When I set out to learn about my mother's bridge club, the Jewish octogenarians behind the matching outfits and accessories, I never expected to fall in love with them. This is the story of the ladies, their game, their gen, and the ragged path that led me back to my mother.I wish I could tell you it’s going to be okay.Terry Gross will interview you, you’ll win a prize! Your editor will be charming and alarming. Buckets of moonbeams in your hair. Is it hyperbolic to say writing saved my life? Poetry saved my life? That therapy and meds saved my life, but really without all those fucking journals, the pages tufted from pressing too hard, from pressing too hard in general, from wanting to be someone else and understanding that misery and happiness were not opposite sides of the same coin. I wish I could say getting published will change your life, or that one accomplishment or another will be enshrined in the tree of life. I wish I could say ten years of research into insect life will manifest in a garden full or neon green and the quiet sound of continuous crunching. I wish I could take you on a writer’s retreat inside a volcano and wait for it to explode.
Do you write out of pain or what?
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Betsy Lerner 
Yow. No, not pain, more like a search. For what, I’m not sure. Meaning, understanding? A purple umbrella that stays intact and functional during a hurricane?
And writing has already changed my life. So there is that….
Would I like more? Sure. Maybe around the next bend.
The search for descriptors, maybe? No one but Betsy would find, in the proverbial haystack, a word like “tufted” to convey the intensity of those journal pages. My kingdom for a gift like that.
Definitely not pain.
The idea I can, and did, and now I can’t stop. I guess that means I’m doing it out of obsessiveness. There’s also the urge to improve. Can I get better? No idea, but I keep on b/c I’m waiting to see how that feels.
Hard pass on the volcanic retreat!
Did I tell you I love you?
Only blog I subscribe too. I am not a writer. (define that)
I do write when I drink, when I smoke. Sometimes I write just because. I rarely write when happy. I do have stacks of notebooks. Does that mean I am unhappy?
Not tonight. Still writing. Go figure.
Please don’t stop and keep it short.