So, what did you do during the lockdown in 2020? Baked sourdough bread? Learned or practiced and instrument? How about fabric arts? I did plenty of embroidery, for sure, and I am still stitching away. Yes, I can stab something 1,000 times!

Here are a few of the pieces I hand-embroidered from my photographs of birds. The loons are not my photo, but a piece of art from the Pacific Northwest.

But the real accomplishment of that time for me was that I met with some writer pals on Zoom four or five afternoons each week and I finished this memoir. It took about three years of work all told, but I’d never have completed or published it without the help and support of my Zoom writing group friends and the Sarah Lawrence Writing Institute instructors I was fortunate enough to take class with.

Just one of my many writing classes made possible via zoom.

A few of us continued to meet as an online writer’s group. Four or five afternoons each week we would show up on Zoom, silently wave hello to the others and do our work. At 4:30 or so we would open up a breakout room for any who wished to discuss their work, or any other topic. If you happened to be on a roll, you could just keep on writing until you felt finished for the day. In this manner I finished writing and began the editing process on the memoir.

It’s been strange to be in the post-publication phase. That is new, and I realize I’m going to need new material to share around the campfire. All my best stories are in the book, and I don’t want to bore the girls with my glory days tales.