Illiterations: Laughing At My Own Expense

Ayala Cove, at Angel Island I miss the salt air.  I miss hauling all our duffel bags and crates of picnic supplies and extra clothes across the parking lot; down the gangway.  I remember flip-flopping along rickety, briny smelling docks, knowing where the weak spots were and avoiding them, to our beloved sailboat.  I say, "sailboat," though there were many to love through the years. When we got the O'Day, which we sailed for one day only.  The O'Day fell from grace before it could be christened when, on the open Ocean just outside the Santa Cruz harbor, we smacked off a wave that opened a large hidden crack in the hull, my father crawled in the open cabin, took a look, and stoically turned for the harbor.  Once the O'Day was returned, my father chose an Aurora, which was a sweet little boat of about 20 feet, and my father liked that he'd found a boat he could haul around behind our big International Travelall.  He was able to keep it home, and tow it

It seems that this season, this summer-into-fall, has brought its theme into full focus for me this year.  Fall, the time of harvest.  And the idea of harvest is one of reaping benefits; of bounty.  Yet, there is another idea we humans have exchanged at times less optimistic: we reap what we sow. I am undecided in this moment.  Undecided as to whether I am reaping, or harvesting.  Reaping seems more like a cutting out.  Harvesting, to me, suggests enjoyment of an effort well made. A celebration of culmination.  In the moment I finish this writing, I feel more that I am cutting some things away.  But, perhaps not the things that I think. I've lost people from my life this year.  They still walk and talk and breathe, just not in my life.  Do I understand that people come and go?  Yes.  And, some of them, I have chosen to lose.  Intellectually, it took me quite some time to understand that just because I was putting energy into a friendship didn't mean the friend would rec

My father with me on the back of the tractor.  I was about five. I think my father set me up to be the tomboy I have always been.  Certainly, there was probably a leaning not to be very girly--I didn't really know what to do with dolls, but loved putting GI Joe on my Breyer horse models.  But, my father was born to mentor and share his knowledge, and he simply couldn't keep it to himself.  Luckily, it was usually fun to learn something he wanted to teach me or show me.  But, sometimes, I was a reluctant participant, and his will won over mine (no small feat!). When I was one year old, we moved to a home my father had designed and built for his little family--my mom, my sister (not yet born, of course), and me,  and himself.  The unusual redwood and adobe brick home my father built sat upon 7 acres at the foot of the Santa Cruz mountains, in a little town called Portola Valley.  It was its own town, but it is literally spitting distance to Stanford University and the u

Kimmie's yard sale finds from the day before my visit -- arranged in front of the walnut drying shed on her farm Our searing summer of 2018 seems to be a debt that our soft, warm, generous Fall of this year is paying off. October has earned its place in recent memories as the loveliest.   And, it was my good fortune to be reminded of the splendidness of this fall with two weekend days spending some time with long-time, special friends. Friends Amy and Doug had me, my mom, and Jeff to dinner Saturday evening.  Amy and her brothers and parents were friends with my family when we were children.  Her generous family lead to our enjoying the iconic Sugar Bowl ski resort with them in their family's cabin many years of our childhood, but, more; it instilled a history woven into our lives.  Amy and Doug met while Amy lived at my last childhood home in Palo Alto, with my mom, shortly after my parents' divorce.  She was living there when she first began dating Doug.  They a

How many of my readers have watched the show, "Queer Eye (for the Straight Guy)"?  I have come to absolutely adore that show. The show's premise is that four gay men who are experts in their particular fields--mostly style, but also personal growth and relationships and even culinary skills--accept requests from people who have somebody in their lives that could use help with those things to effect a big change in their lives. First off, I just enjoy the premise, and it's real, not faked.  But, I have come to really appreciate the men who are the show's personalities.  They embody the understanding of acceptance and of raising your voice against the cacophony of voices that would overwhelm your own. It is completely apolitical.   You won't hear anything about partisan opinions or militantly extreme ideas or points of view.  That is not the point of the show, and they adhere to a relatively middle ground.  They don't always meet with straight men

The third installment of the short story, "I'll see you in the Fall" and the final installment.  At the bottom of this post, you'll find a link to the entire story in one post (in case you missed a part). ====== Continued ====== I'll see you in the Fall --    copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I moved to Davis that Fall, into a place with two friends from my junior college.   Classes continued to demand ever more of my energies.   Life improved now that I was a Davis local.   My circle of friends expanded, and, in an interesting twist, I found myself emerging as a leader among them–in classes,   in social settings, and in academic organizations.   I felt honored and happy that my friends sought me out as their confidant; their spokesperson; and often as their ‘prime mover.’   I’d been a leader many times in my life, but this was the most significant-feeling of any in my life as it felt more hard-won, and more

Original work by Nicola Holmes, copyright 2002 (completion date), (2018) first publication. I’ll See You In the Fall By the time I arrived at UC Davis, I’d been a student again for about three years.   Returning to college at the age of 28 held both perqs and drawbacks.   At Davis, I worried about being viewed as ‘old’–I was 31 when I started my first full-time quarter there–and I wondered if I could keep up with the competitive population of each of my classes. I loved the feel of the campus, and this bolstered my resolution to keep fighting.   The UC Davis campus felt like an old friend to me.   I’d attended summer classes there during my Junior College years, hoping to get ahead on my coursework, and to prepare myself for the pace of university classes.   Summer was hot and quiet at UCD, but the Fall–the Fall season at UCD was amazing.   While the many trees were busy turning their cloaks to gold and red, the bustling pace of student life belied the onset of