Blog #1

This bohemian life

I was a school girl too shy to say much, and then I was ice skating and playing tennis at Harrison Park, and then became a piano student of my father who was an exquisite and reputable musician, then I was a teen who loved journalism and debate plus acting, and then I was going steady with a nice boy, and then I was selling ads for the high school paper ’cause the journalism teacher said “without ads there is no paper,” and I became the Herald Editor… but then I was losing my mom to heart disease… oh that…. I miss her so much. But then I followed the trail of her words when she looked 17-yr-old me in the eye and said: “You are a talented writer.” This. After having called in for me to be absent from many school days so I could write my serious papers at our dining room table with no distractions from all the other siblings and goings-on in a house bursting at the seams. Okay well. Here I am now. And to honor my mom, my family, and my French Canadian ancestors, in a legacy of Joie de Vivre, I have published a retrospective book of poetry in which my tribute to my mother, a poem of its own “Your Ocean,” becomes a centerpiece. My mother was born in Quebec. And brought her Joie de Vivre to my father and our family’s life in the U.S. Midwest. It’s a thing to understand. Because joy of life is not all about happy. It’s about embracing all of life with spirit. All of being alive. With spirit. And so my book Joie de Vivre, and this author website that follows, has arrived! The writer/publishing bug kicked my butt into being… this. The author of a book that has found its place in the Library of Congress. The author whose name is happy to join you, her reader, at this website. In this bohemian, joie de vivre, life.

My Mother, I think, would be proud. xoxo