I type in the dark, fingers missing keys, as my daughter sleeps in shadowy futon couch bed in the corner of my study; a grown woman planning her big move to the west coast of the United States. Today she turns 21.

The first fall without my Mom. She has passed away. Passe Compose.

When I first started this blog I had ideas that ran one after another, in a little line, a queue. The ideas had a persistent quality as if they had to be written down.

I enjoyed writing so much that I can’t remember much else about that time except that I stained my teeth with tea and wrote every day.

After a while I began to nag myself about writing for a more demanding audience than just myself.  I ‘should do this or that’. Write for competitions, write for publication.

That imperative shut down the creative juices pretty dramatically.

Then I read Alice Munro non stop and studied short stories and thought about writing.

In the midst of this I was writing a lot of cover letters for jobs that I needed but did not want.  A lot of writerly charm went into those letters.

I got rejected or never heard from most of those jobs. In the same period my Mom died and left a large gaping hole where I had been focusing a lot of love and care.

In the wake of her death some close relatives of mine took it upon themselves to take out their mourning on me in the form of seemingly arbitrary and hurtful criticisms of my very self.

I felt at a loss to respond to any  of it and was glad to have my own family to love and be loved by.

I lost the joy of writing and I did not post much until one day I was sweetly surprised when a  friend of mine said that she had followed my musings on my Mom’s illness unto death. That she had cried and been moved. And I thought, huh. Well, that is really an amazing compliment. It is a quiet answer, a nod and a smile.

All our voices are people waving at each other from a distance.  We like to share common experiences. We are sociable and optimistic.

I have come to some conclusions after my thinking period, For one thing, short stories are actually memoirs and memoirs are short stories.

Also, I still need a job but my persistence and stoicism in applying to dozens of jobs this spring is starting to give me purchase. I have an interview tomorrow and if that does not work I have another job lined up.

I loved my mom and she is still with me in spirit.  She is happy as a spirit. She was always a bit bigger than this earthly world.

I am still in doubt about obligatory relationships where I am not treated lovingly.  I have been forced into an unpleasant matriarchal position; an irritating authoritative figure who must be denied. I am not my Mother. I reject this whole set up and I retreat.  Carry on without me.