Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Category: Aging in Abundance
The Sweet Life of Trash Picking
It’s a sign of something that I want to start keeping garbage bags and disposable gloves in my car so I can swerve over to the side of the road and pick up trash whenever the spirit moves me. It seems like a very… Continue Reading “The Sweet Life of Trash Picking”
Where’s the Money When you Need It?
I wish I’d come up with the scratch to buy the land adjacent to our cabin on Lake Superior, so someone wasn’t able to build an enormous, earth-scarring monstrosity next door. I say ‘next door’ hesitantly as it implies neighborliness, as in, let’s go… Continue Reading “Where’s the Money When you Need It?”
What I Know to be True: Gray is a Color
This is exactly the first thing that came to mind when I opened my eyes this morning. Gray is a color. It’s not the memory of a color. Gray is the color of doves and steel. Gray is a long life’s memory. I must… Continue Reading “What I Know to be True: Gray is a Color”
Chores Make the World Go Round
New straw new year rake Birds fed flitting flapping caw Porch swept for sitting
The Perfect Gift can be Years in the Making
My son gave me his cat. But it was more of a desperation thing than a considered gift. There’s a story attached to the giving or loaning or ‘please, can you take Herc for a while’ but the details aren’t important. The gist of… Continue Reading “The Perfect Gift can be Years in the Making”
Hiking with Words
I love serendipity as a word because it smells like flowers and butterflies and happenstance, but I love the word solivagant even more. I’ve never laid eyes on this word – solivagant – until it popped up in a prompt. So, I had to… Continue Reading “Hiking with Words”
I Smell Bees
[The prompt this week for my writing group is “I smell _____, and I am.” This is my go at it.] I smell bees. It is August. The grass in our yard is yellow, burned by the sun. Everything is dry, brittle. I… Continue Reading “I Smell Bees”
Not Everyone is Looking: Advice to My Teenage Self
Not everyone is looking at you or judging you or thinking that you are anything other than what you actually are. People have their own lives. They are not spending their time dwelling on your shortcomings. Or wondering why your tennis shoes are cheap… Continue Reading “Not Everyone is Looking: Advice to My Teenage Self”
Leeches, Bows, and the Shedding of Drudgery
One of the things I love most about my life right now is that I pay someone else to clean my bathroom. The toilet. The grout. The shower door. Most of all, the shower door. I’ve stopped doing internet research on new clever, multi-ingredient… Continue Reading “Leeches, Bows, and the Shedding of Drudgery”
How I Hope It Happens
When it comes, if it comes, the twelfth time I put my car keys in the freezer, leave the house wearing a towel on my head, wonder what rain is made of, I hope it will be my daughter who tells me I have… Continue Reading “How I Hope It Happens”
Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
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