Life is full of simple lessons. I had one the other day. It made me laugh aloud, and say to myself, “Good grief, Beca.” I was secretly glad no one saw what I had done; like a cat that slips on wet pavement and pretends that it never happened. However, here I am telling the [...]
When my children were little, one of my favorite gifts to give them came about as a solution to not having as much money as I wished to buy them presents. However, before I discovered the solution I did something else. I traded my time for money. I spent one pre-Christmas season working an extra [...]
My husband and I have finished our second viewing of the TV series, Battlestar Galactica. Although, in general I rarely read a book, or watch a show, more than once, at Del’s urging, we began again. This time was even better than the first. This time, I watched it knowing that it ends well. This [...]
Everyone who has ever created something, whether it is a garden, a painting, a book, a dance, a new way to do something, a piece of equipment, a song, a comfortable home, a delicious dish; every one of them, every one of us, has experienced moments of doubt that it will work out. Those moments [...]
I remember the first time I saw a marathon. I was living in downtown Los Angeles in the loft district on Traction Avenue. To get to the event I had walked a few blocks east to Little Tokyo. I passed the many little stores and even the grocery store where I often shopped, but on [...]
When one of our granddaughters was little, Del and I would sit with her while she took a bath. She had a bathtub full of little yellow duckies and her favorite game was lining them all up on the edge of the tub. Once she had them in place, Del would point behind her and [...]
It was the 1990’s and I had decided to return to being a CFP after spending some years trying other ways to make a living. After much soul searching, I decided it would be good for everyone if I returned to what I knew how to do well, for at least a few more years. [...]
A black cat patrols our neighborhood. He lives in the house behind us, but I believe he only visits it for food, and maybe a brief rest. For the rest of the day, and long into the night, he is on the move. Although I have come to admire some of his qualities, we have [...]
Something has changed. Not the obvious-temperature, light, leaves change, seasons–something else caused the birds to descend on the feeders and devour the seeds. Instead of the month it usually takes to eat empty the thistle seed feeder, it took a few days. In Tai Chi, holding the standing-at-the-stake pose with the rest of the class, [...]
At first, I thought it was rain. Completely lost in the book I was reading, it took a few moments to realize that it probably wouldn’t be raining in an airport. I glanced up and saw a woman looking down the hallway, clapping. I started speculating. Was she clapping for a friend? If so, why [...]
Starting in my early teens, and lasting for the next 25 years or so, I collected words and saved them. I read the newspaper and clipped articles that moved me, ideas that opened my eyes, essays that inspired me, and pasted them all into a big journal type book. I read books, watched movies, went [...]
If you are thinking that going to Squirrel School might be a wise life-move, it is a sure sign that you are a part of community that knows a good thing when you see it. Perhaps you are debating whether going to Squirrel School is a worthwhile endeavor. I don’t blame you; after all, some [...]
Some days I don’t know what to do with myself. I drift around the house with no desire to do anything. If it goes on too long I feel as if I have turned into a piece of flotsam drifting on the sea of life without anchor, and without a purpose other than to drift. [...]
I kept a promise to myself recently; it was a big one for me. I’ve kept promises to myself before, and I have broken more than I have kept. Usually I break the smaller ones, often around what I will, or won’t, eat that day. I can always rationalize why it was a stupid promise [...]
Sitting on the stationary bike at the gym, reading Kurt Vonnegut on my iPhone, I was suddenly, and instantly, transported through a time warp back to somewhere in the sixties. I was in our living room, in the house on Irvin Ave., and Dad was walking with his trademark forward lean down the hallway, correcting [...]
I’ve heard that if you want to be a writer, having had a bucket load of many kinds of jobs is a good thing. I am not sure that is actually true, but I know that in my lifetime I have had those many jobs, and some of them produced some very interesting stories. This [...]
As a teenager, I would often fight with my dad for what I perceived as my rights as a person, not hampered by the fact that I was a “girl.” I would argue with him that it was unfair that my younger brother could stay out longer at night (for example) than I could because [...]
All winter the blue storage box sat alone on the floor of the garage, calling me. Years before, my husband and I, on our way to more traveling, had left it with my daughter for safekeeping. She returned it in the fall, but I didn’t open it, knowing it would require something from me that [...]
BECA LEWIS coaches, teaches, writes blogs and books, plays with art, and is addicted to reading. She lives in Ohio with her husband and has kids and grandkids scattered across the country.
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