This blog post was inspired by a college essay question one of my students was required to answer: Give a brief self-interview that will help us get to know you better. Reading the prompt, I realized it invited deep reflection, so I decided to answer the prompt myself. 1) You have clearly done quite a…
Tag: travel
Update on Stormy Weather & Christmas Activities
Here is the big picture news stolen from a text written by Ray: 12 3/4 inches of rain since Tuesday night. More rain next week. Soggy here, but everything is snug and warm. Lots of giant trees falling over here and in LA. Lots of shifting soil on hillsides. Soil was still wet from a…
The Story Circle Network Sightseeing Tour and Writing Workshop in Spain, 2025
I am reacclimating, slow but sure, after almost two weeks in Spain, which is 9 time zones ahead of Pacific Time. While I’m still dragging just a bit, I can now see the end in sight regarding my jet lag. This trip may have been our best yet. Our guide, Christopher, was sensitive, knowledgeable, and…
Two Days Until Spain: Lessons in Timing (and Packing)
Ray and I are headed to Spain on Thursday, a few days ahead of the Story Circle Network tour and writing workshop that begins on Monday. I am wrapping up my college and graduate school admission work with my students tomorrow, and so far, so good. All the personal essays and personal statements are strong,…
A Major Reason I Am Excited to Visit Madrid
In just two weeks, I’ll be heading to Spain to host our annual Story Circle Network International Sightseeing Tour and Writing Workshop. While I am always eager to go on these incredible trips, I am especially excited to have the chance this time to see Picasso’s Guernica in person. This extraordinary painting about the atrocities…
Flash Memoir: A Wrecked Model T
The car looked like a Model T, or what was left of it. It was more rightly, the carcass of a Model T with no wheels or tires, no engine, no seats. Only the body of the old car, rusted, bent, and disheveled, like an old woman with too many miles and too much booze. …
Flash Memoir: A Buick, an Embankment, and Grace
This is a story that happened a few years back right around this time of year. I would say this is the very closest I’ve ever come to facing my dying moment – and killing poor Ray in the process. Thank God for a little Divine intervention when we both really needed it. I have…
Home At Last!
Here is our 2 1/2-year-old grandson Ethan’s message to us this morning when we were on the last leg of our three-day driving trip back from Texas to California. Liz and Ethan met us as we drove into the orange grove, and Liz was happy to let Ethan ride the rest of the way while…
Poem: Positano
This is a memory from a long-ago visit to Positano, Italy, on the Amalfi Coast. I was there again in 2019, but didn’t get to spend much time in this lovely cliffside village. When I traveled to Positano at age 22, I was certain it was the most beautiful place in the entire world. It…
Flash Fiction: Two Different Approaches to Living
The light was soft in the room, and the windows were covered by three lines of bookshelves that allowed the sunlight to come in but also diffused it. A long built-in wooden couch with lime green cushions and splashes of orange and yellow pillows ran right below the bookshelves. Jacob lay sprawled on the couch,…
20 Minutes a Day 