Tag Archives: Love

July 11, 2026 · 2:00 pm

Strength, Survival, Sharks, An Apology, and A Lot of Birthday Cake

Sweet Greetings
One of many cakes…

I recently had one of those decade milestone birthdays. I am not an enormous fan of birthday celebrations in general, and less so when I am the one in the spotlight. I can’t remember ever being excited about my own birthday, at least not in the way I imagine other people get excited. I guess I really don’t know if other people are truly excited on their birthdays or if it is all performative theatre. Maybe some of each? I know I get embarrassed, especially when I open presents in front of people. I feel like I’m going to let them down in some undefinable way.

My first memory of my own birthday was when I was very young—perhaps three? Definitely no more than four. I was a shy little kid who liked to be alone and sleep a lot. Who knows why. As far as I know things hadn’t yet fallen apart in my world at that point, so I don’t think I was depressed per se. Though disaster was looming, no one knew that yet. Definitely not little Lori. So, I was just a little odd, I guess. Anyway, my older brother, Billy, was the sunny opposite—funny, excitable, energetic. Everything delighted him.

The thing I remember about that early birthday is being shaken out of the soft cocoon of sleep by Billy jumping up on my bed and hopping around whooping, “Sissy, sissy, wake up. It’s your birthday!” I am pretty sure he stepped on me during the process. I reacted the way a fifty-year-old spinster might, groaning and covering my head with my pillow and telling him to go away. It was a story often repeated in the family. Billy was more excited about Lori’s birthday than she was.

Over the years, birthdays never really got more exciting, except, perhaps, for the 18th, because when I turned 18 it became legal for me to drink alcohol in the state of Wisconsin and I was, sadly, very interested in taverns in those days. I was a bit of a lost soul. By the time I turned 21, I was a mother, and so there was little reason or opportunity to celebrate my own birthday. I could instead focus on making birthdays memorable for my son, and then my daughter when she came along a few years later. I enjoyed making their cakes, choosing presents for them, planning little parties. I began taking my daughter to Disneyland every year on her birthday since we lived nearby at the time, and she continues to be a huge Disneyland fan to this day.

Friends

I think it was when I was in my late thirties that my friend Cheryl suggested we start a birthday tradition of meeting somewhere special to celebrate our milestone birthdays, the ones that ended in 0, and so it was that we went to Robert Redford’s Sundance Resort in Utah for our 40th birthdays. We have been friends since we were little girls, and we are only a couple months apart. The once-a-decade birthday trip suited me. No big gatherings. No embarrassing surprises, just two old friends going for nature walks and eating nice food. Perfect!

Friends

This year I had three birthday celebrations! That’s a lot of cake! Not that a lot of cake is a bad thing. I had several days with my friend, Sandy, then several with my friend, Cheryl, and then a little visit with my sister-in-law, Kathy, and some of her family at her new home in Menominee, Michigan. It’s been wonderful. The only thing missing is my kids and grandkids who are far away. Spending time with them cannot come soon enough!

Aunt Lori Gets More Cake?
Dinner at a Wisconsin Supper Club

Birthdays can be a bit like New Year’s in a sense—a time to reflect on the past, celebrate, remember, and look forward—a time to plan ahead. My friends and family reminded me of the good things about reaching this milestone, of the experience and love, of pain, too, but also wisdom. Somehow, over the years I managed to raise two children, put myself through college and grad school, teach wonderful young people, and a few older ones, write several novels (and finally am in the process of getting the third one published), maintained rich and meaningful relationships (but also lost a few), and am experiencing now the joy of watching my beautiful grandchildren as they grow. A long life provides a kind of strength, a strength that recognizes the good, the bad, the hopelessness and the hopefulness—the totality of it all. And I have been all those things at one time or another.

Kitty Bliss

I wish I could say I’ve put all my mistakes behind me, and that I have reached a state of peaceful benign bliss, but I definitely can’t! Just after priding myself on what I considered my valiant composure while under stress, and, in fact, bragging about it, my husband jumped into a swimming pool and got my hair wet. I lost my mind. I shot through the water like an angry shark, whipping and whacking water into his surprised face with an intensity never before seen outside of a hurricane. I was as surprised as he was! Where did that come from?

