Category Archives: Blog

Dear Friends, Tara leaves tomorrow on a month-long trip. She is returning to Southeast Asia for her conservation work, but is hoping to connect with nonspeaking autistic people and their families in Manila in mid-May. I will miss her so very much, but I am excited for her. This is the third year she hasContinue reading “The next month”

Dear Friends, I am so proud to share that it has been six years since Tara and I reached fluency in spelling! It has been a very full six years. I can hardly believe all we have done in my personal life and professional, public work. This is beyond my dreams. These years have broughtContinue reading “Six Years”

Dear Friends, Finally, we have a new All Our Brave Hearts episode up! This was recorded in early December. Fittingly, the topic is how time passes. This is about how my experience of time shifts in my life. From hopeless times without communication, to busy blooming into a new chapter, to adjusting to life’s rhythm,Continue reading “Time Passes”

Dear Friends, Last year, Tara and another S2C practitioner started holding speller study group sessions for several of us older spellers. This was an effort to provide much-needed intellectual stimulation and social time. We are so starved for both. We called these “salons” after the French tradition of intellectual gatherings. This was a dream ofContinue reading “Speller Salons”

Dear Friends, A small but mighty update: Today, I managed to put a puzzle away before finishing it. This is a big win for me! The puzzle was wearing me down. It was consuming my brain. It was about to spiral into fixation. I am not feeling great physically, so I was extra worried aboutContinue reading “Proud Moment”

Dear Friends, These recent days have been so wonderful. I am so grateful to have days like these. I am going to just list some of the fulfilling things I experienced: Stand-up Paddleboarding two Fridays in a row; dinner with our kind neighbors; coffeeshop reading and writing sessions; runs in the sun; celebrating my lateContinue reading “Days Like This”

Dear Friends, It is St. Patrick’s Day! My dad used to love celebrating. We would go to see a parade and enjoy the festivities at the House of Ireland at Balboa Park. He missed Ireland, even though he stated that he could never live in that weather again. His birthday is actually the day afterContinue reading “Happy St. Patrick’s Day”

Dear Friends, I have been in a great place recently. Regulated and mostly happy. So it was a good time to dive into some heavy stuff with my therapist. I have been wanting to figure out how to transform my rage into a less destructive feeling. It is only in adulthood that I have feltContinue reading “Exploring Anger”

Dear Friends, This winter has been unusually warm here. It is a bit bizarre, and I worry about how this might impact local ecosystems. But it makes for nice ocean adventures. I am sharing a more close-up photo of my best wave from last month (photo by Cliff Schumacher). I also am sharing screen grabsContinue reading “Ocean times”