won’t spoil the outcome if you haven’t seen it. But the most meaningful and important aspect of this story is that 93 people attended. They listened to Tom’s stage-setting intro for historical context. They watched the film, and then they talked about it. Together.

They talked about what it meant. They examined the techniques employed in the film to tell the story effectively. They existed in that space for three hours as a community of people in a shared experience.

I don’t pretend to know all of the political affiliations represented in that room. But I’m certain they left with a greater appreciation for film and how it can shed light on the differences and pressures–like them or not–that have existed in our American society for decades.

Tom delivers his opening remarks at a screening of Dog Day Afternoon at the Scottsdale Public Library on March 17, 2025. Photo by our friend and neighbor Diego.

Compressed

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Why do we gravitate toward

an idealized arrangement

of natural design and beauty,

heaping layer upon layer

of flat stones separated

from orderly round ones?

Do these walls stand

compressed in architectural

tribute to planned selection

over the stew of spontaneity?

Why does man’s comfort

with the squashing power

of conformity supersede

the messy-but-meaningful

marrow of our diverse story

… our diverse history?

Destination Unknown

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I was about to embark on a journey. But not remotely ready. Nonetheless, I was expected to begin Day One of a new job, in uniform as a United Airlines flight attendant.

A crowd of other newbies gathered around me. We lined up to have our security photos taken by a young, rather handsome cameraman with a large head. He teetered on a tiny chair with his knees protruding beyond his elbows.

When it came to be my turn, the blond figure told me to stand on an X marked on the floor. Then, he stood to reveal his true height.

His elongated body stretched for nearly eight feet before he snapped my photograph and disappeared behind a funhouse mirror.

A primitive machine spit out my image, but I don’t remember receiving my security credentials.

About this time, my husband appeared on the other side of a window that contained a metal tray below. He told me he wanted to slide cash to me under the glass. He thought I might need it on my journey. He said he would meet me on the other side. I felt disoriented and dismayed.

Moments later, I found myself standing in front of a harried female administrative assistant. She sat behind an old desk with stacks of papers and files surrounding her. She worked for United. She told me I needed to board my first flight in about thirty minutes, but that my hair was unkempt.

As she handed me a boarding pass, she spieled off a list of complicated directions that would lead me to a trusted stylist in the terminal. She insisted there was time to accomplish this necessary task, though I would need to run to catch my flight.

I felt anxious. Unprepared for my journey. Unsure of the safety protocols. Disturbed that the length of my hair was causing me trouble. Lost in a once-familiar Chicago terminal that was now foreign to me.

That’s when I woke up.

Photo by Keith Lobo on Pexels.com

Backyard Faces

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Sunday through Monday–when desert winds blow freely or not at all–I prefer nature’s ever-present sweet, sunny and determined backyard faces to yesterday’s and today’s front-page disgraces.

Katie’s sweet face
Arizona’s sunny face
Mason’s determined face
St. Francis watches over nature in Glenn’s backyard

In early March, while Glenn was away, Tom and I (along with an assist from St. Francis) cared for our friend’s lovable Newfoundland dogs–Katie and Mason–in their peaceful backyard.