writing – Fscottwrites

Strength in Numbers and A Bear in the Car

There is strength in numbers. And I gained some strength this past weekend by sharing it with 135 mothers who are estranged from their child/childern at a Mother’s Day conference for estranged mothers and grandmothers. An essay of mine was published on Story Circle Network Substack about coming to the conference, A Mother’s Gift to Myself.

I arrived late in Lake Tahoe, after driving my rental car from Reno airport in the dark, on winding roads, thankful for google maps. But google maps was no help in finding my room. There were twenty or so buildings that housed rooms set amoung pine trees. I couldn’t even find the lobby. Finally I did. The young man at the front desk was oblivious to my tear-filled, tired eyes, handed me a map saying, “just turn here and then here and then here.”

So I did, finally finding a door that said #75 but I was #75B. I wanted to cry, to crawl into a bed. I did cry as I went back to the lobby asking the oblivious young man to show me my room. In the passenger seat, he said, “imagine how hard this would be with snow.” I didn’t want to imagine it! As we walked up the poorly lit walk to #75, he unlocked the door to a foyer, room 75A to the left, 75B to the right.

In my room, I had a good cry. At the bottom of my tears, I realized I was pissed that I was attending a conference for estranged mothers. Mother’s should be spending Mother’s Day with their child or at least having a phone conversation. I have a mother’s heart and I miss my daughter (in spite of all that has transpired). That’s the ambivalence of estrangement. At midnight, it was such a relief to crawl under the covers.

Rising at 6am I drank a weak cup of coffee in the room while researching coffee places nearby. As I walked to my rental car, I noticed the door on the driver’s side was wide open. Oh no, I was so upset last night I must have left the door open. A man and a woman were circling the car, excitingly saying, “it was in your car!” I quickly learned their names and that they were staying in the room above me. Fredrick had caught it on video – a bear opened my car door, it was unlocked, got in, checked it out to find there was nothing of interest to him or her and got back out.

That bear not only opened my car door, it opened up laughter, brought connection to the couple and gave me a message to lightened up.

My friend Susan’s death was getting closer this time last year. When I sent the video to her daughter, her reply was, “Seems to me like some Susan trickster energy! Bears in a car but no one gets hurt. I mean?! We love you and hope you are feeling relaxed now.”

Another friend also commented that Susan came to mind when seeing the bear video. And it’s true, Susan was always good at getting me to lightened up around the estrangement with my daughter, to not be so hard on myself. So thank you Susan. We all miss you.

More on the conference and strength in numbers to come. I have to get ready for my flight home now.

Thanks for reading and hope you had a good weekend.

Content warning: strong language

Bear in Car

The Hottest Mother’s Day Getaway is a Retreat for Estranged Mothers

Mother’s Day is right around the corner—so says Hallmark, the florists, and the restuarants that serve brunch. For years it has been a day for me to ignore, like most holidays, while treating myself well; a hike in nature, or a day to read a good book. This year, I am going to a Mother’s Day retreat in Lake Tahoe specifically for estranged mothers and grandmothers. The retreat sold out in ten days, with 7,000 mothers on the waitlist.

Dr. Joshua Coleman, author of When Parents Hurt, has a Substack with 73,000 followers which I find sad and alarming. I had a couple of phone sessions with him back in 2018. Now I would not be able to afford him. But we have communicated through email (when I am fact checking on an essay) and he is very kind.

Rachel Haack, LMFT is a voice of compassion and awareness on social media and Substack. I look forward to meeting her.

We will be greeted with gift bags and a light lunch. Headlining therapists open the retreat with candid and heartfelt insights on the profound impact of estrangement on families and personal well-being.

Dr. Joshua Coleman: The Cultural Shift of Estrangement – How changing societal norms shape family estrangement and its emotional toll.
Rachel Haack, LMFT: The Traumatic Nature of Rupture – Understand the mind-body impact of attachment breaks and betrayal trauma.
Sasha Ayad, LPC: Ambiguous Loss and the Experience of Estrangement – Explore ambiguous loss and how parents can learn to live with unresolved grief while finding strength, perspective, and personal meaning.
RaQuel Hopkins, LPC: When Love Feels Rejected – Learn to process rejection while building resilience and emotional clarity.

