by Clifford Mae Henderson | Sep 16, 2020 | Dear Reader, The writing life
I’m not sure if I have nothing to say—or too much to say. Either way, I’m on an informal hiatus from writing. The words just kind of stopped. Maybe it was the shock of how quickly Covid changed my life: robbing me of theater, my job, my rituals. Or maybe it’s the...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Aug 18, 2020 | Musings, Uncategorized
I practiced civil inattention long before I knew what it was called. For instance: as a kid growing up in Philly, I took public transportation a lot and regularly pretended the person sitting next to me wasn’t picking their nose/crying/talking to themselves. For...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Jul 14, 2020 | Black Lives Matter
I am inspired to share this story after reading Renee Bess’s June 25th blog on Woman and Words. If you haven’t read it, please do. I am specifically inspired by her phrase: “Those of us who have grown up living in racially diverse communities, attended schools with...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Jun 17, 2020 | Uncategorized
So I’m standing out at Lighthouse Field in Santa Cruz, California. I’m there with thousands of other protesters. I’ve come with a few friends, all younger than me by at least a decade, and they are at least a couple of decades older than most of the other protesters....
by Clifford Mae Henderson | May 20, 2020 | Musings
It happened on Mother’s Day, Dixie and I out walking the hood as we often do. We walk a lot. Always have. Lately, other people have been too. The streets are filled with walkers, and Mother’s Day was no exception. Whole families, masked couples, unmasked couples,...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Apr 15, 2020 | Musings
I’m pretty sure I didn’t take a single breath for 3 days straight last week. I’m not sure how I survived this, and it took its toll. I clenched my jaws at night. Got a crick in my neck. Got a headache. The thing is, I thought I was breathing. I did yoga, took some...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Mar 17, 2020 | Uncategorized
Yup. Santa Cruz is officially on lockdown—or, partial lockdown. They call it “shelter in place.” What this means: “essential services” are still allowed to stay open. There’s a list of these, they include things like grocery stores, hospitals, plumbers, and hardware...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Feb 19, 2020 | Musings
Crossword puzzles, Scrabble, Words with Friends… I don’t play any of them. Is the correct word for engaging in any of these activities even “play”? Do people actually enjoy doing crosswords? Scrabble? Crosswords always seem like so much work to me, my mind twisting...
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Jan 15, 2020 | Musings
When my wife, Dixie, and I moved into this house twenty-five years ago, we looked around at all the space and said, There’s no way we’ll ever fill this! Our small stucco California bungalow looked to us like a mansion. And it was compared to the condo we’d just left....
by Clifford Mae Henderson | Nov 20, 2019 | Musings
Today in a jury room, while myself and eleven other jurors deliberated on the case we’d been assigned, a DUI resulting in a T-bone car accident, our deliberation took us to this question: Should we take into account that the trauma surgeon treating the victim’s broken...