I guess I still have some growing up to do. I Am So Sorry, Sweetheart!

Sending Love and Blissful Blooms to You Today! And Birthday and UnBirthday Best Wishes Galore!

80 Comments

Filed under Aging, Identity, Personal History, Relationship, Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,

January 23, 2026 · 6:02 pm

“Life Meanders Like a Path Through the Woods” -Katherine May

Great Basin National Park (I think!), my photo

Another goodbye. This old house, the one we have loved and labored over for the past five years, is sold and we are looking for a new place to live, spending countless hours exploring our options. We are moving primarily to get closer to health care, but it isn’t just that. There are many people who fight to remain here, in this isolated little town, even when they clearly need to get closer to a hospital and/or access to a grocery store, a home health care aide, or other support systems, but those are people with roots and years of memories and attachments to the place that I don’t have. They have always belonged here.

Sometimes I think I don’t deserve to belong, perhaps that is why I always wind up leaving. I’ve loved and left too many places. Oh, there’s always been a good reason, but still, I wonder exactly why those reasons always seem to find me so easily, almost as though I’m looking for them. Is it because my childhood was a transitory experience, one where living in different places and going to different schools and always being the new kid was a simple fact of life? I didn’t like it, but maybe I got used to it. Maybe that became my normal. Also, there was an element of adventure there, even though, honestly, the transitions were never smooth and I was perennially ill at ease.

My mom moved a lot before her marriage to my dad. My dad moved a lot after serving in the Pacific theater as a Marine during WWII. When they got together they moved a few times before I was born, and then they remained relatively stable in the town where my brother and I started school while they were together. The rented house on Sheridan Road in Kenosha, Wisconsin is the first home I remember. When they split up around the time I was in first grade, all the moving started again, first to an apartment on the other side of town and then we kids were sent to live with relatives across the country. After that we moved several times with Mom and our step dad. By the fifth grade I had lived in Wisconsin, Nevada, and Illinois and had attended five different school districts.

Then they decided to move to Minnesota. We stayed with my cousins there first. Next we moved into a little rental in North St. Paul. I think we were there less than a year, when my step dad came home and announced we were moving again, one more time—the last time—because he had found us a house to buy!

Photo by Stephen Fischer on Pexels.com

That was the smooth move, even though it meant starting over again in another new school, because it was the one that read like a story with a happy ending. It was going to be the one place we stayed  forever. And I walked into that house, so much better than any other house I could imagine living in, and I fell in love. The Winslow Avenue house wasn’t too big, but it was sturdy and freshly painted, with two stories and a fireplace in the living room. It had window boxes filled with blooming red geraniums and a brass door knocker. Elms and maples and pines lined the well-kept lawns up and down the street, and the school was just a few blocks away. I walked to Frances Grass Junior High, and I met my lifelong friend and loved it all. But I was growing up, too fast, and the time slipped away, and I was drawn back time and again to another place, the first place I remembered, and to my father who lived there and to my first lifelong friend.

Lake Michigan Shore, Kenosha, WI- my photo

Meanwhile, the dream house in Minnesota was sold and my mom and stepdad moved to an apartment in Southern California. After that I moved on my own I can’t remember how many times. Minnesota, Wisconsin, California—back and forth. My longest residence was in the beautiful San Bernardino Mountain communities of Running Springs, Lake Arrowhead and Blue Jay, California, a place that I will always love.

 And now it’s time to move again. I do love my home and friends here, and my church and library, and the mountains, the beautiful wild mountains and the endless trails. The silence that seeps into my soul. I’m sure moving to a place with nearby health care, groceries, water, trees, and more activities will be good—it’s just so hard to decide on the right place to go, and my heart aches as I can’t move toward my children and grandchildren, only farther away, again.