The weekend schedule is thoughtful with presentations, time to connect with others, alone time for journaling and finally a Mother’s Day brunch. I’ve never spent time in Lake Tahoe and look forward to being there. I fly out a day after the retreat so will have some time to explore a bit.

For today, I’m doing a writing workshop, Small Helpings: A Food and Memoir Workshop, via Zoom, with Abigail Thomas and Darien Gee. I’m a long time fan o Abigail Thomas and kinda want to be her when I grow up! There is a scene in her memoir, A Three Dog Life, she and her three dogs are all sleeping in the same bed. It that sounds so comforting to me. A comfort that goes back to my childhood, as I write about inThe Warmth of Dogs. I’ve done other workshops with Darien. She is an excellent teacher especially with writing micro prose.

An essay of mine was published today in Newsweek My Turn, about estrangement and how it is contributing to the loneliness epidemic in the U.S. You can read it here:
The Last Conversation I Had With My Daughter.

P.S. I moving into a retirement community! The end of an era, after living in a historic hotel, owned by an 87 year old man. He lives in the hotel and is full of character but not into maintenance. I have grown to love his quirkness and wil stay in his life, helping him out with some things. More on that next time.

Thank you for reading, Frances

What is Your Lifesaver?

Today is the first day in weeks that I don’t have anything on my calendar. It’s been good, it’s been busy and full of ups and downs.

On top of dog/house sitting, I took on a dog walking gig for a couple of weeks (and it was icy as hell every day on that dog walk), several days of babysitting my three-year-old friend, cleaning my friend’s Airbnbs while she travels in Italy, and my regular Wednesday elder care job. Amid it all, friends gathered to celebrate a birthday, and I stressed over making a regular and vegan pumpkin pie. Oh yeah, and flu-like symptoms for a couple of days.

Also, I printed out a draft of my manuscript, which I continue to edit and revise. I’ve sent queries to agents while researching small presses. I’ve pitched essay ideas to publications. I’m taking part in Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner’s JanYourStory, committing to writing 500 words per day.

In the middle of it, Angelica called, asking me to come say goodbye to her mama, whose death was imminent. Her mama, Paula Jean, and I became friends through a group of Southerners in Missoula who meet up to speak with a drawl and eat Southern food. She, myself and two other women call ourselves the Hellgate Junior League (Hellgate Canyon sits on the east side of Missoula). A year ago, Paula moved into the historic hotel where I live. As her breast cancer advanced, she moved to her daughter’s home.

While Paula slept, we watched over. Angelica spoke softly, “She is my best friend. It was just the two of us for so long.” I held back the tears, hugged her and offered to wash dishes. Over the past nine months, I have been honored to witness three different women dying while their daughters cared for them. This time, it hit me. It is likely my daughter will not be there as I lie dying. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, only acknowledging and grieving a reality.

After nine years of no contact with my only child, I’ve learned a few things: acceptance helps, while acknowledging feelings, being with them, but not wallowing in them. Therapy has been a lifesaver, and so has writing. Writing has given insight into the big picture, what part is mine to own up to, what part others have played, and how family dynamics contributed to our rift, and finally, forgiving myself.

What in your life has been a lifesaver, something that sustains you when life is challenging?

Be gentle with yourself and thanks for reading.

Looking For a New Read

If you need a new read or a gift, I recommend some recently published memoirs by some of my writer friends.

Famished by Anna Rollins – A groundbreaking debut memoir that examines the rhyming scripts of diet culture and evangelical purity culture, both of which direct women to fear their own bodies and appetites. To be a Christian woman was to be thin and chaste, sidestepping any pleasures of the flesh that would cause you–or a brother in Christ–to stumble into sin. But thinness was also a sign of virtue to the outside world.

