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A Very Remarkable Time

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Soooo I wake up again to the United States bombing another country. This is becoming a thing. Not something I want. There are so many thoughts rattling around my brain—I’m wracked with guilt for just being alive and living in this country, guilty of trying to ignore what Washington is doing. For many people it is more than a disruption—it is shifting the very course of their life. On Sunday, a day after the initial bombings, I attended a little boy’s birthday party, where I was the only non-Iranian person there. I’m not sure I can convey historically how this felt. I took my shoes off at the door and kissed my host. I clutched her and said, “Khamenei is dead.” First: She corrected my pronunciation of his name, then, shook her head: “This is not what I wanted.” I said, “Me, too! But I’m hearing that some Iranian-Americans are very happy. Glad that the US has stepped in.” My friend acknowledged this. Everyone has their own opinion. But, a war . . . More people will die.—My ...
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All my books at Smashwords 50% off

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 All my titles are 50% off at Smashwords until March 7. This does NOT apply to print, just downloads of eBooks. https://www.smashwords.com/books/search?query=hertenstein
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A Green Glow on the Horizon Shout Out

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Dawn Burns a great writer and someone I’d hoped to meet up with when I moved to Michigan—a person with similar sensibilities about art, literature, God!—is having a book launch in a few weeks in Lansing. It’s funny how the necklace of feminist writers all link together. One person brings another one into your life, and on and on. Anyway, I read Dawn’s short story collection, Evangelina Everyday , feeling as if she were writing about me when describing Evangelina’s small victories, how she walked through a mundane Indiana housewife life while still finding things to celebrate, such as a plastic bag caught in straw grass in a forgotten field. Her newest collection is also linked stories based upon visiting what amounts to “tourist traps.” As we all know, there is something very human and basic in the curiosity we show to outsiders, the different, the just plain odd. We are attracted and yet repelled; we want to know more—perhaps because we secretly harbor the knowledge that it is t...
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Walking in the Woods with Coffee

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This past weekend brought another visitor out from the city. And, another fresh batch of snow. I was a little conflicted when all the snow melted during our “Spring Break.” Nothing says cozy better than snowflakes the size of feathers falling all around, while holding a hot cup of coffee. Well, we got our chance when a Clipper came through unexpectedly and brought a fresh groundcover of white. Not so much that our boots sank up to the shin, and not so much that we shivered inside layers of coats. But just the right amount to make everything cozy again. We picked up coffee from Château and continued walking onto the River Trail recently extended from Grand River Ave. to Okemos Road. Readers of this blog (both of you) know I love this path, the tall trees, and the chance to escape from cars and traffic. My friend and I walked through the woods sipping coffee all the way to the movie theater where we checked in for a weekday matinee of Wuthering Heights. From the woods of snowy Mich...
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It’s Still Snowing

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It’s still snowing . . . and it’s still cold in the morning and the sky cotton candy pink—yet the sun is rising earlier.   Except—after the first hint of spring after being teased by shorts-wearing warmth after pulling out the lawn chairs after the kids got into the shed for the bubble machine— the chair is draped with snow and the toys are MIA beneath ground-covering white   So we return, to Winter. But even the birds and squirrels are saying “It won’t be long now!”
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