It’s overwhelming and frightening, and at our stage in life there won’t be much chance for a “do over” if we get it wrong. I think about where my parents ended up, my mom who began her life in Faribault, Minnesota and finished it in a little apartment in Anaheim, California, and my dad who started out in a large apartment in Chicago, Illinois and ended in a small condo in Brookings, Oregon. Were they happy with their choices? What drove them away from their original homes, friends, and loving families? Was it the war? I can only guess. And what called them to the various places they ran to? What wildness, what pain, what longing? Whatever it was, I clearly have felt it, too. Inherited it, I guess.

Old Methodist Church in front of our house, Austin, NV- my photo

Feeling lost and looking for solace this morning, I picked up a book—always a good idea—and I came across the following lines. I found them deeply moving. I hope you find something in them that helps you get through your day, too.

“…We are in the habit of imagining our lives to be linear, a long march from birth to death in which we mass our powers, only to surrender them again, all the while slowly losing our youthful beauty. This is a brutal untruth. Life meanders like a path through the woods. We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.” Katherine May, from Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times.

48 Comments

Filed under Aging, childhood, Family, Memories, Personal History, Seasons

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 6, 2025 · 3:42 pm

The Light Shifts, The Wind Blows

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

“The strongest oak of the forest is not the one that is protected from the storm and hidden from the sun. It’s the one that stands in the open where it is compelled to struggle for its existence against the winds and rains and the scorching sun.” – Napoleon Hill

Hello, Reader and Writer Friends! I hope this post finds you well and blessed with the energy, time, and resources you need and deserve. I am grateful to you and wish you joy. The past few weeks have brought both expected and unexpected news, tasks, challenges, joys, and sorrows to my little corner of the planet, and I suspect they may have to yours also.

Changes of season, the holidays, national and world events, community and family celebrations, work, play, plans, and the shadow of illness and even death for some have been on the hearts and minds of many.

This week in my little town we’ve lost a young woman to suicide. The tragic and violent event has left many of us in shock, and the pain is palpable. And yet, standing right beside that horror, we also have grace in the shape of a group of dear people who planned and cooked and decorated our community center, and fed everyone in town who wished to come. And we had the Christmas tree lighting in the park, followed by fireworks. And we have a live nativity on Main Street coming in a few days. And I’m going to Disneyland with my grandkids next week. And yet, a friend’s cat died and one of our own adopted cats disappeared (you see how the sadness creeps back in). And yet, I got a surprisingly good medical report from my doctor. And in the netherworld of being a writer, I began another round of manuscript submissions today, sending out queries to six publishers.

The light shifts, the wind blows.

We manage as best we can, remembering that the strongest oak

is the one that stands in the open.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

40 Comments

Filed under Christmas, Depression, Gratitude, Health, Holiday, Loss, Nature, Publishing, Relationship, Seasons, Uncategorized, Winter, Writing

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 3, 2025 · 12:30 pm

King Copper Book Review

Lauren Scott, King Copper: Our Dog’s Life in Poetry

Lauren Scott’s love of her family’s beautiful chocolate lab, Copper, shines in this sweet little volume of photographs and poems that follow their lives together from adoption day on. In her words, King Copper is “a poetic account of the joy that arises when a lovable chocolate lab walks into your life and changes it forever. And the eventual heartache you feel when he crosses over the rainbow bridge thirteen years later and still too soon.”

What a touching account, and what a testament to the glorious impact our beloved pets have on our lives. If only all dogs—all pets—were as well loved and appreciated as the delightful lab Lauren writes so poetically about, the world would truly be a better place. Brava to Lauren for giving her beloved Copper a tribute worthy of his beauty and goodness! Did it make me cry a bit? Absolutely. But tears shed over the loss of a dear dog are never wrong. There is nothing purer than a dog’s affection and devotion. Copper wasn’t my dog, but I, too, have loved wonderful dogs. Like Lauren and her family, I know our animal companions deserve our deepest affection in return for the many gifts they give us. Part of the price for that gift is the same as it is for anything we open up our hearts to fully—the possibility, even the probability that one day there will be pain and loss.