Motion Dazzle: A Memoir of Motherhood, Loss, and Skating on Thin Ice by Jocelyn Jane Cox – Former competitive figure skater and coach Jocelyn Jane Cox is desperate to care for her toddler and her ailing mother, all while preparing to host a fabulous zebra-themed first birthday party at her house. As a new parent whose supportive mom is slipping away with dementia, she finds herself spinning in the middle of the so-called “sandwich generation”.

Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage by Heather Sweeney– After camouflaging her identity to conform to the expected role of the supportive military spouse, Heather Sweeney emerged from the shadows of her husband’s Navy career to rediscover herself as a single mother approaching middle age.

Manna Songs: Stories of Jewish Culture & Heritage – a stunning collection of 32 powerful essays celebrating Jewish joy. Curated by Diane Gottlieb, with a foreword by Erika Dreifus, Manna Songs speaks to the rich diversity of Jewish lives. Through tallit and candlesticks, paintbrushes and prayer, these beautiful Jewish voices reach back across generations and pass traditions forward. Readers will find humor alongside sorrow, questions beside wonder, people lost, others found. Manna Songs will delight, move, and inspire you. It will make your heart sing!

The Full Catastrophe: All I Ever Wanted, Everything I Feared by Casey Mulligan Walsh – Casey needs a family of her own: the joys and the sorrows, people who love her, and a place she belongs-what Zorba the Greek called “the full catastrophe”-and she’s determined to make it happen. Adrift in the world after losing her father to a heart attack when she was eleven and her mother to cancer soon after, the death of her only sibling eight years later strengthens her resolve.

More friends have books coming out in the new year, and I will share those in the next month. I’ve witnessed these writers work hard to finish their books, get them published and persistently promote their stories. It’s a honor to help spread the word and to be a part of writing community.

Now, to get back to fine-tuning my memoir and getting it out in the world.

Wishing you a peaceful holiday,

Frances

Writing in lists, an essay was born

Back in 2020, when the world shut down, my writing group met via Zoom every Tuesday to write autobiography in lists.

Each week, we had prompts to pick and choose from.

I was surprised by where the list prompts led me.

Unusual things about me compared to most people I know
Things I think people will be secretly thinking about me at my funeral
Four wishes I would ask a genie to grant me
Things I have too many of
Times I’ve stayed too long
Books that changed how I see the world
Times you’ve felt betrayed
Noises you hate

We met every week for two years. We wrote, read our writing out loud, cried, and laughed together.

I wrote an essay from a list prompt: things you wish you could ask someone deceased, and submitted it to literary magazines for a couple of years. It finally found a home at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature.
Here’s the essay link: It Was All Terribly Unfair

I hope you read it, and I’d love to hear your thoughts about it.

Thank you for reading.

Frances

The Best Death

It was an honor to write and have this essay published about my friend, Susan, who chose death with dignity and died in May 2025. She had terminal lung cancer and was with us for a year after diagnosis. Her year was full of good times and connections with family and friends: dinners, an in-house concert for her birthday, a weekend at the lake, and hanging out in her yard. During the year, she had a sold-out art show at a local gallery. She continued to make art up to the day she died.

One day while visiting with her, I said, “I want to write an essay titled, My Friend is Dying and I’m Jealous. She giggled and said, “Go for it.” I pitched the essay to Noah Michelson, editor at Huffington Post, whom I’ve worked with before.

He liked the pitch,
“Hi Frances! Always love seeing your name in my inbox, though this time it also comes with grief.

I’m so sorry to hear about Susan but so happy that she’s dying on her own terms.

I think this piece will be infinitely stronger if you write it after she dies. I want to know about how the end was for her — and you. Does it go as she planned / is planning? I’ll want to know how you feel now that she’s gone. I want to know what it’s like to still be here. I want to know if your thoughts on death — especially your own — have changed.

Are you up for writing more and coming back to me whenever you’re ready?”

