from the Brink

Posted January 29, 2026

Filed under Family

This week has been a tough one. Regardless of where you stand along the political divide the latest actions by ICE have been impossible to fathom. Yet here we are, feeling the same unbearable loss we felt on a particular December 14th and September 11th and January 6th. I don’t want to write about this latest pain like I have authority nor do I want to hold you in that place of trauma but I do want to acknowledge our collective outrage and sorrow, and to remind you to do whatever it takes to find a life-raft for your own survival.

Mine is as it has been for over a year, by seeing through the eyes of someone quite precious.

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2016 → 2026

Posted January 22, 2026

Filed under Life

Dawnings

I’m not sure why nostalgia grabs us all so tightly or why even a decade later we get soft over all that came to pass, but January generally asks us remember what is important. To check ourselves. Name a direction. Voice our purpose. Take a step. I will admit none of this feels easy in the midst of so much dismantling, in the chaos of ICE, in what feels bigger than any hurdle we have faced before. But those are the conditions we face and there is no choice but to do something. Dive in. Swim good. My wish? Let 2026 be the year you do what you said you were going to when you were 23 and filled with crazy-ass dreams and wacko hopes and secret desires.

Literary Citizenship

Posted January 15, 2026

Filed under Writing

Last Saturday I attended the Inaugural Laguna Beach Literary Festival, and I’m so glad I did, because the whole experience strengthened my resolve to be a better Literary Citizen. Simply put, that’s a person who reads. Like me. Like you, as you are reading this. Of course I also happen to be a person who writes, but that’s a side note to my conviction to read widely, to buy books, to pop into my local bookstore and ask for their favorites, basically to consider the rich nuances of humanity through novels and non-fiction alike. Reading to view our present dilemmas against the atrocities of the past. To acknowledge flaws in beliefs that were once so solid. Reading to better understand those who I can’t and reading to find solidarity. Reading generates questions like why is it that authoritarian regimes burn books? Why is educational funding cut before anything else? Why is everyone ingesting their information and imagination via visuals like TikTok and YouTube? Whose interest is being served by this shift away from print? Why is maintaining literary citizenship a threat to governments who don’t respect your ideas, your past, your rights, your very existence? By reading you know exactly why.