But as Lauren so aptly says, “We celebrate his life- those soul-searching eyes that connected to us- we were links in a golden chain and now one link is missing, our golden boy- each day tears follow like a shadow- the shadow he was, but smiles gently find their place because he is in our hearts, because joy needs room to simmer.”

You can visit Lauren’s blog at baydreamerwrites.com.

http://lscotthoughts.wordpress.com

46 Comments

Filed under Authors, Books, Commentary, Loss, poetry, Reading

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

June 13, 2025 · 4:05 pm

Flag Day Reflections, Part I

About sixty years ago on Flag Day, two little girls got up early in the morning and went to work in the kitchen, making cupcakes. These little girls had met when their moms rented apartments next door to one another after their marriages ended, and the girls had become fast and, it has turned out, life-long friends.

Cheryl was the host. I was staying at her house for an extended visit, as I did most holidays and summer breaks from school.

My mom had moved away from Cheryl’s town and taken my brother and I with her, but my dad remained. He lived in a men’s only residence in downtown Kenosha, Wisconsin, about 19 blocks away from Cheryl’s house, so I could never stay with him, but I was lucky to have Cheryl and her dear mom, Marion, welcome me in whenever I could come. Marion was an X-ray technician at St. Catherine’s Hospital and left the house before dawn most mornings to work, so Cheryl and I were on our own.

My hosts, a few years later

The cupcakes turned out well, and we set out. It was my dad’s birthday, and we were going to surprise him with the cupcakes. As often happens in life, the spirit was willing, but the flesh was weak. As we walked, we were tempted to eat first one, then two, and then ultimately all three of the cupcakes we planned to share with Dad.

Oops!

We mustered on, and eventually arrived at the imposing building where Dad resided, standing at the front desk of the huge lobby, two little chocolate-smudged waifs, empty handed, tired and thirsty. The attendant rang Dad’s room and he came down.

The former Kenosha Youth Foundation building (now Residences at Library Park) where my rented a room for many years. I believe it was in the front, left, on the upper floor.

We got the surprise part of our visit right. Dad had certainly not expected us to walk so far at our young age, unattended. I honestly don’t remember exactly how old Cheryl and I were that summer, but I remember being small in the distant way adults remember such things.

“Happy Birthday, Dad! We made you cupcakes, Dad, but we got hungry.”

It’s a story my dad always told with affectionate tenderness.

All these years later, that Flag Day is on my mind, along with so many other thoughts and feelings that I believe must be expressed. These are complicated times. . .

My father was a World War II United States Marine Corps veteran, something my brother and I were always aware of. We knew the Marine’s Hymn, and we knew he had learned to talk like Donald Duck while he was in the service, but he was a quiet man who never spoke to us of his battle experiences. Other than his Purple Heart, we never saw a uniform, a gun, or any military artifacts in our home while he lived with us, nor did I find any among his possessions after he died.

Dad was playful and sentimental with us, teaching us about nature and camping and the stars. On his Flag Day birthdays, he enjoyed the simple things—cake and ice cream, tea or coffee, a home-made dinner. He did not use profanity, never used derogatory terms when referring to other people, and abstained from smoking and alcohol, all of which were somewhat unusual among his peers. He believed in staying fit, mind and body.

Dad and Cheryl on one of our many blue tent camping trips.

For many years, while living at the Kenosha Youth Foundation, he walked across the lawn, past its statue of Abraham Lincoln, into the beautiful old library where he read several daily newspapers, and enjoyed reading non-fiction books, mostly medical titles, as I recall. He continued a daily walking regimen all his life.

My Dad

This gentle man died long before the current resident of our White house launched his political campaign, so I cannot say for certain how he would feel about sharing his birthday with him, or whether he would support his policies. Dad was a Republican so I imagine this last decade would have been a challenge for him, certainly in different ways, but perhaps just as powerfully as it has been for me. Dad’s nature was the very opposite of this president. I like to think he would not have voted for him or supported him.

These are the musings of a daughter, his only living child, as the president of United States of America is set to preside over a huge military parade in Washington D.C. for the Army’s 250th birthday. And as National Guard troops and U.S. marines are staked out in the city of Los Angeles against the wishes of the governor and mayor. As ICE agents conduct raids, sweeping up suspected undocumented immigrants. As many of our government agencies are gutted, our history is being rewritten, and kindness and love and We the People seem forgotten.

