I’m thrilled to announce that my poem, “Belonging” was recently published in Cordella Magazine’s Field Notes. Please check it out here: Belonging.

I wrote “Belonging” several years ago, in Rick Bursky’s poetry course through the UCLA Extension Writer’s Program. It was a great class, really my first time writing poetry. Bursky was supportive and a wonderful instructor.

As a bizarre, “Only in Los Angeles” side-note, Francis Bean Cobain was one of my classmates. She didn’t call attention to herself, yet it was very clear to everyone that we had a semi-celebrity in our presence. The even more strange thing is, she is someone with whom I’ve always felt a bit of a connection, as two California kids who both lost their fathers to suicide when we were too young to remember them. I was sixteen when Kurt Cobain died, and I’ve always kept Frances Bean in my mind. Losing a parent, let alone to suicide, is a beyond shitty club that no one wants to be a member.

I finished at UCLA Extension in 2016, but didn’t start sending out my work for publication until Covid hit. It was very exciting when Cordella Magazine, a wonderful lit mag that supports women, picked up “Belonging” for its Field Notes section.

“Belonging” is loosely inspired by my former brother-in-law (first marriage), who was a landscape designer. He had a demanding client with a very fancy, expensive koi pond. Oddly enough, my sister-in-law from my second marriage is also a landscape designer. It’s definitely wonderful to have family members who create beauty in the world. I can’t remember the direct assignment for this particular poem, but I remember focusing on language and line breaks.

I’m simply very excited to see my work out in the world and I hope that you will check-it out.

Two and a half months and we are still mostly indoors.

As we are now able to enjoy our garden, we do have more contact with neighbors from a safe distance of staying within our own yards. It’s great to finally be able to connect with people in our neighborhood and I feel like this is the beginning of some life long friendships. We are so lucky to live in a wonderful community.

This week was actually quite spectacular. It was Memorial Day weekend and as a bonus, Dan’s company gave him last Friday off, so we had a four-day weekend. It was the perfect mix of accomplishing various chores and relaxing. The weather was mostly summery, with the exception of Sunday, when it poured rain.

On Sunday, we stayed inside and had a double feature of mockumentaries: Best in Show and What we do in the Shadows. Best in Show has long been one of my favorite movies and it was Dan’s first time seeing it. Sure, it’s a little dated, but it still made me laugh. What we do in the Shadows is absolutely hilarious and we have discovered that it has been turned into a tv series, so that’s next on our watch-list.

In virus news, Memorial Day weekend brought out all of the people tired of social distancing and mask wearing. There were so many news reports of crowded bars and pools. This is very upsetting to me. I’m certain that we are going to have a surge in cases. People are going to die due to selfishness and the economy is going to continue to suffer. We will also all be stuck inside longer, progress will be much slower. Trump continues to show his incompetence and arrogance.

Colorado is reopening dine-in restaurants this coming week, although at a reduced capacity and with strict rules. We miss eating out, but I don’t think we will risk it. Maybe in a few weeks or a month, but certainly not in the first couple of weeks. A local mall also reopened. We have no reason to go to a mall.

Life continues to be good for us in Littleton, but the minute we turn on the news, we are reminded of what is happening outside of our bubble. My friend’s aunt is still the only person we know, as far as we know, that has contracted covid-19. Thankfully, she has recovered.

I have a funny virus related picture from a trip to the grocery store. We had been engaging in a text thread with our friends regarding where we get our news and we teased that we only read The National Enquirer, so we took a picture of a copy at the store check-out. Of course, The National Enquirer is utter nonsense, but it is interesting to note the conspiracy riddled headlines on the cover.

Oh and check out my cute woodland creatures mask that I purchased on Etsy!

Back to our bubble…

We’ve been riding our bikes nearly every day and even managed to go over ten miles on Memorial Day. My confidence is growing, along with my endurance. Ten miles might not seem like a lot, but for me it was a huge accomplishment, especially since we live on a hilly estate.

Another accomplishment is gardening. I’ve never been very good at keeping plants alive, but we didn’t want to be the only people on our block with a shabby front garden, so we bought a few plants to replace ones that had died over the winter. We need to plant more, but we started with three. It has been five days and so far, so good. Luckily my sister-in-law, Ali, owns a landscaping company and can give us advice. Next week, I’m going to tackle clipping dead branches and maybe adding a few more flowers.

I baked delicious blueberry muffins with a recipe from The Magnolia Bakery. Everything that I’ve ever baked from The Magnolia Bakery cookbook turns out great. I didn’t even need to make adjustments for high-altitude baking.

We grilled burgers with fancy beef that we bought from our local meat delivery service. Colorado has it all!

No contest, the best meal of the week was snow crab legs that we grilled. We’ve been tempted to buy snow crab for months, but we were intimidated by how to prepare it. It turns out, it couldn’t be easier. They just need warming up on the grill. They were actually meatier and more delicious than if we had bought them at a fancy seafood restaurant. They were expensive; about ninety dollars for four legs, but they were scrumptious. I know this won’t be a weekly indulgence, but hopefully we can eat them again soon. We even bought a set of shell crackers and utensils…so basically, we are obligated to splurge again!

Our neighborhood community center has food trucks nearly every day and last Saturday, they hosted a company that makes alcohol infused ice cream. We hopped on our bikes and rode over. They were low on inventory when we arrived, but we managed to get three different flavors. So far, we’ve tried the Grasshopper and the Chocolate Caramel Macchiato. Both were amazing. We will definitely make space in our freezer to purchase more.

Fun things came in the mail. My John Oliver Last Week Tonight stamps arrived. I have a deep affinity for Chijohn. The Tattered Cover, a local bookstore, sent my copy of Mikel Jollett’s memoir, Hollywood Park. Since the live event was canceled, Jollett included an autographed bookplate. I’m very exited to read Hollywood Park and to add this to my autographed book collection.

I was able to have phone dates with some of my favorite people: my best Fanny and her family, plus my mom’s best friend, Nancy. This is a weekly thing, but we also caught up with my step kids, Zoe and Felix. One really positive aspect to being stuck at home, is it has given us more time to reconnect with loved ones, especially spending extra time with the kids. Technology is awesome, but of course, we are still holding out hope that we will be able to see them in July, as planned.

And my biggest news….drum roll please…My non-fiction story “Weight” was published in Intima: a Journal of Narrative Medicine. This was a big deal for me. This year, I decided to finally start sending out short pieces for potential publication and quite honestly, I was anticipating a lot more rejections, before landing on an acceptance. It is very exciting and a true honor to be included in this prestigious journal. I’m still stunned by it all and I’m overwhelmed by the positive feedback. It means a lot, especially because the story is deeply personal and was difficult to write.

I’m going to end with cute cat pictures: Tom in our shoe cabinet and Slinky sleeping on the steps outside.