My Personal Creative Nonfiction
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Dr. Rick, Can You Help Me? I’m Becoming My Mother
Aunt Peach used to tell me I was Daddy’s girl. When I was a child, she reminded me often that I looked like my father. “It’s good luck for a little girl to look like her daddy,” she said. At the very least, I suppose, it suggested that her mother had stayed on the straight-and-narrow,… Continue reading
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Retired Women: Snow Us In, But Don’t Count Us Out
January’s selection was Celeste Ng’s novel Little Fires Everywhere. As I read it, I anticipated what some of our book group members might say about the story. When women in a book group get to know each other through the texts they read, their reactions sometimes become predictable. Eloise, a former concert cellist, might identify with… Continue reading
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Memories Like Shooting Stars
A few days ago, I heard from my old friend, Jake. We last talked when we were high schoolers, probably in 1977, in the school cafeteria. We were part of a lunch bunch then, known among our classmates as The Family. Now, after all these years, Jake contacted me online. That made me smile. Texting with… Continue reading
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To What Extent Can I Control My Health?
I closed my eyes and imagined myself at the edge of a glistening brook. A bare breeze rustled the leaves on the trees surrounding me as water gurgled gently over smooth stones. The sky’s cloudless blue cast a pastel peace over the scene. Here in this imaginary place, I felt my face, my shoulders, my… Continue reading
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Aunt Dinny’s Hair
When Aunt Dinny stood with her bun undone, her wavy auburn hair hung down to her ankles. As a child, I once watched as she sat at the vanity in her bedroom dividing the long tresses into segments and brushing each one vigorously—her bedtime ritual. Between segments, she took dainty bites of a cucumber finger… Continue reading
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Kitchen Table Talk
Aunt Dinny sat at Mother’s kitchen table snapping green beans for our supper. I sat across from her, shucking ears of sweet corn to be steamed, cut from the cob, and frozen. Mother had bought the fresh produce from our neighbor, who had a vegetable garden in his backyard. Looking down at the beans as… Continue reading
Do you write about yourself and your experiences? Do you write about traumatic events in your life? Or, do you struggle to find time and motivation to write?
If so, this blog is for you.
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