But also, as over 2000 gatherings of everyday citizens in America and around the world will be protesting.

I will be among them.

I hope he would be proud, but I do not know.

What I do know is that even if he wasn’t proud of my participation, or he didn’t want me to attend because he feared for my safety, he would not try to stop me. He believed in all of the freedoms he fought so hard for in World War II. And I know that no matter what, he would hug me and tell me he loved me as he always did, throughout the many mistakes, successes, and milestones, large and small, of my life.

And if we could spend his birthday together this Flag Day, I know he would smile and tell the story of the little cupcake girls who visited him on his birthday.

32 Comments

Filed under Memories, Relationship, The Greatest Generation, Uncategorized, United States Politics, World War II

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

July 3, 2014 · 3:50 am

July 2, 2014, Salem, Wisconsin–Two Days In.

     About a week ago, I retired from a fantastic teaching job after nearly two decades so that I could write. And because my loving, and much-loved husband got a job across the country. A job he needed, wanted and deserved.
      And because I was tired.
      And frankly, because I was afraid. Afraid I wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace and do it with love and style. Afraid that my cancer wasn’t going to stay in the past, was sending me signals through chromogranin blood and 24 hour urine collection tests that I took regularly and that I didn’t understand but sure saw going up. That I’d be dealing with “it” once again, and I’d miss too much, too many hours of planning lessons worth learning, giving relevant feedback, and connecting with love and meaning to my dear students and their families.
To those of you who scoff at my description of 8th grade kids as dear, I say, throw away that prejudice. Junior High age children haven’t changed a bit. They are as lovely and strong and confused and thirsty for answers as they’ve always been. They are gorgeous and deserving of love, respect, and guidance. They are us when we were twelve, thirteen. Filled with energy, depression, fear, joy, and self-indulgent superiority. Us. Then. They need us, and if we love them, they even want us around—old people who care and are willing to suspend the easy judgments that flow and have always flowed, like a mean, mean river around us, separating us, generation by generation—now that we are so experienced and “wise.”
And because, forgive me, my intestinal health was much compromised by my earlier surgeries and my condition, and I hate, hate, hated having to run out of class, interrupting the art class next door, putting my wondrous friend/fellow teacher Heide on notice that I was already gone, could she please watch my class as well as her own.
It seemed enough.
This meant leaving California. The San Bernardino Mountains. The Rim of the World. An amazing community—a gorgeous resort I was more than privileged to live in. A real home. Friends to die for (and I would!). Church. School. Family.
My daughter, son-in-law, and four grandchildren, all of whom love me as dearly as I love them.
Am I crazy, selfish, cold-hearted? What? I pray it’s none of that.
I was an unlikely nomad in childhood, spent hundreds of hours in cars moving from one place to another. Lived with a lot of people. Only had one house my mother owned, and that for just a few years. I more than loved that place on Winslow. It was haven, heaven, heart. But I learned to move on. When I was young, I learned that.
Hated it, but learned it. Change is as inevitable as death and taxes. There’s no getting around it for most of us. I know we can all site examples of people we know who never changed their address, and maybe they were even lucky enough to die before their loved ones, but those people are few and far between. For most of us, we either keep going or we lose more than we had.
I won’t lose the love of my home in California, my community, my students, their families, the pines, or the spectacular rocky cliffs. They will always be right here. My daughter sometimes doubts that we will survive this. She counts the likely number of times we will be together again before I die. I wish I could explain. I’m trying to now. I’ve lost mother, father, step-father, brother, mother-in-law- so many. But I’m not alone, nor empty. Perhaps I am fuller, feeling each of them taking up such a large part of my heart. They, those who loved me, and everyone else, every place else, stay with me. And I will stay with them.
If they wish it.
Mahalo, and greetings from Wisconsin, USA. May your path be as valuable to your heart as mine has been to me.

3 Comments

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , , , , ,