Category Archives: PB&J Blog

My day started with a review of one of my books—glowing and positive. (Cue warm fuzzies and atta girls!) A few hours later, I received a critique of a play in which I’m performing—in which most of my cast and crew were called out for their extraordinary work, but I was glaringly omitted. (Cue palpableContinue reading “You May Be Right”

What a good life I lead! I am sitting here awash in gratitude, and I feel the need to name it and claim it. The beautiful thing—the gift—is that it has nothing to do with me. (And yet I am fully the beneficiary!) Here’s the magic: I get to work with kids. I love myContinue reading “The Kids”

Some days bring everything into sharp focus. This week my mother underwent extensive, day-long surgery. It was necessary but grueling, and her recovery road ahead will be long and demanding. My heart is raw with love for her. And as I sat working through the duration of her surgery—writing to maintain my schedule and commitmentsContinue reading “Seeing Clearly”

She’s so much on mind these days. I don’t know why. It’s just the nature of grief, I guess. A wave comes from nowhere—probably triggered by something small I didn’t even notice. And here I sit, just missing her. Missing her alive in this world. Through all the years I knew her, it’s not asContinue reading “Cuz”

Good People Invariably, when a challenge of some kind happens, and it is followed by an act of human kindness, someone will say, “I’m glad to know there are still good people in the world!” It’s lovely to see kindness in action: the lost wallet returned intact, the missing pet searched for and found, theContinue reading “Good People”

First memory. I sit on the floor of my bedroom, legs folded beneath me, drawing paper scattered across the braided rug. In my hand, a blue crayon. My mother is fixing her hair in the bathroom across the room from me. I draw her picture in blue, and I write words—my version of words—to tellContinue reading “Blue Crayon and a Braided Rug”

“All right, Mission Control, we have the enemy.” I looked up from the school lunch I was packing and smiled. My kid was in the bathroom getting ready for school, and all the drama and intrigue that goes on in his brain every day was spilling out in uninhibited theatre for an audience of one—himselfContinue reading “Do-Be-Do-Be-Do”

I held a hot mug of fragrant mint tea and sat back on the patio swing, looking out at the azure sky and green treetops, and smelling the lingering scents of jasmine from my neighbor’s garden. I had just walked home from dropping my boy at school, my husband was at the office, and IContinue reading “Under an Azure Sky”