My Own Story
My family moved often when I was a kid—from Oklahoma to Louisiana to Wyoming to Texas to Colorado. As a young adult, I continued the pattern of moving, spending time in Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana, Missouri, Vermont, and finally Massachusetts. As a result, I never truly felt a sense of home.
Lately, crows have congregated in the Norway Spruce trees in my back yard. They caw so loud as if they want me to come outside and play. I know better: it’s a trick, but I go anyway. And once I step out the back door, they fly off, laughing into the air. I watch them go, and then I come back inside my orange house and try to write a story or plan a class. Or maybe I just stare out the window. Diane, my partner since 1994, shares the orange house with me. She makes it a home, in all ways. And our dog Gizmo, rescued from a pound when he was two, he makes it a home, too. (Dear website visitors: As you may have read in my journal, Gizmo died on April 19, 2010. I haven’t had the heart to change the copy of this page yet. He is/was so much a part of our family.)
And here is the newest update on our family: two orange cats, brothers Seamus and Sunny, have come to live with us in our orange house. They needed a home, and now they have one. We know that Gizmo’s spirit wanders the rooms, and he is no doubt annoyed that there are cats in his space. We wish he were here to negotiate boundaries with them.
I suppose I write in an attempt to locate home, some center point that grounds me. Because stories—both as something to read and something to live—matter to me, I hope this website reflects that.