His email brought me to tears. “I want to know how your feel now that she is gone.” Susan will die. We’d had such fun over the year, I kept that reality at bay. But at the same time, I appreciated Noah’s suggestion.

Susan walked me to my car the night she would die. She made a point of asking me to look after her children and grandchildren. After we chatted and hugged, she crossed the street, yelling back to me, “Publish that essay.” “I will and I will send it to you!” Her laughter remains with me.

I later learned from her son that Susan told him she wanted me to be the one to look after them. Wow. Her children and grandchildren have become family, a gift that will keep Susan alive in my heart and theirs.

Here’s the link to the essay: My Friend Told Me She Was Dying. I Told Her I Was Jealous

Thanks as always for reading.

Frances

The Science of Coincidence by Susan Carlson

Susan’s art piece in progress when she died

The Solace of Acceptance

An essay of mine has been on a journey and is now published on Estranged Substack. Several months ago, writer friends sent me a call for essays on estrangement for an anthology, No Contact, to be published by Catapult Publishing this spring.

I received the kindest rejection from the editor: “Your piece was a finalist in our review and seriously considered for inclusion. Unfortunately, I am sad to say we will not be able to feature it in the anthology. This decision has more to do with balance in topics and voices covered in the collection than with your writing, which impressed us.”
She suggested I submit to the Estranged Substack.

It was published yesterday, and I’m feeling a little vulnerability hangover. There is so much to say about estrangement situations, and yes, there are more sides to the story. This is just one small part of the complex situation. I wish there were more compassion in these family struggles.

Here is the link to the essay: The Solace in Acceptance

Thank you for reading and be kind to each other.

Frances

My Summer Highlight (a writer’s conference)

I felt a hint of fall in the air this morning. School has started, and kids will report on what they did during their summer vacation. Time is different as we grow older. Summers are gone in a blip, and holiday decorations beg our attention in the stores. (I totally ignore them)

My summer highlight was attending the Port Townsend Writers Conference for a week in July.

When I made it to Fort Worden, the grounds where the conference was held, I took a stroll on the beach before checking in. The waves clapped onto the sand, applauding me for getting there after the long drive.

In line for dinner, a short, slight, spunky woman, whom I thought was around my age (66), and I laughed that the wind was messing with our short haircuts. “I wrote an essay about my hair,” she exclaimed, then shared the details and the revelation of learning to stand up for herself. Carla and I carried on, sharing our souls in no time.

After orientation, three writers read. I wasn’t familiar with them but now I want more of each of them. Alice Anderson, raised in Mississippi, read from her memoir, Some Bright Morning, I’ll Fly Away, Bryce Andrews, Montana author. I knew of him but hadn’t read him. Then Bryan Fry, editor of Blood Orange Review, born in Montana.

On the sidewalk that leads back to the dorms, the woman next to me said she might go to the beach before bed. I looked over at her, “Are you Toni Jensen?”
“Yes”
“I have been listening to your memoir on my drive, and so excited to be in your writing workshop all week. I am on Chapter 12, Chicken. Y’all are at the ice cream social at Clara Tyson’s (of Tyson Chicken). “She is something else,” said Toni.
Toni’s memoir, Carry, A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land, is powerful, well-written, hard, and necessary.

In the shared restroom back at the dorm, a woman says hello with a Southern accent. She, too, is from Mississippi, the small town of Laurel. In the hallway, Carol joined our conversation. Carol is writing fiction only because she doesn’t have all the information she needs to write about her father, who was the last to be released from Manzanar, the site of one of ten American concentration camps, where more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. The three of us could have talked for hours, but it was late.

The interactions and connections made over the first four hours were a good omen for the week ahead.

Amy, one of the dozen students in Toni’s morning workshop, entered the room each morning with an enthusiastic “Good morning, everyone”. Toni created a space for us to share our writing, receive feedback while teaching the craft of writing. By the end of the week, we knew each other’s stories and wanted more. Amy organized a monthly Zoom for us to continue with writing feedback. Occasionally, Toni will join us.

