I read Stacy Schiff's The Witches, Salem, 1692. Witches have fascinated me since childhood. In school, I was the girl intrigued by magic lore and fairy tales. I owned a Ouija Board and Tarot deck. (Still have the cards, in fact.) I wanted witches to be real. In 2014, I spent a few days in …
I'm two years out from my cancer treatment, and so far, so good. I see my oncologist this month for another check up. Fingers crossed. of course. When I hear of anyone who's died of cancer, I pause. The closeness of that person to me doesn't matter as a mix of feelings brew. A sense …
If I could, I’d design my own deck of Tarot cards. I’d make several decks, in fact. I’d do one more in line with the traditional Rider-Waite deck. Another deck would be for writing. And another would be for women I admire. Hermione is a favorite heroine of mine. She's smart and brave and loyal. …
I don't really make resolutions. I set a few goals, but those are good any day of the year. One goal I managed to reach was to read 50 books in 2015. I succeeded in that in large part because of the Goodreads challenge counter. The Goodreads counter helped me in much the same way …
On a lovely October morning in 2012, I was sitting on my patio looking forward to a day of writing and drinking coffee. My phone rang. It was my doctor's office. I almost didn't bother to answer. What did they want? I didn't have an appointment to confirm. But I answered and the woman on …
I visited my dad in August. We were sitting around a table with friends when I shared a memory of my childhood. This memory was of a key moment in my childhood and I'd shared it with many people over the years, but I'd never related it in front of my dad before. I don't …
In a few days, I'll celebrate another birthday. This birthday will make me older than my mother (pictured) was when she died. She died when I was 21, and I remember one night (though it was probably actually many nights) failing to sleep and thinking about the future without my mom. In my dorm room, …
Nothing scary is happening. Not yet, anyway. Oh, scary things lurk nearby, certainly. Ebola has come to my state. War wages in far too many places to list. Terrorists plot somewhere. Something you don't expect waits right around the corner. But I'm sitting on my patio, glimpsing fireflies and listening to the whir of the …
The other day, I finished reading Smoke Gets in Your Eyes. I discovered the author, Caitlin Doughty, around the same time I received my cancer diagnosis. I watched her video about talking to children about death. Now, I had an optimistic outlook on my cancer treatment, but I had to tell my kid, and my …
The other day I listened to an On the Media radio story about the decline of the beat reporter, and one beat they covered was the obituary beat. I struck by the realization that so many papers no longer cover obituaries, and while some papers might have an online version, families have to pay every …
Marta Bacon 