Early in the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, two of my cousins and I did a Zoom ukulele session. Before the pandemic, we had planned a cousin reunion in McPherson, Kansas. A wheat farm near McPherson is where my cousins grew up, where their mom and my dad grew up…

When I was five, I learned the words Asian Flu. On July 19, 1957, my mother gave birth to her fourth child, my youngest sister. While she was still in the hospital, my mother was visited by a woman…

What are you willing to give up in order to take your art to the highest level?

We all have stuff. Most of us are attached to our stuff. Precious objects, family treasures, collectibles, clutter, junk, essentials, excess, stuff from A to Z.

Is a homeless man homeless if he builds a treehouse, if he is your neighbor? Dave Csaky AKA Squirrel Man (named for his animal rescue habits) was a good—though not legal—neighbor. When the City of Seattle nailed an eviction notice to his treehouse, Dave’s world came apart.

My world is mapped by Hanford, mapped by radiation, the thing we cannot sense even as we sense it.

Skagit tribal elder Vi Hilbert assigned her friends to write about how the earth is our first teacher. I saw an overworked, overheated earth teaching her first class of the day.

Learning to care for a friend is not always what you expect.

We follow an entire life—in all the food groups—as we eat through the courses of the dinner platter.