Let’s hear it for the girls
My best friend from childhood, Mary, was on a weekend trip with her best friends from high school when she heard about the death of her best friend from college. Mary and Julia were the dream team of first-year roommates – instant friends with a bond that lasted 40 years until Julia’s way-too-early death. The…
Christmas ’25 Is in the Books
The saddest part of the holiday season is packing up these gems. Our Christmas tree is on its way out the door, all 7 feet of formerly sweet-smelling balsam. I am OK with it. I forget to water it after the first few giddy days, so it takes its prickly revenge on my hands in…
Falling Back on What I Know
This is what life looks like lately. There are are worse ways to spend my time. A spectacular wipeout on black ice – not 10 feet from our front door –- set me off on a slower start to 2026 than I’d anticipated. After spending 2024 rehabbing a genetic (I think) sacroiliac (SI) injury that…
The spirit of the season
I’m the one at the top of the stairs in the reflective vest. That’s my friend and cemetery guide behind me, wondering what the heck I’m up to. There was an evening in October a few years ago that was going to be fun no matter what. Fun is what happens when a half-dozen women…
Revisiting Lessons Learned
In the midst of graduation season 2024, I roll around in memories from way too long ago. I have an unusual – and treasured – wine glass. It bears a line drawing of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose haloed head bends toward a dove in her hands. Her robes fall in graceful folds. Beneath her…
The key to a good day
Lucky day: Sarah, Melinda, me, Karen, Monica, Robyn and Joyce; my thanks to Della, too, who was with us every step of the way and snapped this photo a few minutes before I discovered I had lost my key. Run for a while. Pat the pocket. Feel the key fob. Run for a while. Pat…
It’s Galentine’s Day, and Mom was right
My mom is on the right. The lady who is second from left was probably the leader of the friend squad that set up the lunch the day of my grandfather’s funeral, eight years before this photo was taken. One of my formative lessons in the value of female friendship came about because of a…
I just heard…
One of the best things about being a writer is that it fits neatly with my Nancy Drew-inspired ability to overhear other people’s conversations without trying. I appear harmless. People say things when I’m nearby. I absorb those things and file them away in the weird catchall, file cabinet of a memory that is common…
Of Families and Photos
There’s an older man with a budding smile and graying hair brushed back from his temples. There’s a baby boy, not quite a toddler, with barely-there blond hair and a baby-tooth grin. They both wear turtlenecks. The bigger one is beige, the miniature version is bright red. The man sits behind the little boy, holding…
How to zoom through a pandemic
Post-pandemic re-entry has all of us facing the same horrible question: What have you been up to? My standard answer – “Oh, you know. The usual.” – might not work. How can you sum up 14 months of – whatever it’s been – in the answer to one question? Maybe I’ll just print this and…
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Dunn Now 