-
Art, Artisans, Awesome Women, Books, Cat Stevens, Crafts, Educating Rita, Field of Dreams, Fiftieth Birthday, Memoir, Mother's Day, Ordinary Things, Seamus Heaney, Willy Russell
if my books could talk to you …
my collection of books is smaller than it has ever been, pared down when I knew I would be moving to Mexico over four years ago. I remember sitting on my living room floor in Phoenix, asking every single book, "Are you important enough to move to a new country with me?" with a follow-up question to myself, "How many…
-
Art, Artisans, Awesome Women, Cat Stevens, Crafts, Educating Rita, Field of Dreams, Fiftieth Birthday, Memoir, Mother's Day, Ordinary Things, Seamus Heaney, Willy Russell
if my books could talk to you …
While I have moved past the demise of the typewriter and the tape deck, the resurgence of the turntable reassures me that we will ever be entirely without our books. I love books. I love how they look, the way they feel and smell, and how it was that they came to be permanent fixtures on someone’s bookshelf. A minute or…
-
Arimidex, Feminism, Fiftieth Birthday, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language of Cancer, Marge Piercy, Mother Daughter Relationship, Poetry, Tamoxifen
vintage me . . . I’m still here
On the first day or the last day of every school year, I force my daughter to pose for a photograph. It’s just one of those non-negotiable traditional things that comes around but once a year. All I ask is that she smile while holding a sign declaring the grade level ahead of or behind her. She used to love…
-
Amputation, Awesome Women, Breast Cancer Treatment, Cancer Language, Culture of breast cancer, Damian Gorman, Feminism, Fiftieth Birthday, Guest Post, Health Activist Writer's Challenge 2013, Language matters, Lois Hjemlstad, Marge Piercy, Mastectomy, Memoir, Poetry, Seamus Heaney, Teaching, Ted Kooser, Writing
Amputation by any other name . . .
This post includes a 1930 video of the Radical Amputation of A Left Breast. Viewer Discretion Advised. I discovered the elegance of Lois Hjelmstad‘s poetry and prose in March 2012. Tentatively broaching the subject of my return to work, having undergone a mastectomy just 47 days earlier, I wrote in Resuming Old Ways of the final pre-operative surgical procedure – the administration of the…
