Articles about Wisdom
Written as part of a Method Writing Class with Jules Swales. Inspired by Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, Number 1.
“Birth certificates are death sentences. Signed, sealed, delivered. In between, the River I must roll, must roll, must roll.”
“Nothing to do. Nothing to think. Nothing but relax. Wait for death’s scoop into heaven’s magic, the best, most free, most silent, most pregnant years of a life brimmed with work and responsibility.”
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On a walk among luminaria, I found evergreen magic. In the city block of my Phoenix neighborhood, on Christmas Eve and Christmas night we observe a tradition of lighting luminaria, votive candles in white sacks, placed along the edges of our sidewalks. I took a walk in the dark of Christmas evening to enjoy both…
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Christmas presents, gifts of light, can arrive at any time of the year. They can even unwrap in a university classroom in July on a campus shimmering in summer heat. Before the age of 30, I yearned to belong. I didn’t seem to fit anywhere. I was too quiet. Too shy. Too intense. Too emotional.…
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Oh, break my heart Break open, wide, and vast and unlimited Break open, as memories Of loved ones passed Flood into and radiate Deep shadows. Oh, break my heart Embrace the flash of Love. On November 18, 2022, William Ronald Pfeffer, my late husband’s brother left this side of life. As I lit the candle…
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There is a space no longer than the blink of an eye, between event and reaction. It is there that all manner of sacred possibility resides. The person on the end of the phone had just launched a bomb targeted at my inner peace. I gasped out loud. Words of retaliation marched to the tip…
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“Try to enjoy this time,” my obstetrician, Dr. Arvin said. Her curly brown hair bounced against her cheeks and her eyes sparkled with mirth. Awaiting the birth of my first, and only child, I was almost two weeks overdue. Mirrored in her glasses, I saw my cream-colored belly, as big as a house. The exam…
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“I’ve tried to forgive myself, God, but I can only come so far,” I said, in a heartfelt prayer to an autumn sky heavy with rain-soaked clouds. I knelt beside the Rose of Sharon bush that I’d planted next to the house in memory of my father-in-law. Summer blooms of white and purple flowers had…
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I steered my car around a dark, forested bend in the road that ran alongside the Little Kanawha River. The 68-mile commute along West Virginia byways from my home in Millstone to my office in Parkersburg was as familiar to me as the back of my hand. Each curve was an intimate friend. Miles stretched…
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At his first sight of our Christmas tree, my 3-year-old grandson, Alex, said, “Oh, wow!” His gorgeous brown eyes were wide. Mickey Mouse winked on the chest of his grey and white T-shirt. His hand was clapped to his mouth. “It’s beautiful, Grammy!” “Look at this one, Alex,” his 5-year-old brother, Luke, said, as he…
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