Author Archive: Nancy
Searching
This is my first Mother’s Day without Mom. I’m 71. I’ve had seventy Mother’s Days with her, so I am ahead of the game, I guess. And I don’t even particularly like Mother’s Day. There are too many women (and men) excluded from the celebration. Those whose mothers have died, or mothers whose children have …
Remembering
My mother died a month ago. She was 98. I don’t know what to write about her now. I’ve written about her so many times already; I’m not sure what else I could say. She was bright. She was funny. She was beautiful. She was kind. She was a daughter, a wife, a mother, a …
Collection Time
I’m here to collect on some debts. Some very old debts. What I am owed is: Sympathy. Sometimes you have little accidents doing something stupid. You don’t want your stupidity revealed. When you hurt yourself being a dumbbell, you kind of have to keep quiet about it. Pretending everything is fine when it isn’t may …
Fantastic
I discovered something. It wasn’t a sudden lightning bolt epiphany. But there was a lightning bolt of a sort. The kind that hits you with a gentle slap to the forehead, saying, “Duh -of course!” I’ve been working at the library for six months now. It is exactly the right job for me at this …
Teacher
I never really expected to reinvent myself at seventy. After all, it took me over sixty years to like myself the way I am. And yet, here I am, trying all sorts of new stuff and being all sorts of new people. A new/old role for me: Teacher. Old – because I was a teacher …
Bossy
I haven’t written for a while. I’ve been trying to decide what to write about going back to work after five years of retirement. But now I’ve decided – I love it. I wasn’t bored in my retirement. I write. I paint. I play with my dogs and cats. I belong to more than one …
Having Lost My Mind
I have now been retired for five years. I love being retired. I love living my life exactly as I wish. No schedule. No deadlines. No bosses. And now I have done it. Or un-done it. Lost my senses. I’ve un-retired. I saw a posting for a part-time bookkeeper at my local library. And all …
Unedited
I have a writer friend. Like many of my writer friends, I don’t truly know her. She’s a professional acquaintance. I like her. But mostly because I like writers. I don’t even remember how we became friends – or, more accurately, internet acquaintances. But it was many years ago. Maybe our first books came out …
Oversharing
Today at the drugstore, the kid at the cash register was one of those Oversharers. You know the type. Most often, it is an older person. Maybe lives alone. Maybe lonely. The old lady at the supermarket who starts by asking you about the pickles you are buying, and ends up telling you about her …
Old Poetry
When I was a teenager, I wrote a lot of poetry. Some of it was good – I won a few awards. But most of it was typical adolescent mediocrity. Life is never more unfair or more glorious than when you are seventeen. Most of it didn’t survive. I remember only orphan lines. They come …
notquiteold 