Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Category: Edges of a Thing
Snippets in a Bowl of Marbles
I put together sixty-seven of my 100-word stories into a chapbook called Snippets. A graphic artist whom I’ve known for close to fifty years created the cover and then carefully laid out the stories. This is harder than one might think because of how… Continue Reading “Snippets in a Bowl of Marbles”
Checking Worries Off My List
My daughter dying in a foreign country. I’m free from this worry because she died here – in the United States instead of in Nicaragua where she had been living. Could I be any more macabre? This morning on the back porch, I said… Continue Reading “Checking Worries Off My List”
Today at the Playground and Afterward: Grief Tunes
After a great sand-filled, barefoot, pants wet from the rain on the slide visit to the playground, my granddaughter hurt her finger somehow getting into the car. She told me her finger was broken and she started to cry. We drove out of the… Continue Reading “Today at the Playground and Afterward: Grief Tunes”
Jumbled is What’s for Dinner
I know a few people who’ve lost their adult children. But I only know one who became a guardian of a very young child as a result. And I saw her yesterday in a coffee shop where I was meeting with a colleague about… Continue Reading “Jumbled is What’s for Dinner”
I Think This is What Grief Looks Like
What are the ten thousand things you’ve done wrong?Is there a list? Did you keep a list? It’s not too late to compile.You could leave room for more, the list can be open-ended, just set another place at the table. Runners wear weighted vests.They… Continue Reading “I Think This is What Grief Looks Like”
Tiny Steps in Some Direction
My petunias are getting leggy. This is always the time of the year when they get leggy and I turn again them, resent their not keeping themselves thick and lush. I would have to sit out there on the front porch for three hours… Continue Reading “Tiny Steps in Some Direction”
My New Learning Curve
Well, today I learned that if you buy a $39, nuclear weapons protection grade, red birdfeeder that requires each bird to create a unique registration number not shared with any other bird in order to partake of any seeds, then the squirrels will suddenly… Continue Reading “My New Learning Curve”
It’s a Hard Knock Life, So I’ve Heard
Remember toys that came in cereal boxes? Decoder rings and such? Well, our ever-hungry backyard squirrel, the one who has been raiding the bird seed bin for days came up on the porch and chewed the heck out of the beloved super-duper green plastic… Continue Reading “It’s a Hard Knock Life, So I’ve Heard”
Blessed are the Well-Wishers, I Guess
What you write about and what you want to write about are two different things a lot of the time. I want to write about how some condolences feel like diagnostic quests. How are you doing? No, how are you really doing? Is that… Continue Reading “Blessed are the Well-Wishers, I Guess”
Floating is Fine as a Strategy
“You don’t have to decide everything right now.” It was the funeral director who said this first but since that meeting a month ago, I’ve said it to myself a hundred times. I don’t have to have a plan. I don’t have to weigh… Continue Reading “Floating is Fine as a Strategy”
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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