I am struggling to come up with something to write tonight. My mind is blank. I have had several false starts already, meaning I’ve picked a topic, written half a page, then deleted the whole paragraph. I don’t usually do that, but tonight appears to be one of those nights, where all ideas seem not…
Tag: flash essay
Flash Essay: The Consequences of being “Nice”
When I was growing up, there was an admonition: “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.” This came mainly from my father, who arguably was an extremely decent person, and one who followed his own advice. I don’t recall him ever talking badly about anyone. My mother had her own…
Flash Essay: The Value of Being Good and Tired
it is 9:03 and I am beat. I feel as if I am always talking on this blog about how tired I am. Sorry about that. Part of the problem is that I am writing at night and my days tend to be full. The other is that I’ve never been very good at pacing…
Flash Essay: Late Night, Class Preparation, and Two Sweet Dogs
It is 12:43 in the morning. The night is quiet. The dogs are sleeping at my feet. I have been preparing for the personal essay writing course that I am teaching for the next five weeks through Story Circle Network. I have been reading and getting ready for the past several days, but tonight was…
Flash Essay: Saturday, Belief, and Ray Wylie Hubbard
Mid-afternoon here in LA on Saturday, the temperature a perfect 76 degree and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. I am sitting in the back yard so the dogs can poke around and hopefully do their business while I write. In just a bit, Ray and I are headed off to two different places:…
Flash Essay: Day One with Our Little Foster Dog, Sammie
I am tired. Babysitting little Sammie, our new foster Scottie, is the reason. My goodness. We’ve been downstairs, upstairs, in the house, in the back yard, and around the block twice. All with Cordelia one step ahead of little Sammie, leading the way. To my knowledge, Sammie still hasn’t peed or pooped. Our daughter Sarah…
Flash Essay: Countdown to Sammie
It is a cool evening here in LA with grey skies and a breeze that is shaking the leaves on the avocado trees out back. I’m sitting in a little outdoor alcove, which affords privacy under a canopy of green from a twenty-foot maple tree planted near the garage. I hear honking out front, and…
Flash Essay: Two Places; One Brain
I live a schizophrenic existence: part of my time spent in a little Texas town; the other right in the heart of LA. Wow. What a contrast. We just returned from a month in Texas, a wonderful month of hard work and obvious results, neighborly chats on front porches at night, and friends to visit…
Flash Memoir: The Unexpected Joy of Cooking
Food is love. Not exactly. Not in my family when I was growing up, at least. I saw that principle applied in other families where dinner time centered on a meal lovingly prepared by a mother who might have gone out and picked fresh vegetables from her own garden, or used canned vegetables from that…
Flash Essay Prompt: Freedom
When have I felt perfectly free? Swimming underwater when I was a child, feeling the coolness, seeing the blue vagueness through open eyes, my body stretching forward near the bottom of the pool as my arms pulled and my feet paddled me to the other side. I imagine that freedom even now when I am…
20 Minutes a Day 