This post first appeared in a recent issue of Staying Power, my weekly care package for creative, compassionate spirits. Get a boost in your inbox! Scroll down to sign up. Sometimes in life you…
Phyllis Cole-DaiAugust 3, 2021
My family has just returned from a long camping vacation around Lake Superior. Our first time there. My goodness, "lake" is too small a word for the great inland sea that the Ojibwe nation calls…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJuly 22, 2021
This post first appeared in a recent issue of Staying Power, my weekly care package for creative, compassionate spirits. Get a boost in your inbox! Scroll down to sign up. The house where I…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJuly 14, 2021
This post first appeared in a recent issue of Staying Power, my weekly care package for creative, compassionate spirits. Get a boost in your inbox! Scroll down to sign up. Back in elementary school,…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJune 28, 2021
This post first appeared in a recent issue of Staying Power, my weekly care package for creative, compassionate spirits. Get a boost in your inbox! Scroll down to sign up. This weekend in the…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJune 21, 2021
It has recently been brought to my attention that I’m a door slammer. A slammer of car doors, especially. Having lived in blissful ignorance of this fact until now, I shudder to think of the…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJune 18, 2021
Perhaps you’ve noticed: Sometimes, despite meticulous preparations, life just doesn’t go as we planned. Like when you decide to fly halfway across the continent, retrieve your eighty-one-year-old mother, and bring her back home for an…
Phyllis Cole-DaiJune 4, 2021
Tomorrow I fly to North Carolina to retrieve my eighty-one-year-old mother and bring her here to South Dakota for as long as she wants to stay. I can’t wait to throw my arms around her…
Phyllis Cole-DaiMay 17, 2021
May I make a confession? While I love my mother, and I love being a mother myself, I don’t particularly love observing Mother’s Day. To me, the second Sunday of May feels like another “Hallmark…
Phyllis Cole-DaiMay 11, 2021
See if you can figure out the significance of my title before I finish. * * * The last few weeks, I’ve been living in the closet, producing the audiobook version of Staying Power: Writings…
Phyllis Cole-DaiMay 7, 2021
If you’re a movie buff, as I am, you might remember Awakenings (1990). The main character, played by the late Robin Williams, is Dr. Malcolm Sayer. Though inexperienced, Sayer cares deeply about the residents in…
Phyllis Cole-DaiApril 20, 2021
Imagine that you are born into poverty. Imagine that, during your grade school years, a teacher recognizes your artistic talent. Imagine that the teacher enrolls you in a government-funded art class, held weekly at a…
Phyllis Cole-DaiApril 13, 2021
