Hey Murph,

Boy - not bringing home a paycheck is beginning to get on my nerves a bit…ya know?  Here I am, a grown woman, not very far away from the time in her life when she should be thinking about retirement, and, instead, I have no health insurance, and no job.  Makes a girl think about buying a bottle of wine.  I could just sit on my back porch and enjoy a quiet evening all by myself sipping and smoking.  What would that first sip taste like?  Would it linger on my tongue, and soak all my taste buds with the solid…

Dear Murph,

It’s been a long time since I’ve written.  After my doggie died I was in a funk and didn’t do much of anything.  Then I got some kind of flu and was laid out for 2 days.  I’m feeling fine, but I’m in a kind of  no-man’s-land lately.  I have no income, have been looking for a job, have been trying to do some writing, but I feel like I’m just floundering.  Here I am, a grown adult who should be retiring in a few years, and I have no financial security in place to ease the burdens of…

Dear Murph,

I knew it was coming…..I knew it for a long time.  She’s been slowing down with a steady rhythm that always ends at the same place.  Even though she was a spitfire way beyond her years, the last couple of months have been a constant deterioration in her movement, her eating patterns and her interest in anything beyond the small comfort zone of her bedding.  She has been blind, yet her eyes constantly oozed a mucous goo that had to be treated several times a day with special drops.  She was on a regimen of five pills in the…

Hey Murph,

I just spent a wonderful afternoon celebrating my dear friend’s birthday.  A small group of women gathered at her home, in the middle of The Blue Ridge  Mountains - at 59 I was the youngest.  This was not your typical group of “mature women .”  One of them, previously an IBM Executive’s wife, now speaks to dragons, reads crystals, and follows many Native American practices and spirituality.  One of them is a reflexologist who always must consult “spirit” before she does anything, is completely organic,  is a walking encyclopedia on anything that comes from the earth, and a couple…