I could go on about the magical experiences from the week. What I will say is that folks who had been attending for years commented that this summer was one of the best. Hopefully, I’ll be able to attend next summer. Centrum, the organization that holds the conference and many other conferences for artists and musicians, is excellent. I recommend checking it out: Centrum: creativity in community.

Carla, the woman whom I had said was around my age, turns out she’s 83! She and I have exchanged a few emails since the conference. Our Zoom group has met once. In our group, a biologist who worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2003 for many years is writing a powerful memoir about the government’s denial of climate change for decades. I’m willing to bet she will be published, and it will be an enlightening book.

After the conference, I made my way to Eugene, OR, to visit friends and attend an annual weekend with the River Rompers. Each summer, a group of friends stay at a vacation rental on a river to swim, eat, and connect, holding the space for each other’s pain and joy. It’s always revitalizing. However, after a week in Eugene and just before our weekend away, I had a painful flare-up of diverticulitis and decided to come home early. I hated missing our treasured time, but it was the right choice. Rest and a liquid diet are the remedies.

I look forward to mornings that ask us to put on a sweater and watch the leaves change colors. It’s my favorite season. What’s yours?

Thanks for reading, Frances

Memories Keep Us in Relationship

Seven weeks ago I wrote about Sophie, the 88 year old woman I cared for and my friend Susan with terminal cancer. Alive then, today they live on in sweet memories.

Sophie, mother of three talented daughters, was a pillar of her community, president of the symphony, choir director, supporter of the arts, and the backbone of the Greek Orthodox Annunciation Church choir, congregation, and food festivals. According to her obituary,

“Her baklava, many would agree, was unrivaled. Among Sophie’s many passions, food probably topped the list. She was an artist in the kitchen. Every meal was prepared with care and consideration. When someone was sick or sad, she showed up with homemade muffins or soup. She threw elegant parties of all sizes and varieties — who didn’t look forward to a Sophie dinner? — that were feasts for the eyes, nose, palate, and belly. She wasn’t showy about it: she simply loved to gather friends and family around a beautifully set table for good conversation, fellowship, and cheer. And she knew that artistically prepared and presented food helped create the magic.”

The neuropathy Sophie suffered from created great pain; she wasn’t able to walk, and one arm was completely immobile. She could stand and scoot her legs some, while I helped her from the chair to the wheelchair and into the restroom. This had become harder and harder, sometimes falling before making it onto the toilet. She’d say, “I’m OK. Are you OK?” Then apologize!

She died peacefully, surrounded by her girls June 18th.

It’s amazing how much you can come to love someone, even when you know them for a short time. I looked forward to Saturdays and Sundays with her and our conversations about the state of our country, books, movies, food, recipes, and a little gossip. Sophie had a team of twelve caregivers. She made each one of us feel appreciated, and we all felt she was a friend. Yesterday at her Greek service, the family reserved a row for Sophie’s Magnificent Team, as we were referred to. Afterwards, a lunch reception was held, feeding those who loved Sophie. Tables were covered in tablecloths she had made throughout the years, and baklava and brownies made by her daughters using Sophie’s recipe were served.

When I became part of her caregiving team, I was impressed by her high-functioning family. Each of her three girls working together to make sure Sophie’s needs were being met. A few weeks ago, her daughters invited the caregiving team for music they performed and dessert. We were sent home with chocolate bars wrapped in a custom-printed label, “Sophie’s Magnificent Team”.

My heart is full of love and awe for Sophie and the family she created. Yes, I wish I could have been the mother she was, and I wish my family had stuck together. But being a witness to Sophie, the grace she possessed, and her family warms my heart, and I feel lucky.

My friend, Susan, died with medical assistance, surrounded by family, on May 28th. There is much to say about her life and death. My essay about her will be published by the Huffington Post in 3-4 months. I’ll share it once it comes out.

It’s true even when someone is gone, there is still a relationship with them. Susan, Sophie, and others I have loved and lost are resurrected with each memory of them.

Category: writing